Expert says gathering outside Alberta church attended by many conspiracy theorists

SPRUCE GROVE, Alta. — An expert investigating hate groups says a weekend gathering outside an Alberta church charged with violating COVID-19 regulations is exemplary of the increasing number of far-right groups and conspiracy theorists who've latched on to the anti-lockdown and anti-mask movement.

© Provided by The Canadian Press

Up to 500 people gathered outside GraceLife Church west of Edmonton on Sunday, four days after Alberta Health Services shut down and fenced off the building. The health agency says it will remove the fences when the church shows it will comply with public health measures meant to contain the spread of the virus.

Dozens of police officers monitored the crowd as some sang hymns, read from a Bible and prayed for the church to reopen. Several others were heard yelling that the pandemic is not real and is made up by the government, which are all conspiracy theories.

In the afternoon, some tore down fences, but RCMP immediately intervened and put the metal guards back up. Police said in a statement they will only use the level of intervention necessary to maintain peace, order and safety.

"It would be accurate to say that the event attracted far-right and right-wing conspiracy-minded individuals for sure," said Elizabeth Simons, the deputy director of the Canadian Anti-Hate Network, who was monitoring the crowd.

"We're hugely concerned."

GraceLife Church and its pastor, James Coates, are charged under the Public Health Act for holding services that break health restrictions related to capacity, physical distancing and masking. They have a trial set for May.

The church said in a statement that members of its congregants were not at the Sunday gathering, and that it has no control of the building or its grounds at this time.

"The closing of the Grace Life facility has understandably resulted in significant public outrage and caused even larger crowds to gather in one place. Albertans have a constitutional right to assemble, associate, and worship," the statement said.

Simons agreed many of the people participating in the demonstration were not associated with the church and it included a familiar set of characters from Canada’s hate movements and their supporters.

She says she saw many holding signs warning of tyranny and communism, and many also falsely said mosques were allowed to hold services without restrictions, and only churches are being attacked.

"We feel that the anti-lockdown and the anti-science movement is one of the biggest threats that we're facing."

Simons says everyday people who may be vulnerable and lack critical thinking skills or media literacy are more susceptible to far-right messaging.

Alberta's Premier Jason Kenney was asked during a news conference on Saturday what his message would be to people who might plan to attend the gathering at GraceLife Church on Sunday.

"My message for any Albertan would be to take COVID seriously and to keep people safe," Kenney said.

"My message to people of faith in particular would be that if you believe in the sanctity of human life, please act accordingly. This virus is real, it's taken the lives of 2,000 Albertans, of millions of people around the world, and we are right now in the midst of what is likely the biggest wave of infection that we've experienced to date."

Simons says far-right people attending anti-mask and anti-lockdown protests is not new in Alberta or the rest of Canada.

Two months ago, hundreds of anti-mask and lockdown protesters marched the streets of Edmonton and chanted “no more fake news" and “no more fake science", Simons said.

Some even carried tiki torches, which many say is a symbol used by white supremacists.

Simons says the amount of misinformation being spread about COVID-19, and what is believed by so many people, is something she has never seen before.

"It's something that is really unprecedented. We have not dealt with something of this magnitude before."

This report by The Canadian Press was first published April 11, 2021.

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This story was produced with the financial assistance of the Facebook and Canadian Press News Fellowship.

Fakiha Baig, The Canadian Press

Hundreds rally outside Alberta church closed by health officials

ARREST AND QUARNTINE THEM TILL END OF PANDEMIC

CBC/Radio-Canada

© CBC The demonstrators carried a variety of messaging, much of it in opposition to public health restrictions.

Hundreds of people demonstrated Sunday outside the shuttered GraceLife Church west of Edmonton.

Alberta Health Services closed the church last week after it repeatedly defied public health orders, with hundreds of people attending services. Chain link fences were set up around the site in Parkland County.

The crowd began gathering along the road adjacent to the church early Sunday morning as hymns played over loudspeakers. Demonstrators carried signs with a variety of messages, some decrying vaccines, public health restrictions and communism.

An increased police presence by the RCMP included additional traffic enforcement officers deployed to the area.

Police said in a statement they would only use the level of intervention necessary to ensure safety and maintain peace, order and security.

Dozens of police vehicles shut off access to roads around the church while a helicopter flew overhead. A large line of at least 30 officers faced the outer fence.

There was a tense moment around noon when a group splintered from the crowd and tore down part of the fence. RCMP and others from the crowd pushed back the group and re-established the fence.

About 150 of the protesters trespassed on Enoch Cree Nation land across the road from the church site, parking their cars and vandalising Enoch Chief Billy Morin's vehicle, said Enoch spokesperson Tanya Cardinal.

One trespasser attempted to assault an Enoch councillor, the First Nation added in a statement released Sunday.

"Although I respect GraceLife protesters' right to protest, right to worship, and right to free speech, I strongly condemn their illegal trespassing on our land, their vandalization of a Nation member's vehicle, and their blatant disrespect of our sovereignty as a proud First Nation," Morin said.

An RCMP spokesperson could not immediately confirm any arrests or tickets issued during the protest when reached by CBC Radio-Canada Sunday afternoon.

The crowd began to disperse shortly before 2 p.m. The trespassers had mostly vacated Enoch land by 4 p.m., the First Nation said.

In a statement released Sunday evening through the Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms, GraceLife church stated that its congregants were not at the protest.

© Jordan Omstead/CBC RCMP deployed additional officers during the demonstration at GraceLife Church on Sunday.

In a media statement Wednesday, AHS said it had "physically closed" the church and would prevent access until the church "can demonstrate the ability to comply with Alberta's chief medical officer of health's restrictions."

"With COVID-19 cases increasing and the more easily-transmitted and potentially more severe variants becoming dominant, there is urgent need to minimize spread to protect all Albertans," AHS said.

On Sunday, the province reported 1,183 new cases of COVID-19 and 942 new cases involving variants of concern. There were 7,217 active variant cases, about 50.5 per cent of active cases in Alberta.

Between July 10 last year and Tuesday of last week, AHS said it has received 105 complaints from the public about the church.

AHS said inspectors have conducted 18 inspections at the site since July 10, 2020, and violations were observed at each visit.

GraceLife's Pastor James Coates was charged in February with violating COVID-19 public health orders.

After he was charged, Coates was jailed for refusing to comply with a bail condition that he only hold services in compliance with public health orders. In early March, his lawyers appealed with the argument that it would go against the pastor's conscience before God not to lead worshippers.

Coates spent 35 days in custody before pleading guilty to a charge of breaching bail and was fined $1,500. He returned to the pulpit on March 28.

The church was also charged as an entity for exceeding allowable capacity at Sunday services in February

Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms - Wikipedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Justice_Centre_for_Constitutional_Freedoms

• Overview
• History
• Major court cases
• Intervenor status
• Campus Freedom Index
• Challenge to constitutionality of COVID-19 public health restrictions
• Endorsements
• External links

The Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms (JCCF) is a Canadian legal advocacy organization specializing in Canadian constitutional law, specifically in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The organization describes itself as non-partisan but it has partnered with several right-wing backers in the United States.

Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms’ Lisa Bildy: challenging norms and courting controversy

Lisa Bildy has always avoided fitting herself into an institutional mould.

Canadian Lawyer Magazine · 10d

Federal Bill to adopt UNDRIP is useless, dangerous, and ...

https://www.jccf.ca/federal-bill-to-adopt-undrip-is-useless-dangerous...

2021-04-09 · OTTAWA: The Justice Centre 

Leftist candidate Pedro Castillo leading 

LIMA (Reuters) - Leftist candidate Pedro Castillo is leading in the Peruvian presidential election with 15.8% of votes, according to a first official release of results with 11.4% of votes counted

.

© Reuters/VIDAL TARQUI/ANDINA Presidential and parliamentary elections in Peru

© Reuters/VIDAL TARQUI/ANDINA Presidential and parliamentary elections in Peru

Castillo was followed by liberal economist Hernando de Soto with 14.48% of the vote, followed by ultra-right candidate Rafael Lopez Aliaga with 13.13% and Keiko Fujimori with 12.19% of the vote, electoral officials said in a live broadcast.

© Reuters/VIDAL TARQUI/ANDINA Presidential and parliamentary elections in Peru

(Reporting by Aislinn Laing; Editing by Himani Sarkar)

Myanmar's military is charging families $85 to retrieve bodies of relatives killed in crackdown

By Julia Hollingsworth and Akanksha Sharma, CNN 1 hour ago

Myanmar's military is charging families $85 to retrieve the bodies of relatives killed by security forces in a bloody crackdown on Friday, according to activists.

© AP A police vehicle is parked at a road in South Okkalapa township to block anti-coup protesters' gathering in Yangon, Myanmar, Friday, April 9, 2021.

At least 82 people were killed Friday in Bago, 90 kilometers (56 miles) northeast of Yangon, after the city was "raided" by the military's security forces, said advocacy group Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (AAPP).

More than 700 people have died since the military overthrew Myanmar's elected government in a February 1 coup, according to AAPP. Since then, junta security forces made up of police, soldiers and elite counter-insurgency troops have embarked on a systematic crackdown against unarmed and peaceful protesters, detaining around 3,000 people and forcing activists into hiding.

© STR/AFP/Getty Images Protesters march during a demonstration against the military coup in Yangon on April 11, 2021.

Myanmar's military fired on anti-coup protesters in Bago city Friday, using assault rifles, rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs), and hand grenades, AAPP said.

An eyewitness who lives in Bago city, who cannot be named for security purposes, told CNN Sunday that many residents have fled to nearby villages since Friday's raid. The internet has been cut off in the area since Friday, the eyewitness said, and security forces are searching the neighborhoods.

"I was living on the main road. The security forces come and station often," the eyewitness told CNN, adding that bodies have piled up at the mortuary following the shootings. "Due to the threat, we had to move into the house in the lane nearby,"

The military is now charging families 120,000 Myanmar kyat ($85) to retrieve the bodies of relatives who died Friday, according to a Facebook post from the Bago University Students' Union.

Radio Free Asia's Burmese service matched the reporting from the Bago University Students' Union. CNN has not independently verified the report and has reached out to the military for comment.

Myanmar's military claimed its forces were assailed by protesters in Bago Friday, according to state-run newspaper Global New Light of Myanmar.

Video: Clarissa Ward asks Major General about video of brutal killing (CNN)


"Security forces were attacked by groups of rioters while removing road barriers solidified by the rioters on the streets in Bago yesterday," Global New Light of Myanmar reported, adding: "rioters used handmade guns, fire bottles, arrows, handmade shields and grenades to attack the security forces."

The newspaper said one protester died during Friday's incident. "Evidence of confiscated grenades and ammunition indicates small arms were used," the report added.

Myanmar's military detained a Red Cross volunteer doctor in Bago on April 2, the organization confirmed to CNN Sunday. The volunteer, Nay Myo, who is also the chair for Red Cross in Bago, has not been charged but remains in detention, Red Cross said.

Another volunteer doctor providing free medical aid on the ground, Wai Yan Myo Lwin, was detained on Sunday in Bago, his family confirmed to CNN.

Backlash to violence

The United States Embassy in Myanmar called for an end to the violence on Sunday.

"We mourn the senseless loss of life in Bago and around the country where regime forces have reportedly used weapons of war against civilians," the embassy said in a post on its official Twitter account.

"The regime has the ability to resolve the crisis and needs to start by ending violence and attacks," it added.

NGO Human Rights Watch published a letter Thursday urging the European Union to "fully implement" sanctions on the military and "urgently adopt additional sanctions."

"The people of Myanmar find themselves once against facing the military's bullets, but they courageously continue their struggle, unrelenting," the letter said. "EU condemnation and efforts to advance accountability and justice for grave, widespread, and systematic abuses by the military junta are welcome and important, yet words and partial steps are not enough."

But the military's commander-in-chief, Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing, defended the coup over the weekend, claiming the junta "did not seize power but took measures to strengthen the multiparty democracy system," according to Global New Light of Myanmar.

Military spokesperson Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun previously told CNN the generals are merely "safeguarding" the country while they investigate a "fraudulent" election, and the bloodshed on the streets is the fault of "riotous" protesters.

Why the case against abortion is weak, ethically speaking
Nathan Nobis SALON 4/11/2021

© Provided by Salon Pro-life activists
Pro-life activists demonstrate in front of the the US Supreme Court during the 47th annual March for Life on January 24, 2020 in Washington, DC. OLIVIER DOULIERY/AFP via Getty Images CATHOLIC SCHOOL STUDENTS BUSSED TO DEMO

Abortion rights are under attack. But ethics education can help — and defenders of abortion rights should recognize this, before it's too late.

In recent years, over 250 abortion-restrictive laws have been proposed across 45 states. Arkansas and South Carolina are the most recent states to pass laws to ban abortion after 6 weeks into pregnancy, when a "heartbeat" can be detected in the fetus and before many women even know they are pregnant.

The Supreme Court now has a majority of justices who identify as "pro-life," and will surely be more receptive to these attacks on abortion rights than previous courts have been. If the issue comes before them, it is unclear how they might rule: they have already restricted a medication used to induce abortions and might welcome further restrictions.

While legal attacks demand immediate legal responses, these responses aren't a long-term, comprehensive strategy to protect legal rights and access to abortion.

Representatives of pro-choice organizations sometimes claim they are "doing all they can" to protect abortion rights, but this is not true: Mary Ziegler recently reported in The Atlantic that, since the 1990s, pro-choice advocates have deliberately avoided engaging moral or ethical questions about abortion; they have focused solely on the legal freedom to choose abortion.

Meanwhile, over that same time period and up to the present, pro-life advocates have seen engaging the ethics of abortion as essential to their cause and have invested heavily into training sessions, educational institutes, and materials to help move their message. Surely they view this "ethics education" as a wise and effective investment, since it has helped bring abortion rights to the legally precarious place they are now.

Given the stakes here, it's time for pro-choice advocates and organizations to rethink the wisdom of avoiding talk of ethics.

Think about what motivates people who want to make abortion illegal. Their primary motivations are, from their perspective, ethical or moral. If asked why abortion should be illegal, they will often reply with an argument like this:

Fetuses are innocent human beings with the right to life, and—since it's always wrong to kill innocent human beings—abortion is murder and should be illegal, with few exceptions.

Advocates of this type of argument include the Catholic Church, evangelical Christians, and organizations like the National Right to Life and Americans United for Life. Pro-life "ethics education" involves training people to advocate for this type of argument.

To defend abortion rights requires refuting such arguments. But the most common pro-choice responses to the pro-life argument don't do this. Observing that making abortion illegal won't reduce abortions, and claiming that abortion opponents have bad motives or are hypocritical, or that opposition to abortion is inherently religious, that abortion is "normal," and offering slogans, such as that abortion is "not up for debate," simply do not engage the core issue: these types of responses do not explain why abortion is not murder or show what's wrong with the argument against abortion.

Even more sophisticated bodily autonomy defenses of abortion—that women's rights to choose what happens to and with their bodies and lives justify abortion—are often at least presented in ways that do not challenge the assumption that abortion is murder, along the lines of, "Say whatever you want about the ethics of abortion: we've got the legal right to it."

But abortion generally is not murder and the ethical arguments given to try to establish this are demonstrably weak. The more people who know and understand why this so and are able to effectively communicate this knowledge, the better, since that would do some good towards helping undercut the primary motivation for making abortion illegal.

⸻

To better recognize the flaws in the core ethical argument against abortion, it is useful to consider two far less controversial medical procedures that also end the lives of human beings. These cases provide insights into some of the core content of pro-choice ethics education.

First, in every U.S. state and most countries, if a person elects to be an organ donor, their organs can be removed for transplant when that person suffers complete brain death—even if their body is still alive. Organ harvesting involves cutting living human beings open and their organs being removed one-by-one until, at last, the heart is detached and the human being dies, having been directly killed by the procedure.

But almost no one believes that such organ donation procedures are immoral. Pro-life organizations have not mobilized against them or even signaled disapproval. And hundreds of thousands of people have signed up to be organ donors with full knowledge that their bodies might be killed in this way if their brains permanently cease functioning.

What this shows is that most people recognize that it's not always wrong to kill human beings. This is true even when those human beings are considered "innocent," as human beings used for organ donation are often categorized. This is a first step in undercutting the pro-life argument.

A second relevant set of cases involves anencephalic infants, or babies born with severely undeveloped brains. These babies usually do not live long, and the widely accepted medical practice is to let these infants die, providing palliative care only, even though they could be kept alive by a machine. This ends their lives, but it is not wrong.

The ethical insight gained from these two common medical practices is that not all human beings have a right to life that trumps all other considerations: it is not always wrong to end the lives of even innocent human beings, if they lack what would make ending their lives wrong.

And these cases share a core feature with the vast majority of U.S. abortions, 88 percent of which take place during the first 12 weeks of pregnancy: the human beings in question do not have brains capable of supporting consciousness, awareness, or feelings. Since these common medical practices concerning organ donation and anencephaly are morally permissible, so are most abortions.

* * *

Abortion opponents will respond that this conclusion about abortion does not follow, given differences among the cases.

Pro-life intellectuals argue that organ donors are not really "human beings." But surely they are human beings—they are living human organisms, with heartbeats. The pro-life premise that it's always wrong to kill human beings implies that organ donation practices are wrong, so this is a good reason to reject the assumption and its application to abortion.

About anencephalic infants, pro-life advocates recognize these babies as human beings and argue that it would be wrong to harvest their organs to use for other children. But either both brain-dead humans and brain-less infants are human beings or neither are, and organ donation is either acceptable from both or neither: the difference in age is immaterial.

Some would respond that organ donation and anencephalic newborns cases involve human beings who, tragically, have lost even the potential for valuable futures. Yet fetuses, they argue, have lives, or potential lives, before them, and so have rights to those lives. And they are "innocent" too.

But calling fetuses "innocent" assumes that they are persons: "innocence" implies the potential for guilt, and that's only true of persons. Nobody would refer to human eggs or tissue as "innocent," because nobody thinks these things are persons. And for someone to have a potential future seems to require that "someone" be a person: for any future to be someone's future, there must be a person whose future that belongs to. So are fetuses persons?

"Personhood" is a controversial concept, but the organ donation and anencephaly cases can help us understand it. First, we should all agree that it's usually wrong to end the lives of persons: persons have the right to life. But since organ donation practices and how anencephalic newborns are treated is not wrong, we can conclude that these human beings are not persons: if they were persons, ending their lives would be wrong. And these humans are not persons because, again, they lack brains capable of supporting any type of consciousness: they were persons in cases of organ donation and cannot be persons in cases of anencephaly. And this suggests that beginning fetuses are not persons either, since they too lack consciousness-enabling brains. So the pro-life claim that all embryos and fetuses are persons is not true.

So, in sum, the "abortion is murder" charge doesn't stick: it's not always wrong to kill human beings; at least early-term fetuses are not persons with the right to life; and "innocence" is a concept that just doesn't apply to fetuses. Ethical arguments—and ethics education—can support the pro-choice side after all, and the more people making these types of critiques, in different ways and for different audiences, the better.

* * *

Why, though, should we think that abortion is generally morally acceptable? Why think attempts to ban abortion are unjust attempts to criminalize morally acceptable behavior? The simple failure to show that abortion is wrong might be enough for that, but we can offer positive arguments as well.

The ethical framework most medical ethicists use to determine whether a human being has moral rights, such as the right to life, involves the question of whether the individual has "interests." Interests are what make someone's life go well or poorly for them: respecting and promoting someone's interests typically promotes their well-being; ignoring or denigrating their interests typically harms them. Interests are the basis for concerns about "equality," which are about equal consideration of interests.

Rights protect interests, and interests are not possible without a sufficiently developed brain. What determines how an individual should be treated is not the simple fact of whether they are biologically human organisms; rather, it's factors that depend on their having a brain that allows for any form of consciousness: minds matter, not heartbeats or human DNA. The basis of human rights is not human biology, as statements of human rights might misleadingly suggest, but having interests, and most fetuses—at the stages of pregnancy when most are aborted—do not have interests, given their undeveloped brains and nervous systems.

Pregnant women, of course, have interests and the resulting rights to life, liberty, and control of their bodies. Fetuses would have the right to women's bodies, labor, and time only if they are explicitly granted that right, and, of course, women who seek abortions have not given the fetus that right. While women's rights to autonomy may be sufficient to justify abortion, that argument is surely easier to make if fetuses are not persons, do not have basic moral rights, and so abortion is not murder.

To be sure, fetuses in the third trimester (after 27 weeks) likely have interests, as research on fetal pain suggests. And even most pro-choice ethicists agree that third-trimester abortions raise pressing moral concerns, although these concerns are complicated when such abortions are sought due to newly discovered fatal anomalies or threats to the health of the prospective mother. But pro-life advocacy is not focused on the unique ethical issues concerning later abortions, which account for less than 1 percent of all abortions; their goal is prohibiting nearly all abortions, the overwhelming majority of which affect fetuses without interests.

* * *

So, is abortion murder? Does it violate human rights? Not unless other widely-accepted medical procedures that end human life are also wrong. But they aren't, and neither is abortion. Ethics education—of many types, at many levels, for many different audiences—helps people better understand why this is so.

Enabling more people to more productively engage the many ethical arguments about abortion won't, by itself, solve any social or political problems: no single strategy would. But ethics education is an essential part of any successful comprehensive strategy to ensure abortion rights and access, and so pro-choice advocates should engage in it. More generally, our political culture needs genuinely fair and balanced, honest and respectful engagement of arguments and truth-seeking: more people practicing this with the complex topic of abortion would help set a better intellectual and moral tone that would enable us all to better engage the many other polarizing issues that confront our society.

If the legal right to abortion is lost, however, pro-choice advocates will be forced to engage with the study of ethics in trying to rebuild their case for abortion rights. So they might as well start that now, while they still have the law on their side. That's not just smart strategy: ethics demands it.

Top official admits Chinese vaccines have low effectiveness

BEIJING — In a rare admission of the weakness of Chinese coronavirus vaccines, the country's top disease control official says their effectiveness is low and the government is considering mixing them to get a boost.© Provided by The Canadian Press

Chinese vaccines “don’t have very high protection rates,” said the director of the China Centers for Disease Control, Gao Fu, at a conference Saturday in the southwestern city of Chengdu.


Beijing has distributed hundreds of millions of doses abroad while trying to promote doubt about the effectiveness of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine made using the previously experimental messenger RNA, or mRNA, process.

“It’s now under formal consideration whether we should use different vaccines from different technical lines for the immunization process,” Gao said.

Officials at a news conference Sunday didn’t respond directly to questions about Gao’s comment or possible changes in official plans. But another CDC official said developers are working on mRNA-based vaccines.

Gao did not respond to a phone call requesting further comment.

“The mRNA vaccines developed in our country have also entered the clinical trial stage,” said the official, Wang Huaqing. He gave no timeline for possible use.

Experts say mixing vaccines, or sequential immunization, might boost effectiveness. Researchers in Britain are studying a possible combination of Pfizer-BioNTech and the traditional AstraZeneca vaccine.

The coronavirus pandemic, which began in central China in late 2019, marks the first time the Chinese drug industry has played a role in responding to a global health emergency.

Vaccines made by Sinovac, a private company, and Sinopharm, a state-owned firm, have made up the majority of Chinese vaccines distributed to several dozen countries including Mexico, Turkey, Indonesia, Hungary, Brazil and Turkey.

The effectiveness of a Sinovac vaccine at preventing symptomatic infections was found to be as low as 50.4% by researchers in Brazil, near the 50% threshold at which health experts say a vaccine is useful. By comparison, the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine has been found to be 97% effective.

Health experts say Chinese vaccines are unlikely to be sold to the United States, western Europe and Japan due to the complexity of the approval process.

A Sinovac spokesman, Liu Peicheng, acknowledged varying levels of effectiveness have been found but said that can be due to the age of people in a study, the strain of virus and other factors.

Beijing has yet to approve any foreign vaccines for use in China.

Gao gave no details of possible changes in strategy but cited mRNA as a possibility.

“Everyone should consider the benefits mRNA vaccines can bring for humanity,” Gao said. “We must follow it carefully and not ignore it just because we already have several types of vaccines already.”

Gao previously questioned the safety of mRNA vaccines. He was quoted by the official Xinhua News Agency as saying in December he couldn’t rule out negative side effects because they were being used for the first time on healthy people.

Chinese state media and popular health and science blogs also have questioned the safety and effectiveness of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine.

As of April 2, some 34 million people in China have received both of the two doses required for Chinese vaccines and about 65 million received one, according to Gao.

The Sinovac spokesman, Liu, said studies find protection "may be better” if time between vaccinations is longer than the current 14 days but gave no indication that might be made standard practice.

21 Chinese coal miners trapped by underground flood

BEIJING — Rescuers on Sunday were trying to reach 21 coal miners who were trapped by an underground flood in China's northwest, a state news agency reported.

© Provided by The Canadian Press

The mine in Hutubi County in the Xinjiang region flooded at about 6:10 p.m. on Saturday, the Xinhua News Agency said. It said eight people were rescued.

China's coal mines are among the world's deadliest, regularly suffering explosions and gas leaks despite repeated safety crackdowns.

The Associated Press

China: 21 miners trapped in flooded Xinjiang mine

Rescuers are trying to pump water out of the flooded mine shaft while piping air to the trapped workers.

   

The entrance to a flooded coal mine in Hutubi county, China

Rescuers were trying to reach 21 miners trapped by an underground flood in the Xinjiang region of China, a state news agency reported on Sunday.

The Fengyuan coal mine in Hutubi County in the northwest of the country flooded at around 6:10 p.m. local time (1010 GMT/UTC) on Saturday, the Xinhua News Agency said.

It added eight of the 29 miners working at the location had already been rescued.

Staff were carrying out upgrading works at the site when disaster struck.

Complex operation

Chinese state-controlled broadcaster CCTV reported that 12 miners were on one platform, with eight more on a second platform, and the last worker is currently trapped in an escape route where water had originally entered.

"The working platform with 12 people is 1,200 meters (3,900 feet) from ground level and the underground terrain is complex, making rescue difficult," CCTV said.

Coal mines in China are among the world's most dangerous, with explosions and gas leaks a regular occurrence.

Mining accidents in eastern Shandong province in January and the southwest city of Chongqing in December killed more than 30 miners.

Pope celebrates mass of 'mercy' with prisoners, refugees

Among them, there were inmates of two Roman prisons and one youth detention centre; refugees from Syria, Nigeria and Egypt; and nursing staff from a nearby hospital.

He also recalled how early Christians had no concept of private property and shared everything, noting: "This is not communism, but pure Christianity." 

FUNNY THEODORE REUSS SAID THAT OF THE OTO

Issued on: 11/04/2021- 

Pope Francis stressed the importance for Christians of serving others 

Handout VATICAN MEDIA/AFP

Rome (AFP)

Pope Francis made a rare Sunday outing from Vatican grounds to celebrate a mass on "divine mercy" with prisoners, refugees and health workers.

The service was held in a church just off St Peter's Square, in front of a reduced congregation of about 80 people, due to coronavirus restrictions.

Among them, there were inmates of two Roman prisons and one youth detention centre; refugees from Syria, Nigeria and Egypt; and nursing staff from a nearby hospital.

In his homily, the leader of the world's 1.3 billion Catholics stressed the importance for Christians of serving others.

"Sister, brother, do you want proof that God has touched your life? See if you can stoop to bind the wounds of others," he said.

"Let us not remain indifferent. Let us not live a one-way faith, a faith that receives but does not give... Having received mercy, let us now become merciful," Francis added.

He also recalled how early Christians had no concept of private property and shared everything, noting: "This is not communism, but pure Christianity."

The pope, who is 84 and was vaccinated for the coronavirus ahead of his trip to Iraq in early March, did not wear a face mask during the service.

The mass celebrated Divine Mercy Sunday, a Catholic Feast falling on the first Sunday after Easter, established by Pope John Paul II in 2000.

ARRET!
Top French publishing house asks would-be authors to stop sending manuscripts

Issued on: 11/04/2021 - 

This photograph taken on November 2, 2020 shows books displayed at the Librairie des Abbesses bookstore in the Montmartre district in Paris on November 2, 2020. © Stéphane de Sakutin, AFP

Text by: Catherine Bennett


Stop sending us your manuscripts! That’s the message that French publishing house Gallimard sent out to would-be authors in April, after receiving a deluge of submissions.

Gallimard, known for publishing Marcel Proust, Simone de Beauvoir and Albert Camus, wrote politely on its website and on Twitter: “Given the exceptional circumstances, we ask you to defer sending your manuscripts. Take care of yourselves and happy reading.”

Successive Covid-19 lockdowns in France have given budding writers the time to finally work on that idea for a novel or to polish up an old manuscript languishing in a drawer. As a result, publishers are overwhelmed. Before the pandemic, Gallimard received around 30 manuscripts a day; now they receive around 50.

Gallimard isn’t the only French publisher facing an uptick in submissions. Publisher Seuil normally receives around 3,500 manuscripts a year. In the first three months of 2021, it had already received 1,200.

Reading an essential business

In addition to the mountain of submissions to wade through, the publishing industry is already facing a backlog. Bookshops in France were ordered to close during the country’s first March-May lockdown, and were only open for click-and-collect in the second October-December lockdown.

In February 2021 the government decided to class bookshops as "essential" services, authorising them to open amidst regional restrictions and during this month's third nationwide lockdown. But those breaks in the industry’s normal publishing schedule mean that many editors postponed some books’ publications, leaving the 2021 publishing calendar already full.

Véronique Cardi, director of publishing house JC Lattès, told France Culture that they’ve never been so prepared for France’s rentrée littéraire – the autumn period when publishing houses traditionally publish a wave of new releases. “Our authors have had the time to finish their manuscripts,” she explained. “And we’ve acquired a lot of new authors, people who took advantage of being in lockdown or under curfew to write."

Going the self-publishing route

If getting published has always been tricky, increased competition has made it even harder. Many writers are turning to self-publishing, bypassing the need for a publishing house.

Librinova, an agency that helps authors self-publish their books, published 40% more books in 2020 compared to the year before – and 90% more in April 2020 alone. The self-publishing platform Books on Demand also saw similar growth in France.

More than 5 million French people began a writing project during the first lockdown, according to a poll by Harris Interactive.
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But while the French may be writing more, they’re also reading less.

While the French remain avid readers (more than 80% of French people read at least one book in 2020), there was an overall drop in reading last year, according to a report released in March by the Centre national du livre (National Centre for Publishing).

The study’s authors attributed the decline to the closure of reading spaces such as libraries, the loss of the valuable reading time that a commute affords many French workers, and the difficulty of separating work from leisure time when working from home.

French people’s reading habits also changed with readers favouring non-fiction and journalism over novels.

So if budding French novelists want to get published, they’ll have to get reading again.

Rhino population in Nepal grows in conservation boost


Issued on: 11/04/2021 - 

Thousands of one-horned rhinos once roamed the southern plains 

PRAKASH MATHEMA AFP

Kathmandu (AFP)

Nepal's population of endangered one-horned rhinoceros has grown by more than a hundred over the past six years, officials said, with campaigners hailing the increase as a conservation "milestone".

The population rose to 752 across four national parks in the southern plains, up from 645 in 2015, the Department of National Parks and Wildlife Conservation said Saturday.

"The increase of rhinos is exciting news for us," the department's information officer, Haribhadra Acharya, told AFP on Sunday.

"But we have challenges ahead to expand the habitat areas of this animal to maintain the growth."

Thousands of one-horned rhinos once roamed the southern plains, but rampant poaching and human encroachment on their habitat reduced their numbers to around 100 in Nepal in the 1960s.

Since 1994, the Himalayan nation has conducted a rhino census once every five years, as authorities stepped up their efforts to boost population numbers for the species listed as vulnerable by the International Union for the Conservation for Nature.

In the first census in 1994, 466 rhinos were counted.

Some 250 personnel -- including enumerators, soldiers and veterinarians -- rode on 57 elephants for nearly three weeks from late March to count the rhinos.

The census -- delayed for a year due to the coronavirus pandemic -- was carried out using GPS equipment, binoculars and cameras.

"Rhinos were counted through a direct observation method, where the counting team reached as close as 100 metres (330 feet) from the wild animal," Acharya added.

During the census, an elephant mahout was attacked and killed by a tiger, authorities said. Another official was injured when a wild elephant attacked the team.

Global conservation group the World Wildlife Fund -- which provides financial and technical assistance for the census -- called the population increase a "milestone" for Nepal.

"The overall growth in population size is indicative of ongoing protection and habitat management efforts by protected area authorities despite challenging contexts these past years," the WWF's Nepal representative, Ghana Gurung, said in a statement.

The rhino population has climbed in recent years amid the government's anti-poaching and conservation initiatives.

But the illegal trade of rhino horns -- prized in China and Southeast Asia for their supposed medicinal properties -- remains a threat.

Some 26 rhinos died in Nepal last year, including four from poaching, the Department of National Parks and Wildlife Conservation said.

© 2021 AFP