It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
Monday, July 05, 2021
For many young Hong Kong graduates, Canada's new routes to immigration have turned into a dead end
Open work permit holders who graduated in 2016 or earlier can't get required work experience for residency
Passengers line up for departure at Hong Kong airport in this file photo on Feb. 4, 2020. Hundreds of Hong Kong residents are seeking immigration to Canada as the territory's civil liberties are being eroded under China's national security law implemented in July 2020. (Achmad Ibrahim/AP)
When the Canadian government invited Hong Kongers to apply for a work permit that Ottawa designed solely for people from the territory, plumbing engineer Kay Pang applied as soon as he could.
The open work permit allows Pang to travel anywhere in Canada to look for a job, but he recently learned that the document — contrary to what the government had promised in February — won't expedite permanent residency for everybody from Hong Kong. In truth, people who graduated in 2016 or earlier are not eligible.
His realization comes as authorities in Hong Kong, where freedoms have been increasingly restricted since last year, prepare to enforce a law that, according to the Hong Kong Bar Association, could allow them to block people from entering or leaving the territory as of Aug. 1.
However, the bar association's interpretation of the new law is disputed by the city's security bureau which says the change is aimed at stopping asylum seekers from coming to Hong Kong and is allowed under a global aviation agreement.
"It's really sad for me," said Pang, who graduated from City University of Hong Kong in 2016, about the new challenges on his road to permanent residency. He had planned to come to Vancouver next January to look for career opportunities in robotics engineering.
Hong Kongers were allowed to apply for the open work permit from February. The permit allows them to spend up to three years in Canada to gain enough work experience here in order to apply for permanent residency.
At the initial announcements in November and February, no details were given about how recently potential applicants for permanent residency would need to have graduated.
On June 8, Immigration Minister Marco Mendicino announced two new pathways for Hong Kong residents to apply for permanent residency in Canada. (Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press)
On June 8, Immigration Minister Marco Mendicino unveiled more details. There are two new paths to permanent residency exclusively for Hong Kong residents who recently graduated from a Canadian post-secondary institution ("Stream A"), or recently graduated from a Canadian or foreign institution who are working in Canada ("Stream B").
Applicants via Stream B must hold a degree, diploma or graduate credential obtained in the past five years, on top of at least one year of full-time work experience or 1,560 hours of part-time work in Canada in the past three years.
Many graduates eyeing immigration to Canada with an open work permit prefer Stream B to Stream A, because they don't want to spend money going back to school.
But if their degree was awarded in 2016 or before, they face not being able to meet the requirements for permanent residency via that stream.
University students wearing Guy Fawkes masks throw their hats after their graduation ceremony at the Chinese University of Hong Kong on Nov. 7, 2019. Many people who graduated from Hong Kong universities in 2016 feel they're left out by Canada's latest immigration measure. (Kin Cheung/The Associated Press)
'Why would you just shut the door?'
Pang, among more than 28,000 people graduating from Hong Kong post-secondary institutions in 2016, applied for an open work permit in March. But even if he landed in B.C. and got a job now, it wouldn't leave him enough time to get the necessary one year of full-time work experience before his degree becomes ineligible.
Hong Kong software developer Edward Wong is in a similar situation. He received an open work permit in May and booked a flight ticket to Toronto, with plans to settle there, in September.
But Wong, who graduated from the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology in 2016, also faces being ineligible for permanent residency.
He said he doesn't understand why Immigration Canada has created this additional hurdle.
"If I'm eligible to apply for an open work permit and you also approved that open work permit for me, then I think I would be the kind of person that you are willing to take to Canada as a new citizen," Wong said.
"Why would you just shut the door?"
In an emailed statement to CBC News, Immigration Canada said people ineligible for either Stream A or B could apply for permanent residency via existing economic immigration programs such as the federal skilled worker program.
But that would mean having to compete with thousands of other candidates from around the world, in a process that could potentially take years.
Protesters against the new national security law march on July 1, 2020. Numerous activists and protesters have been arrested or jailed for national security reason since the implementation of the law. (Vincent Yu/AP)
'We're all in the Titanic'
Pang said he hopes for more support from Canada for graduates like him who face missing out on permanent residency by a matter of months — at a time his home city's civil liberties are being eroded under China's national security law implemented last July.
The crackdown has seen dozens of former lawmakers and pro-democracy activists arrested.
"We're all in the Titanic, and you can see the ship is falling right now," Pang said, referring to the erosion of freedoms. "[But] there's still a bit of distance [to shore] that you need to do by yourself."
NDP immigration critic Jenny Kwan is part of the parliamentary committee that published a report this month on pathways to Canadian permanent residency for Hong Kong residents.
She argues that the Liberal government should eliminate all education and work experience limitations on people who wish to come to Canada before Hong Kong's exit ban takes effect.
"If the government doesn't take further action to support the people of Hong Kong, I fear that it would be too late," she said.
"Unfortunately, the humanitarian component is not part of the package — the government is only thinking about what economic benefit can we get from the people of Hong Kong."
WATCH | MP Jenny Kwan calls for scrapping all restrictions on Hong Kongers who want to come to Canada:
UK’s leading retailers call for tougher laws to protect workers from ‘shocking upsurge in violence and abuse’
One hundred of the UK’s most popular retail chains have asked Prime Minister Boris Johnson to support legislation aimed at combating violence and abuse against their workers, warning that the problem is only getting worse.
Executives from Tesco, Sainsbury’s, IKEA, Aldi, and other big-box stores wrote to Johnson urging him to back an amendment to the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill that would tackle escalating abuse directed at retail workers. The bill is currently undergoing a review in Parliament.
The letter follows the release of a government report last week, which concluded that legislation was needed to protect shop employees from a “shocking upsurge in violence and abuse.”
Initiated by the British Retail Consortium (BRC), a trade group that represents large chains, the lobbying effort implores the prime minister and the country’s political leaders to act before the problem worsens. The letter has already received support from more than two dozen MPs.
The BRC’s most recent crime survey found that there were 455 cases of abuse against retail workers each day in 2019, representing a 7% year-on-year increase in incidents of violence. The issue has reportedly been exacerbated by the coronavirus crisis, with retail workers being subjected to abuse while trying to enforce sanitary rules and other Covid-19 measures.
One business reported a 76% increase in abuse and a 10% increase in violent attacks during the pandemic. Over half of the attacks involved a weapon, according to the BRC.
The trade organisation also cited testimonials from retail workers who said they had been “coughed at or spat on” during their shifts.
“Behind each of these statistics is a person, a family, colleagues and communities that have to cope with this trauma. No-one should go to work fearing for their safety, yet many retail workers have come to see it as part of the job – this can’t go on,” Helen Dickinson, the BRC’s chief executive, said.
Retailers have invested record amounts – £1.2 billion ($1.65 billion) in the past year alone – on bolstering security and implementing other crime-fighting measures, but these efforts appear to have fallen short.
Viral videos of altercations between customers and shop workers have become increasingly common in the UK and other parts of the world, with many of the conflicts sparked by anger over mask mandates or other Covid-19 rules.
Can PG&E Stop Causing So Many Fires In California?
California’s largest utility, PG&E, has a massive wildfire problem. Its equipment has sparked half of the state’s most destructive fires since 2015, including the Camp Fire that killed 85 people in 2018. Now, it’s trying to reduce the risk by building remote solar-powered microgrids, shutting off power during windy weather, and cutting down thousands of trees near power lines. We talk to PG&E and community members about the impact of efforts meant to keep the power on and keep Californians safe.
THE HIMALAYAN CLIFF HONEYBEE HAS BEEN KNOWN TO PRODUCE 'MAD HONEY.'
For a short period each spring, bees in certain parts of the world add a little extra ingredient to their honey, giving it a trippy twist. By gathering nectar from the rhododendrons that come into bloom at this time of year, they infuse their sugary produce with certain toxins that cause a range of interesting effects when ingested by humans.\
Known as “mad honey,” it is sought after by some for its supposed medicinal properties, although eating large quantities can cause dizziness, hallucinations, nausea, and a range of cardiac effects. It’s harvested from the nests of several species of bee, including the Himalayan cliff honeybee (Apis dorsata laboriosa), the largest honeybee in the world, and is considered to be an aphrodisiac, among other things. For this reason, it is particularly popular among middle-aged men suffering from sexual performance issues.
These unusual characteristics are caused by a group of chemicals called grayanotoxins, which are present in the nectar of rhododendrons. Although not considered lethal for humans, they can generate a number of symptoms such as hypertension, and are thought to be capable of killing some animals. Despite the honey’s traditional use in folk medicine, the curative effects of grayanotoxins have not been confirmed by scientific studies.
Most prominent in eastern Turkey, mad honey was once responsible for the defeat of three Roman squadrons who become intoxicated on it. In the Himalayas, the honey is traditionally harvested by local tribes such as the Gurung of Nepal, who risk their lives in order to access the bees’ hives, which are found on vertical cliff faces. The rewards are great, however, with each hive containing up to 60 kilograms (132 pounds) of honey.
As with all intoxicants, though, taking too much is never fun - as the above video demonstrates.
Is it time to begin rewilding the seas?
A zebra shark (Stegostoma tigrinum) off the Maldives in the Indian Ocean. A project to reintroduce this endangered species to West Papua begins in November. Photograph: imageBroker/ From giant clams to zebra shark, marine biologists want to replace lost and vanishing species at sea but face unique obstacles – not least rampant overfishing
Kneeling on the seabed a few metres underwater, I pick up a clam and begin gently cleaning its furrowed, porcelain smile with a toothbrush. It’s a giant clam but a young one and still just a handful. Here in Fiji, giant clams or vasua as they are known, were so heavily overfished for their meat and shells that by the 1980s they were thought to be extinct locally. Australian clams were imported to start a captive breeding programme, and subsequent generations of their offspring have been released on coral reefs across Fiji. They’re still vulnerable to fishing and poaching, but if carefully guarded the giant clams do well and have become symbols of healthy corals reefs inside well-managed marine protected areas.
A key to their early survival is rearing them in cages to keep them safe from predators until they’re large enough to survive by themselves. However, the cages also exclude herbivorous fish, so the clams can easily get overgrown by seaweed, which is where the regular toothbrushing comes in.
Giant clam reintroduction is a relatively rare case of what on landmight be called rewilding. When it comes to putting back lost and vanishing species, be it Yellowstone wolves or British beavers, the underwater realm has been trailing behind its terrestrial counterparts. With no firm definition, initiatives to replant seagrass meadows and re-establish extinct oyster reefs arguably come under the rewilding umbrella. But the notion of returning large, charismatic animals to the ocean is only just beginning to catch on. There are lots of ideas, such as bringing back grey whales to the Atlantic, or Dalmatian pelicans to the UK, but so far only a few have actually been tried out. This reluctance comes down, in part, to a lack of captive-bred marine animals to release into the wild.
“There’s not a lot of them that are propagated or bred and successfully reared in human care,” says Julie Levans from Virginia Aquarium, about 150 miles south of Washington DC. “Unless you’re taking animals from one place and putting them in the other place in the ocean, you don’t really have that many options.”
For many aquatic animals, captive breeding and rewilding are just not going to happen. We’ll probably never see animals such as great white sharks or hammerheads or narwhals living and breeding in aquariums, then being released to the wild. Attempts to bring the last few vaquita porpoises into captivity from the Gulf of California went horribly wrong in 2017, when one panicked and had to be immediately set free, and a second swiftly died of a stress-induced heart attack.
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In plenty of cases, ocean reintroductions shouldn’t be necessary because the seas have a tremendous capacity to rewild themselves, given a chance. Leave alone areas of the ocean where fishing and other threats are curtailed and marine populations should bounce back. But there are some cases where particular species may benefit from extra help.
The Raja Ampat Islands in the West Papua province of Indonesia could soon become the site of the world’s first release of captive-bred sharks. The species in question is the zebra shark (Stegostoma tigrinum), known as the leopard shark locally, which is classified as endangered largely due to overfishing, in particular to meet rising demand for shark fin soup.
In the 1980s giant clams were thought to be extinct around Fiji but captive breeding and careful reef management have helped to establish new colonies. Photograph: John De Mello/Alamy
As a target for rewilding, the zebra shark has several things going for it. First, it’s one of only a few elasmobranchs that breed well in captivity. Second, rather than giving birth to live young, zebra sharks lay egg cases, which are far simpler and safer to ship around the planet. It’s a species that is not doing well in the waters around Raja Ampat, which are inside marine-protected areas and already off limits to fishing boats.
“A lot of the other shark and ray species have recovered from the fisheries back in the early 90s,” says Levans, who is involved in the Stegostoma tigrinum Augmentation and Recovery (StAR) project. “The zebra sharks unfortunately have not.”
These spotted, snub-nosed sharks seem to have been so severely overfished around Raja Ampat that not enough individuals remain for the species to recover unaided. Computer models suggest that sharks released to the area would kickstart the population.
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All being well, in November this year zebra shark egg cases will be taken from zoos and aquariums and transported to hatcheries based at the resort of Misool and the Raja Ampat Research and Conservation Centre. The new arrivals are destined to become a poster species for sustainable tourism.
“People from other countries will come to Raja Ampat to see this charismatic creature,” says Prof Charlie Heatubun, head of the research and development agency at the provincial government of West Papua, a key partner in the reintroduction efforts. For tourists, the shark pups swimming in their open-water pens will be a star attraction before they are released to the ocean.
On the other side of the world, elasmobranchs are the focus for a much longer-term plan to restore missing animals. Flapper skates are flat, diamond-shaped relatives of sharks with a two-metre wing span. As Gijs van Zonneveld from ARK Natuurontwikkeling, in the Netherlands, says: “They’re like manta rays.” Highly vulnerable to trawling from the moment they hatch out of their handspan-sized egg cases, these giants are critically endangered and have become exceedingly rare in the North Sea. Van Zonneveld is spearheading an initiative with WWF Netherlands to rewild the North Sea including, they hope, the comeback of flapper skates. He says: “For us, it is very important that flapper skates can return by about 2030.”
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The first step Van Zonneveld and colleagues are taking is to work out whether the skates could make their own way into Dutch parts of the North Sea, with individuals migrating from their only remaining strongholds around Shetland and Orkney and the west coast of Scotland. If that proves unlikely, the next step will be to consider the possibility of releasing captive-bred skates. But that is a long way off.
Currently, there are no flapper skates in captivity, and even if there were, it would be a long time before a breeding population could be established. In October 2020, a baby flapper emerged from its egg case at an aquarium in Oban after it was laid on the deck of a fishing boat by a female skate who was caught and subsequently released alive back to the sea. The egg had taken 535 days to hatch.
Then there is the crucial challenge that would await any captive-bred flapper skates or any other animals that might one day be released to the ocean. Species involved in most land-based rewilding efforts are by and large no longer targeted for their pelts or meat. In the ocean, however, intensive hunting of wild animals continues.
Last year, after 535 days in its egg case, a flapper skate (Dipturus intermedius) hatched in captivity for the first time. They have been listed as critically endangered since 2006. Photograph: NatureScot Marine/Scottish Association for Marine Science/BBC
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“We have an awful lot we need to achieve through fisheries management, as an immediate priority,” says Ali Hood, director of the Shark Trust. Even within marine protected areas, animals such as flapper skates may not be safe from getting caught in trawl nets, which still operate in many of these zones.
Until intensive fishing pressure is addressed in the North Sea, no flapper skates will be released. Van Zonneveld sees the answer as lying partly in helping the fishing industry to adapt its gear and avoid catching them in the first place, and to release them carefully if they do. He says: “What we’re trying to do when we’re bringing back the flapper skate is to forge new relationships between the users of the North Sea and the ecology of the North Sea.”
Another mobile, ocean-going species has already been released from captivity in massive numbers. Growing up to six metres, the length of an orca, European sea sturgeon have been hunted across Europe for centuries, mostly for their meat rather than eggs, for which their sister species further east, such as sevruga and beluga, are highly prized. Like salmon, the fish spend their adult lives at sea before swimming up rivers to spawn, although unlike salmon they keep mating throughout their centenarian lives, sometimes actively straying into different rivers.
The last time they were seen spawning was in the Gironde estuary in France in 1994. In an attempt to return them to their former glory, about 1.6m captive-reared young sturgeon have been released across Europe in the past decade or so. That’s roughly the time it takes for sturgeon to reach maturity, which means, as Rory Moore from BLUE Marine Foundation says: “We may have fish coming back to spawn very soon.”
Moore and his colleague Alex Hubberstey are part of the newly formed UK Sturgeon Alliance, a group working towards seeing sturgeon swimming once again through Europe’s waterways, including in their former ranges across the UK. Moore says: “We really have a responsibility to make sure that our rivers are suitable for them to return.”
A European sturgeon, Acipenser sturio. In the past decade around 1.6m of the fish have been reared and released. The hope is that the species will return to its former spawning grounds. Photograph: Paulo Oliveira/Alamy
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This summer, Moore and Hubberstey will search the Rivers Wye, Towy (or Tywi in Welsh) and Severn for suitable sturgeon spawning grounds. Sturgeon chiefly need gravel beds of the right consistency to lay their eggs. The scientists will also gather samples of environmental or eDNA from the water and riverbed mud to see if the right kinds of invertebrate prey are present for sturgeon to eat – they are bottom feeders – and to look for sturgeon themselves. Fish shed fragments of skin and cells in the water. “It would just be amazing,” says Moore, “if we found a hint of a sturgeon out there.”
The next stage will involve working out where sturgeon need help negotiating weirs that stand between them and their spawning grounds. Time will tell how many released sturgeon have survived their sea-based youth, and whether the great spawning runs will recommence, but a few are already showing up. In August last year, a tagged French sturgeon was caught off the Devon coast, demonstrating the interconnected nature of this kind of aquatic rewilding.
“One of the hopes is that, eventually, every major river that has available habitat and is connected will have a healthy sturgeon population in it, with sturgeon coming back and forth from Europe,” says Hubberstey. And as they do, the sturgeon will have to run the gauntlet of fisheries.
“There are still many questions with respect to the reality of rewilding programmes for mobile marine species,” says Hood. Guarding a giant clam that stays put is difficult enough, but preventing other released species from swimming straight into a fishing net is another matter entirely. The intentions of captive breeding and release efforts, Hood says, need to extend beyond the moment of release, throughout the long lives of individual animals and on to future generations. She says: “This is a challenging task in an ocean rife with overfishing.”
Dr Helen Scales is a marine biologist, diver, surfer and author of The Brilliant Abyss: True Tales of Exploring the Deep Sea, Discovering Hidden Life and Selling the Seabed (Bloomsbury Sigma, £16.99). To support The Guardian and Observer, order your copy at guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply.
Law enforcement knows Florida condos need upgrades — but have let them dodge requirements for years: report
Sarah K. Burris July 04, 2021 Part of the 12- story oceanfront Champlain Towers South Condo, with more than 100 units at 8777 Collins Avenue, collapsed on June 24, 2021. - Amy Beth Bennett/TNS
It has been reported that the Sunshine, Florida condo that collapsed last month had serious structural issues that were necessary. But the New York Times reported Sunday evening that even law enforcement was aware that the necessary improvements weren't being made.
"The city of North Miami Beach had tried and failed for years to bring a 10-story condo building within its borders, Crestview Towers, into compliance with the 40-year recertification requirements," the report explained. "When the building's condo association finally submitted the required paperwork last week, about nine years late, it documented critical safety concerns, a city spokesman said. Officials evacuated the building on Friday." But things get so much worse.
"Meanwhile, the same local governments were pursuing a haphazard approach to identifying other potentially unsafe buildings across the region, with the age and height criteria that would prompt added scrutiny varying from one place to the next," said the Times. "At least one local government, the village of Key Biscayne, was opting to conduct no extra inspections at all, an official there said. If the building inspectors focused only on the 10-story building done in the 1970s and 1980s it would still be "daunting." At least 270 of those such buildings stand in Miami-Dade County.
It turns out that through the 1980s and 1990s corruption was running through the building inspector's office. "Grand jury inquiries through the 1980s and 1990s documented slipshod work by Miami-area building inspectors, though much of that scrutiny focused on inspections of single-family homes," said the Times. "Other criminal investigations have singled out government employees for taking gifts from developers, including, most recently, the top building official in Miami Beach."
But, there's still no proof that buildings constructed then are any better or worse than others. The data shows that more than 30 high-rise buildings in the Miami area from the late 1970s to the late 1980s have various states of repair.
"Eleven of those towers were 12 stories or higher and built in the three years preceding the construction of Champlain Towers South," said the Times. "All are now past the age at which they should have submitted reports proving they had been scrutinized by an engineer for structural and electrical problems."
After Hurricane Andrew in 1992, developers complained about new building requirements for homes, but the standards for buildings were even stricter because leaders wanted to ensure that they wouldn't come crumbling down in a hurricane. There are 14 structures in Bay Harbor Islands that were slated to submit a 40-year inspection report last year, but six have yet to respond. The town sent certified letters to three property owners but they were returned. Only one has completed the process.
"The small number of buildings that have yet to comply with the 40-year inspection have already received a notice of violation, and they are subject to fines if they do not timely comply with the certification process," Maria Lasday, the town manager of Bay Harbor Islands," the Times said citing an email from her.
In North Miami Beach, the Crestview Towers was had to be evacuated after the city fined the building for refusing to comply with the requirements. There's still no word on whether the building actually paid the fines. Only after the Champlain Tower collapsed did Crestview turn in its recertification report. Their lawyer swears that it was sent to the city, but there's no record of that.
Vaccine uptake needed to reopen border will be tough to meet: U of C economist
Having 75 per cent of Canadians fully immunized means 86 per cent of those aged 12 and over who are eligible for a shot will need to get their jabs, Tombe said
Author of the article: Jason Herring Publishing date: Jul 04, 2021 •
POSTMEDIA
People wait in line to receive their COVID-19 vaccine at the Immunization Clinic in the Telus Convention Centre on Wednesday, May 19, 2021. PHOTO BY AZIN GHAFFARI/POSTMEDIA
The federal government wants to see 75 per cent of Canada’s population immunized against COVID-19 with two doses before lifting international travel restrictions and opening the border.
It’s a threshold that will be tough to meet, particularly in Alberta, where nearly a quarter of people eligible for a shot still haven’t received a dose, said University of Calgary economist Trevor Tombe.
Having 75 per cent of Canadians fully immunized means 86 per cent of those aged 12 and over who are eligible for a shot will need to get their jabs, Tombe said.
“Eighty-six per cent of eligible individuals is perhaps at the higher end of what polls suggest is possible,” Tombe said.
“It’s going to take a little bit more work to change some views that are out there … It’s certainly possible, but it’s going to be a heavy lift for governments.”
The federal government has discussed a 75 per cent threshold in recent months, but formalized it in mid-June in the Canada Gazette.
In the Gazette, the Public Health Agency of Canada says it recognizes mandatory quarantine and testing protocols “place significant burdens” on Canadians and the country’s economy, but that these measures remain the most effective way to prevent new cases and variants of concern from entering the country.
For 75 per cent of Alberta’s population to be fully immunized, the province would need to administer more than 560,000 additional first doses and 1.63 million more second doses — though Tombe pointed out not every province will need to reach the 75 per cent target for the country to hit that marker.
June polling data from the Angus Reid Institute indicates Alberta and Saskatchewan lead Canada in hesitancy or outright opposition to COVID-19 vaccines, with 18 per cent of people in each province unwilling or unsure about being vaccinated.
It’s an improvement from January, when Angus Reid polling found 45 per cent of Albertans were hesitant about getting a shot, but greater willingness to get immunized is needed for Alberta to help Canada achieve its lofty target, Tombe said.
“There are a number of individuals, especially younger individuals in their 20s and 30s, that are choosing not to get a shot. It’s going to require their minds be changed,” Tombe said.
Through Thursday, the most recent day data is available, 2.75 million Albertans have at least one shot of vaccine, and 1.67 million are fully immunized.
That works out to 62 per cent of the population with at least one shot, and 38 per cent with both necessary jabs.
Vaccine uptake in Alberta drops among younger age groups, with only 59 per cent of those in their 20s having received at least one shot.
Tombe said it’s a pattern seen across Canada that younger residents are rolling up their sleeves to get immunized at lower rates than their older cohorts. But Alberta’s relatively young population contributes to the fact a nation-leading 23.4 per cent of its eligible population still hasn’t had their first shot.
The economist said Canada will have enough COVID-19 vaccine doses to reach its goal by Aug. 7, but it’s difficult to project what demand will be for those shots.
In mid-June, Canada announced the border to the U.S. would remain closed until at least July 21 for non-essential travel. The closure has been in place since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020.
Anti-Israel item shot down by largest US teachers' union
The business item calls for public support of Palestine and is similar to business items that have been proposed in the past.
By JERUSALEM POST STAFF JULY 6, 2021 Classroom (photo credit: Wikimedia Commons)
The National Education Association (NEA), a teachers' union with over three million members, defeated New Business Item 29, which calls to publicize support for Palestinians and their issues.
The NEA is active in Democratic politics and able to influence the US's overall education policy.
The item was co-sponsored by more than 50 members of the NEA and was defeated 77% to 33%.
Head of the Jewish Affairs Council, Patrick Crabtree, spoke to Cleveland Jewish News and said “I’m almost positive 29 is so divisive, it will go down in flames."
Crabtree also wrote a three-page letter detailing the affairs council's position on the items.
He believed the items could lead Jewish students “to feel uncomfortable."
“In our years of attending the various NEA representative assemblies, we have seen offensive antisemitic, anti-Israel (new business items) and I even rose to the microphone to object to consideration,” Crabtree wrote, “but never have we seen (a new business item) reverberate like these two (new business items) throughout the Jewish community.”
A similar item, New Business Item 26, was proposed in 2019, calling to "educate members and the general public on the apartheid, atrocities, and gross violations of human rights of Palestinian children and families by the State of Israel, funded directly by the United States." This item was also defeated.
Another item, New Business Item 51, is tabled for 2022. It proposes to "recognize the existence and sovereignty of Palestine," as well as publicly advocate for Palestinian children and their access to education.
Taiwan's migrant workers scapegoated for spread of COVID
TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — Migrant workers in Taiwan have been exploited and treated as "scapegoats" for spreading COVID-19, a Taiwan-based Canadian reporter claims.
In early June, due to cluster infections, 202 of 249 confirmed cases in Miaoli County were migrant workers at high-tech factories. Locals accused workers of venturing out and spreading the coronavirus despite the Level 3 restrictions in place.
On June 7, the county government announced a lockdown for all migrant workers in the area, confining 22,952 people to their quarters except to go to work. The measure was condemned by local human rights groups.
In an Apple podcast called Excuse英國腔! ("Excuse English Accent") on June 24, Joe Henley, a writer and singer who has been living in Taiwan for 16 years, shared his perspective on the dilemma faced by migrant workers in this country.
Henley said it was poor treatment of migrants that led to the cluster infection in the first place. Dozens were forced to live in a "grossly overcrowded dorm," with narrow bunks, restrictions, and curfews. As a result, "one person in the room gets affected, then it spreads to the entire room," said Henley.
He added that migrant workers are exploited by being made to work long hours for low wages, with fewer freedoms and protections during the pandemic. Even so, they were turned into "scapegoats" as Taiwanese looked for someone to blame for the outbreak.
Compared with their Taiwanese coworkers, the unfair treatment of migrant workers is Taiwan's version of "apartheid," according to Henley. He continued that blue-collar migrant workers are a vulnerable minority in Taiwan and treated differently from white-collar, highly-valued Western professionals: “There is racism in Taiwan.”
He added that migrant workers in the social welfare and domestic helper industries are ignored and vulnerable. Up to 99 percent of caregivers and domestic workers are female and live with their employers, according to the Ministry of Labor.
The U.S. Department of State released a global report on Friday (July 2) on human trafficking. It said Taiwan meets the minimum standards but needs to improve labor laws to prevent exploitation.
Henley has focused on the plight of migrant workers as a journalist since 2015. He recently wrote a book about migrant fishermen called “Migrante.”
He has compared the treatment of migrant workers in Miaoli County to what happened in Singapore last year. He said people in both countries have a negative attitude toward migrant workers and try to “keep them separated from the society.”
He called for an improvement in the treatment of migrant minorities, as “it can help us do better in crisis.”
According to the Ministry of Labor, in May, there were 711,015 migrant workers in Taiwan, 467,763 of whom were working in industry, while 243,252 were caregivers and domestic workers. About 71 percent were from Indonesia and Vietnam, with around 21 percent from the Philippines and 8 percent from Thailand.
'They're not thinking right': GOP governor rips anti-vaxx Republicans for trying to win 'death lottery'
David Edwards
July 04, 2021
ABC/screen grab
West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice (R) warned Republicans who refuse to get vaccinated that they are playing "the death lottery."
During an interview on ABC's This Week program, host Martha Raddatz noted that people in states with Republican majorities are less likely to get vaccinated.
"There's some truth to that," Justice agreed. "Because the red states probably have a lot of people that, you know, are very, very conservative in their thinking and they think, 'Well, I don't have to do that.'"
"But they're not thinking right," he said. "When it really boils right down to it, they're in a lottery to themselves. You know, we have a lottery that basically says, if you're vaccinated, we're going to give you stuff."
He added: "But you've got another lottery going on and it's the death lottery."
