SCIENCE SEZ

Discrimination, stress linked to poorer heart health in transgender, gender diverse adults

American Heart Association Scientific Statement

AMERICAN HEART ASSOCIATION

Research News

DALLAS, July 8, 2021 -- The stress of experiencing discrimination in multiple ways, including transphobia, interpersonal discrimination, violence and public policies specifically targeting transgender and gender diverse (TGD) people, is linked to higher rates of heart disease among the TGD population, according to a new scientific statement from the American Heart Association, published today in Circulation, the Association's flagship journal. A scientific statement is an expert analysis of current research and may inform future guidelines.

The statement, Assessing and Addressing Cardiovascular Health in People Who Are Transgender and Gender Diverse, examines existing research about TGD-specific cardiovascular health disparities, identifies research gaps and provides suggestions for systematically improving overall heart health and care of TGD people. The statement writing group suggests improving overall heart health within the TGD community will require a multi-pronged approach that includes health care professionals, educators, researchers and policymakers.

In terms of health, transgender, gender diverse and gender non-conforming people are considered "gender minorities." Expanding on the minority stress theory, statement writing group members documented how chronically high levels of stress faced by members of stigmatized, underrepresented populations associate with poor health outcomes and health disparities. They concluded that higher rates of cardiovascular prevalence and deaths among TGD people, while related to traditional cardiovascular risk factors, are also significantly driven by psychosocial stressors across the lifespan at multiple levels, including structural violence, discrimination, lack of affordable housing and access to health care.

"Heart health of transgender and gender diverse people is an important and understudied topic, and it's critical we highlight what we know and what we need to know about heart health among these populations," said Carl G. Streed, Jr., M.D., M.P.H., chair of the writing group for the statement, an assistant professor of internal medicine at Boston University School of Medicine and the research lead at the Center for Transgender Medicine and Surgery at Boston Medical Center. "Addressing these issues will require a focus on 'traditional' risk factors for heart attack and stroke, and a commitment to fight transphobia in order to decrease the additional stress experienced by this population."

This statement, specific to TGD persons, builds upon the Association's 2020 scientific statement, Assessing and Addressing Cardiovascular Health in Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Queer (or Questioning) Adults, which noted that more than half (56%) of LGBTQ adults and 70% of those who are transgender or gender non-conforming reported experiencing some form of discrimination from a health care professional.

The new statement notes a growing body of research indicates TGD populations may be at a significantly greater risk for cardiovascular disease compared to their cisgender peers. Transgender men are twice as likely to have a heart attack than cisgender men and four times as likely than cisgender women. TGD people are also more likely to experience blood clots when undergoing estrogen hormone therapy. The writing group points out more investigation is urgently needed to explain these disparities.

TGD populations also face unique psychological stressors, including gender non-affirmation (e.g., being called by the incorrect pronoun), discrimination, rejection or concealment of gender identity and violence based on gender identity. These factors contribute to higher overall levels of stress, which, in turn, negatively affect heart health. Additionally, TGD people who are also part of historically excluded racial or ethnic groups experience multiple layers of stress, such as lower income levels or limited access to health care. Research on how these complex and intertwined factors affect heart health within TGD populations is limited.

Most gender identification options in a clinical or research setting include only "male" and "female," so while population-based studies can help in understanding some cardiovascular health risk factors, data on TGD people is scarce. The statement suggests studies should standardize measures of gender identity and expression to collect larger samples of underrepresented groups among TGD populations.

Data collected through electronic health records (EHRs) does present an advancement in terms of data access, however, EHRs often lack the ability to capture sociocultural factors relevant to heart health among TGD persons. It's important to note that TGD individuals who do not regularly access health care services are less likely to be included in EHR data, and TGD people who are uncomfortable disclosing gender identity to health care professionals will be unlikely to be identified as TGD in EHR systems.

While the ability to document sexual orientation and gender identity has been required for electronic health records since 2018, additional steps are needed to ensure culturally responsive and supportive care. The statement details the critical need for researchers and clinicians to use gender-affirming pronouns and obtain an anatomy inventory where appropriate, noting that assumptions about a TGD person's identity or anatomy may negatively impact clinical decisions.

The writing group suggests increased training across health professions would enhance clinical practices and foster more compassionate care for TGD persons. While many institutions acknowledge the need for TGD educational content, efforts to include these topics into clinical curricula have not progressed. The statement suggests a collaborative effort with organizational-level mandates across governing bodies is needed to create a curriculum that encompasses gender affirming hormone therapy, surgical procedures, anatomy-based preventive health, social determinants of health and the proper assessment of sex and gender in health care settings.

While the statement emphasizes existing data is limited, it reviews research on disparities among TGD people as it relates to the American Heart Association's Life's Simple 7 to measure ideal heart health and how hormone therapy may affect heart health for TGD people. Current research on blood pressure, lipid profiles or blood sugar levels for TGD persons is too sparse and inconclusive, although the writing group does suggest several areas of Life's Simple 7 that are directly linked to heart attacks and strokes. The evaluation of existing research found:

TGD people are more likely (24%) to report tobacco use than the remainder of the U.S. population (18%).

Transgender men are less likely to exercise, especially in older age.

TGD persons undergoing gender-affirming hormone therapy are more physically active, which may be because they report being more satisfied with their bodies.

TGD youth report eating more fast food and using unsafe ways of trying to manage their weight (e.g., diet pills, fasting or laxative abuse).

TGD people report overall higher body mass index (BMI), yet they may experience additional stress about their weight since many surgeons have strict BMI cut-offs above which they will not perform gender-affirming surgeries.

"Discrimination also contributes to disparities in social determinants of health among TGD populations, and many TGD persons are at even greater risk of heart disease and stroke due to transphobia and experiences of discrimination based on gender non-conformity," said Lauren B. Beach, Ph.D., J.D., vice-chair of the statement writing group and research assistant professor in the department of medical social sciences at Northwestern University's Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago. "Systematic transphobic discrimination results in a higher burden of workplace discrimination, job loss and unemployment among TGD populations. Combined with experiences of discrimination in health care settings, lack of access to a stable income further limits health care access among TGD people. These structural factors combine to result simultaneously in higher levels of chronic stress and in lower levels of resources to prevent or manage a broad variety of health conditions including cardiovascular disease."

The writing group also cited studies showing that TGD persons experience disproportionate burdens of additional cardiovascular risk factors, including living with HIV, vascular dysfunction, trouble sleeping and alcohol abuse.

The writing group acknowledges limited data and encourages further research to understand the numerous and complex issues faced by TGD individuals and as a community. The statement emphasizes available information does illustrate that TGD people often experience challenges due to unique stressors, including internalizing gender identity, sexual victimization and concerns about hormone therapies and gender-affirming surgeries.

"Data specific to transgender and gender diverse persons lag behind what is needed to understand and improve individual and community heart health. The information available is rapidly improving, though," Streed said. "This statement summarizes the available evidence showing that addressing traditional cardiovascular risk factors and decreasing stigma-linked stress, together, would improve the heart health of TGD people. By focusing on the unique issues affecting the well-being of transgender and gender diverse persons, we have the potential to do better for everyone."

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This scientific statement was prepared by the volunteer writing group on behalf of the American Heart Association's Council on Peripheral Vascular Disease; the Council on Arteriosclerosis, Thrombosis and Vascular Biology; the Council on Cardiovascular and Stroke Nursing; the Council on Cardiovascular Radiology and Intervention, the Council on Hypertension; and the Stroke Council. The statement is endorsed by the American Academy of Physician Assistants. The American Medical Association affirms the educational benefit of this scientific statement.

Co-authors and members of the volunteer writing group are Billy A. Caceres, Ph.D., R.N., FAHA; Nadia L. Dowshen, M.D., M.S.H.P.; Kerrie L. Moreau, Ph.D.; Monica Mukherjee, M.D., M.P.H.; Tonia Poteat, Ph.D., P.A.-C., M.P.H.; Asa Radix, M.D. Ph.D., M.P.H.; Sari L. Reisner, Sc.D.; and Vineeta Singh, M.D., FAHA. Author disclosures are in the manuscript.

Additional Resources:

Multimedia is available on the right column of the release link: https://newsroom.heart.org/news/discrimination-stress-linked-to-poorer-heart-health-in-transgender-gender-diverse-adults?preview=129cf7aad1a1ed3c6844e742bbfbba87

The Association receives funding primarily from individuals. Foundations and corporations (including pharmaceutical, device manufacturers and other companies) also make donations and fund specific Association programs and events. The Association has strict policies to prevent these relationships from influencing the science content. Revenues from pharmaceutical and biotech companies, device manufacturers and health insurance providers and the Association's overall financial information are available here.

About the American Heart Association

The American Heart Association is a relentless force for a world of longer, healthier lives. We are dedicated to ensuring equitable health in all communities. Through collaboration with numerous organizations, and powered by millions of volunteers, we fund innovative research, advocate for the public's health and share lifesaving resources. The Dallas-based organization has been a leading source of health information for nearly a century. Connect with us on heart.org , Facebook , Twitter or by calling 1-800-AHA-USA1.

 

Yoga helps reduce work-related stress

WILEY

Research News

 

Physical relaxation through yoga or other practices can help reduce work-related stress, according to an analysis of studies conducted in healthcare staff.

The analysis, which is published in the Journal of Occupational Health, included 15 randomized clinical trials with a total of 688 healthcare workers. The studies examined the effects of yoga, massage therapy, progressive muscle relaxation, and stretching on alleviating stress and improving physical and mental health.

Overall, the physical relaxation methods reduced measures of occupational stress compared with no intervention. More detailed analyses indicated that only yoga and massage therapy were more effective than no intervention, with yoga being the best method.

"Work-related stress has been linked with cardiovascular disease, diabetes, depression, and other serious causes of morbidity. Our results suggest that physical relaxation methods are helpful in reducing occupational stress," said lead author Michael Zhang, MD, of the Southern Nevada Health District. "Yoga is particularly effective and can be delivered virtually, making it convenient for employers to offer distance options to promote worker health."

 

How can counselors address social justice amid climate change?

WILEY

Research News

 

We're currently living in what many scientists are calling the Anthropocene, the period during which human activity has been the dominant influence on climate and the environment. An article published in the Journal of Multicultural Counseling and Development discusses how counselors can promote environmental justice during this time.

The Environmental Protection Agency defines environmental justice as "the fair treatment and meaningful involvement of all people regardless of race, color, national origin, or income with respect to the development, implementation, and enforcement of environmental laws, regulations, and policies."

The article accomplishes three goals:

• It builds awareness about climate change and the Anthropocene among counselors.
• It expands knowledge regarding how climate change may exacerbate issues of social inequality.
• And it demonstrates how counselors can address environmental justice issues affecting clients and their communities.

The article's author, Alexander J. Hilert, PhD, LPC, CCTP, of William & Mary, provides examples of how counselors can make a difference, noting that they can use their skills, such as group facilitation, to help educate communities on the climate crisis or to help environment activists process their grief to help prevent burnout. Also, counselor educators can help lead the way by focusing research on the implications of the climate crisis on marginalized communities.

"As counselors, it is our ethical duty to respond to issues of systemic injustice that affect the lives of our clients," said Hilert. "Using the framework of environmental justice, counselors can better understand the disproportionate impacts of climate change on communities experiencing marginalization and oppression, and how we can respond through advocacy and outreach."

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Improving transparency of integrated assessment models related to climate change

WILEY

Research News

Integrated Assessment Models (IAMs) connect trends in future socio-economic and technological development with impacts on the environment, such as global climate change. Critics have taken issue with the transparency of IAM methods and assumptions as well as the transparency of assessments of IAMs by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the United Nations body for assessing the science related to climate change.

An article published in WIREs Climate Change that's co-authored by officials at the IPCC documents various activities underway to enhance the transparency of IAMs and their assessments.

"The purpose of this paper is to document how both the IAM community and IPCC are working to enhance transparency and to suggest some criteria for judging the success of these efforts," the authors wrote. "Transparency does not in itself guarantee scientific closure, but it facilitates debate and provides a clearer evidence base for policymakers."

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Wage inequality negatively impacts customer satisfaction and does not improve long-term firm performance

News from the Journal of Marketing

AMERICAN MARKETING ASSOCIATION

Research News

 

Researchers from University of Mannheim published a new paper in the Journal of Marketing that examines the effect of wage inequality on customer satisfaction and firm performance.

The study, forthcoming in the Journal of Marketing, is titled "Wage Inequality: Its Impact on Customer Satisfaction and Firm Performance" and is authored by Boas Bamberger, Christian Homburg, and Dominik M. Wielgos.

Irrespective of wage cuts and employee layoffs, the wages of top managers rose to record levels during the pandemic and wage inequality continues to grow worldwide. However, according to a 2015 OECD report, "wage inequality is harmful to long-term economic growth and undermines societal cohesion." This situation raises the question: Do firms have an incentive to raise wage inequality?

This new study addresses this question by examining the impact of wage inequality on customer satisfaction and firm performance. The researchers surveyed more than 100 top sales and marketing managers in public firms selling to businesses in three countries. They analyzed the responses and company financial data to understand how wage inequality impacts customer satisfaction and firm performance.

Results show that unequal wages between top managers and employees can boost the short-term profitability of a firm. As Bamberger explains, "In the long run, however, this benefit fades. What persists is that wage inequality motivates employees to opportunistically exploit customers and weakens a firm's customer-oriented culture, thereby harming customer satisfaction.

How does this happen? Suppose a firm has high wage inequality. Thus, the ultimate prize in a tournament setting, to gradually rise to top management, is a strong incentive for employees at all levels. But in the process, they may engage in opportunistic behaviors and also collaborate less with coworkers.

For example, to enhance her chances for promotion, an employee might show more effort by interacting with customers more frequently to better understand and fulfill their needs to boost sales. By contrast, she could also distort facts about products to close deals more quickly.

Non-customer-facing employees could also be affected. Take, for instance, an R&D employee. He could interact with customers more often to learn and adapt innovations to their needs to increase sales. Conversely, he could also design products to fail to force customers to buy a product over and over again.

"Through customer-directed effort or opportunism, employees may improve their chances of getting promoted to the next higher level. Our results show that wage inequality does raise customer-directed effort and opportunism," says Homburg.

At the same time, wage inequality might also weaken collaboration among coworkers. An employee who worries about advancing to the next higher level is less concerned about their coworkers. But less collaboration impairs the flows of information and knowledge about customers throughout the firm. This, in turn, can lead to worse coordination between departments. Ultimately, the firm becomes less responsive to the changing needs of customers. Thus, wage inequality weakens the customer-oriented culture of a firm.

The adverse impact wage inequality has on opportunism and customer-oriented culture extends to customer satisfaction and reduces the short-term profitability of a firm. At the same time, wage inequality also raises a firm's short-run profits through a direct path. Despite the harm through the customer path, the total impact of wage inequality on short-term profitability is slightly positive.

This slightly positive effect on short-term profitability holds in a different sample with more than 500 observations of U.S. firms selling to consumers. Wielgos explains that "When we analyzed how wage inequality plays out in the long run, the situation reverses. The harm that wage inequality causes to customer satisfaction leads to long-term performance decline. In sum, a firm sees no profitability lift from wage inequality in the long run."

Do firms have an incentive to raise wage inequality? In terms of bottom-line impact, the answer is: "Yes" in the short run and "No" in the long run. However, when looking at the customer impact, the answer is "No" because of the negative impact of wage inequality on customer satisfaction, which weakens firm profits.

What can managers learn? If the goal is short-term profitability, go with higher wage inequality, but keep an eye on customer satisfaction. If managers are interested in the long-term success of the firm, consider reducing wage inequality to help employees orient toward customers.

What can shareholders learn? Suppose that you care about the long-term profitability of your investment. In that case, make sure to reward top managers for achieving sustainable profitability and good customer relationships.

What can policymakers learn? Wage inequality is not in a firm's long-term interest. This argument can help to create a consensus with managers to restrain wage inequality. However, short-term-oriented managers might care little about the damage wage inequality does to society. It thus might be necessary to disincentivize them from raising wage inequality.

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Full article and author contact information available at: https://doi.org/10.1177/00222429211026655

Researchers detail the most ancient bat fossil ever discovered in Asia

UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS

Research News

 

IMAGE: RESEARCHERS BAGGING UP SEDIMENT FOR SCREENWASHING AT THE JUNGGAR BASIN FIELD SITE. view more 

CREDIT: MATTHEW JONES

LAWRENCE -- A new paper appearing in Biology Letters describes the oldest-known fragmentary bat fossils from Asia, pushing back the evolutionary record for bats on that continent to the dawn of the Eocene and boosting the possibility that the bat family's "mysterious" origins someday might be traced to Asia.

A team based at the University of Kansas and China performed the fieldwork in the Junggar Basin -- a very remote sedimentary basin in northwest China -- to discover two fossil teeth belonging to two separate specimens of the bat, dubbed Altaynycteris aurora.

The new fossil specimens help scientists better understand bat evolution and geographic distribution and better grasp how mammals developed in general.

"Bats show up in the fossil record out of the blue about 55-ish million years ago -- and they're already scattered on different parts of the globe," said lead author Matthew Jones, a doctoral student at the KU Biodiversity Institute and Department of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology. "Before this, the earliest bats are known from a couple of places in Europe -- Portugal and southern France -- and Australia. So, when they show up early in the fossil record as these fragmentary fossils they're already effectively worldwide. By the time we get their earliest known full skeletons, they look modern -- they can fly, and most of them are able to echolocate. But we don't really know anything about this transitional period from non-bats to bats. We don't even really know what their closest living relatives are among mammals. It's a really big evolutionary mystery where bats came from and how they evolved and became so specialized."

Jones' co-authors were K. Christopher Beard, senior curator at the KU Biodiversity Institute and Foundation Distinguished Professor of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology at KU; and Qiang Li and Xijun Ni of the Key Laboratory of Vertebrate Evolution and Human Origins, Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology at the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Center for Excellence in Life and Paleoenvironment at the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

The ancient bat teeth were discovered through painstaking fieldwork in the Junggar Basin, where the KU researchers worked at an isolated field site established by their Chinese colleagues, one of two sites in the region the team hope will continue yielding interesting fossils.

"This was concerted effort over a long period of time by our Chinese colleagues," Jones said.

"They suspected that there were fossiliferous deposits from the Paleocene and Eocene, and they spent several years going out there, identifying where to find fossils. Chris was a part of several seasons of fieldwork there. I was a part of one season of fieldwork there. What we did was collect a bunch of sediment to screen wash, which is sort of like panning for gold. You pour a bunch of sediment into a sievelike apparatus and let all the dirt and everything fall out, and you're only left with particles of a certain size, but also fossils."

Beard said the fieldwork was an outgrowth of long-standing relationships between the KU team and its Chinese counterparts.

"We've been fortunate enough to be able to host our Chinese colleagues here in Lawrence for extended research visits, and they've more than reciprocated by hosting us for research and fieldwork in China. This work in the Junggar Basin is really trailblazing work because the fossil record in this part of China is only just barely beginning to emerge, and this area is very removed and isolated. It's just a giant empty place. There are some camels, some snakes and lizards, but you don't see many people there. That remoteness makes the logistics to do fieldwork there quite difficult and expensive because you've got to bring in all your food and water from far outside -- all of that hindered research in this area previously."

Following the challenging fieldwork, the residue left behind from the screen washing at the site was sorted at the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology in Beijing.

"In 2017, after we got back from the field, Xijun said. 'Hey, one of the technicians picking through this sediment thinks they found a bat,'" Jones said. "Knowing I was interested in bats, they showed it to me. The next year, the other tooth was found -- so there's two teeth."

Through meticulous morphological analysis of the teeth, along with biostratigraphy -- or analyzing the position of layers of fossil remains in the deposits -- the authors were able to date the specimens to the advent of the Eocene, the earliest period when bat fossils have been found anywhere on Earth. Indeed, the presence of these ancient bat fossils in Asia bolsters a theory that bats could have emerged from there in the first place, then distributed themselves worldwide when they later developed flight.

More fieldwork in the area is ongoing, and Jones and Beard said they were hopeful to find even older specimens, perhaps even dating to the Paleocene, the epoch before the Eocene, when researchers believe bats probably originated. Yet the particulars of Altaynycteris aurora remain hazy -- for instance, it's impossible to say from teeth fragments if the animal could fly or echolocate.

"These teeth look intermediate, in between what we would expect a bat ancestor to look like -- and in fact, what a lot of early Cenozoic insectivorous mammals to do look like -- and what true bat looks like," Jones said. "So, they have some features that are characteristic of bats that we can point to and say, 'These are bats.' But then they have some features that we can call for simplicity's sake 'primitive.'"

The researchers said the new fossils help fill in a gap to understanding the evolution of bats, which remains a puzzle to experts -- and could teach us more about mammals in general.

"I can think of two mammal groups that are alive today that are really weird," Beard said. "One of them is bats, because they fly -- and that's just ridiculous. The other one is whales, because they're completely adapted to life in the ocean, they can swim, obviously, and they do a little bit of sonar echolocation themselves. We know a lot about transitional fossils for whales. There are fossils from places like Pakistan that were quadrupedal mammals that looked vaguely doglike. We have a whole sequence of fossils linking these things that were clearly terrestrial animals walking around on land, through almost every kind of transitional phase you can imagine, to a modern whale. This isn't true for bats. For bats, literally you've got a normal mammal and then you've got bats -- and anytime you've got a fossil record that's a giant vacuum, we need work that can fill partly that. This paper is at least a step along that path."

CAPTION

Upper molar of Altaynycteris aurora.

CREDIT

Li Qiang

Dubai’s Jebel Ali Port fire: A timeline of explosions in the UAE

Fire crews battled an inferno on a ship anchored at Dubai’s Jebel Ali Port in the early hours Thursday after an explosion onboard the container vessel that had flammable materials. (Photo credit: Twitter)

Jennifer Bell, Al Arabiya English
Published: 08 July ,2021: 

Fire crews battled an inferno on a ship anchored at Dubai’s Jebel Ali Port in the early hours Thursday after an explosion onboard the container vessel that had flammable materials, marking one of the biggest explosions reported in the United Arab Emirates in years.

A Dubai Government official told Al Arabiya that the fire – which happened just before midnight on Wednesday - was due to a natural accident and the blaze was brought under control hours later, with all crew members safely evacuated.

The explosion is one of several blasts that have been reported in the Gulf country in recent years.



Here are some of the biggest incidents:

September 2020: Three people died, and several others were injured after a gas explosion in an Abu Dhabi building. An incorrectly installed gas canister blew up on Sheikh Rashid bin Saeed Street – also known as Airport Road – in a blast which destroyed a KFC, a neighboring Hardee’s and other shops nearby.

July 2020: Two restaurants in Al Qusais, in Dubai, after a powerful blast caused by a gas explosion.

June 2016: One person was injured in a Dubai restaurant explosion when a gas pipeline burst at an eatery in Karama.

March 2016: Fifteen people were injured after a suspected gas explosion ripped through a building in Abu Dhabi’s Al Khalidiya neighborhood, which left buildings and ten vehicles damaged.

October 2015: In another restaurant explosion, a Turkish eatery in Dubai - the Bosphorus Restaurant in Umm Suqeim - was destroyed after a suspected gas leak caused a massive explosion. No injuries were reported.

July 2015: An Emirati family escaped unharmed after a house in Fujairah caught fire following a gas cylinder explosion.

November 2014: Two men were injured in an explosion at a restaurant on Red Island in Ras Al Khaimah. Investigations revealed that the blast took place because of a leak in an LPG cylinder at the eatery.

June 2014: A Pakistani worker was killed and other one sustained severe injuries after a gas cylinder exploded inside their room in a labor accommodation in Al Sajjah area in Sharjah.

June 2014: Two Pakistanis received serious burn injuries in a gas explosion at a jewelry shop in Al Maraijah area in Sharjah. A third man received minor injuries.

October 2013: Nine people were injured as result of an explosion which occurred in a laundry shop in the Raffa area in Dubai.

May 2012: A fire broke out in an apartment in the Swan area of Ajman on Sunday night after a gas cylinder exploded. The residents were abroad.

March 2008: A massive explosion at an illegal fireworks warehouse in the Al Quoz industrial area of Dubai sparked a huge fire, with black smoke stretching for miles across the city. The explosion left two people dead and led to the evacuation of nearby schools. At the time General Saif Al Shafar, the undersecretary of the Ministry of Interior at the time, described the incident as the biggest fire in the UAE’s history.


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REPORTER'S NOTEBOOK
The dark, dangerous side of Dutch tolerance


The attempted murder of the crime reporter Peter R. de Vries is the latest sign of the growing reach of drug gangs.

Bystanders laying flowers and candles in support of journalist Peter R. de Vries in Amsterdam | Koen Van Weel/ANP/AFP via Getty Images

BY BEN COATES

POLITICO EU
July 7, 2021 


GOUDA, Netherlands — For a journalist to be gunned down in any city would be a shocking event. But in Amsterdam, famed as the most liberal city in the world, it feels like an earthquake.

Since Tuesday evening, when the famous crime reporter Peter R. de Vries was shot in the head in a busy street, Dutch media and politicians have talked of little else. This is, after all, a country where crime rates are low, prisons are being closed because there are not enough prisoners to fill them and the prime minister usually has no bodyguards and cycles around on his own. Things like this aren’t supposed to happen here.


In some ways, though, the shooting feels grimly inevitable. The Netherlands is rightly famous for its habits of tolerance and compromise — but recently there’s been growing bitterness in the public sphere, including an increasing number of threats and assaults against journalists and media outlets.

Last year, the state broadcaster NOS announced it was removing its logo from its roaming broadcast vans because “almost daily, journalists and technicians on the road to report are confronted with verbal abuse, garbage is thrown, vans are blocked [and] people bang on their sides or urinate on them.”

“It has all changed so quickly in a short time,” the NOS chief news editor said.

As in some other countries, it’s also become routine for leading politicians to denounce the press on a regular basis. Last month, for instance, the far-right politician and rabble-rouser Geert Wilders tweeted that “Journalists are — with exceptions — just scum of the ledge,” to which his fellow parliamentarian Thierry Baudet promptly agreed: “It is so.”

There’s clearly a huge difference between scorning journalists like this and shooting them, and many of those who usually enjoy taunting the press have been quick to condemn this week’s attack. But it’s also clear that the Dutch media climate is increasingly fraught: According to one government minister, reported threats and acts of aggression against journalists roughly trebled between 2019 and 2020 alone.

A couple of years ago, someone even fired an anti-tank rocket at the Amsterdam headquarters of a crime magazine. Against that backdrop, incidents like this week’s shooting feel less surprising than they should.


At the time of writing, De Vries is fighting for his life and police have arrested several suspects, but much else about the case remains unclear. However, it’s widely assumed that De Vries was attacked not simply for being a journalist, but because of his role as a confidant of a key witness in a major drug gang trial — one of a series of high-profile incidents which have exposed some other dark elements of Dutch society.

The Netherlands has been known for its unusually tolerant approach to drugs for years. Under a policy known as gedoogbeleid, marijuana is technically illegal here, but its sale and consumption are widely tolerated by authorities, including in the famous Amsterdam “coffee shops” where people consume a lot more than just coffee.

For a long time, the “ban it but tolerate it” policy seemed like a masterful bit of Dutch difference-splitting: The police were free to focus on more serious problems, and there was little evidence marijuana use harmed wider society.

The stereotypical coffee shop in Amsterdam or elsewhere looked less like a seedy drug den and more like a friendly neighborhood establishment, run by a cheerfully rumpled proprietor who’d been sitting there for decades.

In recent years, however, the Dutch drug trade has been transformed. The oddities of the gedoogbeleid mean that while soft drug use is tolerated, supplying larger quantities remains illegal. This means that the main source of large quantities of marijuana is, by definition, criminal organizations.

As demand for drugs in Amsterdam has soared due to tourism, many of the rumpled old coffee shop owners have been forced out, and professional criminal gangs have moved in, running supply networks that are headed by rich foreign masterminds and stretch across Europe.

Trade in cocaine, ecstasy and other drugs has boomed, and there have been widespread reports of new shops and bars being opened purely to launder drug money, as part of what the Telegraaf newspaper called “a golden age for the Amsterdam drug criminals.”

In 2019, a report commissioned by Amsterdam authorities warned that the city had “given free rein … to a motley crew of drugs criminals, a ring of hustlers and parasites, middle-men and extortionists, of dubious notaries and real estate agents.”

“We definitely have the characteristics of a narco-state,” the chairman of a Dutch police union told the BBC.

Faced with such challenges, the authorities in Amsterdam and elsewhere have made repeated efforts to clamp down, including trying to restrict the sale of marijuana to foreign tourists. The government itself has even tried to muscle in on the drug trade, licensing a few legal marijuana growers to keep the coffee shops supplied.

However, while some dodgy shops have closed, its effect on the bigger problems seems limited, and there have been violent gangland turf wars. In 2018, Amsterdam’s police chief Pieter-Jaap Aalbersberg gave a sensational television interview in which he complained it was almost impossible to tackle minor crimes because his force was “dealing with assassinations for 60 to 70 percent [of the time], and for the rest, mainly with radicalization and terrorism investigations.”

That may have been an exaggeration, but a visitor arriving in the Netherlands bearing cheerful clichés about laid-back liberals and endless cycle paths might still be shocked to open a newspaper, only to read how often hand grenades are left lying in doorways as threats from one gang to another. According to RTL news, in one four-month spell in 2019 alone, there were 23 incidents involving hand grenades being left at homes or workplaces, many of them in Amsterdam.

In some circles, there’s a tendency to dismiss such incidents as just “criminals hurting criminals” — and to assume that organized crime is nothing for law-abiding people to worry about. But that odd cordon sanitaire has also begun to fray lately, and violent gang disputes have spilled over to affect reporters and the public too.

In 2016, the crime blogger Martin Kok was shot dead after reporting on several controversial cases. Three years later, Derk Wiersum, a 44-year-old father of two, working as a lawyer in the same drug trial which Peter de Vries was involved in, was shot dead in front of his wife in a suburban Amsterdam street. Two months after that, another lawyer narrowly survived a shooting while walking his dog near the German border. And now De Vries himself, a Dutch celebrity known for his work exposing drug dealers, kidnappers and others, has been attacked in broad daylight.

Individually, these events would be shocking enough, but together they feel like something worse: a fresh confirmation that there are real threats to the freedoms we Dutch hold dear. On Wednesday, King Willem-Alexander denounced the latest shooting as an assault on a cornerstone of the rechtsstaat — using a hard-to-translate Dutch phrase referring to the constellation of institutions and individuals that underpin the rule of law.

It’s important to emphasize that, overall, the Netherlands remains a remarkably successful and peaceful society. Around where I live, to the south of Amsterdam, you’re still more likely to run into a dairy farmer wearing clogs than a vicious drug lord.

But it’s also clear that although Dutch tolerance brings many delights, it also has a seamy side. Underneath the country’s pretty façade there’s a dark undercurrent, which may be getting stronger.

Ben Coates is the author of the books “Why the Dutch are Different: A Journey into the Hidden Heart of the Netherlands” (Nicholas Brealey Publishing, 2015) and “The Rhine: Following Europe’s Greatest River from Amsterdam to the Alps” (Nicholas Brealey Publishing, 2018).

NGO Global Witness accused of negligence after murder of Afghan informant

Charity orders external review into security practices.

Illustration by Simon Bridgland for POLITICO

BY MATEI ROSCA

POLITICO
July 8, 2021 

LONDON — Global Witness, the high-profile investigative NGO, stands accused of failing to protect people who risk their lives to help expose injustice and corruption, following the murder of one of its sources in Afghanistan.

The source was kidnapped and killed by militants linked to the Islamic State in Afghanistan after his identity was compromised by the charity, which has built an international reputation for holding governments and corporations to account for more than 25 years.

The killing demonstrates the dangers for those who provide information to international organizations in volatile parts of the world. But multiple former employees and associates of Global Witness say that in this case, the charity did not take those risks seriously enough, leaving the source vulnerable to intimidation and deadly violence.


Following the Afghanistan case — which occurred in August 2017, but has not been reported previously — the charity pulled out of the country in 2018 after paying at least $10,000 to the victim’s family to help them relocate, according to a former employee. Global Witness confirmed a payoff had been made but would not specify the amount.

“It is a matter of enormous regret and deep sadness to us that any harm should ever come to one of our sources, simply because they had the courage to speak to us. Our thoughts remain with the family and friends of the man who was killed,” Global Witness communications director Amy Richards said.

“Following the killing, we conducted a thorough review to understand the events that had led up to this and learn lessons from what had happened,” Richards said. “Changes to our processes were made in the weeks and months following this brutal killing, and we are again reviewing the procedures and training programs in place to ensure we are doing all we can to keep sources, partners and our staff secure.”

But there are indications that the charity was not transparent about the incident. The organization informed staff about the case only after POLITICO began asking about it.

A 76-page report by Global Witness on its Afghanistan investigation into the exploitation of talc mines by the Islamic State group made no mention of the killing. A dedication on the inside of the front cover reads: “With sincere thanks to all those whose help made this report possible.”

In June this year, following inquiries by POLITICO, Global Witness opened a tender for a security “partner” to review its source security policies and make recommendations for improvement.

The review “will look across our new strategic campaigning priorities and make recommendations on how we best work with partners, sources and information networks, as well as set out any additional training requirements for our staff,” according to Richards.
Secret information

Founded in 1994, Global Witness is an influential international charity specializing in investigating environmental crime, human rights abuse and corruption. With more than 100 staff, and offices in London, Washington and Brussels, it has made a name for itself as a swashbuckling NGO that goes where others cannot, to blow the lid off conspiracies in some of the world’s most violent and corrupt countries. Its reports gather secret information from anonymous sources, covert filming, satellites and drone footage.

The charity has links to British politics, particularly the Labour Party. One of the party’s former MEPs, Arlene McCarthy, is on its Advisory Council. Richards, the communications director, is a former Labour political adviser. The former campaign director on the now-disbanded Afghanistan team, Nick Donovan, is a veteran Labour activist who ran for the party’s National Executive Committee in 2017 while employed at Global Witness.

In June, Alok Sharma, the COP26 climate conference president and Conservative Cabinet minister, delivered the keynote speech at the charity’s Time for a Climate Revolution event.

Richards said, “Global Witness has no ties to any political party.”

The charity says it is careful to protect people on the ground who help it to gather intelligence. On its website (until the page was removed in June), Global Witness said that many of its reports “start with tip-offs from anonymous sources, who take risks to share information with us. We are always vigilant in protecting their identities to keep them safe.”


But interviews with three ex-employees and contractors, as well as two of the charity’s former sources, paint a different picture.

Global Witness had a burgeoning Afghanistan bureau in 2017. It regularly published reports of natural-resources exploitation and pillaging by ruthless groups — some of them linked to Islamist extremists. But a former employee said there was little oversight of the charity’s operations in the country or the precautions staff took.

The charity habitually failed to observe established procedures around working with confidential sources in Afghanistan, according to the former employee, who wished to remain anonymous, claiming one staff member was known as “Captain Chaos” among colleagues.
Covert meeting

The death of Global Witness’ source at the hands of the extremists happened after the charity arranged a meeting with the man to gather information, according to two ex-employees. Instead of holding that meeting alone, a second Global Witness source was also present. The two sources did not have prior knowledge of each other. The second person later told the local Islamic State faction what the first source had said to Global Witness about the talc-mining business, prompting the group to exact deadly revenge, according to one of the ex-employees.

POLITICO attempted to contact the individual at Global Witness involved in the source meeting via email, phone calls and text messages, but did not receive a response. The person left the NGO after the killing. While the charity accepts that it was responsible for bringing the two people together, it disputes the timeline of events, although it declined to explain what happened on the record.

Donovan, the former campaign director of the charity’s Afghanistan team, initially declined to comment, citing source confidentiality, and later did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

One of the former employees said they found out about the killing “in the most casual way” from colleagues at Global Witness.

“I was shocked and I became obsessed with source protection after that. I brought it up many times with superiors but they did nothing,” the person said, referring both to the killing and the general practices around source protection at the charity.

A former contractor with Global Witness said that she had raised concerns about the charity’s safety procedures regarding sources and local freelancers. She also claims management did nothing about it.

In a previous incident, the former contractor said that a confidential informant and his family had to be moved out of Liberia, West Africa, on short notice out of concern for his safety after he took part in the charity’s work on links between Charles Taylor’s regime and the timber industry in 2003.

Richards, the Global Witness communications director, said it was correct that the organization paid to have a source moved out of Liberia but denied this was linked to the person’s work with the charity. It was “instead linked to campaigning by the organisation the person headed up, compounded by the ongoing war in the country, widely recognised as one of the most violent of the 21st century,” she said in an email.
Source protection

The former contractor says the organization did not sufficiently consider the risks faced by local informants. “We didn’t give as much thought as we should have to source protection or what it meant for local people to be associated with Global Witness after the investigations came out,” said the former contractor, requesting anonymity because of a nondisclosure agreement signed with the charity.

“There were a number of occasions where GW [Global Witness] had to pay to get local associates out of the country or region before the release of a big report, so they recognized that there is a risk for local people. But attention was much more focused on avoiding getting sued for libel and promoting the Global Witness brand than on properly protecting those they worked with in high-risk countries,” the ex-contractor said.

“GW employees stay in posh hotels with iron gates and security guards when they travel to high-risk foreign countries, but it’s a different story for people from those places who do important work for GW.”

Global Witness has been reluctant to speak openly about the Afghanistan incident. When POLITICO made inquiries in January, a spokesperson initially said the organization was not aware of the killing.

But in internal emails from early 2020 seen by POLITICO, chief executive Mike Davis said the Afghanistan “incident is a very sensitive one with potential ramifications for people in-country and some of those Global Witness has worked with over the years if we don’t handle it very carefully. For that reason, we took a view some time back that we’d share some of the main lessons with incoming campaign leaders who are going to be responsible for comparable investigative work at Global Witness. We aren’t in a position to share more widely, however.”

Staff were only informed about the case during a call on February 2, 2021, and donors were also told around that time. Richards said the charity’s initial silence on the matter stemmed from a desire to avoid attacks from the murderers directed at Global Witness sources and their families in Afghanistan.

Open Society Foundations, one of Global Witness’ funders, said the charity had been keeping it “informed about this horrific incident.”

“We welcome GW’s decision to open an independent review into what happened, and would expect them to use its findings to further strengthen their already robust security and operational protocols,” said a spokesman for the Open Society Foundations.

CRIMINAL CAPITALI$M

EU fines German car cartel €875M over clean emissions technology

Daimler, BMW, Volkswagen, Audi and Porsche colluded to avoid using technology’s full potential, Vestager says.

European Executive Vice-President Margrethe Vestager | Pool photo by Olivier Hoslet/AFP via Getty Images

BY SIMON VAN DORPE AND JOSHUA POSANER
July 8, 2021 

EU Executive Vice President Margrethe Vestager today slapped German carmakers with an €875 million fine for conspiring to limit the development of clean emissions technology.

Between 2009 and 2014, BMW, VW (Volkswagen, Audi and Porsche) and Daimler used so-called "circle of five" technical meetings to agree to hold back on technological innovations that could reduce harmful nitrogen oxide gases of diesel cars, Vestager said in a statement.

VW will need to pay the bulk of the penalty, €502 million, despite being granted a 45 percent reduction for having cooperated with the investigators. BMW is fined the remaining €373 million. Daimler got total immunity as it was the first participant in the cartel to denounce its existence.

“The five car manufacturers Daimler, BMW, Volkswagen, Audi and Porsche possessed the technology to reduce harmful emissions ... but they avoided to compete on using this technology's full potential to clean better than what is required by law," Vestager said in a statement.

The decision comes just before the European Commission will announce an important batch of legislative proposals to advance the EU Green Deal.

While Vestager’s focus as a competition commissioner is to ensure fair competition between companies, the fine for Germany’s powerful car makers is a strong message to industry that she will not hesitate to use her powers to pursue green objectives.

"Competition and innovation on managing car pollution are essential for Europe to meet our ambitious Green Deal objectives," Vestager said, adding that "this decision shows that we will not hesitate to take action against all forms of cartel conduct putting in jeopardy this goal.”

Cartels usually conspire to fix prices, so a cartel to delay the introduction of green technology is not a very common case. But the EU treaties clearly say that agreements limiting “technical development” restrict competition.

The Commission decided not to pursue some of the original charges against the companies, according to which they coordinated “to avoid, or at least to delay” the introduction of a new type of filter in petrol cars. Brussels said the "evidence was insufficient" to prove this part of its case.


BMW noted that the Commission "dropped most of its charges of antitrust violations" in the case. "With the withdrawal of most of the original allegations, the Board of Management of BMW AG has agreed to a settlement proposed by the European Commission that will bring these proceedings to an end," the company said in a statement.

VW said it "will carefully review today's decision" and decide whether to appeal, according to a statement.

• COMPANY NEWS

Volkswagen, BMW fined US$1 billion by EU for pollution cartel

Aoife White, Bloomberg News

Volkswagen AG and BMW AG agreed to pay 875 million (US$1 billion) in fines by the European Union for collusion that regulators said curbed the rollout of AdBlue emissions-cleaning technology.

VW must pay about 502 million euros and BMW will pay nearly 373 million euros, the European Commission said in an emailed statement on Thursday. The penalty for BMW is far below its initial provision of 1.4 billion euros. BMW did a U-turn in May in agreeing to settle the probe, after previously indicating it would fight the EU.

A settlement means companies agree to the EU’s charges in return for a lower fine and usually agree not to challenge the EU decision in court. Daimler AG avoided a fine for being the first to tell the EU about the cartel. All three companies could now face compensation lawsuits from customers.

The carmakers “possessed the technology to reduce harmful emissions beyond what was legally required under EU emission standards,” Margrethe Vestager, the EU’s antitrust chief, said in the statement. “But they avoided” competing “on using this technology’s full potential.”

Volkswagen preference shares fell 1.4 per cent at 11:36 a.m. in Frankfurt. BMW shares fell 1.3 per cent.

The fines come as German automakers start to emerge from a pandemic that slashed car sales. Vestager has previously showed little sympathy for a diesel-cheating scandal that the “car industry brought upon itself.”

The EU said the three carmakers struck a deal on AdBlue technology that adds urea to exhaust gases to reduce harmful nitrogen oxide emissions from diesel cars. The companies reached an agreement on AdBlue tank sizes and ranges and a “common understanding” on AdBlue consumption.

Swapping commercially sensitive information “removed the uncertainty about their future market conduct” and restricted competition for product features useful for customers. The EU said the conduct lasted from 2009 and 2014.

Volkswagen “cooperated fully” with regulators, it said in an email statement. The EU fines punish discussions “that were never implemented and customers were therefore never harmed,” it said.

‘Large Fines’

“The large fines imposed in this case underscore the need for more comprehensive practical guidance” on how companies can cooperate without risking a breach of antitrust law. Existing rules “no longer do justice to the complex challenges facing the automotive industry in particular in the area of necessary technical cooperations.”

Volkswagen will consider an appeal before a mid-September deadline, it said, adding that regulators in China, South Korea and Turkey are also examining potential AdBlue collusion.

BMW said the EU had dropped allegations of joint development on software to restrict AdBlue dosing and efforts to curb a particle filter for direct-injection petrol engine. That lead to the lower fine, according to a company statement. BMW said the EU notice stated there’s no indication of collusion on the use of defeat devices to manipulate exhaust gas tests.

The EU case is the latest regulatory scandal for an industry that’s frequently tested the patience of authorities with emissions issues. VW is still dealing with the fallout of the so-called dieselgate affair, which has cost the company as much as 32 billion euros