CRIMINAL CAPITALI$M

Pandemic, penalties aside, bribes go on at China hospitals

As the coronavirus pandemic threatened to overwhelm Chinese hospitals last year, Chinese resellers appear to have colluded to inflate the prices of ventilators and other essential medical equipment from multinational companies including Siemens, GE and Philips, according to a review of recent public records on the sale of medical equipment in China.

© Provided by The Canadian Press

Hospitals purchased high-value MRIs, CT scanners, ultrasound machines, and other equipment– all vital for diagnosing and researching the novel coronavirus–in some cases paying millions of dollars above fair market prices. Such inflated prices typically include a cushion for bribery of hospital officials and others along the purchasing chain, according to court cases and corruption experts.


One Chinese hospital paid a reseller $5.16 million for a GE Signa Pioneer MRI scanner, while another Chinese hospital paid just $2.56 million for the same machine. A Siemens CT scanner sold for $3.24 million at one Chinese hospital, when the top-of-the-line Siemens model carries a market price of $1.95 million.

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This story was provided to the Associated Press by 100Reporters, a nonprofit news organization based in Washington, D.C.

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The bidding documents, which usually include the prices, often contain such detailed technical specifications that it would be difficult for anyone other than employees of the manufacturers to draw them up, suggesting that companies like Siemens, GE, and Philips may at times tacitly assist resellers engaged in deals that risk violating the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.

In 2008, Siemens paid one of the biggest corporate fines in history, $1.6 billion, over foreign bribery charges and made pledges of reform, admitting it had violated the record-keeping and internal control provisions of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. Later reporting by Süddeutsche Zeitung and The New York Times following Chinese corruption trials documented the involvement of employees of Western companies in bribery in Chinese health care.

The new revelations, based on more recent purchases by hospitals, suggest the return of a “familiar cycle,” according to Peter Humphrey, who investigated corruption in China for several years, at one point bringing a legal case against pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline. In the aftermath of the case, Humphrey, a former Reuters correspondent, eventually served two years in a Chinese prison for buying personal data.

“In my experience, companies neglect due diligence, turn a blind eye to corruption, until the bomb goes off,” he said. “Then the bomb goes off, they’re in trouble. Part of the response is to launch a stronger compliance function, but after a number of years they revert to form.”

“The jungle grows back,” he said.

DANGEROUS RESELLERS

Public tenders from across China are collected on the website chinabidding.com, a search of which reveals numerous suspicious deals: For instance, in May 2020 the Fifth People’s Hospital of Jingzhou, in the Hubei province not far from Wuhan, paid 2.4 million renminbi, or $340,000, for a GE Logiq S8 ultrasound.

The machine typically retails new for $70,000 to $150,000, depending on the options, according to medical equipment suppliers.

GE would not comment specifically on this deal or any of the others in this article, but in a statement, a GE spokesperson insisted that the third-party resellers involved in such deals were not company representatives or agents, but GE’s customers. The company has no control over the prices resellers charged hospitals, it maintains, adding that it is not even allowed to know the pricing under antitrust law.

Antitrust lawyers dispute GE’s interpretation, noting that antitrust laws don’t prevent a manufacturer from simply knowing the price that a reseller sets, or keep manufacturers’ employees from providing support to resellers submitting public tenders of their equipment.

In another bid, from November 2019, a Chinese reseller sold Newport ventilators made by the US-Irish company Medtronic for 295,000 renminbi, or $42,000, to the Southern Medical University Hospital of Integrated Traditional Chinese and Western Medicine.

The same machine, known as a Covidien e360 ventilator, sells for less than half that price on medical tech retail websites in the United States. In a statement, Medtronic said it did not control distribution pricing, and that many factors can influence how a product is priced. “Reseller pricing can further vary in China based on the nature of services associated with product delivery, education and training, and product service and support among other factors,” the statement said.

But insiders in the Chinese health care market say none of those factors explain the price disparities. “If you look at the bidding documentation and the global prices, you can still see a huge gap in between,” said Meng-Lin Liu, a former Siemens compliance officer in China, who has analyzed dozens of such transactions. Hospitals pay the high bidding price to the resellers, but the resellers only pay the normal global price to the multinationals, Liu explained.

Bribing foreign public officials, such as hospital officials in a public health care system, is illegal under the US Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA). Hence the need for middlemen, who offer a form of legal insulation. But as Tom Fox, veteran FCPA lawyer and independent consultant, noted, “Under the FCPA, it’s of zero consequence who sells the equipment; the manufacturer is liable. It doesn’t matter what you call it: Whether it’s a reseller, whether it’s a distributor or an agent - if I’m selling Siemens equipment, Siemens is 100 percent always liable for the bribery.”

The SEC is conducting a massive, long-term probe into bid-rigging in various regions involving Siemens, GE, and Philips, according to a source familiar with the probe. The SEC will not comment on the existence of ongoing investigations, but in a February 2021 filing to the SEC, Philips acknowledged that it has been cooperating with an SEC and DOJ inquiry into “tender irregularities in the medical device industry in certain other jurisdictions...These interactions are ongoing and focus primarily on a number of compliance findings that the company is addressing in China and Bulgaria.”

Philips declined to comment further, but a spokesperson said, ”(E)veryone in Philips and its business partners is expected to always act with integrity. Philips rigorously enforces compliance of its General Business Principles throughout its operations.” Like GE, Siemens and Medtronic, Philips declined to answer specific questions about the deals mentioned in this article.

CORRUPTION DURING A PANDEMIC

One tender, published April 7, 2020, shows the Fourth Affiliated Hospital of Harbin Medical University seeking bids for a Siemens CT Scanner to treat Covid-related pneumonia. While government documents do not name the model selected, they do give the price paid: 22.98 million renminbi, or $3.24 million. That surpasses the typical cost of the most expensive Siemens machines, the SOMATOM Force or the SOMATOM Drive, in the US and elsewhere in China by more than $1 million.

In the US, the SOMATOM Force currently sells for about $1.95 million, while the SOMATOM Drive retails for $1.68 million, according to the New York State Office of General Procurement Services, which publishes the prices of medical devices it purchases for state agencies.

In a statement, Siemens maintained that resellers were “completely free” in their pricing. “The distributor calculates a price that includes all their costs,” a spokesman said, adding that price disparities could reflect ancillary costs and terms.

However, not all Chinese hospitals are paying vastly inflated prices for equipment. A bid from May 2019 shows the Affiliated Hospital of Chengde Medical College purchased a GE Signa Pioneer directly for just 17.6 million renminbi, or $2.56 million, including warranty and freight expenses. That’s more than $2 million less than another hospital in Yangchun paid for the same machine in January 2020.

Chinese hospitals and companies involved in bids mentioned in this article did not respond to detailed questions.

A senior manager at the Shenzhen Gaokaiyue Trading Co. did speak, requesting anonymity due to the “sensitive” nature of the information. He said the final price for equipment could differ in China depending on “features and configurations,” but that it “should not be 80 percent more or even double than the net price in the States.”

Contrary to claims by GE and Siemens, the manager said that manufacturers’ representatives were routinely involved in a reseller’s bid. He said “every manufacturer’s salesman will represent the company” in meetings to explain the medical devices to clients during the bidding process. Occasionally, their managers joined as well.

FAMILIAR TERRAIN

Witnesses in Chinese court cases released in the past year also testified that employees of both GE and Siemens were directly involved in the bid-rigging schemes. In one recently published verdict, a hospital president who took bribes from 2004 to 2017 testified that a Siemens business manager offered him 2 million ($300,000) in 2011 to ensure that Siemens products won bids. In another case against a corrupt hospital president, a third-party reseller testified that a GE regional manager was not only complicit in a 2011 bid-rigging scheme but “would be responsible for taking the GE authorization letter and making the bidding submission.”

Siemens has itself often boasted of, and has been celebrated for, tightening its compliance system in the wake of the 2008 bribery scandal. As part of that landmark settlement, Siemens was ordered to appoint a monitor who produced yearly reports, which the SEC and Justice Department have kept entirely from the public eye until now. (See Part II of this series.)

The involvement of international firms in bribery in China is hardly new, said Matt Kelly, publisher of the Radical Compliance newsletter. “Every single transaction with a government-owned business is high-risk. Period,” he said.

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This article is an abridged version of an investigation produced by 100Reporters, a nonprofit investigative news organization, in partnership with the McGraw Center for Business Journalism at the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at the City University of New York. The full investigation can be found at 100R.org.

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Ben Knight Of 100reporters, The Associated Press

Australia's iron ore miners face train driver shortage amid COVID lockdowns

By Melanie Burton 

 Reuters/Daniel Munoz FILE PHOTO: A train loaded with iron ore travels towards the Rio Tinto Parker Point iron ore facility as an empty train leaves in Dampier

MELBOURNE (Reuters) - Rio Tinto is asking train drivers working in mineral-rich Western Australia to work more hours, following a move by rival BHP Group, as miners rush to ship millions of tonnes of iron ore amid soaring prices for the steel making material.


The push comes among a worsening skills shortage in Australia's west that has been exacerbated by strict coronavirus restrictions, which unions say have raised mental health risks for workers and their families.

Train driver Paul Bloxsom, who will leave Rio next month, said Western Australian border constraints to keep out COVID-19 that include a 14-day quarantine meant he had only seen his family in Queensland four times in 15 months.


"That's a challenge in itself, the isolation and the loneliness and so on. There was a combination of things, and I just had enough. And there's a lot more jobs going back at home on the east coast," he told Reuters.

Mine workers in Australia often live in cities and fly in and fly out (FIFO) to remote mine sites, a commute that can take anywhere from several hours to a day, including connections.

While miners in Western Australia are enjoying a commodity boom that has powered new construction projects, they are having to compete for workers with government-backed infrastructure projects on the other side of the country.

"Unlike previous construction-led growth periods for our sector, where up to 1,000 people a week were moving to Western Australia for work, there are now strong employment prospects in the eastern states," the state's Chamber of Minerals and Energy said last month.

International skilled migration has also dried up due to Australia's caps on immigration arrivals.

Miners have been looking for ways to ensure they can keep production at full tilt until Australia boosts its vaccination rates, said analyst Peter O'Connor of Shaw and Partners in Sydney.

"Short of keeping people in Western Australia on extended rosters, which wears people out, their options are limited - that is a real and present risk to production," he said.

For train drivers, Rio has asked for expressions of interest in a two-week on, one-week off roster, compared to the typical two-week on, two-week off roster, but said the request was voluntary and would include appropriate remuneration.

BHP has already mandated that roster for its FIFO train drivers as a temporary measure through to August 2022, blaming the skills shortage, but drawing criticism from the CFMEU union which says it has come at a cost for drivers and their families.

BHP, which has announced plans to train 200 new drivers, said it was offering interstate FIFO employees support including financial assistance for temporary and permanent relocation, flexible work options, as well as mental health support.

Rio said it is looking to recruit drivers, and is also providing temporary and permanent relocation packages for interstate workers.

The state government is also taking steps to boost skilled worker numbers, but noted in a statement its strong border measures have kept out COVID-19 and helped drive the national economy.

The CFMEU, however, wants miners and government to find ways for FIFO workers to spend less time in quarantine and more time with their families, said Greg Busson, secretary of the CFMEU mining and energy division.

"We have been dealing with this for 18 months now, surely we have some lessons learned," he said.

(Reporting by Melanie Burton; editing by Richard Pullin)

Free Love and the Onedia commune.

 The heresy of free love did not just occur during the Summer of Love over fifty years ago, it has a long tradition in America.

Oneida was founded on the principle of “Bible Communism.” Founder John Humphrey Noyes insisted that, under his personally devised philosophy, there were to be no selfish attachments, no hoarding of love. The tender affection a little girl might feel for a special, beloved doll had to be burned away. So each girl marched up to the oven door with her “long-cherished favorite” in her arms, then stared as the flames consumed it. “We . . . saw them perish before our eyes.”

What was being burned up that day was the tendency for any human being to form an intense and private bond with another. Noyes could not permit this, because he had put sexual freedom at the head of his agenda; he was the inventor of the term “free love.” The Yale Divinity School student and sometime Congregationalist minister believed that “complex marriage” was God’s will, as indicated by the Scripture, “In the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like the angels in heaven” (Matt. 22:30). (This may not be how most of us imagine the angels pass the time, but the American nineteenth century was a fertile time for private interpretations of the Bible.)

“The abolition of sexual exclusiveness is involved in the love-relation required between all believers by the express injunction of Christ and the apostles,” Noyes wrote. “The restoration of true relations between the sexes is a matter second in importance only to the reconciliation of man to God.”

“Sexual freedom” is a term that could suggest a carefree heedlessness that did not obtain at Oneida. A man wishing to enjoy the company of a specific woman would submit his request to an appointed official who kept a ledger of such engagements. This official would then present the request to the woman who was the target of the man’s intentions, and she might agree or refuse as she chose, though agreement was the general rule. According to the records, most women had two or three visitors per week, and a popular young woman might entertain as many as seven.

The purpose of the ledger, however, was not to restrain the free exchange of sexual favors. Nor was it to track the fathers of children born in the community. Such a task would have been nearly impossible in any case, but considering the era and the circumstances, astonishingly few children were born. Noyes understood that for a scheme of sexual freedom to succeed and not be overwhelmed by progeny, non-procreative sex must be absolutely required. This was accomplished through Noyes’s command that men utilize a primitive method for the prevention of pregnancy. It was effective: Over a twenty-year period, only thirty-five children were born in the community of a hundred adults.

The purpose of the ledger was not to restrain sexual freedom, but to ensure it, by monitoring whether any couples were becoming overly attached to each other. There was always the terrible danger that a man and woman might fall in love and begin consorting with each other to the exclusion of others. Such incipient selfishness had to be stamped out.

Noyes phrased it this way: “The new commandment is that we love one another . . . not by pairs, as in the world, but en masse.” When a man confessed that he had fallen in love with a woman in the community, Noyes responded sharply, “You do not love her, you love happiness.”

A MIGRANT WON FOR THE NBA BUCKS

Giannis’ biggest fans watch, celebrate title a world away

SEPOLIA, Greece (AP) — With less than a minute remaining in the game, Yiannis Tzikas was already setting out plastic cups to fill with champagne.

© Provided by The Canadian Press

“It’s over. No one can turn this game now,” he said, his hands trembling slightly as he popped the cork.

Tzikas runs the Kivotos Cafe, where Milwaukee Bucks star Giannis Antetokounmpo used to grab a sandwich and juice box on his way to basketball practice as a teenager, in Sepolia, an old factory town that’s long been part of greater Athens.

In the dark of early Wednesday, Tzikas opened up to catch Game 6 of the NBA Finals and watch the Greek Freak lead the Bucks to their first title in 50 years, beating the Phoenix Suns 105-98.

Antetokounmpo finished with 50 points, 14 rebounds and five blocked shots and was named the series MVP.

“This is Giannis’ moment. He earned it and we’re proud of him,” Tzikas said, handing out drinks to a dozen fans who watched the game with him.

Milwaukee is eight hours behind Athens, Game 6 starting at 4:00 a.m. local time and watched by night owl basketball fans, along with his supporters, friends and old acquaintances in Sepolia. Fans at the cafe sat glumly through the first half as Phoenix led. The crowd came to life as the sun came up.

“At the start of the season, we didn’t expect this, but after the (Bucks) turned the finals around, we could see it coming,” said Kyriacos Hager, who was wearing Giannis’ 34 jersey. “(Antetokounmpo) has brought back sporting role models to this generation. He’s no longer Giannis from Sepolia, he’s Giannis of the entire world, an inspiration to a lot of people.”

Named after Noah’s Ark, Tzikas’ Cafe looks as if it has stood still for decades, with beige tiles, dark wood and laminate counters and panels, with an assortment of liquor bottles next to a coffee machine — and a wall of framed memorabilia from the Antetokounpmo family, autographed jerseys and basketballs from the Bucks and the Greek national team.

It’s a few blocks from where Antetokounmpo and his basketball co-star brothers, Thanasis, Kostas, and Alex, grew up with their parents from Nigeria, who gave their four boys Greek names.

Tzikas said Giannis always stops by the cafe when he visits Greece, adding that had not changed with fame.

“He was always simple, humble, and polite and when he grew up, he never forgot where he started,” he said. “He had a lot against him. He was poor and he was a different color than the rest of us and he made it ... He doesn’t owe anyone anything, it was all him and his family. He believed in his dream and he made it happen.”

After the game ended, Greece Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis tweeted: “Incredible Giannis! Greeks everywhere celebrate!”_

More AP NBA: https://apnews.com/hub/NBA and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports
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Follow Gatopoulos at https://twitter.com/dgatopoulos and Tongas at https://twitter.com/theodoratongas

Derek Gatopoulos And Theodora Tongas, The Associated Press

Bucks' 50-year wait ends with a title behind 50 from Giannis

MILWAUKEE (AP) — Giannis Antetokounmpo had the Larry O'Brien Trophy in one arm, the NBA Finals MVP trophy in the other and there was a cigar on the table in front of him

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© Provided by The Canadian Press

All the work it took to lift the Milwaukee Bucks from a team that won 15 games when he was a rookie to one with 16 wins this postseason was finally finished.

“This is time to celebrate,” Antetokounmpo said.

Milwaukee waited 50 years for that.

Antetokounmpo ended one of the greatest NBA Finals ever with 50 points, 14 rebounds and five blocked shots as the Bucks beat the Phoenix Suns 105-98 on Tuesday night to win an entertaining series 4-2 and cap off a joyous return to a fan-filled postseason after last year's NBA bubble.

It was the third game this series with at least 40 points and 10 rebounds for Antetokounmpo, a dominant debut finals performance that takes its place among some of the game's greatest. Antetokounmpo finished with 35.2 points, 13.2 rebounds and 5.0 assists per game while shooting 61.8%, the first player in finals history to reach those numbers.

He shot 16 for 25 from the field and made an unbelievable 17-of-19 free throws — a spectacular showing for any shooter, let alone one who was hitting just 55.6% in the postseason and was ridiculed for it at times.

“People told me I can’t make free throws and I made them tonight. And I’m a freaking champion,” Antetokounmpo said.

He hopped around the court waving his arms with 20 seconds remaining to encourage fans to cheer, but there was no need. Their voices had been booming inside and outside for hours by then, having waited 50 years to celebrate a winner after Lew Alcindor — before becoming Kareem Abdul-Jabbar — and Oscar Robertson led the Bucks to their first championship in 1971.

“For the city, I’m sure it means everything,” said Khris Middleton, the other player left from that 15-67 team in 2013-14. “They’ve seen the work that we put in over the years for them to get to this point.”

In a season played played largely without fans, the Bucks had 65,000 of them packed into the Deer District outside, a wild party that figured to last deep into the Midwestern night. The party wasn't bad inside, either: Confetti rained down inside as fans chanted “Bucks in 6! Bucks in 6!” — a hopeful boast by former player that turned out to be a prophetic rallying cry.

“I hope they enjoyed it just like we are now,” Middleton added.

The Bucks became the fifth team to win the NBA Finals after trailing 2-0 and the first to do it by winning the next four games since Miami against Dallas in 2006.

Chris Paul scored 26 points to end his first NBA Finals appearance in his 16th season. Devin Booker added 19 points but shot just 8 for 22 and missed all seven 3-pointers after scoring 40 points in each of the last two games.

“There’s just a pain that goes with your season being over,” Suns coach Monty Williams said. “But I’ve never dealt with this and so I’m grateful, like I said, but I know this is going to hurt for a while.”

The teams that came into the NBA together as expansion clubs in 1968 delivered a fine finals, with the last three games all in the balance deep into the fourth quarter.

The Bucks won them largely because of Antetokounmpo, a two-time MVP in the regular season who raised his game even higher in the finals and was voted the unanimous NBA Finals MVP.

He was the star of these finals in every way, from his powerful play on the court to his humble thoughts in interviews to taking time after Tuesday night's win to find children to high-five amid the celebrations. He teared up afterward talking about the sacrifices his family endured while he grew up in Greece.

He did all this after missing the final two games of the Eastern Conference finals with a hyperextended left knee, an injury he feared could be serious enough to end his season.

Just think what people would have missed.

What started as a gradual rise for Antetokounmpo and the Bucks sped up in the last few years and they thought they might be here the last two seasons. They had the NBA’s best record in 2018-19 but blew a 2-0 lead against Toronto in the Eastern Conference finals.

They came back with the best record again last season but never regained their momentum after the season was suspended because of the coronavirus pandemic in March. They were eliminated in the second round by Miami in the bubble.

The Bucks traded for Jrue Holiday before this season and even though they weren’t quite as strong in the regular season, they were finally NBA Finals ready.

And Milwaukee was ready for the moment.

Middleton scored 17 points and Bobby Portis came off the bench with 16. Holiday had 12 points, 11 assists and nine rebounds to go along with his usual sturdy defense that helped finally cool off Booker.

“I think it’s just a credit to the players," Bucks coach Mike Budenholzer said. "We’ve been pushing. We’ve been trying to get better. The players embrace everything. They’re amazingly coachable. They take it, soak it in and make the best of it.”

Fans began filling the streets and restaurants in the afternoon on what felt like a holiday in Milwaukee. The Brewers moved up the start time of their home game against Kansas City to be played in the afternoon to accommodate Milwaukee fans — and Brewers star Christian Yelich, who was part of the crowd inside Fiserv Forum.

The game was tied at 77 after three quarters but Antetokoumpo had 13 points in the fourth to make sure Milwaukee wouldn't have to go back to Phoenix for Game 7 on Thursday.

The Suns returned to the postseason for the first time since 2010 but remain without a title and have never won more than two games in their three appearances in the NBA Finals.

“Nobody probably expected us to be where we are except for us,” Paul said. “But it is what it is. Like I said all season long with our team, ain’t no moral victories.”

TIP-INS

Suns: The Suns scored their fewest points in a first quarter in this postseason when they had 16. ... Deandre Ayton, who was shooting 67.6% in the postseason, was 4 of 12 for 12 points.

Bucks: Brook Lopez had 10 points and eight rebounds. ... Milwaukee's only other NBA Finals appearance was a loss in 1974.

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Follow Brian Mahoney on Twitter at https://twitter.com/briancmahoney

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More AP NBA: https://apnews.com/hub/NBA and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports

Brian Mahoney, The Associated Press

Naomi Osaka & The Uphill Battle Of Black Women In Sports
Ineye Komonibo

In new Netflix docuseries Naomi Osaka, tennis sensation Naomi Osaka lets the world in on the grueling physical and emotional process behind becoming one of the most famous athletes in modern history. Osaka’s journey is unique in many of its challenges, but she’s also part of an elite group that shares a great number of those same struggles across the sports world: the unofficial league of talented but tired Black female athletes. Like the many Black women in sports before her, the rising tennis phenom shoulders the burden of being an “other” in an industry curiously geared against Black woman with a platform

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© Provided by Refinery29 PARIS, FRANCE May 26. Naomi Osaka of Japan during practice on Court Philippe-Chatrier during a practice match against Ashleigh Barty of Australia in preparation for the 2021 French Open Tennis Tournament at Roland Garros on May 2pm 6th 2021 in Paris, France. (Photo by Tim Clayton/Corbis via Getty Images)

Produced by fellow mega-athlete LeBron James, Naomi Osaka tells the tennis star’s story in her own words. The three-part series documents her meteoric ascent to the top of her game, starting with her epic win against sports hero Serena Williams at the 2018 US Open finals. That high profile match was bittersweet because it won Osaka her very first grand slam title, but it also foreshadowed a troubling trajectory for any Black female athlete in the game. During that match, Williams famously argued with the umpire about a call that was made, and the media onslaught that followed was vicious. Despite simply having a moment of understandable frustration, Williams was quickly labeled an “angry Black woman,” berated and abused by sports media and so-called “fans” alike. It wouldn’t take long before Osaka would face some of that same negativity.

Video player from: YouTube (Privacy Policy, Terms)

The higher she went in the ranks, the more the world paid attention, watching and commenting on her every move on the court — a nightmare for an introverted young woman just starting to hit her stride in her career. As she became the player to beat, the stress began to weigh on Osaka, affecting both her game and her feelings of self-worth. Making the losses even more painful were the endless questions and commentary from the media. After losing, she had to then respond to inquiries about why she seemed unable to do the only thing she had been training since birth to do: win.


“For so long, I’ve tied winning to my worth as a person,” Osaka mused sadly in the docuseries. “Anyone who knows me, knows me as a good tennis player…so what am I if I’m not a good tennis player?”

In May 2021, Osaka drew the line, making headlines by announcing that she would not be participating in the standard press conferences for the French Open regardless of how she did in her matches. The decision, fueled by an ongoing struggle with anxiety, was met with encouragement from many, but others didn’t hesitate to heap insults on the tennis star for the attempt to protect her peace. Osaka was called spoiled and unprofessional simply for respectfully opting out of a tradition that had negatively impacted her. For anyone who’s ever watched any kind of sport, the sudden venom towards Osaka was disappointing but not surprising. She is a Black female athlete, after all.

The young athlete’s almost overnight turn from tennis darling to spoiled brat is textbook sports 101 because misogynoir runs deep in almost every institution known to mankind, sports included. We don’t even have to look too far for examples of this specific phenomenon — it’s probably easier to ask which Black woman in sports hasn’t been vilified at some point. Tennis’ treatment Williams is a clear example that may hit closest to home with Osaka just because of the proximity of their experiences within the elite sport. Since becoming a top player in the early 2000s, Williams has faced an unthinkable, endless stream of abuse from mainstream and fringe outlets criticizing everything from her looks to her relationship, to her actual ability to play tennis. And though she’s the best tennis player and arguably the best athlete of all time (with the record to prove it), there is still the unfortunate and misogynoiristic tendency to downplay her obvious skill set.

Need more proof? Although Florence Griffith-Joyner passed the various steroid tests she was subjected to during her career, the legacy of the track star was mired by false accusations of steroid usage propagated by the news. Racist syndicated talk radio host Don Imus notoriously called the majority Black players on Rutgers University’s women’s basketball team “nappy headed hos” on air in 2007. Gabby Douglas was crucified online during her 2012 Olympics bid because her hair “wasn’t done.” In 2021, Black swimmers are banned from wearing swim caps made specifically for Black hair. Scores for Simone Biles’ near-impossible-for-mortals gymnastics flips have been limited by the The International Gymnastics Federation because they were simply too hard for her “competitors” to also pull off. Judges ruled that South African runner Caster Semenya could only be allowed to compete in certain races if she took certain drugs to alter her natural testosterone levels, and more Black women from across the diaspora are still being held to such regressive regulations. The laundry list of racist and sexist violations goes on and on. To top it off, would-be 2021 Tokyo Olympian Sha’Carri Richardson was the subject of an unnecessary, unempathetic social media discourse fueled by respectability politics after being dropped from Team USA for smoking weed to deal with the grief of her biological mother’s death — a devastating fact that she learned from a random journalist who was interviewing her at the time. With this unconscionable level of media callousness when it comes to Black women athletes, it’s no wonder Osaka would rather limit raw exposure to the press.


For Osaka and other Black female professional athletes throughout history, being thrust into the spotlight of the court often comes with enough cons to turn one’s very dream into a nightmare. Not even being the best in the game can save them from being picked apart. Before they are champions, they are Black women, and that makes them prime targets for a vicious cycle of abuse and harassment even with titles and trophies and world records behind them.

Though painful, knowledge of this reality helps provide a necessary level of clarity for these athletes, making all the difference between having love for the game and being defined solely by the game. Outside of tennis, of track, of gymnastics, who are they? It’s up to them to establish and affirm their identity. In Osaka’s case, working on her mental health has been essential in rebuilding her sense of self. The more she establishes boundaries with her job (a book we could all take a page out of), the easier it is to see herself as more than just a fixture within the sport of tennis. As a result, she’s been able to allocate more of her energy to the other things that matter to her like fashion, activism, and reconnecting with her roots.

“Honestly, tennis is not necessary for everything,” Osaka said confidently in the final episode of her Netflix docu-series. “I’m doing it — like I love doing it — but there’s more important things in the world. I think about what would happen if the world stopped…what would happen if tennis stopped?”

Hopefully, it’ll be years before that hypothetical ever becomes a possibility for this tennis legend-in-the-making. In the meantime, the hope is that Osaka continues to do things her way, on her own time — just like the Black women in sports before her.

Naomi Osaka is now available for streaming, only on Netfli

Canadians say vaccination proof must be required of all travellers: poll


OTTAWA — A new poll suggests a majority of Canadians say proof of vaccination should be required of all essential and non-essential travellers.

Fifty-eight per cent of respondents to an online survey by Leger and the Association for Canadian Studies say travellers should be required to show a document that proves they are immunized against the novel coronavirus, or what's known as a "vaccine passport." Some 30 per cent say the document is not necessary.

The poll suggests 48 per cent of Canadians support the total reopening of the Canada-U.S. border at the end of August, including to tourists, while 52 per cent say they oppose the reopening.

Leger executive vice-president Christian Bourque said Canadians are divided on the issues of requiring travellers to show proof of vaccination and reopening the borders.

"(They are) divided in a way that, I think, gives some flexibility to Ottawa when making decisions, because there is no hard consensus on either side," he said.

The online poll of 1,529 adult Canadians was carried out July 16 to 18, and it cannot be assigned a margin of error because internet-based surveys are not considered random samples.

The survey found that 66 per cent of respondents say people should be fully vaccinated to be allowed to cross the border, while 16 per cent say providing a recent negative test is enough and 14 per cent say border crossing should be limited only to essential travel.

It found that 44 per cent of respondents say both air and land borders with the U.S. should be open while 36 per cent say the borders should be closed.

"There is a way to get a majority of Canadians to agree to reopening the border if, and only if, you need to show a proof of full vaccination," Bourque said.

Federal officials announced Monday that fully vaccinated U.S. citizens and permanent residents will be allowed into Canada as of Aug. 9, joined by the rest of the world Sept. 7.

Officials say the 14-day quarantine requirement will be waived beginning the second week of August for eligible travellers who are currently residing in the United States and have received a full course of a COVID-19 vaccine approved for use in Canada.

All travellers will still be required to submit a negative COVID-19 test result and proof of vaccination prior to arrival by way of the ArriveCAN smartphone app or web portal, but post-travel test results will no longer be necessary.

A majority of respondents to the poll say that fully vaccinated people should get more freedoms than those who are not vaccinated against COVID-19.

The survey suggests 66 per cent of Canadians say those who received two doses of COVID-19 vaccine should have greater freedoms.

Bourque said 69 per cent of respondents to the survey say they are fully vaccinated and that corresponds with the percentage of those who say full vaccination should allow more freedoms.

"In fact, people who are vaccinated say they deserve greater freedoms compared to those who are not, or who are not yet fully vaccinated."

He said the survey shows that Canadians are divided on whether they are comfortable in engaging in social activities.

The survey suggests that 49 per cent of respondents are comfortable with eating in a dining room of a restaurant, 31 per cent with going to the gym, 41 per cent with going to a cinema or theatre and 60 per cent with attending an outdoor sports event.

It suggests that 26 per cent are OK with partying in a bar or a nightclub, 37 per cent with attending an indoor sports event and 34 per cent with flying on an airplane.

"There are sort of … careful Canadians saying they want to be prudent, yet at the same time, some want to go back to their activities," he said. "Canadians are pretty much divided almost in half."

This report by The Canadian Press was first published July 20, 2021.

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

Maan Alhmidi, The Canadian Press

ANTI-LGBTQ HUMAN RIGHTS
Hungary plans referendum on child protection issues in battle with EU


BUDAPEST (Reuters) -Hungary announced plans on Wednesday to call a referendum on child protection issues to combat pressure from the European Union over legislation which the bloc says discriminates against LGBT people.

© Reuters/MARTON MONUS FILE PHOTO: Demonstrators protest against Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban and the latest anti-LGBTQ law in Budapest, Hungary, June 14, 2021

Stepping up a battle of cultures with the European Commission, Prime Minister Viktor Orban accused the EU executive of abusing its powers in challenging recent amendments to Hungary's education and child protection laws.

"The future of our children is at stake, so we cannot cede ground in this issue," he said in a Facebook video.

The European Commission did not immediately comment on Orban's plan to hold a referendum.

The prime minister, who has been in power since 2010 and faces an election next April, portrays himself as a defender of traditional Christian values from Western liberalism and has stepped up a campaign against LGBT people.

An anti-LGBT law, which came into force this month, bans the use of materials seen as promoting homosexuality and gender change at schools. It has caused anxiety in the LGBT community and increased friction with the Commission.

© Reuters/POOL FILE PHOTO: Hungary's Prime Minister Viktor Orban in Brussels

Legal action launched by Brussels last week over the legislation could hold up EU funding for Budapest.

"In the past weeks, Brussels has clearly attacked Hungary over its child protection law. Hungarian laws do not permit sexual propaganda in kindergartens, schools, on television and in advertisements," Orban said.

He did not announce when the planned referendum would be held but said it would include five questions.

These would include asking Hungarians whether they support the holding of sexual orientation workshops in schools without their consent, or whether they believe gender reassignment procedures should be promoted among children.

Orban said the questions would also include whether content that could affect children's sexual orientation should be shown without any restrictions, or that gender reassignment procedures should be made available to children as well.

(Reporting by Gergely Szakacs and Anita Komuves;Editing by Andrew Cawthorne and Timothy Heritage)

When Homosexuality = Death

In Canada. In the past.

In 1859, offences punishable by death in Canada included: murder, rape, treason, administering poison or wounding with intent to commit murder, unlawfully abusing a girl under ten, buggery with man or beast, robbery with wounding, burglary with assault, arson, casting away a ship, and exhibiting a false signal endangering a ship.

Before 1859, Canada relied on British law to prosecute sodomy. In 1859, Canada repatriated its buggery law in the Consolidated Statutes of Canada as an offense punishable by death. Buggery remained punishable by death until 1869. A broader law targeting all homosexual male sexual activity ("gross indecency") was passed in 1890. Changes to the criminal code in 1948 and 1961 were used to brand gay men as "criminal sexual psychopaths" and "dangerous sexual offenders." These labels provided for indeterminate prison sentences. Most famously, George Klippert, a homosexual, was labelled a dangerous sexual offender and sentenced to life in prison, a sentence confirmed by the Supreme Court of Canada. He was released in 1971.

Canadian law now permits anal sex by consenting parties above the age of 18, provided no more than two people are present. The bill repealing Canada's sodomy laws achieved royal assent on June 27, 1969. The bill had been introduced in the House of Commons by Pierre Trudeau^[10], who famously stated that "there's no place for the state in the bedrooms of the nation" ^[11]. In the 1995 Ontario Court of Appeal case R. v. M. (C.), the judges ruled that the relevant section (section 159) of the Criminal Code violated section 15 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms when one or both of the partners are 16 to 18 years of age; this has not been tried in court again.

A similar decision was made by the Quebec Court of Appeal in the 1998 case R. v. Roy.

Which originated from British, not French law.

In Reformation England and France, Protestants and Catholics hurled accusations of homosexuality at one another. Although homosexuality was largely ignored in England until the seventeenth century, burnings continued in France. Still, several monarchs and many aristocrats were perceived by their contemporaries as having same-sex relationships, including Kings Henry III and Louis XIII, Philippe d'Orleans, and four of Louis XIV's generals. As for England, Crompton argues, against many biographers, that James I and William of Orange had male favorites. After William's reign, however, toleration of homosexuality decreased in England and hangings became more and more frequent. Meanwhile, French Enlightenment thinkers began to question state enforcement of church-based morality and whether “victimless” crimes should be prosecuted at all. The 1791 Code Pénal de la Révolution made no mention of sodomy, making France the first western European nation to decriminalize homosexuality.

Pennsylvania, 1786. In a sweeping liberalization of the legal system, the state of Pennsylvania removed capital punishment for many crimes including burglary, robbery, sodomy, and buggery (in Pennsylvania at the time, "buggery" referred to sex with animals). These formerly capital crimes had their sentences reduced to the forfeiture of all property and a period of servitude not to exceed 10 years.

Pennsylvania's enthusiasm for legal reform came from an abhorrence of the English legal code which legislators felt was forced on the colonies before the American Revolution of 1776. In an effort to cast off the legal vestiges of British rule, they began a movement toward legal reform that led to the elimination of capital sentences for most crimes.

"Buggery, sodomy" male rape by any other name, in Canada was a capital offense. To be a poof, a queer, a three dollar bill, a fairy, a faggot, etc. was to be destined for the gallows. And it was no less a social and moral offense to decent society when the death penalty was finally removed.

Everett George Klippert (1926 - 1996) was the last person in Canada to be arrested, charged, prosecuted, convicted, and imprisoned for homosexuality before its legalization in 1969; the reforms which led to Canadian legalization of homosexuality were a direct result of the Klippert case.

Klippert, a mechanic in the Northwest Territories, was first investigated by police in connection with an arson in 1965. Although he was not found to have had any connection with the fire, Klippert voluntarily admitted to having had consensual homosexual sex with four separate adult men. He was subsequently arrested and charged with four counts of "gross indecency".

A court-ordered psychiatrist assessed Klippert as "incurably homosexual", and Klippert was sentenced to "preventive detention" (that is, indefinitely) as a dangerous sexual offender. Klippert appealed to the Court of Appeal for the Northwest Territories; his appeal was dismissed. He then appealed to the Supreme Court of Canada; his appeal was dismissed in a controversial 3-2 decision.

The day after Klippert's conviction was upheld, New Democratic Party leader Tommy Douglas invoked Klippert's name in the Canadian House of Commons, stating that homosexuality should not be considered a criminal issue. Within six weeks, Pierre Trudeau presented an omnibus bill (C-150) which, among other things, decriminalized homosexual acts between consenting adults. The law passed, and homosexuality was decriminalized in Canada in 1969.

Klippert, however, remained in prison until July 21, 1971, whereupon he was released. He lived twenty-five more years before his death from kidney disease in 1996.

And this fear, this law, this history remains the basis of homophobia in patriarchal society today. Homophobia is based upon the fear of man penetrating man, as this law shows. It shows that homosexuality was recognized as a sexual / gender reality but at the same time denied as an abberation of the norm. It was specific; buggery = male rape. All homophobia is based on this cultural / social construct.

WHAT IS A LIVING WAGE IN YEG
Edmonton researchers launch online resource with local social, economic data

Anusha Kav 

© Travis McEwan/CBC How many Edmontonians experience homelessness, is one of the questions a new database answers.

The Edmonton Social Planning Council has launched an online resource to help Edmontonians better understand social and economic issues in the city.

The Social Well-Being Tracker hosts a range of information on topics such as employment, health, education and poverty, which make up what the organization calls Edmonton's "community health."

"I think local data is important so you can get a really big sense of what the challenges and circumstances are in our specific community," said Sydney Sheloff, research officer at the council.

"Presenting data at larger levels like Canada-wide or even Alberta-wide, you know, the local context can get lost in there."

Until now, the council has published this data in their biannual report Tracking the Trends, used by many non-profit organizations in the city. It launched the Social Well-Being Tracker on their website last week in order to make the information more widely available.

"The Social Well-Being Tracker will enable community agencies, policy-makers, and the average citizen alike to access data in order to foster a complete understanding of social issues that affect Edmontonians, and work towards solutions for the common good," said Susan Morrissey, the executive director of the council, in a news release.

By digitizing these reports, Sheloff said it'll allow for more timely updating of information, and easier access by all members of the community.

"The tracker is useful for pretty much anyone because like for everyone, awareness of social issues is a critical component towards building an inclusive community," Sheloff said.

"It's also a lot easier to navigate it because before with a report, you may have to scroll through pages and pages worth of data, but now you can easily just search what you're interested in and find that data right away."
Social determinants of health central to the tracker's data

The council says data in the tracker is organized around the social determinants of health framework. According to the government of Canada, determinants of health "are the broad range of personal, social, economic and environmental factors that determine individual and population health."

Factors such as education, income, social supports, race, racism and gender are highlighted as some of the main determinants.

The tracker offers insight into many of these areas, with a local perspective. A few questions the database answers are how many Edmontonians experience homelessness, what the Edmonton public high school completion rate is, and what the current gender pay gap is.

"It's really important to know what's specifically going on in our community so we can create targeted strategies to address those challenges," Sheloff said.

The tracker can be accessed on the council's website.

Super Lions

Marooned on an island, this group of lions should have died out. Instead, in an evolutionary twist, they've learned to swim and become strong enough to tackle their only prey... giant buffalo

Fearless, ferocious and mightier than the world has ever seen, this is the new breed of super-lion.

This is not easy prey; buffalo kill more people in Africa than lions. These enormous male buffalo targeted by the Pantry pride are bad-tempered and aggressive guys. Their slashing horns and razor-sharp hooves can be the death of a lion — it's a battle of titans."

Consequently, the documentary team saw the Pantry pride all but annihilated on the island, the lions either being killed outright or dying as a result of infected wounds.

There were nine members when filming began in November 2003 and there is just one solitary survivor alive now.

The Skimmer pride lives across the river on the mainland, but they swim to the island whenever buffalo are in sight.

Numbering four females, one doddery, old male and four cubs, they are the 'poachers' in this delicately balanced eco-system.

They will navigate deep and treacherous water, sneaking onto the territory dominated by the other lion packs, and picking off individual buffalo.

The strongest grouping is the Tsaro pride, comprising nine females and two males. Among them are two sets of adult twins — identical lionesses which often give birth to cubs at the same time, and always hunt together.

This pride has developed perhaps the most finely honed and intelligent hunting techniques, based on interaction with its victims.

"We've been studying lions for more than 20 years, but at first we could not believe what we were seeing," says Joubert, who made the wildlife film that inspired the Walt Disney classic The Lion King.

"The lions were acting as sheepdog to the buffalo herd. The pride would live alongside the herd, following it as it moved. Their formula was sophisticated and clinical — they corral the buffalo together and then ambush a weaker member."

They follow the herd through the flood waters for up to seven hours at a time and their victim might be a newborn calf or an injured beast.

"These lions stick to the buffalo like glue, always alert," says Joubert. "They watch day and night, ready for the smallest hint of weakness."

It is a strategy that has paid off, with the Tsaro lions proving the most adept hunters on the island, which is surrounded by an intricate web of thick papyrus swamps and deep, crocodile-infested waters.

Ironically, the buffaloes, too, seem to have flourished under the predatory attention of the Duba lions.

"This is how nature works," explains Joubert. "It is a symbiotic relationship: the lions are pruning the weaker buffalo at an average of 20 a month, strengthening the overall herd. We've seen the buffalo population on the island grow by a fifth in two years."

Indeed, the buffaloes have learnt one particular technique to employ when they are under pressure from the Tsaro pride — when they tire, they gather into a tight-knit bundle, and collectively drop to the ground to sleep, their horns facing outwards to present an impenetrable wall.

In response, the lions also sleep until the herd moves on. The buffaloes also periodically conduct dramatic rescue attempts if a member of the herd is isolated by its predators.