Olympics-Rugby-New Zealand's culture club behind gold medal showing in Tokyo


Rugby Sevens - Women - Medal Ceremony

Mayu Sakoda
Sat., July 31, 2021, 

TOKYO (Reuters) - New Zealand celebrated their gold medal in the women’s Olympic Rugby Sevens with a special version of the haka, showing all the fierceness and focus that had seen them become worthy winners against France in the final at the Tokyo Stadium on Saturday.

Their version is called ‘Ko Uhia Mai’, or ‘Let It Be Known’, a fitting name as they left no doubt as to was the best team as the Black Ferns made up for a disappointing silver medal performance in Rio five years ago with a 26-12 triumph.

"It’s just pure joy," captain Sarah Hirini told reporters. "I just think about everything that we've had to do to get to this moment. I thought about all the people back home who have helped us, also the players who trained hard but missed out on getting here.

"To win this is pretty crazy and it’s something where you look at your team mates and think, 'We finally did it. We've done it for New Zealand'."

Hirini said they used the disappointment of five years ago, when they lost to Australia in the final, to create a new ethos within the team, led by coach Allan Bunting.

"He came to us leaders after Rio and said we need to create a culture where you can be yourself, where you can be free and be really good people as well. I think over the last five years we have managed to do that.

"It’s a pretty special group to be part of, where there is a genuine love for each other. I am sure you'll see when we get out of quarantine (in New Zealand) that we'll all continue to hang out together."

While many of the competitors in Tokyo are facing an uncertain future with countries seeking to cut back on their Sevens programmes, Hirini said New Zealand were looking to develop further in the coming years.

"We are very fortunate in our country that we get to do this for a living as professional athletes in a centralised program," she added. "That's why we're so successful because we spend so much time together and we work really hard.

"We've got a program (in New Zealand) where a young girl can aspire to play and get paid to do so, and I hope it keeps growing and growing because they can make a good career out of it."

(Writing by Nick Said; Editing by Ken Ferris)

CULTURAL APPROPRIATION OF THE HAKA BY NON-INDIGENOUS KIWI'S 

HAKA IS ONLY FOR MEN IN MAORI CULTURE IT HAS BECOME A NEW ZEALAND CULTURAL PHENOMENA ESPECIALLY AMONGST SPORTS TEAMS; RUGBY, FOOTBALL, ETC.

Raven Saunders raises overhead 'X' on podium in most high-profile protest yet at Tokyo Olympics

Raven Saunders (left) protested on the medal stand after earning silvler in shot put. (Photo by INA FASSBENDER/AFP via Getty Images)

Shalise Manza Young
·Yahoo Sports Columnist
Sun., August 1, 2021, 6:34 a.m.

TOKYO — American silver medalist Raven Saunders offered the highest-profile protest yet at these Olympics on Sunday night.

Saunders, who competed in the shot put, raised her arms over her head in an "X" as she, gold medalist Lijiao Gong and bronze medalist Valerie Adams posed for photographers. She stood with her hands in front of her during the anthem.

Saunders told the Associated Press that the symbol represented "the intersection of where all people who are oppressed meet."

While the IOC did relax its Rule 50 before the Tokyo Games, saying athletes could speak up in media conferences or during introductions, IOC chief Thomas Bach reiterated that athletes could not protest on the medal stand.

Last month he told the Financial Times, "The podium and the medal ceremonies are not made . . . for a political or other demonstration. They are made to honor the athletes and the medal winners for sporting achievement and not for their private [views].

"The mission is to have the entire world together at one place and competing peacefully with each other. This you would never manage if the Games [became] divisive."

Saunders, who is Black, queer and battles depression and is open about all three, spoke at length after her medal-winning performance, saying she wants to help shine a light on people around the world who are fighting and "don't have a platform to speak up for themselves."

Bach has threatened sanctions for athletes who protest on the podium, though it is unclear what the sanctions would be. The U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee allowed protests at its Trials for these Games, but once at the Olympics athletes are under IOC rules.

 
Raven Saunders: What the Olympian's X protest means to her

Sun., August 1, 2021, 

American Raven Saunders made this gesture on the medal podium after winning silver in the women's shot put

US shot-putter Raven Saunders has made the Tokyo Olympics' first podium demonstration, after winning her event's silver medal.

As the medallists posed for photos, Saunders raised her arms and crossed them into an X shape. She said it represented "the intersection of where all people who are oppressed meet."

The 25-year-old, who is black, gay, and has spoken frankly about her struggles with depression, said she wanted "to be me, to not apologise".

After competing, she said she aimed to give light to "people all around the world who are fighting and don't have the platform to speak up for themselves".

"I'm part of a lot of communities," added Saunders, who twerked in celebration after her final shot put throw.

China's Gong Lijiao won gold, and New Zealand's Valerie Adams the bronze, her fourth medal at successive games.

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) relaxed a ban on protests ahead of the Tokyo Games, allowing athletes to "express their views" during press conferences - but political demonstrations are still banned on the medal stand.

It's unclear what reprimand Saunders might face, as the IOC hasn't outlined potential penalties, although it is investigating the protest.

Saunders is a vocal advocate for black mental health, and says she hopes to "inspire and motivate"

"I really think that my generation really don't care," Saunders said. "At the end of the day, we really don't care. Shout out to all my black people. Shout out to all my LGBTQ community. Shout out to all my people dealing with mental health. At the end of the day, we understand it's bigger than us and it's bigger than the powers that be. We understand that there's so many people that are looking up to us, that are looking to see if we say something or if we speak up for them."

Athletes' mental health has been the story of this year's Games, after Team USA's gymnastics superstar Simone Biles withdrew from several disciplines to prioritise her welfare.

Saunders, who made her Olympic debut in Rio de Janeiro in 2016, has described how she considered taking her own life in 2018 while struggling with poor mental health.

Her identity had been consumed by the shot put, she said, and she felt unable to escape from the pressures associated with it. She reached out to a former therapist for support, and was able to form a more balanced relationship with the sport where she has seen such success.

"It's okay to be strong," she said of the situation. "And it's okay to not be strong 100 per cent of the time. It's okay to be able to need people."

Prior to her podium gesture, Saunders had already drawn fan attention for her green and purple hair. Then there's her eye-catching collection of masks, inspired by Marvel Comics character the Hulk, and the Joker from the Batman franchise.

Saunders relates to the Hulk, the comic book character who inspired her mask

She sees the Hulk as her alter ego - and a reflection of how she learned to compartmentalise, unleashing power in a controlled way.

The Washington Post observed that after her event, she "shimmied into the mixed zone, asking where she could find champagne and singing, 'Celebration.'"

Saunders has described how she grew up watching black tennis champions Venus and Serena Williams, "young black girls with beads in their hair, unapologetic," and what that visibility meant to her.

She now hopes to inspire others through her own achievements - and her honesty.

Xi Jinping’s Capitalist Smackdown Sparks a $1 Trillion Reckoning


Xi Jinping’s Capitalist Smackdown Sparks a $1 Trillion Reckoning

Tom Hancock and Tom Orlik
Sun., August 1, 2021

(Bloomberg) -- Xi Jinping smiled and hinted at a policy bombshell that would soon roil stock markets from Shanghai to New York.

It was mid-June, and the most powerful Chinese Communist Party leader since Mao Zedong was holding court at an after-school club for elementary students in the remote city of Xining. Acknowledging the growing pressure on students and their parents to spend time and money on private tutoring, Xi promised to ease their burden.

“We must not have out-of-school tutors doing things in place of teachers,” he said. “Now, the education departments are rectifying this.”

While Xi’s comments went largely unnoticed by global investors at the time, the crackdown on tutoring companies that followed has become the starkest illustration yet of the Chinese president’s commitment to a sweeping new vision for the world’s second-largest economy — one where the interests of investors take a distant third place to ensuring social stability and national security.

Call it progressive authoritarianism. From exhausted couriers in the gig economy, to stressed parents struggling with ever-rising housing prices and tuition fees, to small businesses battling tech monopolies, Xi is swinging the cudgel of state power in support of the squeezed middle class. These challenges aren’t unique to China, but the policy response has been.

Weeks after Xi’s school visit, China said private education had been “hijacked by capital” and ordered tutoring companies to become non-profits, accelerating a selloff that at its most extreme erased $1.5 trillion from Chinese stocks and dented the portfolios of some of the biggest names in global finance.

Combined with new requirements for data security reviews ahead of overseas IPOs, directives for food-delivery firms to pay staff a living wage and escalating curbs on unaffordable housing, the tutoring crackdown has triggered a growing realization that the old rules of Chinese business no longer apply, and left investors wondering which sector will be the next target for regulators.

For decades, even as they kept strict control over strategic sectors like banking and oil, China’s leaders gave entrepreneurs and investors freedom to drive the adoption of new technologies and open up fresh opportunities for growth. Deng Xiaoping set the tone back in the mid-1980s when he said it was OK if some got rich first. Now, with growth slowing and relations with the U.S. increasingly hostile, they’re emphasizing different goals: common prosperity and national security.

“This marks a watershed shift in China’s policy priorities,” said Liao Ming, Beijing-based founder of Prospect Avenue Capital, which manages $500 million. “The government is going after industries that are creating the most social discontent.”

And, true to their Communist roots, China’s leaders have no problem trampling on the interests of venture capital, private equity or stock investors when they conflict with its long-term development plan. Liao said that focus is now on what has been dubbed the “three big mountains”: the crushing burden of payments for education, healthcare and property.

For now, tech is still the main target. In a flurry of action Friday, authorities summoned the country’s largest technology companies for a lecture on data security, vowed better oversight of overseas share listings and accused ride-hailing companies of stifling competition.

New Development Phase

China this year began a “new development phase,” according to Xi. It puts three priorities ahead of unfettered growth:

National security, which includes control of data and greater self-reliance in technology Common prosperity, which aims to curb inequalities that have soared in recent decades Stability, which means tamping down discontent among China’s middle class

If Xi executes on his vision — and that is still a big if — there will be important beneficiaries: stretched workers, stressed parents, and squeezed start-ups.

But so far, the losers have been more visible: tech billionaires and their backers in the stock market, highly leveraged property companies including China Evergrande Group, and foreign venture capital firms that had hoped to take Chinese companies public in the U.S.

For international investors, many of whom got burned by this year’s regulatory onslaught, the old rule was that to make money in China it was necessary to align with the Communist Party’s priorities. The dawning realization is that finding common ground may be increasingly hard to do.

Companies and investors have been “behind the curve” when it comes to anticipating regulation in China, Ren Yi, a Harvard-educated social media commentator known as Chairman Rabbit, wrote in an online commentary that has received more than 100,000 views. Education researcher Feng Siyuan says investors should have seen the education regulations coming: Xi had said more than two years ago the sector shouldn’t be profit driven.

Part of Xi’s motivation is desire for popular support ahead of the once-in-a-decade leadership transition next year, where he is expected to buck tradition and stay on as party chief for a third term. Growing discontent, including sporadic strikes among delivery workers, have rattled the stability-obsessed party.

Wearing the distinctive yellow shirt of Chinese delivery service Meituan, whose profits have boomed during the pandemic, 22-year-old motorbike courier Mr. Tang complains about the lack of medical insurance. “There’s nothing I can do about it if Meituan doesn’t pay for it,” he added. “The wealth gap between people in this society is too big”.

The downside for investors is that a bigger slice of the pie for workers like Mr. Tang has to come at the expense of the owners of capital. Meituan lost as much as $63 billion of market value last week after Beijing ordered it to improve worker protections.

China’s leaders won’t be shedding tears for the losses of foreign stock holders. The bigger risk for Beijing: Heavy state intervention might dampen the animal spirits that drive private investment and reverse an integration with the global economy that has helped drive growth in the last four decades.

Following the logic of the prison yard, Beijing signaled the start of the new era for entrepreneurs and investors by taking a swing at the biggest inmate: Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. founder Jack Ma. On Nov. 3, the initial public offering of Ant Group Co. — the finance arm of Ma’s empire, which was set to surpass Saudi Aramco as the biggest public listing of all time — was unceremoniously squashed.

The regulatory pace intensified after December, when a top economic planning meeting chaired by Xi vowed to rein in the “disorderly expansion of capital,” signaling the move against Alibaba was part of a wider campaign backed by the apex of Chinese power.

At first, investors thought the phrase referred to anti-monopoly efforts aimed at shrinking the power of tech giants, which had converted their vast profits into venture-capital investments spanning almost every sector. That narrative was bolstered by the 18.2 billion yuan fine slapped on Alibaba by anti-monopoly authorities in April.

But developments in recent weeks suggest the slogan goes further. In some sectors, private capital, especially foreign capital, may not be wanted at all.

At the start of July, China’s cybersecurity regulator said tech firms with more than a million users would need to pass a review before listing overseas. Regulators made an example of Didi Global Inc — China’s answer to Uber — which had squeaked through a U.S. IPO just before the new regulations, removing it from app stores in the country and hammering its valuation.

Later that month, China’s top administrative body, the State Council, ordered companies teaching the school curriculum in the $100 billion after-school tutoring sector to become non-profits and banned them from pursuing IPOs or taking foreign capital. The semi-legal Variable Interest Entity, or VIE, structure adopted by the likes of Alibaba to go public abroad was singled out for top-level criticism for the first time.

While investors in the tutoring sector — a focus of major funds from Temasek to Warburg Pincus — lamented the new rules, many Chinese parents welcomed them.

In big cities, more than half of households report feeling “under pressure” from tutoring costs. One of the hottest online terms in China this year has been “involution”: the idea that parents are trapped in an endless cycle of educational one-upmanship, with the result not meritocratic progress but social stagnation.

Liu Shu, a 39-year-old manager at an insurance company in Beijing, says she and her husband spend 200,000 to 300,000 yuan (about $31,000 to $46,400) each year on their nine-year-old son’s after-school classes in Chinese, English, math and calligraphy. That is more than three times the average disposable income for denizens of China’s capital.

Those fees underscore the underlying logic behind the tutoring crackdown. The educational rat race risks burning out kids, draining parents’ bank balances, and — by keeping family sizes small — adding to the demographic drag revealed in China’s once-a-decade census earlier this year.

“This is why I don’t want to have a second child,” Liu lamented. “I just really don’t have more energy, on top of the issue of money. To me, raising a kid is too much stress.”

China’s other moves — whilst extreme — are also grounded in the logic of progressive economics, pushing back against the power of monopoly firms to crush competitors, squeeze workers and milk customers. Indeed, regulators in the U.S. are making tentative moves in the same direction as China.

“Capitalism without competition isn't capitalism; it’s exploitation,” President Joe Biden said in July, signing a sweeping executive order that signaled the beginning of a move against monopoly power in the U.S.

But in contrast with America and Europe, where investors can generally keep pace with regulatory developments, China’s opaque political system makes decisions tougher to track. Xi, or his economy czar Liu He, may signal a new direction with a speech or by coining a new catch phrase, the meaning of which — like Xi’s comments at the Xining after-school club — might be lost on the markets. Officials scurrying to satisfy their superiors can often overdo things, causing wrenching corrections and policy reversals.

A recent example of that came in 2016, when officials suddenly slammed the door on cross-border capital flows following a botched attempt at yuan reform. This time around, there are also signs Beijing is shifting to damage-control mode. On a hastily arranged call with major investment banks, securities regulator Fang Xinghai attempted to restore a measure of calm to the markets, signaling that the education policies are targeted and not intended to hurt other industries.

East Vs West

Behind Beijing’s actions lies a political and economic philosophy that is fundamentally foreign to most modern Western politicians and investors. Communist rulers see the economy as something that can thrive through state planning, even if that rides roughshod over the rights of entrepreneurs and their backers.

Coming on top of mounting concerns about human rights abuses in Xinjiang, and the crackdown in Hong Kong, Beijing’s latest moves will add weight to voices in the U.S. and Europe who want to reduce ties with China. In the U.S., the Securities and Exchange Commission has already moved to put the brakes on IPOs for Chinese firms.

One lesson, though, is that China is not the passive victim of U.S.-led decoupling. In areas seen as essential to national security, Beijing is also willing to sever ties.

Efforts to boost self-sufficiency in crucial technologies — exemplified by the Made in China 2025 plan for cutting reliance on imports in everything from industrial robotics to electric vehicles — are already in train. The latest barriers to overseas IPOs and foreign capital in education flag a move toward selective decoupling in finance as well, with Beijing preferring inflows via stock markets in Hong Kong, Shanghai and Shenzhen where it has greater control over who gets to list.

Beijing is betting that the gravitational pull of an economy that will likely continue to generate more billions of dollars of growth opportunities than any other gives them leeway to throw their weight around, even if some global investors get whacked in the process.

At least some of the evidence suggests they might be right. Foreign investment continues to flow into China, including through domestic bond and stock markets which continue opening to overseas capital. For all the talk of decoupling, China’s exports to the U.S. keep rising.

Still, structural shifts in policy have a slow burn impact. The benefits of pro-market reforms culminating in China’s 2001 entry to WTO played out over the best part of a decade before the 2008 financial crisis halted the export boom. The costs of Beijing’s new turn away from the market will also take time to show. Even if the Communist Party continues to deliver on growth, the focus on common prosperity suggests investors will have to settle for a smaller share of the spoils.

More stories like this are available on bloomberg.com

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Canadians have a lot to learn about this country's history of slavery, experts say




Sun., August 1, 2021

A carving by artist Bruce Jacquard depicts an enslaved woman named Jude being beaten by her owner. She died from her injuries in Nova Scotia in 1800. The carving is on display at the Yarmouth County Museum. (Brian MacKay/CBC - image credit)

WARNING: This story contains disturbing details about slavery.

As Sharon Robart-Johnson walks around the Black history room at the Yarmouth County Museum, she points out paintings of Black educators, the first Black Nova Scotian to join the RCMP, and even a painting of herself, as the first person to write a book about Black people in the area.

But she saves the one most dear to her for last.

It's a wooden carving of an enslaved woman named Jude being beaten by her owner's son.

Court records show Jude died of her injuries on Dec. 28, 1800. She was 28.

"The night before she died, she went into the pantry, as she was doing quite often because she was being starved," Robart-Johnson said in a recent interview at the museum in southwestern Nova Scotia. "She tried to steal a loaf of bread and a piece of cheese."

Her owners were charged with murder but acquitted at trial.

"I got very angry and even angrier still when I learned that they got away with it. They literally got away with murder," said Robart-Johnson. Her first book, Africa's Children: A History of Blacks in Yarmouth, Nova Scotia, includes a chapter on Jude.

The young woman's brutal experience is just one example of this country's shameful history of slavery, which experts say most Canadians know little about.

They hope this year that will start to change.

Brian MacKay/CBC

Emancipation Day recognizes Aug. 1, 1834, when the British Empire abolished slavery, freeing around 800,000 people of African descent throughout the British colonies, including what's now known as Canada.

Until now, Ontario has been the only province to mark the occasion, but this year members of Parliament voted to designate it nationwide. The day is also being observed provincially in Nova Scotia for the first time.

Robart-Johnson says she became so obsessed with Jude's story, she released a second book, a work of historical fiction titled Jude and Diana, chronicling the lives of Jude and her sister.

Records show Jude was brought to Nova Scotia from New Jersey by her master, Frances Wood, when she was nine years old. She was eventually sold to Maj. Samuel Andrews, a Loyalist leader who came to Nova Scotia from North Carolina in 1785.

"I didn't know that people in Yarmouth had slaves, so that was a big eye-opener for me," said Robart-Johnson, who stumbled upon the files about Jude while researching her own genealogy 28 years ago.

Brian MacKay/CBC

From the archives

At the Nova Scotia Archives, records show advertisements for runaway slaves, bills of sale and court documents, all illustrating the province's history with slavery.

"For sale for a term of years," reads one newspaper clipping from June 1800. "Aged 18 years, good natured, fond of children and accustomed to both town and country work."

Brian MacKay/CBC

In 1750, there were about 400 slaves among Halifax's population of 3,000.

Manager and archivist John MacLeod says two Nova Scotia judges in particular, Chief Justice Sampson Salter Blowers and Chief Justice Thomas Andrew Lumisden Strange, seemed to find ways to rule in favour of freedom over continued slave ownership when cases were before them in the early 1800s. Some historians have gone so far as to call them abolitionists.

MacLeod says it was likely because there was no legal framework to reinforce slavery.

"But the legislature also did not go to the step of banning it either," he said.

He points to a petition in the public collection. It shows that in 1807, a group of slave owners, mostly Loyalists from Annapolis County who had been given some guarantees by the British Empire that they could bring their "property" with them, pushed back against the court decisions. They signed their names, complete with the number of slaves they owned.

Brian MacKay/CBC

"The slave holders in Nova Scotia realized that their situation was becoming increasingly eroded by the courts," said MacLeod. "And they petitioned the House of Assembly for legislation that would give legal status or legal framework in which they could continue to exercise what they saw as their property rights."

The legislation was introduced a number of times but never passed.

Newly created Institute for the Study of Canadian Slavery

Charmaine Nelson, professor of art history and founding director of the newly created Institute for the Study of Canadian Slavery at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design in Halifax, says it's important to mark Emancipation Day.

"It's really a moment for us to think about what slavery was and what slavery was in Canada," she said in an interview.

She said while it might surprise some that such an institute would be housed at an art school, art is actually the key to helping people understand this country's specific history with slavery.

She says when asked what they know about transatlantic slavery and how they came to know it, most people will cite Hollywood films such as Lincoln, Amistad, 12 Years a Slave, and Django Unchained.

"The more recent ones are quite accurate in terms of the horrific and brutal nature of slavery," she said. "But almost all of those representations coming out of Hollywood represent American South slavery."

She says Canada's history of slavery, largely written by white men, often takes an apologist view, acknowledging that slavery happened here, but because there were fewer slaves than in the American South or the Caribbean, that slave owners were somehow kinder and gentler.

Not true, she says.

Brian MacKay/CBC

People often associate slavery with thousands of people working on a plantation.

It did not happen in Canada in the same way because of the climate and seasonal shifts that could not sustain year-round agriculture.

Nelson said enslaved people in Canada might well have harvested apples or corn, but they were also forced to milk cows, groom horses, and in the case of women, breastfeed the children of their white owners, to the detriment of their own children.

She says Canadians overall are not as educated about their country's connection to slavery as Americans.

"How can people know what they've never had an opportunity to learn?" she said. "And if you're a Canadian who spent any time in our elementary or high school or college ... this content is simply not in the curriculum."

Nelson hopes to use the new institute, and the marking of Emancipation Day, as a jumping off point to change that.

The general population isn't going to read academic literature, she said, so the way they often come to understand this kind of history is through an art exhibit, a painting or a movie.

"So, without the artists at the table, we're never going to be able to educate a broader public about how profound and really world-transforming, sadly, that the 400-year institution of transatlantic slavery was," she said.

Not everyone embraces Emancipation Day

But for author Robart-Johnson, whose fourth great-grandfather was a runaway slave, the designation of Emancipation Day is too little, too late.

"You can't wait till almost 200 years and say it shouldn't have happened," she said.

She remains focused on telling the personal stories of Jude and her sister.

"Because no one had heard them and no one would have listened anyway during the time," she said. "So now their stories have been told."

Hungary: health care workers protest for higher wages


Sat., July 31, 2021

BUDAPEST, Hungary (AP) — Several thousand health care workers and their supporters gathered in Hungary’s capital, Budapest, on Saturday to demand wage increases and better conditions for those working in the country's ailing public health system.

The crowd, which included supporters from several of Hungary's largest trade unions, said the COVID-19 pandemic had only worsened the already precarious situation of health care workers while their demands for pay hikes and reduced working hours had gone unheeded by the government.

“The past period has been very difficult for us. The COVID pandemic has turned our lives upside down,” said Kata Gornicsak, who has worked as a chief nurse for 26 years at a hospital in Budapest. “The reason we are here is not because of hope but desperation. We want respect, which we are not getting at all.”

The Hungarian Chamber of Health Care Professionals, which called for the demonstration, said the government had not consulted with them before passing an overhaul of the health care system in March that increased wages for doctors but not for many others working in hospitals, like nurses and orderlies.

“The doctors earn very well, while the nurses who are feeding and dressing the patients while working double shifts, including nights, aren’t paid well at all,” said Marika Bognar, a nurse who traveled to the demonstration from Bacs-Kiskun county in southern Hungary.

Hungary's health care system has struggled to cope with the strain of the COVID-19 pandemic, which ravaged the country in fall and winter, giving it one of the highest per-capita death rates in the world.

A government decree in November, issued as part of Hungary's pandemic state of emergency, stripped health care professionals of their rights to resign in an effort to prevent an outflow of overburdened doctors and nurses.

While the new agreement on wages and benefits was signed by some 95% of those working in Hungary's public health care sector, as many as 5,000 refused to sign the new required contracts.

A survey released in June by the Independent Health Care Union found that nearly half of health care professionals in Hungary planned either to leave the sector or retire as soon as legal conditions allow it.

Gornicsak, the Budapest nurse, said that while some workers had received increased benefits, they were not enough to offset poor pay and intense demands arising from the pandemic.

"Most of us received 10 extra vacation days, which we are very happy with, but we probably won’t be able to use them because we constantly have to work,” she said.

In attendance at the protest was Budapest's liberal mayor Gergely Karacsony, who plans to run against Hungary's right-wing Prime Minister Viktor Orban in closely watched elections next spring.

Karacsony told The Associated Press that Hungary's health care system needs increased funding, and that "putting (it) back on its feet must be one of the most important tasks of the next government.”

“The government should not be in a state of war with health care workers, but should jointly develop a system of wages and conditions which can keep health care professionals and doctors in the system,” Karacsony said.

Thinking impaired in 60% of COVID-19 survivors, study finds

Loss of smell also observed in Argentine sample

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS HEALTH SCIENCE CENTER AT SAN ANTONIO

DENVER, Colo. — In a sample of over 400 older adults in Argentina who had recovered from COVID-19, more than 60% displayed some degree of cognitive impairment, a researcher from The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio reported July 29 at the Alzheimer’s Association International Conference.

It is not known whether the impairment, such as forgetfulness and language difficulty, will be progressive, said Gabriel de Erausquin, MD, PhD, a neurologist with the health science center’s Glenn Biggs Institute for Alzheimer’s and Neurodegenerative Diseases. The individuals in the study are over 60 years of age and have been assessed once so far. They will be followed for the next three to five years, Dr. de Erausquin said.

The study is being conducted by Dr. de Erausquin and collaborators from the Alzheimer’s Association-led global Cognitive Neuropsychiatric Sequelae of SARS-CoV-2 (CNS SC2) consortium.

Problems with thinking were seen even in recovered COVID-19 patients who had only a mild cold or respiratory ailment after virus exposure, Dr. de Erausquin said.

The study team also assessed participants for anosmia, loss of the sense of smell. The olfactory bulb, which contains the brain cells that react to smell, is primarily where the COVID-19 virus enters the nervous system, Dr. de Erausquin said.

“Persistent lack of smell is associated with brain changes,” he said. “Once the virus has affected the olfactory bulb and caused effects there – changes that we can see with imaging – then other places in the brain that are connected to it also become abnormal, either in function or structure or both.”

Among the Argentine participants, 78% had recovered from SARS-CoV-2 infection that was confirmed by polymerase chain reaction (PCR) testing. Testing confirmed that the other fourth of volunteers were never infected.

Of the 60% of recovered COVID-19 patients who had cognitive impairment, about one in three had severe cognitive impairment, Dr. de Erausquin said. This could be called “dementia-like syndrome,” because it looks like dementia but may not be persistent or progressive, he said.

People between the ages of 60 and 70 have about a 6% lifetime risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease. The Argentine study population reflects a rate of cognitive impairment that is 10 times higher. “That is worrisome,” Dr. de Erausquin said. “This could be the start of a dementia-related epidemic fueled by this latest coronavirus.”

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Olfactory dysfunction and chronic cognitive impairment following SARS-CoV-2 infection in a sample of older adults from the Andes mountains of Argentina.

Hernan P. Zamponi, MSc, Leonardo Juarez-Aguaysol, MD, Gabriela Kukoc, LCP, Maria Eugenia Dominguez, LCP, Belén Pini, LCP, Eduardo G Padilla, MD, Maria Calvó, MD, Silvia Beatriz Molina-Rangeon, MD, Gonzalo Guerrero, MD, Mariana Figueredo-Aguiar, LEd, Emiliano Fumagalli, PhD, Agustín Yécora, MD, Traolach S Brugha, MD, Sudha Seshadri, MD, Heather M. Snyder, PhD, Gabriel A. de Erausquin, MD, PhD, Gabriela Gonzalez-Aleman, LCP, PhD, and the Alzheimer's Association CNS SARS-CoV-2 Consortium

Presented at the Alzheimer’s Association International Conference, July 29, 2021

https://alz.confex.com/alz/2021/meetingapp.cgi/Paper/57897

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The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio, also referred to as UT Health San Antonio, is one of the country’s leading health sciences universities and is designated as a Hispanic-Serving Institution by the U.S. Department of Education. With missions of teaching, research, patient care and community engagement, its schools of medicine, nursing, dentistry, health professions and graduate biomedical sciences have graduated 39,700 alumni who are leading change, advancing their fields, and renewing hope for patients and their families throughout South Texas and the world. To learn about the many ways “We make lives better®,” visit www.uthscsa.edu.

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METHOD OF RESEARCH

Observational study

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

People

USA Nonfatal firearm injuries lead to higher rate of mental health disorder in youth

Researchers at MUSC Health find those under 18 years of age are more likely to suffer a mental health disorder in the year following a nonfatal firearm injury

Peer-Reviewed Publication

MEDICAL UNIVERSITY OF SOUTH CAROLINA

 

IMAGE: PATIENTS IN SOUTH CAROLINA HAVE ACCESS TO THE MUSC HEALTH TRAUMA SURVIVORS NETWORK, WHICH PROVIDES A COMMUNITY OF PATIENTS, FAMILIES, HEALTH CARE PROVIDERS AND VOLUNTEERS WHO CAN HELP PEOPLE CONNECT AFTER A SERIOUS INJURY SUCH AS A GUNSHOT WOUND. view more 

CREDIT: BRENNAN WESLEY, MUSC HEALTH

For every youth who dies with injury from a firearm, at least four survive. These survivors led researchers at MUSC Health to look at new mental health diagnoses that may stem from nonfatal gunshot wounds in adolescents. 

Betsy Oddo, M.D., a pediatric hospital medicine fellow at MUSC Shawn Jenkins Children’s Hospital, says firearm injury is the leading cause of death for youth in the United States. In a recent paper in Academic Pediatrics, Oddo and her team looked at pediatric patients in the year before they suffered their firearm-related injury and the year following.

“What we ultimately found is that in the time before their injury, a large proportion of these patients already had an underlying mental health diagnosis,” she said. “And then in the year after their injuries, another proportion went on to have a new mental health diagnosis.” Any physical disability they may experience from the injury adds to any mental stress they may also be feeling. 

The level of risk depends on the type of mental health disorder prior to injury. Children diagnosed with depression are at a higher risk for suicide, and according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 3.2% of children between the ages of 3 and 17 have diagnosed depression ­— which equates to 1.9 million people in the United States. Rates of depression in children have only increased over time.

Oddo points to conduct disorder as another risk factor, as children with conduct disorders or substance-related disorders are more likely to be involved in community violence. While more common in boys than in girls, the lifetime prevalence of conduct disorder is 12% for boys and 7% for girls according to American Family Medicine.

Patients in South Carolina have access to the MUSC Health Trauma Survivors Network, which provides a community of patients, families, health care providers and volunteers who can help people connect after a serious injury such as a gunshot wound. In addition to connecting trauma victims with mental health services when they are first admitted to the hospital, MUSC Health physicians can also refer patients to the hospital-based violence intervention program that will soon start to see children over the age of 13. 

Physicians at MUSC also screen children who enter the hospital or emergency room with mental health concerns as well as asking about any firearms at home. If there are firearms in the home, Oddo can offer free gun locks to the family and free counseling on safe gun storage as an injury prevention method. She thinks discussing access to firearms should be a regular part of any pediatrician visit.

“This paper just goes to show that the mental health epidemic in this country and the firearm violence epidemic in this country are intertwined,” said Oddo. “It’s important for us to address mental health needs in the population of children who have suffered a firearm injury.”

Oddo and her team plan to look at the ways these children are utilizing the mental health care system in an effort to understand if they are getting adequate attention in the timeframe needed following a firearm-related injury. She advises any parents who are concerned about mental health disorders in their children to be mindful of guns in their homes, urging parents to keep weapons locked away and to keep firearms separate from ammunition to reduce the odds of the physical injury and mental health damage that a firearm injury can inflict. 

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As the clinical health system of the Medical University of South Carolina, MUSC Health is dedicated to delivering the highest quality patient care available while training generations of competent, compassionate health care providers to serve the people of South Carolina and beyond. Comprising some 1,600 beds, more than 100 outreach sites, the MUSC College of Medicine, the physicians’ practice plan and nearly 275 telehealth locations, MUSC Health owns and operates eight hospitals situated in Charleston, Chester, Florence, Lancaster and Marion counties. In 2020, for the sixth consecutive year, U.S. News & World Report named MUSC Health the No. 1 hospital in South Carolina. To learn more about clinical patient services, visit muschealth.org.

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JOURNAL

Academic Pediatrics

DOI

10.1016/j.acap.2021.06.003

ARTICLE TITLE

Increase in Mental Health Diagnoses Among Youth With Nonfatal Firearm Injuries

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

10-Jun-2021

FDA allows drugs without proven clinical benefit to languish for years on accelerated pathway

Process plagued by missing efficacy data and questionable evidence; Some experts argue that FDA’s standards for evidence are too low

Peer-Reviewed Publication

BMJ

Since the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) established its accelerated approval pathway for drugs in 1992, nearly half (112) of the 253 drugs authorised have not been confirmed as clinically effective, an investigation by The BMJ has found.

Elisabeth Mahase, clinical reporter at The BMJ, carried out an in depth analysis of FDA data up to 31 December 2020 and found that of these 112 drugs approved in the last 28 years a fifth (24) have been on the market for more than five years and some have been on the market for more than two decades - often with a hefty price tag.

The accelerated pathway allows drugs onto the market before efficacy has been proven, she explains. But as part of this approval, the manufacturer must conduct post-approval studies—known as phase IV confirmatory trials—to “verify the anticipated clinical benefit.” If these trials show no benefit, the drug’s approval can be cancelled. 

But further analysis of FDA data revealed that only 16 drugs approved through the pathway have ever been withdrawn. Most of these were shown to lack efficacy, but in some cases the confirmatory trials were never done. 

For example, Celecoxib (Celebrex), which was given accelerated approval in 1999 for the treatment of familial adenomatous polyposis (a genetic disorder that carries a high risk of bowel cancer), was on the market for 12 years before the FDA finally asked Pfizer to voluntarily withdraw it for this indication due to the efficacy trials never being done.

The BMJ asked the manufacturers of 24 treatments that have been on the market for more than five years whether they had conducted phase IV trials. Six drugs had been withdrawn, approved, or postponed. 

Out of the remaining 18 drugs, just one third of manufacturers (6/18) provided information on a relevant trial. And of these only four had started to recruit patients, while two companies said they were still in discussion with the FDA over the final study design. 

“Despite the pathway’s good intentions to accelerate ‘the availability of drugs that treat serious diseases’ experts are concerned that it is now being exploited - to the detriment of patients, who may be prescribed a drug that offers little benefit and possible harm, and to taxpayers,” writes Mahase.

Huseyin Naci, associate professor of health policy at the London School of Economics, expressed concern, saying “we may have drugs on the market that don't have any benefits, but certainly predictably have harms associated with them.” 

In 2015, a review of the FDA’s expedited pathways by the US Government Accountability Office said that its “data on post-market safety issues and studies were found to be incomplete, outdated, [and] to contain inaccuracies.”

And in April 2021, the Institute for Clinical and Economic Review (ICER) reported that a lack of “credible threats” to withdraw approval if companies didn’t carry out confirmatory trials meant that study sponsors had little incentive to do them. 

When efficacy is unclear, the FDA uses indirect (surrogate) measures of clinical benefit. In some cases, there is a strong indication that the surrogate measure predicts meaningful benefit, explains Mahase, but where the situation is less straightforward, “inconsistencies and a lack of transparency surrounding decisions have led to serious questions over the standards of evidence being accepted.”

Rachel Sachs, an associate professor of law at Washington University, said, “There are some instances where the companies really do seem to be taking advantage of the accelerated approval pathway and are using it in a way that makes it harder to get at the truth about whether these products really are safe and effective.” 

Despite the concerns raised, Mahase points out that all experts who spoke to The BMJ agreed that the accelerated pathway is still useful and can be truly beneficial to patients, although some changes are needed.

One effective reform could be that confirmatory trials are designed, agreed, and even started as part of the approval, she says. 

Other suggestions set out in the ICER white paper include strengthening the selection of surrogate endpoints, regulating the price of accelerated drugs, and regularly re-reviewing and renewing the approval to ensure that it continues to justify the risk benefit tradeoff.

In response, an FDA spokesperson said it was “committed to working with sponsors to ensure that confirmatory studies are completed in a timely manner.” They added, “We expect sponsors to commit all resources needed to move trials forward as effectively as possible, with the aim of completing trials as soon as is feasible, while assuring the quality of the data and the robustness of the results.”

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METHOD OF RESEARCH

News article

ARTICLE TITLE

FDA allows drugs without proven clinical benefit to languish for years on accelerated pathwa

‘Digging’ into early medieval Europe with big data

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE

During the middle of the sixth century CE a dramatic transformation began in how the people of western Europe buried their dead. The transition from ‘furnished’ inhumation (those with grave goods to include jewellery, dress accessories, tools and personal items etc) to ‘unfurnished’ (those without grave goods) was widespread and by the early eighth century an unfurnished inhumation was by far the favoured method of burial.

This relatively swift change – spreading across almost the entirety of western Europe in c. 150 years –  points to the interconnectedness of early medieval Europe, but is it as simple as that?  

Dr Emma Brownlee, researcher at the McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research and Fellow of Girton College, University of Cambridge, has picked apart the nuances and regional variabilities in burial rites using a ‘Big Data’ study of over 26,000 graves. The study is published in the journal Internet Archaeology.

Dr Brownlee said: “It’s a really complex picture. Burial change across this period has long been viewed as a simple trajectory from a variable, furnished burial rite, to a much more standardised shrouded burial in a churchyard. But, there’s a lot more variation than that, both in the way grave good use changed over time, and the way in which it varied to begin with. It isn’t possible to come up with a simple narrative to explain why funerary rites look a certain way in different parts of Europe, because although there are broad tendencies in certain directions, there is also a huge amount of variation within regions.”

Highlighting an important detail of this study, Emma Brownlee continued: “You can see clear connections between Kent and northern France, not so much in how they’re using grave goods, but in the fact that they’re the only regions where grave good use doesn’t decline throughout the seventh century. In many ways, grave good use in Kent resembled other areas of England, with objects such as brooches, beads and knives often placed in graves, while objects such as vessels were more rarely used.”

“But, while grave good use gradually declined in other parts of England, Kentish graves continued to be richly furnished until the end of the seventh century, when those rich cemeteries were abandoned. This is exactly what we see in northern France; despite a quite different funerary culture - with much more focus on vessels in graves - rich furnishing continues to be common long after it began declining in other areas. This suggests that those two regions are much more culturally interconnected with each other than they are with other surrounding areas, while the rest of England has a greater affinity with places like southern Germany.”  

Dr Brownlee further concluded: “Essentially, there is no way of demonstrating that a certain combination of grave goods indicates one regional tradition over another. Instead, we see a funerary rite that is influenced by the choices others in a community are making, influenced by the choices made in the surrounding communities, influenced by the identity of the deceased. This is ultimately something that is highly personal, and based on decisions made in the emotionally charged circumstances surrounding a death. Other aspects of a funeral, such as the choice of inhumation or cremation, or the use of a coffin, stone settings, or a plain, earth-cut grave, were most likely influenced by similar decisions.”

“While regional trends, and trends based on identity do exist, this should not be used to obscure the variability within those trends. Every burial was unique and was probably quite personal to the families.”

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Grave Goods in Early Medieval Europe: regional variability and decline by Emma Brownlee is published in Internet Archaeology. 

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JOURNAL

Internet Archaeology

DOI

10.11141/ia.56.11

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Meta-analysis

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

People

ARTICLE TITLE

Grave Goods in Early Medieval Europe: regional variability and decline

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

29-Jul-2021

Paper: Some birds steal hair from living mammals

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS AT URBANA-CHAMPAIGN, 

 

IMAGE: STILL FROM A VIDEO OF A BLACK-CRESTED TITMOUSE STEALING FUR FROM A SLEEPING FOX, FROM THE YOUTUBE CHANNEL TEXAS BACKYARD WILDLIFE. view more 

CREDIT: USED WITH PERMISSION FROM THE YOUTUBE CHANNEL TEXAS BACKYARD WILDLCHAMPAIGN, Ill. — Dozens of online videos document an unusual behavior among tufted titmice and their closest bird kin. A bird will land on an unsuspecting mammal and, cautiously and stealthily, pluck out some of its hair.

A new paper in the journal Ecology documents this phenomenon, which the authors call “kleptotrichy,” from the Greek roots for “theft” and “hair.” The authors found only a few descriptions of the behavior in the scientific literature but came up with dozens more examples in online videos posted by birders and other bird enthusiasts. In almost all the videorecorded cases, the thief is a titmouse plucking hair from a cat, dog, human, raccoon or, in one case, porcupine.

Many species of titmice, chickadees and tits – all members of the family Paridae – are known to use hair or fur to line their nests, said Mark Hauber, a professor of evolution, ecology and behavior at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign who led the write-up with postdoctoral researcher Henry Pollock. The hair’s role in the nest is still debated, although it is more commonly used by birds nesting in temperate climates, so maintaining warmth in the nest is thought to be one advantage.

The impetus for the study came from a chance sighting. Study co-author U. of I. natural resources and environmental sciences professor Jeffrey Brawn first observed the behavior with Pollock while on a spring bird count in central Illinois.

Scientists once assumed that birds with hair in their nests had collected it from the carcasses of dead mammals or found hair that had been shed into the environment, Brawn said.

“But the titmouse I saw was plucking hair from a live animal,” he said. “This was from a live raccoon with claws and teeth. And the raccoon didn’t seem to mind because it didn’t even wake up.”

A search of published research turned up just nine studies that documented 11 instances of the behavior, but a YouTube search yielded many more cases, Hauber said. Sometimes the target animals were sleeping, and sometimes they were awake.

“We know, of course, that birds use a variety of materials to line their nests,” Hauber said. “But why are these birds risking their lives to approach these mammals?”

The behavior suggests that the benefit of lining its nest with hair outweighs the danger to the bird, he said.

It may be that the birds simply need the hair to insulate their nests, but the presence of mammal hair – and the associated odor of the mammal – could also deter nest predators like snakes or other birds, the researchers said.

“There’s a local species called the great crested flycatcher, which, like the titmouse, is a cavity nester, that actually puts shed snakeskins into its nest, possibly to deter predators,” Brawn said.

“There are finches in Africa that put mammalian fecal material on top of their enclosed nests, presumably to confuse and thus keep predators away,” Hauber said. 

The hair also may repel nest and nestling parasites, which are a common threat to chick survival, especially in cavity nests like those of titmice, he said.

Regardless of the purpose of the behavior, the new paper is the first to document so many examples of hair-plucking by birds in a single report. In addition to citing nine papers about the phenomenon, it also links to dozens of online videos. Collectively, the videos show titmice – and in one case, a black-capped chickadee – plucking hair from 47 humans, 45 dogs, three cats, three raccoons and a porcupine.

“Unexpected interactions such as these remind us that animals exhibit all types of interesting and often overlooked behaviors and highlight the importance of careful natural history observations to shed light on the intricacies of ecological communities,” Pollock said.

 

Editor’s notes: 

To reach Henry Pollock, email henry.s.pollock@gmail.com.

To reach Mark Hauber, email mhauber@illinois.edu.

To reach Jeffrey Brawn, email jbrawn@illinois.edu.

The paper “What the pluck? Theft of mammal hair by birds is an overlooked but common behavior with fitness implications” is available online and from the U. of I. News Bureau.

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JOURNAL

Ecology

DOI

10.1002/ecy.3501

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Literature review

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Animals

ARTICLE TITLE

What the pluck? Theft of mammal hair by birds is an overlooked but common behavior with fitness implications

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

27-Jul-2021