Canada's nuclear reactors may not be fit for service

Joyce Nelson

RABBLE.CA

On July 13, Bruce Power announced that two reactors at its Bruce Nuclear Generating Station in Kincardine, Ontario had violated its operating license.

It had "higher than anticipated readings" of hydrogen-equivalent concentration (Heq) in pressure tubes in two units. Pressure tubes must not exceed the allowable limit of 120 parts per million of Heq. Each pressure tube in a reactor contains 12 bundles of uranium, which are the basis for the nuclear reaction, but the pressure tubes also contain the coolant that keeps the fuel from overheating and triggering a meltdown. Pressure tubes with high levels of Heq can develop cracks and fractures, thereby compromising a reactor's safety.

As The Globe and Mail reported:

"In response to Bruce Power's contraventions, on July 13, the CNSC [Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission] ordered the company, along with fellow CANDU [Canada Deuterium Uranium] operators Ontario Power Generation (OPG) and New Brunswick Power, to review the fitness for service of their pressure tubes and report back no later than the end of July."

Aging reactors

Many of Canada's aging CANDU reactors are older than their design-life for pressure tubes, which originally was designated as 210,000 effective full power hours (EFPH), or about 30 years.

When Hydro Quebec's Gentilly-2 CANDU reactor reached that limit, it closed the plant.

As The Globe and Mail reported:

"Thierry Vandal, chief executive at the time, testified before Quebec's national assembly that he considered 210,000 EFPH 'the extreme limit' beyond which his management team dared not go. 'I would no more operate Gentilly-2 beyond 210,000 hours than I would climb onto an airplane that does not have its permits and that does not meet the standards,' he said, according to a translated transcript."

Under industry pressure, the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission subsequently raised the limit to 247,000 EFPH in 2014, and then to 295,000 EFPH in 2018.

In 2018, the CNSC extended OPG's license for its Pickering Nuclear Generating Station for 10 years. Rather than require that OPG replace aging pressure tubes, the regulator mandated more frequent inspections.

When asked how often pressure tubes are checked, retired nuclear scientist and radioactive chemistry expert Dr. Frank Greening answered by email:

"Pressure tubes are checked for their hydrogen/deuterium concentrations about every two years, but it's a little more complex than that. Each CANDU unit contains about 400 tubes and each tube is about six meters in length. This means it's next to impossible to check every tube at every location, so only about 10 tubes are checked at a time. In addition, corrosion and [hydrogen/deuterium] pickup are expected to be most significant at the hot, outlet end of each tube, so samples are usually restricted to this location."

As a result of such limited inspections, the industry relies on mathematical models to predict how long the untested tubes can safely remain in service. But this modeling is not necessarily accurate, as evidenced by the July 13 "higher than anticipated readings" at Kincardine.

Indeed, in March 2021, The Globe reported:

"Documents obtained under the federal Access to Information Act by Ottawa researcher Ken Rubin, and provided to The Globe, show that since 2017, CNSC staffers had grown increasingly concerned about unreliable data arising from OPG's inspections of pressure tubes…The whole method by which operators assessed fitness for service of pressure tubes had been called into question."

Another Fukushima?

It is somewhat disconcerting that, while discussing the pressure tube situation in Canada, three nuclear experts have made reference to the ongoing, 2011 nuclear disaster at Fukushima in Japan.

As The Globe reported in March:

"In a worse-case scenario, a ruptured tube could lead to a series of 'cascading failures not unlike what happened at Fukushima' says Sunil Nijhawan, a nuclear engineer and consultant who once worked for OPG and specializes in accident and safety assessments."

At Fukushima, the loss of coolant led to three reactor meltdowns.

In April, Gordon Edwards, president of the Canadian Coalition for Nuclear Responsibility, told the National Observer:

"Cooling the fuel is essential in nuclear power. If you don't cool the fuel even after shutdown, you can have a meltdown. That's what happened at Fukushima. I'm not saying every loss of coolant will lead to a meltdown, but that's the precipitating cause that could lead to a meltdown. So therefore the integrity of the piping is a prime concern."

The aging nuclear plant at Pickering is of special concern. Slated for closure in 2024, OPG has been lobbying the Doug Ford government to keep the plant open until 2025. Pickering reached its operational-life limit in about 2015, but the nuclear regulator has kept allowing it to remain in service.

The Ontario Clean Air Alliance says a moratorium should be imposed until OPG can prove that the Pickering plant poses no risk to public safety. In 2018, the Clean Air Alliance commissioned a study by Ian Fairlie, an independent consultant on radioactivity.

As reported in April by the National Observer, Fairlie's report about the Pickering plant found that "a Fukushima-level accident" at Pickering "could cause approximately 26,000 cancers, require the evacuation of more than 150,000 homes and more than 650,000 people, and trigger a $125-billion loss in the value of single-family homes in the Greater Toronto Area."

How serious?

When asked about the seriousness of the pressure tube situation, Greening said a lot depends on the CNSC.

"I would definitely expect the CNSC to demand OPG and Bruce Power do a lot more sampling and analysis of selected tubes in each and every reactor they are operating. Then we will see how widespread this problem is.

"However, given the logistics of doing this, it would take months to complete all the necessary sampling, and each reactor would have be shut down for several weeks to do this. This would cost tens of millions of dollars and result in a serious loss of nuclear energy production. Then, of course, if many units are found to have [hydrogen/deuterium] concentrations well above 120 ppm in many of the examined tubes, the CNSC, and the whole of Canada's nuclear industry would be in a real pickle!"

As Greening explained: "In Canada, we have one reactor design -- the CANDU. If there is a design flaw discovered in one unit, then every operating unit is likely to have the same problem sooner or later."

So "if the CNSC does the right thing" by ordering the sampling and analysis of pressure tubes in all reactors, "it will cost millions."

However, Greening suspects that "the nuclear operators are probably going to say that the current limit of 120 ppm is far too restrictive and could be increased without jeopardizing plant safety."

The CNSC has catered to that argument before, raising the limit from 100 ppm to 120 ppm.

"Believe it or not, our wonderful nuclear regulator, the CNSC, has in fact used that very option to deal with exceedances of things like [deuterium]-pickup, feeder pipe thinning, etc. in the past," Greening said.

By the end of July, the CNSC had given such contradictory requests to Bruce Power that Greening was asking: "Does the CNSC's left hand know what its right hand is doing?"

As he wrote to CNSC president Rumina Velshi back on July 14, "maybe it would be better to admit that the CNSC and the Canadian nuclear industry are collectively unable to predict pressure tube corrosion and hydrogen pickup in operating CANDU reactors…and in the interest of public safety, permanently shut down these very old reactors."

In an email to rabble.ca Greening stated that a good place to start this shut down would be Pickering unit 6 and unit 7, which are both long past their fit for service date.

Otherwise, the consequences could be dire.

August 11, 2021

Canadian freelance writer Joyce Nelson is the author of seven books. She can be reached via www.joycenelson.ca

Image: Chuck Szmurlo/Wikimedia Commons 

Is smaller better when it comes to nuclear?

David Suzuki    RABBLE.CA

Nuclear power hasn't been in the news much since the 2011 Fukushima meltdown in Japan. Thanks to a push by industry and governments, you might soon hear more about how nuclear reactors are now safer and better. 

Specifically, the conversation has shifted to "small modular nuclear reactors" or SMNRs, which generate less than 300 megawatts of electricity, compared to up to 1,600 MWe for large reactors.  

Some of the 100 or so designs being considered include integral pressurized water reactors, molten salt reactors, high-temperature gas reactors, liquid metal cooled reactors and solid state or heat pipe reactors. To date, the industry is stuck at the prototype stage for all models and none is truly modular in the sense of being manufactured several at a time -- an impediment considering the speed at which global heating is worsening. 

The benefits touted by industry have convinced many countries, including Canada, to gamble huge sums on nuclear, despite the poor odds. The Small Modular Reactor Action Plan hypes it as the possible "future of Canada's nuclear industry, with the potential to provide non-emitting energy for a wide range of applications, from grid-scale electricity generation to use in heavy industry and remote communities." 

Canada would reap economic benefits from an expanded nuclear industry. We have the largest deposits of high-grade uranium and a long history of nuclear power development and export. But uranium mining creates problems: impacts on Indigenous communities, workers exposed to radiation, radioactive contamination of lakes, habitat destruction and more.  

The World Nuclear Association says small reactors' modular construction means they can be built faster and for less money than conventional nuclear, and several modules can be combined to create larger facilities. They're seen as a cleaner replacement for diesel or gas power in remote oil and gas operations and isolated communities.  

The association says they're "designed for a high level of passive or inherent safety in the event of malfunction" and that "many are designed to be emplaced below ground level, giving a high resistance to terrorist threats." They can also produce steam for industrial applications and district heating systems, and used to make value-added products such as hydrogen fuel and desalinated drinking water. 

But, given the seriousness of the climate emergency and the various options for transforming our energy systems to combat it, is nuclear -- regardless of size or shape -- the way to go? We must rapidly reduce emissions now, and we have readily available technologies to do so. 

New nuclear doesn't make practical or economic sense for now. Building reactors will remain expensive and time-consuming. Studies estimate electricity from small nuclear can cost from four to 10 times that of wind and solar, whose costs continue to drop. SMNRs will require substantial government subsidies. 

Even when nuclear has to compete against renewables prepackaged with storage, the latter wins out.  

One recent study of 123 countries over 25 years published in Nature Energy found that renewables are much better at reducing greenhouse gas emissions than nuclear -- whose benefits in this area are negligible -- and that combining nuclear and renewables creates a systemic tension that makes it harder to develop renewables to their potential.  

Like all nuclear reactors, SMNRs produce radioactive waste and contribute to increased nuclear weapons proliferation risk -- and Canada still has no effective strategy for waste. Nuclear power also requires enormous amounts of water. 

Corporate interests often favour large, easily monopolized utilities, arguing that only major fossil fuel, nuclear or hydro power facilities can provide large-scale "baseload" power. But many experts argue the "baseload myth" is baseless -- that a flexible system using renewables combined with investments in energy efficiency and a smart grid that helps smooth out demand peaks is far more efficient and cost-effective, especially as energy storage technologies improve. 

Even for remote populations, energy systems that empower communities, households, businesses and organizations to generate and store their own energy with solar panels or wind installations and batteries, for example, and technologies like heat-exchange systems for buildings, would be better than nuclear. 

Renewables cost less than nuclear, come with fewer health, environmental and weapons-proliferation risks and have been successfully deployed worldwide. Given rapid advances in energy, grid and storage technologies, along with the absolute urgency of the climate crisis, pursuing nuclear at the expense of renewables is costly, dangerous and unnecessary. 

David Suzuki is a scientist, broadcaster, author and co-founder of the David Suzuki Foundation. Written with contributions from David Suzuki Foundation Senior Writer and Editor Ian Hanington.            

July 28, 2021

Learn more at davidsuzuki.org. 

Image: Nuclear Regulatory Commission/Flickr

THE DOMINATION OF EXCHANGE VALUE OVER USE VALUE 
Collectible prices skyrocket, to the dismay of hobbyists

By KEN SWEET

Austin Deceder sorts Magic cards in his home office Friday, Aug. 27, 2021, in Kansas City, Mo. Prices of the collectable cards and vintage video games that Deceder and others buy and sell have skyrocketed in the past few months to the dismay of hobbyists. (AP Photo/Charlie Riedel)

NEW YORK (AP) — Americans have become obsessed with collectibles, bidding up prices for trading cards, video games and other mementos of their youth. The frenzy has brought small fortunes to some, but a deep frustration for those who still love to play games or trade cards as a hobby.

Among the items most sought after — and even fought over — are the relics of millennials’ childhoods. These include copies of trading cards such as Pokemon’s Charizard and Magic: The Gathering’s Black Lotus as well as Nintendo’s Super Mario Bros. game cartridges. Some cards are selling for hundreds of thousands of dollars and an unopened Super Mario game recently sold for an astonishing $2 million.

This is more than a case of opportunistic collectors looking to cash in on a burst of nostalgia triggered by the pandemic. Everyone seemingly is angling for a piece of the pie.

The corporations who own franchises such as Pokemon are rolling out new editions as quickly as they can print them; internet personalities are hawking the products and raking in advertising money; companies that tell collectors how much their possessions are worth are doing unprecedented businesses — and in at least one case getting financial backing from a prominent private equity firm looking to get in on the action.

But while some collectors and investors see dollar signs, others complain about the breakdown of their tight-knit communities. Players looking to play in-person again after the pandemic are unable to find the game pieces they want; if the pieces are available, prices have gone up astronomically. Critics of rising prices have become targets of harassment by those who now consider trading cards, comics and video games no different than a stock portfolio.

“Prices are going up, and access is going down,” said Brian Lewis, who operates a YouTube channel under the name Tolarian Community College.

The collectibles frenzy has been fueled partly by a self-fulfilling cycle of YouTube personalities driving hype around collecting and the rising prices of collectibles. This can lead to big paydays as advertisers notice the frenzy stirred up among the influencer’s dedicated followers.

With more than 23 million subscribers, Logan Paul made several videos where he simply opens up boxes of vintage Pokemon cards, hyping the prices he’d paid and bringing in millions of views. Australian YouTube personality Michael Anderson, who goes by the moniker UnlistedLeaf, has garnered millions of views doing similar videos

“It may be a burgeoning industry, but this is still big business. Brands want to reach these audiences,” said Justin Kline, co-founder of Markerly, an influencer marketing agency. Based on standard industry metrics, he estimates Anderson earns upward to $50,000 in advertising revenue doing unboxing videos, while Logan Paul may earn six figures per video.

The hype has sent collectors scrambling to find out if their Pikachu, Charizard, Mox Emerald or Ancestral Recall cards might be worth a fortune. To do so, they turn to grading services, which have been flooded with orders.

The grading service Beckett’s has effectively stopped accepting any cards to grade unless the customer is willing to pay $250 per card for its ultra-fast turnaround service typically reserved for the costliest collectibles. The turnaround time for basic grading services is more than a year, the company says.

In response to record demand, companies are releasing new versions of the games, including premium products that command higher prices. Whether the momentum is sustainable, at least when to comes to prices, is unknown. Other fads like Beanie Babies or Pogs blew up in the ’90s only to crater, leaving most collectors holding worthless junk. Pokemon and Magic have been around for decades, and have seen surges of interest before.

In the meantime, auction companies and grading companies are making fortunes riding the current speculative frenzy.

Based in Portland, Brian Lewis produces several videos a week under the nickname “The Professor,” in hopes of teaching new and existing players about his favorite hobby, Magic: The Gathering. With more than 600,000 subscribers, he also comments on the state of the game, particularly the issue of rising prices, both on the secondary market (cards purchased from shops) as well as the prices companies are charging for products like Magic.

“I worry deeply that these rising prices will have an impact on the average person’s access to the game,” he said. “There’s a growing class of investors in Magic, and I think it’s not having a positive impact on the game.”

But the frenzy goes beyond trading cards. The U.S. Mint released a 100th Anniversary collection of the Morgan silver dollar, considered by coin collectors to be one of the most beautiful designs ever made, early this summer. The products sold out in minutes.

Three weeks ago, an unopened copy of Super Mario Bros. for the Nintendo Entertainment System sold for $2 million, making it the most expensive video game sold. Only a few weeks earlier, a copy of Super Mario 64 sold for a then-record $1.6 million. An unopened copy of Nintendo’s Legend of Zelda from 1987 sold for $870,000 in early July.

Some members of the video game collecting community have questioned whether the prices paid have been exaggerated by the involvement of third parties like Rally, which sells “shares” in collectibles.

Meanwhile, the trading card community is seeing its own lofty prices as players scramble to find coveted pieces for their collection.

A mint condition Black Lotus from Magic: The Gathering’s first set known as Alpha, sold in January for more than $510,000. That price is double what a card in similar condition sold for six months before in July 2020.

Austin Deceder, 25, primarily buys and sells cards on Facebook and Twitter as a middleman between players wanting to get out of their games and new players. Based in Kanas City, he now travels the country buying collections as his full-time job, having to balance his enjoyment of the game with now being involved financially.

Deceder had a used Black Lotus card that he says he sold for $7,000 in September 2020. “Here we are now and the price on that same card has doubled.”

It’s not just the ultra-rare cards seeing inflation. Take the widely available Magic: The Gathering card named “Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer.” The card, depicting a bespectacled monkey sitting on a hoard of treasure, was $30 earlier this summer. The card now sells for closer to $90, Deceder says, as game stores have reopened after the pandemic.

“Now that people can play in person, card prices are moving up again,” he said.

Not everyone is happy, however. Some enthusiasts say the frenzy has brought out the worst in fans and speculators. Nowhere is this more evident than among collectors of Pokemon cards, with its motto “Gotta Catch ’Em All!”

The frenzy in Pokemon began late last year when Logan Paul did his first unboxing videos, which only led other content creators to make similar videos and collectors to bid up prices on cards new and vintage, said Lee Steinfeld, 34, a long-time collector in Dallas who does videos, including unboxings, under the name Leonhart.

“That’s when things went super crazy,” he said.

Since then, boxes of Pokemon trading cards have been routinely sold out at hobbyist shops and big-box retail stores. Fistfights have broken out, requiring chains like Target to restrict the number of packs an individual customer can purchase. The Pokemon Company says it is trying to print as many cards as possible to keep up.

“Pretty much the entire Pokemon community has deteriorated,” said Shelbie, a creator of Pokémon videos under the name Frosted Caribou on YouTube.

While most of Shelbie’s content features unboxings or discussions about upcoming products, one of her most popular uploads was an hour-long video focused on the problems in the Pokemon collecting community since the frenzy began last year. Shelbie, who declined to give a last name to avoid being a target of harassment, said some harassment in the past has come from some of the community’s biggest collectors, particularly when she has talked about prices.

Later this year, Pokemon will be releasing a set to celebrate its 25th anniversary. While typically an anniversary set would garner interest from any collector, this time Shelbie said she’s hesitant.

“The set is going to be amazing. It’s also going to be impossible to get. It’s going to be awful actually,” she said.

But the surge of interest has been good for the corporations and Wall Street.

Hasbro’s Wizards of the Coast division makes the tabletop role-playing game “Dungeons & Dragons” as well as Magic: The Gathering. Wizards reported second-quarter revenue of $406 million, more than double year-ago revenue. Hasbro executives told investors in July they would soon be raising product prices. Wizards has introduced premium packs of cards with harder-to-find game pieces that sell for four to five times more than a regular packs.

Wall Street has also ridden the wave of interest. Private equity giant Blackstone purchased a majority stake in Certified Collectibles Group, a company that grades collectibles like trading cards, in July for $500 million. The company has doubled its employee count since last year and is buying another 30,000 square feet of office space, President Max Spiegel said.

Whether that’s good for the players who have long participated in these hobbies is unknown. Long-time collectors likely stand to make money in the future, but those who recently entered these communities may be purchasing overpriced cards hyped by those who stand to benefit the most, community leaders said. It’s not unlike the stock market craze that drove prices of GameStop and other “meme” stocks higher earlier this year.

“There’s now a whole subculture who are using Pokemon as a stock market. I don’t know how those people can look at the community and say this is healthy,” Shelbie said.

Use-value and exchange-value

In Capital Volume I, Marx discusses the concept of use-value verses exchange-value. According to Marx, use-value is inherent in a commodity while exchange-value is subject to change based upon an ever-changing market. This concept is very similar to Adam Smith’s natural and market price. Smith stated that the natural price of a commodity is static while the market price is subject to change based on supply and demand (see Volume I, Book I of the Wealth of Nations, page 63).

Marx goes on to further examine commodities in a social context. He states that there are “material relations between persons and social relationships between things” in a capitalist society (321). Marx believes that only when this social exchange occurs do objects gain exchange-value. He believes that this exchange allows commodities to have exchange-values separate from their use-values. I think it is important to also consider Marx’s idea of “material relations” that exist between people in a capitalist society. This relationship seems to once again point out the social alienation of the worker that we have discussed in regards to previous excerpts by Marx. How is it that inanimate objects can have social relationships while each individual worker has material relationships with his fellow man?

Use-value, exchange value, value (libcom.org)

Law of Value- 4. Use-value, Exchange-value and Value (draft) | Kapitalism101 (wordpress.com)

Guatemala’s former anti-corruption prosecutor faces arrest

By SONNY FIGUEROA

FILE - In this April 3, 2019 file photo, Juan Francisco Sandoval, Guatemala's lead prosecutor against impunity, poses for a photo during an interview in Guatemala City. Guatemalan officials confirmed on Sept. 3, 2021 that they're trying to arrest Sandoval, the former anti-corruption prosecutor whose ouster led the U.S. to reduce cooperation with Guatemala's legal system, while under investigation for allegedly leaking confidential information. (AP Photo/Moises Castillo, File)


GUATEMALA CITY (AP) — Guatemalan officials confirmed Friday they are trying to arrest a fired anti-corruption prosecutor whose ouster led the United States to reduce cooperation with the Central American nation’s legal system.

The arrest warrant for Juan Francisco Sandoval was confirmed by the spokesman for the prosecutor’s office, Juan Luis Pantaleón, a day after Attorney General Consuelo Porras said on Twitter that he was under investigation for allegedly leaking confidential information, among other allegations.

Later Friday, Pantaleón said the attorney general’s office was launching an investigation into alleged bribes that President Alejandro Giammattei had received from Russian businessmen, following media reports about the alleged bribes.

“There is an investigation regarding the issue on information released in media interviews and publications,” said Pantaleón, adding that he was referring to reports that a person linked to a Russian businessman had given money to Giammattei inside a carpet.

Sandoval, who said he had been investigating Giammattei for the same reason, as well as other senior officials, was fired on July 23 and fled to the United States, saying he feared for his safety.

Sandoval responded to Porras by accusing her of “leading a strategy to criminalize and persecute all the people who have contributed for years to strengthening justice and combating corruption and impunity.”

He accused her of meddling in the probe into suspected bribery of the president involving a major port. No charges have been filed in that case.

Sandoval’s ouster led the U.S. government to say in July that it had lost confidence in Guatemala’s commitment to battling corruption and it temporarily suspended cooperation with the Attorney General’s Office.

Many Guatemalans, too, staged street protests in recent weeks accusing the government of quelling attempts to root out corrupt officials.

Suspicions were fed on Thursday when the country’s top court issued a ruling that could keep some corrupt officials out of prison. The Constitutional Court overturned a law that had barred those sentenced for corruption to terms of five years or less from paying a fine instead of serving time behind bars.

It applies to convictions for crimes by public servants and those in the courts involving charges including fraud, bribery, passive embezzlement, abuse of authority and influence trafficking.

Among potential beneficiaries of the decision is one of the court’s justices, Néster Vásquez, who has been accused by the Office of the Special Prosecutor Against Impunity of manipulating the election of judges to other

Vazquez was included in a recently published U.S. list of allegedly corrupt officials in the region, along with former President Alvaro Colom, who was accused of involvement in fraud and embezzlement.

In 2019, then-President Jimmy Morales forced out a U.N.-backed anti-corruption mission that had worked with local prosecutors to root out graft and had led to the imprisonment of several senior officials, including former President Otto Perez Molina.

On Friday, the former head of that U.N. mission, Iván Velásquez, issued a statement of solidarity with Sandoval, “whom the corrupt Guatemalan prosecutor Consuelo Porras ordered captured.

“Sooner rather than later, the people will restore the state of law and the corrupt of all sorts will pay for their misdeeds.”

Study documents dramatic loss of remaining Pyrenees glaciers

By ARITZ PARRAyesterday


A view of the Petit Vignemale glacier, left, and the Oulettes, right, on the Vignemale massif's north face in the Pyrenean mountain range, as seen from the Gaube valley in southern France, Sunday, Aug. 3, 2020. Spanish scientists say Europe's southernmost glaciers will likely be reduced to ice patches in the next two decades due to climate change. The study also found that the shrinking of ice mass on the Pyrenees mountain range is continuing at the steady but rapid speed seen at least since the 1980s. 

(AP Photo/Aritz Parra)


MADRID (AP) — Europe’s southernmost glaciers will likely be reduced to ice patches in the next two decades due to climate change, as the shrinking of ice mass on the Pyrenees mountain range continues at the steady but rapid speed seen at least since the 1980s, Spanish scientists say in a new study.

The Pyrenees, marking the natural border between Spain and France, saw three glaciers disappear or become reduced to stagnant strips of ice since 2011. In 17 of the two dozen remaining ice sheets, there’s been an average loss of 6.3 meters (20 feet) of ice thickness.

Their mass also shrank over one-fifth on average, or 23%, in nearly one decade, according to the study published last week in the peer-reviewed Geophysical Research Letters. Its findings were announced to the media on Friday.

The Spanish scientists blamed climate change for the retreat, and in particular a 1.5-degree-Celsius (2.7 Fahrenheit) overall temperature increase in the Pyrenean region since the 19th century.

 

“What we are seeing here is an advance warning of what may happen in other mountains, like in the Alps,” said Jesús Revuelto, one of the study’s authors. “Their glaciers have much more mass and entity, but we are showing them the way.”

Geologist Ixeia Vidaller, another leading author, said that the loss of ice mass was also a “tragedy” for the Pyrenean landscape, with yet-to-be-seen effects on biodiversity.

The researchers work for the Pyrenean Institue of Ecology, or IPE, a branch of Spain’s main public scientific research body, the CSIC. They used high-resolution satellite imagery and visuals obtained by research flights in 2011 to map the ice mass evolution, comparing it with data obtained in field visits and 3D models of the mountain ridges produced last summer with the help of drones.

The scientists found a loss of up to 20 meters (66 feet) of ice thickness in parts of some of the fastest-melting glaciers. The diminishing of the four largest of them is more consistent than that of the smaller-sized among the studied ice sheets, they said, as the ice in many cases has already retreated to the shade of ridges carved by centuries of erosion.

Comparing to other existing studies about past ice loss, IPE’s research also found that the annual rate of ice mass loss has not slowed down since the 1980s.

“We can argue with confidence that Pyrenean glaciers are in extreme jeopardy and could disappear or become residual ice patches in about two decades,” the scientists wrote.

A recent major report by scientists for the United Nations calls climate change clearly human-caused, “unequivocal” and “an established fact.” It also says that temperatures in about a decade will probably blow past a level of warming that world leaders have sought to prevent.

The Mediterranean basin, shared by southern Europe, the Middle East and northern Africa, is being identified by U.N. experts as a “climate change hot spot,” likely to endure devastating heat waves, water shortages and loss of biodiversity, among other consequences.

Judge rules U.S. turning back asylum seekers unconstitutional



A judge has ruled that it is unconstitutional for the United States to deny migrants access to its asylum process at ports of entry. File Photo by Ariana Drehsler/UPI | License Photo


Sept. 3 (UPI) -- A federal judge has ruled the United States' practice of systematically denying migrants access to the asylum process at ports of entry under the pretext that they were act capacity was unconstitutional.

U.S. District Judge Cynthia Bashant of the Southern District of California ruled Thursday in favor of a lawsuit filed four years ago by advocacy group Al Otro Lado and 13 people who sought asylum in the United States.

"After over four years, a U.S. federal court concluded what our team at Al Otro Lado has known all along, that the [Customs and Border Protection's] turning away of asylum seekers from ports of entry and metering are illegal and violate the rights of the individuals and families most in need of our protection," Nicole Ramos, border rights project director at Al Otro Lado, said Thursday in a statement.

In her 45-page ruling, Bashant said that under U.S. law, the government must inspect and process all asylum seekers when they present themselves at ports of entry.

According to the court document, this act known as metering began under the Obama administration in 2016 in response to a surge in Haitian immigrants arriving at the San Ysidro port of of entry in San Diego, Calif.

As the high volume in asylum seekers continued, the act of metering was adopted by other ports of entry though its implementation varied. Under the Trump administration, the policy was officially adopted and expanded in 2018.

In March 2020, the United States implemented COVID-19 preventative measures that allow border officials to deny entry to asylum seeks. Early last month, the Biden administration extended the measure known as Title 42.

In her ruling, Bashant gave the U.S. government and Al Otro Lado until Oct. 1 to submit supplemental briefs on the appropriate remedy in the case and to explain how it may be impacted by Title 42.

Al Otro Lado had argued the CPB used lies, threats and coercion to deny migrants access to the asylum process.

"This decision affirms what people fleeing persecution and immigrant rights advocates have argued for years: the U.S. government's denial of access to the asylum process at ports of entry is blatantly illegal," Melissa Crow, senior supervising attorney with the Southern Poverty Law Center, which joined the class action lawsuit in 2018, said in a statement. "The court properly recognized the extensive human costs of metering, including the high risk of assault, disappearance and death when CBP officers flout their duty to inspect and process asylum seekers and instead force them to wait in Mexico."

Hyundai Genesis to go all-electric by 2025

Kim Hye-ran & Kim Tae-gyu, UPI News Korea


Shown above is the GV60 electric crossover of Hyundai Motor’s Genesis brand, which is to go all-electric by 2025. Photo courtesy of Hyundai Motor

SEOUL, Sept. 3 (UPI) -- Genesis, the luxury brand of South Korean automaker Hyundai Motor, announced it will not release new internal combustion models after 2025.

Instead, Hyundai Chief Executive and President Chang Jae-hoon said Thursday that Genesis will start rolling out only electric vehicles and hydrogen cars to achieve carbon neutrality by 2035.

"Starting in 2025, all new vehicles to be launched will be electric vehicles," Chang said in a live video on the Genesis YouTube channel. "By 2030, Genesis will establish itself as a 100 percent zero-emission vehicle brand that aims to reach sales of 400,000 cars."

Genesis said it plans to reach that goal by selling only electric vehicles across its sales networks, including dealer shops.

RELATED Hyundai launches high-end Genesis electric vehicle

To achieve the goal, the Seoul-based carmaker said that it will also be required to realign its entire value chain, including raw materials, components and factory operation.

For example, Hyundai is vying to develop a new fuel cell system and better lithium-ion batteries.

The transition toward electric models is in line with that of global players like Mercedes-Benz, Volkswagen and General Motors, which are trying to phase out internal combustion cars running on gasoline or diesel.

In addition to its initial announcement, Hyundai Genesis announced the release of the GV60 electric crossover, which will be produced on the E-GMP, the automaker's dedicated electric vehicle platform. Hyundai Ioniq5 and the Kia EV6 were built on the E-GMP.

In early July, Genesis announced the launch of the G80 EV, its first electric car. But that model was not built on the E-GMP.

"Five years ago, we launched Genesis -- a luxury brand. So far, it has been an intensive, bold and successful journey," Hyundai Chairman Chung Eui-sun said in the video.

RELATED LG Chem shares fall due to Chevy Bolt recall

"And now, Genesis is once again at the starting point of another audacious journey: the journey toward a sustainable future," he said.

Observers pointed out that Hyundai is attempting to elevate its Genesis brand by releasing electric cars.

"Electric vehicles have quickly become important in the global market, but few models have succeeded," Daelim University automotive professor Kim Pil-soo told UPI News Korea.

"It seems that Hyundai Motor is trying to preempt the high-end electric vehicle market through its Genesis brand," he said.

A FISH YOU DO NOT CATCH & RELEASE

Man reels in invasive fanged fish from Massachusetts lake


Sept. 3 (UPI) -- A man reeled in an unusual fanged fish from a Massachusetts lake that was identified by experts as an invasive species that isn't native to North America.

Mike Powell of Canton said he was fishing in the Canton Reservoir when he reeled in a nearly 6-pound fish with a mouth full of sharp fangs.



"Let's be honest, I'm out here chasing big bass. To catch that when I'm not looking for it, I mean I was wearing one of these things that tells you your heart rate, thing was going through the roof," Powell told WCVB-TV.

Wildlife experts identified the 30-inch fish as a northern snakehead, an Asian species considered invasive in North America.

"There are very few species you can confuse with snakeheads," Todd Richards from MassWildlife said.

He said the fish was likely an illegal pet that was released into the reservoir when it became too big for its tank.

"They are an injurious species, so you can't possess them. MassWildlife regulates the possession of the fish that can live in our waters, and we don't issue permits for snakeheads," Richards said. "I fished this lake my entire life and when I saw that I was like, 'This doesn't belong here.'"

Experts urge slowdown on COVID-19 vaccine booster shots

WHO SAYS VACCINATE THE REST OF THE WORLD FIRST

By Dennis Thompson, HealthDay News

HEALTH NEWS
SEPT. 3, 2021 /

Experts say COVID-19 vaccine booster shots, in the United States and elsewhere, should not be considered until more of the world has received initial doses because that would go farther to slow down global coronavirus spread and potentially prevent the next deadly variant. 

File Photo by Debbie Hill/UPI | License Photo

Opposition is mounting among U.S. and international health experts against President Joe Biden's push to make COVID-19 booster shots available later this month.

The scientific evidence simply isn't there to support booster shots, and those doses would be better used in the arms of the unvaccinated around the world to prevent future mutations of COVID-19, infectious disease experts said in an interview with HealthDay Now.

"The important thing to remember is this is being driven by the unvaccinated. That's what's in the hospital right now. It's not vaccinated people that are the issue in this pandemic," said Dr. Amesh Adalja, a senior scholar with the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security.

"The whole debate over boosters needs to be framed by that, because putting third doses into highly vaccinated populations isn't going to change what's happening in the United States," Adalja said.

RELATEDU.S. plans booster for Pfizer, Moderna COVID-19 shots starting in September

Unfortunately, the Biden Administration's advocacy for booster shots has created a rush by some Americans to get a third dose -- even though the additional jabs haven't yet been approved by federal regulators, said Dr. Camille Kotton, an infectious disease specialist with Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston.

"I will say that I'm shocked at the number of people that have gone out and just helped themselves to booster doses," Kotton said. "It's a little bit greedy to do something that's not really recommended yet, just because they've read the newspaper and thought that was a good idea for themselves."

Last month, Biden told the nation that booster shots would be available the week of Sept. 20 for the earliest recipients of the COVID-19 vaccines, although he added that the plan was pending approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

RELATEDJ&J says COVID-19 vaccine booster after 6 months adds 'robust' protection

The FDA will hold an advisory board meeting on Sept. 17 to review data from Pfizer regarding booster shots for its vaccine, the agency announced this week.WHO, EU don't back boosters

Both the World Health Organization and the European Union have counseled against booster shots, urging that nations instead focus on getting shots into the arms of the unvaccinated.

That's the approach Adalja and some other health experts are promoting.

RELATED COVID-19 vaccines boost antibodies, even in immunocompromised people

"The longer this virus is unchecked anywhere in the world, the more likely we are to see variants. Until we control this pandemic in all corners of the globe, we're still going to have variants," Adalja said. "The way we control this pandemic is by getting first doses, second doses into people's arms all around the world, even in the United States."

Kotton and Adalja both noted that at this point, the scientific evidence doesn't seem to support the need for booster shots in fully vaccinated people.

"Really what we're seeing is higher rates of breakthrough disease, which is still generally mild symptoms," said Kotton, who serves on the CDC's Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, or ACIP, the board that will review booster shots prior to their approval.

"People aren't going to the hospital the vast majority of the time. They just have a little bit of a viral syndrome," Kotton said.

Check out the full HealthDay Now interview:

ACIP recently approved a third dose of vaccine for people with compromised immune systems, but Kotton noted that the dose isn't a booster. Rather, people who are immune-compromised will receive a three-dose vaccine series rather than a two-dose series.

"This is not actually a booster dose," Kotton said. "This is a third dose that is considered part of their primary vaccine series."

In that case, medical evidence showed that people with immune system deficiencies -- solid organ recipients, bone marrow transplant patients, folks fighting cancer -- needed a three-dose series to achieve sufficient protection against COVID-19, Kotton said.

But for the general population, the evidence continues to show that the vaccines protect people against severe illness and hospitalization, Kotton and Adalja said.

"Primarily we've been trying to prevent this virus from causing severe disease, hospitalization and death," Adalja said. "By that standard, the vaccines -- even when you see antibody levels wane or you see breakthrough infections occurring -- they're still performing off the charts, because that's what they were designed to do."

Let scientists make the call

"Vaccines are not bug zappers. They're not force fields. They're not meant to stop every breakthrough infection," Adalja continued. "Because the breakthrough infections are generally mild, I don't know that we want to be in the business of chasing them with booster shots when this is not a virus that's ever going to go away."

Adalja said he's "very eager" to see the ACIP debate the data and discuss when healthy people might need a booster.

"This is something we want to be proactive about. We want to have a plan in case it's necessary," Adalja said. "But I think giving a date certain that [is] six months or eight months or Sept. 20, that doesn't really strike me as something that's evidence-based. I think that's why you see many infectious disease doctors question the clinical need for these boosters.

"These types of decisions shouldn't be announced by the White House," Adalja noted. "They should be announced by the ACIP and the CDC. If we reverse this process, we kind of go back to the old days of the pandemic where you had politicians making decisions about what treatments were effective or were not effective."

In the meantime, Kotton cautions people not to seek out a booster until it's been formally approved.

She noted that doctors or pharmacists could wind up in trouble for providing a booster, since it's "a significant violation of federal policy," Kotton said.

In addition, people might be on the hook for the cost of their booster dose, since it hasn't been approved.

"I would really not recommend that people do that of their own accord until such time as we have good scientific evidence to support that," Kotton said.More information

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has more on COVID-19 vaccines.

Copyright © 2021 HealthDay. All rights reserved.

FOR PROFIT HEALTHCARE
Study: 2.7M people in U.S. lost health insurance in spring, summer 2020

#MEDICAREFORALL  #SINGLEPAYERNOW


About 2.7 million Americans lost their health insurance due to unemployment at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic last summer, a new study has found. Photo by TBIT/Pixabaylink

Sept. 3 (UPI) -- Some 2.7 million people in the United States lost health insurance in spring and summer 2020 during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, an analysis published Friday by JAMA Health Forum found.

The percentage of adults age 18 to 64 nationally who had health insurance declined by steadily each week between April 1 and July 1, the data showed.
\

Most of those who became uninsured last year had been relying on employer-sponsored health plans and lost their jobs, the researchers said.

Over the 12-week period that the study focused on, the ranks of those with employer-sponsored insurance declined by about 0.2% per week, according to the researchers.

RELATED Survey: COVID-19, income loss put many in medical debt

"The health insurance safety net is complicated. While it works well for many, it doesn't protect everyone," study co-author Kate Bundorf told UPI in an email.

"Policy should be designed to address those gaps," said Bundorf, a professor of health policy and management at Duke University in Durham, N.C.

Nearly 33 million people in the United States under age 65 -- the time at which Medicare coverage kicks in -- lack health insurance, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

RELATED Out-of-work Americans can now receive aid to pay for ACA health coverage

Although this figure has generally declined since the implementation of the Affordable Care Act, up to half of adults diagnosed with COVID-19 nationally reported medical debt becasue they lost their jobs and their health insurance, a survey released in July by the Commonwealth Fund found.

For this study, Bundorf and her colleagues analyzed health insurance trends data for more than 1.2 million adults age 18 to 64 in the United States in 2020.

Between April 1 and July 1, the height of the first wave of the COVID-19 across the country, the percentage of adults in the study with health insurance dropped by 1.4%, the data showed.

RELATED Study: 30,000 deaths in U.S. during pandemic linked to unemployment

These declines continued throughout the rest of the year, but at a slower rate, the researchers said.

When applied to the entire national population, the percentage of study participants who became uninsured last year translates to 2.7 million people losing their healthcare coverage in that 12-week period, mostly due to loss of employer-sponsored plans.

"There are alternatives to employer-sponsored coverage and, since the enactment of the Affordable Care Act, those options have expanded," Bundorf said.

"If people lose coverage through a job, they should check to see what is available in their state and from their former employer," she said.

Tradition of Afghan girls who live as boys may be threatened

Analysis by Lisa Selin Davis 1 hour ago

The last time the Taliban ruled Afghanistan, after the Soviet--Afghan War of the 1980s, life for women and girls was ghastly.

IRONICALLY IT IS AN AFGHAN TRADITION 

(LONG AGO RECORDED BY SIR CAPTAIN ROBERT BURTON)  

FOR PATRIARCHIAL LEADERS TO HAVE BOY BRIDES!!!!

© Loulou d'Aki/The New York Times/Redux Ali, 14, wears jeans and a shirt while her sister Setar, 16, wears a traditional outfit for men, in Kabul, in a practice known as "bacha posh," in a picture taken in June 2017.

As a report from the Congressional Research Service put it, "Taliban prohibited women from working, attending school after age 8, and appearing in public without a male blood relative and without wearing a burqa. Women accused of breaking these or other restrictions suffered severe corporal or capital punishment, often publicly."

Afghanistan routinely edges toward tops lists of the worst places in the world for women and girls, but some things had improved after the United States invaded in 2001. The maternal mortality rate decreased (though it is still alarmingly high). More women held jobs like doctors, politicians and journalists. And more girls were educated: The World Bank showed almost no girls receiving a primary education in 2000, but more than 85% going to school by 2012. Some even got to be on a robotics team.

Even so, a 2018 UNICEF report said 1 in 3 Afghan girls is married before age 18. Only 19% of girls under 15 are literate. And 60% of the 3.7 million children out of school that year were girls — for whom going to school has always been dangerous.

For some girls, there has historically been a path to live, before puberty, as a boy. "Bacha posh," which in Dari means girl "dressed up as a boy," is an ancient tradition that pre-dates the Taliban in which a family designates a girl to live as a boy. That could either allow her a boy's freedoms — like education, athletics and the right to be outside alone — or impose a boy's duties on her, like working.

Some parents designate a bacha posh if the family has no sons, to alleviate what a family might consider its shame and vulnerability — not having a male child to protect the family or make money for it — with the hope that the shift will cause the next baby born to be a boy. The girls are expected to return at puberty, to become wives and mothers, whether they want to or not -- and many don't, according to Jenny Nordberg, author of a book about the bacha posh, "The Underground Girls of Kabul."

It is, argues Nordberg, a tradition rooted in inequality. Yet it is one of the only ways some girls get even a taste of freedom — a practice that will be much riskier, but at the same time perhaps even more relevant, she says, as we are already seeing women facing discrimination when the Taliban promised they wouldn't.

CNN asked Nordberg what may lie ahead for girls in Afghanistan, including the bacha posh.

This conversation has been lightly edited and condensed for clarity.

CNN: What was the situation for girls in Afghanistan before the United States invaded in 2001?

Jenny Nordberg: Most of them did not go to school. They were illiterate. There were some secret girls' schools, which basically meant a makeshift study group. Women or older sisters who may have had some education under the Russians would teach their younger sisters or younger children. They would say that they would teach the Quran, and then they would actually try to teach other stuff like math or language.

A girl was a weakness to the family because she couldn't defend a family as a boy could. Growing up as a little girl meant that you were groomed for one thing only: to be married off to another family. And in order to be good marriage material, their movements were very limited. Little girls shouldn't play too much. They shouldn't be out much. They should definitely not read a book, not play sports, not be too loud. Be very demure, very, very quiet, always lowering their gaze. Even very liberal, educated, progressive parents didn't want their girls to be abducted by the Taliban or to face any danger. This was a way to protect them.

Once a girl begins to menstruate, when she can conceive and get pregnant, she is married off and becomes the property no longer of her father but of the husband. And this could be a man whom she hasn't met or whom she has only met once and never spoken to.

CNN: How had things changed in the 20 years that Americans were in Afghanistan?

Nordberg: There has been a new mostly urban generation, in big city centers like Kabul, a whole generation who went to school and university. They had big plans for themselves, both men and women. They have smartphones. They know what's going on in the rest of the world. These are the ones who, in the fantasy of a new functioning democracy of Afghanistan, were going to take over the state and push the country forward.

Americans were trying to cultivate the most ambitious, the most talented, the most spirited people to run their own country. Which is sort of like a colonialist fantasy.

CNN: The Taliban have said that they will protect women's rights "within the limits of Islam." Does that give you hope?

Nordberg: That statement means nothing because that will be subject to interpretation. There is zero correlation between what we think are reasonable rights for women, and what they think are reasonable rights for women. Oppressing women is not some side story. It's the main story. It's part of the recruitment strategy. Women are only useful for having children. And women need to be controlled and kept very, very small, very diminished.

A woman who gets an education gets a lot of ideas. Maybe she wants to make some of her own decisions about her own body or whether or when she should have children, whether she should get married. They want none of that. They want to hold all the power over women.

Look at the last few days. Why would people be so desperate to get out if they believed the Taliban were a softer version of themselves? Why would women go into hiding, scared for their lives, if they thought that there was any chance that there was some kind of negotiation or a conversation with the Taliban about human rights for women? Short of another invasion, who is going to hold them to that? The Taliban have now taken over in such a swift and brutal and devastating way. They have no reason to compromise. Why would they want to compromise on anything?

Their credibility, in my view, is zero for actually granting women and girls basic human rights.

CNN: What's going to happen to the women who have been educated and were promised a better future?

Nordberg: Women who are useful in one way or another will be allowed to keep working, but they will have no rights of their own. A female surgeon is under the spell of her husband or her father. And she will need to obey a Taliban society and Taliban rules. They'll parade around some women for a few weeks to say, "Oh, look, we're completely fine and normal. We got this. Don't worry." And then when the eyes of the world have moved away, they'll crack down hard. But they'll keep a few token women to show off as public figures. The rest will be completely brutalized. (As CNN recently reported, "As Taliban leaders tell international media they 'don't want women to be victimized,' a more sinister reality is unfolding on the ground. Girls are being forced into marriage, female bank workers marched from their jobs, and activists' homes raided in a clear message that the freedoms of the last 20 years are coming to an end.")

CNN: Who are the bacha posh?

Nordberg: A bacha posh is a girl who lives as a boy, almost like a third gender. In order to reach for what we think of as some very basic human rights, a girl can put on a pair of pants and a shirt and cut her hair off and pass as a boy. This will increase her range of movement. She doesn't need to be kept indoors. She could play sports. She could escort her mother or do errands. She'll see more of the world outside the house, essentially. And in areas where education is only afforded to boys, she could get an education and could also safely get to school, if it's dangerous for a girl to travel or to walk to school.

It's an ancient tradition and custom that is a sign basically of a deeply dysfunctional, segregated society where women and girls are second-class citizens. If girls had rights, there would be no need to pretend to be the more privileged gender. This is a society where boys and men have almost all the rights. In an extremely segregated society, there will always be those who try to get over to the other side.

CNN: Why do some girls become bacha posh?

Nordberg: It can be done for a number of reasons. If the family doesn't have a boy, it is not just perceived as weak but is actually weak, because there will be no one to defend the family and support aging parents. It could be that people know that you have a bacha posh instead of an actual son, but it's still considered better than to have just daughters. It's viewed favorably by most Afghans.

It could also be that if the family is poor, you will have a bacha posh as labor, working for the family business or working outside the home as a shop assistant, bringing some money in if the father can't work or if the mother is widowed.

It could also be that the parents really want a girl to get an education. If you have two sons and a daughter and then you dress the girl just like the boys, and you send all three of them to school.

CNN: Is it liberating for the girls who are living as bacha posh?

Nordberg: It depends. Is it a burden? Is it so that you can work and bring home money to the family? Or is it a privilege where you're afforded an education or some freedom of movement or you can ride a bike or travel with your father? It can be either or it can be both. It's very complicated psychologically for each individual bacha posh. And it mostly depends on two factors. What was the reason for your being a bacha posh, and how long did it go on for?

CNN: Will it still be allowed under Taliban rule?

Nordberg: This existed in Afghanistan long, long before the Taliban came to power, and it will exist until the day women have their own human rights. That said, there will be a greater need to hide, a greater need to disguise yourself if you want to do certain things. But it will also be more dangerous to do it, because I believe the Taliban do not approve of this. It was always risky and it will be more dangerous under a harsher regime. It will be making a mockery of the Taliban and their view on women.

CNN: What are our moral obligations to the girls and women of Afghanistan?

Nordberg: I hesitate to even use the term "moral obligation." Can we even talk about that anymore? In my opinion, we just needed to get as many people as possible out. What was done wasn't enough, by far. Every ambassador, any country that was involved in this failure of a generation, should have issued emergency visas and opened their borders to the people who we have put in incredible danger by promoting and cultivating and encouraging and educating them. These are our people. and we are part of that country now, as they are part of us.

We encouraged these women to get an education, get a profession, choose your own path, become more like us, build your own country. And those are the ones who are now in extreme danger. These are the journalists, academics, teachers, university students, artists, politicians. The airlifts are now over, but other, more underground efforts, will continue

Get them out and get them out now because the gate is closing on something that will be a horrible, horrible country for women for many years to come.

© Magnus Forsberg/Crown/Penguin Random House Author Jenny Nordberg spoke about the bacha posh to CNN.

© Crown/Penguin Random House Jenny Nordberg documented the "bacha posh" in her book, "The Underground Girls of Kabul."

ON THE OTHER HAND

China bans ‘sissy’ and ‘effeminate’ men under new macho media rules
Josh K. Elliott 

Macho, macho man

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© CG/VCG via Getty Images Singer/actor Roy Wang Yuan of boy group TFBoys performs during his first solo concert 'Yuan' at Nanjing Olympic Sports Centre on August 31, 2019 in Nanjing, Jiangsu Province of China.

China wants to be a country of macho men, and it’s trying to make that happen by banning “sissy” boybands and “effeminate” males from all media in the nation.


Broadcasters must “resolutely put an end to sissy men and other abnormal esthetics,” the National Radio and TV Administration wrote in a new set of rules released Thursday. It also used the term “niang pao," an insult for effeminate men that means “girlie guns.”

Read more: China’s censors to establish do-not-play list of ‘illegal’ karaoke songs

The new rules call for broadcasters to enforce a "correct beauty standard" and to boycott "vulgar" internet celebrities and celebrations of wealth, while promoting "traditional Chinese culture, revolutionary culture and socialist culture." They also ban all "idol audition shows" and recommend blacklisting anyone who has broken the law or offended public morals.

Additionally, the rules say that broadcasters should avoid airing anything that is "overly entertaining."

The Chinese Communist Party’s propaganda department announced the new media masculinity rules on Thursday, in its latest effort to police morality through censorship.

President Xi Jinping has essentially pledged to Make China Great Again with a “national rejuvenation,” which he is trying to pull off through strict control of all business, education, culture and religion in the country.

The CCP has racked up a long list of censorship and human rights abuses in recent years, from the persecution of ethnic Uighurs in Xinjiang, to the complete denial of the 1984 massacre at Tiananmen Square, to new rules that ban certain karaoke songs or limit children from playing more than three hours of online video games a week.

Even Winnie the Pooh has been banned, after the character was once used to mock Xi.

Read more: China limits children to no more than 3 hours of video games a week

China has also targeted its own celebrities who it deems to have stepped out of line. Actors Fan Bingbing and Zheng Shuang have been handed steep fines in the past, and the wildly popular actor Zhao Wei was recently erased from all Chinese media without explanation. Actor Zhang Zhehan was also wiped off the Chinese internet after photos surfaced of him at a controversial shrine for Japanese soldiers.

The new media rules could have a major impact beyond China’s borders, particularly in Hollywood, where studios in the past have kowtowed to Chinese demands in order to show their films in the lucrative market.

Tech companies are also facing pressure under the propaganda department's new rules, as they are being held responsible for enforcement.

Weibo, China's version of Twitter, suspended thousands of entertainment news and fan club accounts over the weekend amid the broader crackdown.

It's unclear how the rules will impact the LGBTQ2 community within China, or how they might affect foreign athletes when they go to Beijing for the 2022 Winter Olympics next February.

— With files from The Associated Press