UK

EXTINCTION REBELLION
Protesters target London's major ring road for 4th time

Mon., September 20, 2021, 


LONDON (AP) — Environmental protesters pressuring the British government to insulate all homes brought traffic chaos to London's major ring road on Monday for the fourth time in recent days.

The “Insulate Britain” protesters have targeted the M25, one of the country's busiest highways, blocking entry roads by gluing themselves to the road and painting the name of their group on the road as well as a blue heart.

Although dozens of protesters have been arrested over the four demonstrations, police are being urged to take swifter action to end the protests.

“We are taking powers to be able to remove protesters when they are threatening critical national infrastructure, when they are threatening to cause serious economic damage and I think that is entirely right,” Prime Minister Boris Johnson told reporters Sunday on the RAF Voyager while heading to New York for the U.N. General Assembly.

“And no, I don’t think these people do any favors to their cause. I think that what they do is detract from a very important moral mission that is widely shared now by the people of this country," he added.

Insulate Britain said Monday that it will keep up the protests.

“Actions will continue until the government makes a meaningful commitment to insulate all of Britain’s 29 million leaky homes by 2030, and all social housing by 2025," it said in a statement.

Chief Superintendent Nick Caveney from the Hertfordshire Constabulary, which made a further 29 arrests Monday for a total of 76 overall, warned of more disruptions ahead and said police were doing everything they can to stop the protests before they cause traffic chaos.

Other police forces around the 117-mile (188-kilometer) ring road have also made dozens of arrests.

Kent Police said Monday that a dozen protesters were arrested at the Dartford River Crossing, east of the British capital, on suspicion of conspiracy to cause a public nuisance before they were able to gain access to the road.

CRIMINAL CAPITALI$M

BP Oil Trader Says He Was Fired Over Nigeria Bribe Concerns
Jonathan Browning
Mon., September 20, 2021

BP Plc fired an ex-oil trader because he voiced concerns about bribes being paid in Nigeria to secure local contracts, according to a sprawling London employment suit that sheds light on the energy giant’s lucrative trading floor.

Jonathan Zarembok, who traded on BP’s West Africa desk, said that the company paid an “abnormally large” fee to a local agent to participate in a state oil tender. He alleged that BP’s traders also sought to make payments in a deal that would have been the largest the desk had ever struck in Nigeria, before the transaction was ended, according to the lawsuit.

“We were paying agents in Nigeria huge multiples of what we paid in other regions even though those agents did not perform services of any real value to BP,” Zarembok said in his witness statement. “Our proposed reasons for paying the agent these sums were a sham.”

BP argued that the payments were legitimate and were fully scrutinized by its deal governance board that included the trading floor’s most senior executives. Lawyers for the firm said that the bribery allegations were investigated and couldn’t be substantiated. Zarembok didn’t raise specific concerns about corruption at the time, BP said. Zarembok was ultimately dismissed in April 2020 because the working relationship had irretrievably broken down.

The London suit, which also names the company’s crude oil trading head Dan Wise as a defendant, highlights the issues faced by the largest oil traders when using agents to win lucrative deals. BP rival Gunvor Group Ltd. cut its use of agents in 2019 after the energy trader admitted a former employee bribed officials in the Republic of Congo to secure oil contracts.

“BP is defending in full and denies all allegations made by the claimant,” the firm said in a statement.

BP’s trading unit not only dealt with the physical cargoes of oil but also took “educated but speculative positions,” Zarembok said in his witness statement. He called it “a profit center in its own right.”

The 15-year veteran said he and his team, focused on West Africa, were tasked with delivering around $75 million per year from trading. Zarembok was being paid bonuses of more than $3 million a year until they were cut in half for 2017 and then slashed to zero by 2019.

In Nigeria, local rules required oil firms to work with Nigerian firms if they wanted to acquire crude oil cargoes issued by Nigerian National Petroleum Corp., the country’s state oil producer. The cargoes, issued at below the market rate, were highly lucrative and BP had repeatedly missed out. In 2017, BP chose to work with a local agent rather than agree a joint venture with a Nigerian company.

Slothful

“2018 is an election prep year so we understand what that means,” a BP executive in Nigeria wrote in an email to Zarembok and other traders. “And if you don’t, I will explain it to you in person.”

The individual later wrote to apologize for his “slothful communication,” according to documents prepared for the lawsuit.

But Zarembok said the email was a “clear red flag,” saying that the obvious inference was “there would be pressure to pay bribes.”

In total, BP paid $900,000 in fees to the local agent after securing two crude oil cargoes from NNPC. Broadly speaking, the fees paid to Nigerian agents were about 10 times higher than those BP paid to agents in other countries.

The suit comes after a case involving Glencore Plc, where a former oil trader, who recently pleaded guilty to corruption, wired payments to various NNPC officials to secure cargoes, including cash requested for use in the country’s 2015 elections. Glencore’s new chief executive officer said in August that the firm no longer uses middlemen in its oil business.

Zarembok said BP was swift to investigate a $15 expense by an local agent that might have been a bribe to an NNPC doorman, but took weeks to respond to his concerns in the buildup to the largest deal that the company’s trading room had ever negotiated in Nigeria.

In 2017, BP planned to lend hundreds of millions of dollars to NNPC in exchange for a seven-year crude purchase agreement. Again, in order to satisfy local requirements, BP was considering working with an agent who offered little real value to the negotiations, Zarembok said.

A spokesman for NNPC didn’t immediately respond to calls and messages requesting comment.

“The proposal to pay what was almost certainly an ill-disguised bribe was contrary to the values that I believed BP stood and should stand for,” Zarembok said. “The whole thing made me sick.”

The deal was ultimately terminated after the agent sought to increase the size of the fees to some $2 million per year for the lifetime of the contract.

Food Prices Poised to Surge With Fertilizer at Highest in Years

Elizabeth Elkin
Mon., September 20, 2021

Food Prices Poised to Surge With Fertilizer at Highest in Years

(Bloomberg) -- Most people don’t give fertilizer a second thought -- except maybe when driving through a particularly fragrant agricultural area. But with prices for some synthetic nutrients at their highest levels since the financial crisis, it could mean weaker harvests and bigger grocery bills next year, just as the world’s supply chains start to recover from the pandemic.

A perfect storm of events -- from extreme weather and plant shutdowns to new government sanctions -- has hit the chemical fertilizer market this year, slamming farmers already buckling under the strain of rising costs to produce food. Prices for urea, a popular nitrogen-based fertilizer, skyrocketed earlier this month to the highest since 2012 in New Orleans, the U.S.’s major fertilizer trading hub. A common phosphate fertilizer known as DAP is the most expensive in that market since 2008, Bloomberg data show.

“As fertilizer prices continue to rise, farmers will either cut application rates, cut fertilizer entirely in hopes for lower future pricing, or cut other farm products to account for the bigger expected spend,” said Alexis Maxwell, an analyst at Green Markets, a business owned by Bloomberg. Some are holding out before buying for the next growing season in hopes costs come down -- a risk, she said, since prices could continue to rise.

Farmers growing the commodity-grade corn, soy and other grains that fuel both livestock and packaged-food factories are already spending more than normal on seeds, labor, transportation and equipment. That’s helped contribute to sharp food inflation over the past year. A United Nations measure of global food prices is near the highest in a decade, a problem the fertilizer spike could exacerbate.

“Fertilizer cost is one of the biggest drivers behind global food inflation now as prices for all three groups of nutrients -- potash, phosphate and nitrogen -- are at levels not seen for about a decade,” Elena Sakhnova, a VTB Capital analyst in Moscow, said in an interview.

A confluence of events are behind the rising prices. Back-to-back late summer storms on the U.S. Gulf Coast prevented product from moving in and out and temporarily shuttered plants in the region, including the largest nitrogen complex in the world, owned by CF Industries Holdings Inc. The company was then forced to shut two U.K. plants due to Europe’s record rally in natural gas, the primary feedstock for much of the nitrogen produced globally. On Friday, Yara International ASA said the high natural gas prices will force it to curtail around 40% of its European production capacity for ammonia, used to make fertilizer.

The logistics companies that transport fertilizer are also facing labor shortages and price increases, adding to costs.

“It sure has made things tremendously more difficult to work with,” said Bill Stringfellow, who co-runs a small operation called Quest Products that helps bring new products to the market, including pesticides and fertilizer products. Freight is about 15% of the cost of buying product for their business, he said, calling it “an absolute nightmare.”

Government action is also at play. Earlier this year, the U.S. and Europe put sanctions on Belaruskali OAO, a major potash producer and one of Belarus’s largest state-owned enterprises, in response to a journalist arrest on a Ryanair flight in May. In China, Yunnan province ordered production cuts across several industries, including fertilizers, as part of measures to curb energy consumption and emissions.

The National Development and Reform Commission has vowed to crack down on urea hoarding and price gouging to maintain market stability, but prices have still been soaring: Urea futures on the Zhengzhou Commodity Exchange have powered to a fresh record amid high prices for coal -- the primary feedstock for nitrogen fertilizers in China -- and concerns over tight supplies.

Silvesio de Oliveira, a 51-year-old soybean and corn farmer in Tapurah -- at the heart of Brazil’s soybean belt -- was fortunate enough to get ahead of the latest price rise. Last November, he bought 100% of the fertilizer needed for both crops.

“We’ve been noticing this fertilizer inflation coming,” he said. He got out ahead because he voraciously reads commodities news, he said. “There’s a bit of luck, but it is mostly information.”

If farmers cut back how much fertilizer they use, among the most impacted could be corn, one of the highest yielding crops but also an expensive one to raise. Fertilizer accounts for about 20% of that expense, said Maxwell, the Green Markets analyst. Other farmers might shift to cheaper crops that require lower inputs, such as soybeans, lentils and peas, said Iowa corn and soybean farmer Ben Riensche.

Smaller corn crops could mean elevated feed costs for dairy and other animal farmers, ultimately translating to higher prices for consumers buying meat like beef and chicken. Corn -- its high-fructose syrup, that is -- is also a major ingredient in sodas, juice and other processed food consumed by many households.

“We’re anticipating this will impact the acreage battle next year,” said StoneX chief commodities economist Arlan Suderman. “We are looking for lower corn acres next year as a result.” Suderman estimates acres of U.S. corn at 91 million, down from 93.5 million this year.

Plants, like people, need a combination of nutrients to survive, and multiple types of fertilizer provide different inputs. Nitrogen pretty much has to be applied every year, so farmers are unlikely to cut the amount they buy and apply to fields, Maxwell said.

As a result, farmers are more likely to cut back on phosphate and potash, instead relying on the nutrients they hope are already in the soil. But some farmers might even cut nitrogen application if the prices continue to rise, said Jerome Lensing, an independent crop adjuster at insurer Rain and Hail -- and that could be a problem.

“With the price of nitrogen going up,” he said, “I hope guys don’t back off so much that come next fall, when they’re out harvesting, they’re saying, ‘how come I’m not getting the corn I thought I should be?’”

ECO CRIMINAL STATE

EU court fines Poland 500,000 euros daily until mine closes

Mon., September 20, 2021

WARSAW, Poland (AP) — The European Union’s top court on Monday ordered Poland to pay a daily fine of 500,000 euros ($586,000) until it complies with an earlier ruling to shut down a lignite mine near the border with the Czech Republic and Germany.

The Court of Justice of the European Union said the daily fine was necessary to get Poland to comply with the court’s temporary injunction in May that called for the immediate closure of the Turow mine, in the southwest.

Poland has refused to close the mine, arguing it supplies the key Turow power plant that generates around 7% of the country's energy supply.

The Polish government tried, but has so far failed to settle the dispute out of court in talks with Czech authorities who had sought the closure order. Prague had wanted the court to impose a 5 million euro ($6 million) daily fine on Poland.

The Czech government welcomed the decision, saying that the open-cast mine is draining water from Czech villages in the area and doing other harm to the local environment.

But Polish government spokesman Piotr Mueller said the fine is not commensurate with the circumstances and undermines efforts to achieve a settlement with Prague.

Mueller said in a statement that the mine won't close because that would “threaten the stability of Poland’s energy system” and would mean “enormous problems” in daily life.

Poland has also argued that it's being treated unfairly because the Czech Republic and Germany operate a number of lignite mines close to Poland’s borders.

Approximately 48% of Poland’s energy comes from hard black coal and 17% from softer and more polluting lignite, or brown coal. Another 25% comes from various renewable sources and biofuels, and 10% comes from gas and other sources.

The Associated Press

CRIMINAL CAPITALI$M BIG TECH

Amazon Vows ‘Zero Tolerance’ for Graft After India Probe Report

Saritha Rai
Mon., September 20, 2021

(Bloomberg) -- Amazon.com Inc. stressed it has zero tolerance for graft and will investigate all allegations of corruption fully, responding to a report by an Indian news outlet that the U.S. e-commerce giant has begun an internal investigation into claims of bribery.

The U.S. company started a probe into its legal representatives’ conduct in India, the Morning Context, a two-year-old media site that typically covers local affairs, reported Monday, citing three people familiar with the matter. Amazon didn’t address specifics in the report but issued the statement after Bloomberg contacted local spokespeople for comment.

“We have zero tolerance for corruption,” Amazon said in its emailed response. “We take allegations of improper actions seriously, investigate them fully, and take appropriate action. We are not commenting on specific allegations or the status of any investigation at this time.”

A whistleblower within Amazon flagged the alleged bribery issues in its Indian operations, prompting the company to start its probe, the Morning Context said. Amazon is investigating accusations that legal fees paid by the company have been used as bribes, the news outlet reported. The company has placed a senior employee on leave, the Morning Context said, citing two individuals who work with Amazon’s in-house legal team.

Andy Jassy, Amazon’s new chief executive officer, is targeting India for growth even as challenges mount in what is arguably the online retailer’s most important market for expansion. The company is up against Walmart Inc.-backed Flipkart Internet Pvt. as well as billionaire Mukesh Ambani’s retail websites including JioMart, all seeking a bigger slice of a potential market topping a billion consumers. Amazon, which employs more than 100,000 across India, has pledged to digitize 10 million small business, enable $10 billion in exports and create two million jobs in the country by 2025.

Last month, India’s Supreme Court allowed an antitrust investigation to proceed against Amazon’s local unit and Flipkart for allegedly abusing their dominance by offering deep discounts and preferential treatment to some vendors. The South Asian nation is tightening regulations for online retailers following years of protests by local brick-and-mortar traders who fear that deep-pocketed global competition could push them out of business.

Amazon, Walmart's Flipkart must face India antitrust probe, top court says

By Aditya Kalra and Abhirup Roy 2021-08-09

© Reuters/DADO RUVIC 

Small toy shopping cart is seen in front of displayed Amazon and Flipkart logos in this illustration

NEW DELHI (Reuters) -Amazon.com Inc and Walmart's Flipkart must face antitrust investigations ordered against them in India, the country's Supreme Court ruled on Monday, in a blow to the leading e-commerce giants which had urged judges to quash the inquiries.

The Competition Commission of India (CCI) ordered the investigation against the companies last year https://www.reuters.com/article/us-india-antitrust-ecommerce/india-orders-antitrust-probe-of-amazon-walmarts-flipkart-idUSKBN1ZC1BO for allegedly promoting select sellers on their e-commerce platforms and using business practices that stifle competition.

The companies deny any wrongdoing and mounted legal challenges in lower courts https://www.reuters.com/technology/india-court-quashes-amazon-flipkart-plea-against-antitrust-probe-2021-07-23 and at the Supreme Court against the investigation, saying the CCI did not have enough evidence to pursue the matter.

A three-judge Supreme Court bench, led by Chief Justice N.V. Ramana, said companies like Amazon and Flipkart should volunteer for such investigations.

"We expect organisations like Amazon and Flipkart, big organisations, they have to volunteer for inquiry and transparency. We expect that and you don’t even want (an) inquiry," Justice Ramana told the court.

"You have to submit and an inquiry has to be conducted."

Amazon in a statement said it complies with all laws and "will extend full cooperation to the CCI investigation". Flipkart too said it complies with Indian laws and will cooperate with investigators.

Amazon and Flipkart are leading players in an e-retail market India forecasts will be worth $200 billion by 2026. The decision is a major setback for both companies as the Supreme Court appeal was seen as the last legal recourse to block the CCI pressing on with its investigation.

In the current antitrust case, filed by trader group Delhi Vyapar Mahasangh, the two companies face allegations of exclusive launches of mobile phones, promotion of select sellers on their websites and deep discounting practices that drive out competition.

Amazon and Flipkart had also asked the Supreme Court to put on hold the CCI's recent request for information in which they were asked 32 questions - including details of top 100 sellers and top-selling products. The companies argue such queries relate to "sensitive" business information.

Justice Ramana said on Monday the companies will have four more weeks to answer those queries.

In February, a Reuters investigation https://reut.rs/3xyz8er based on Amazon documents showed it had given preferential treatment for years to a small group of sellers. The CCI has said the Reuters story corroborated evidence https://reut.rs/3eTV2CX it had received against the company. Amazon has denied any wrongdoing.

The companies are also grappling with the prospect of tougher e-commerce regulations and investigations by the country's financial-crime agency for alleged violation of foreign investment laws.

In another legal challenge, the Supreme Court last week handed Amazon a victory https://reut.rs/37u8FnK by blocking its partner Future Group from selling $3.4 billion in retail assets to rival Reliance Industries. The CCI though has accused Amazon of concealing facts when it sought approval for a 2019 deal with the Future unit that has sparked the legal dispute, Reuters has reported https://www.reuters.com/technology/exclusive-india-watchdog-accuses-amazon-concealing-facts-deal-future-group-unit-2021-07-22

Amazon has said it is confident of addressing those concerns.

(Reporting by Aditya Kalra in New Delhi and Abhirup Roy in Mumbai; Editing by Kirsten Donovan, Sanjeev Miglani and Raju Gopalakrishnan)

EXPROPRIATE

U.K. Energy Firms Seek Bailout as Government Talks Run On

Rachel Morison and Alex Morales
Mon., September 20, 2021




(Bloomberg) -- U.K. energy companies are seeking a massive government bailout as a surge in gas and electricity prices threatens to push suppliers out of business.

The U.K. government is set for a third day of emergency talks with the industry on Monday after Business Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng said small suppliers were under “pressure.” Now large suppliers are seeking a rescue plan to help them handle the cost of taking on the customers of smaller suppliers that may fail, according to two people familiar with the situation.

Surging energy prices mean the usual system for dealing with failed suppliers may be insufficient to deal with the current crisis. Normally if a company goes under, another supplier is found. But in the current market, that’s not a profitable proposition. There’s also concern that several could fail at once, according to a person familiar with the situation. That’s why large companies are proposing government help.

As gas prices have almost tripled because of a supply crunch, seven U.K. suppliers have already failed this year. Unhedged companies have sold energy to customers at lower levels than they can now buy in the market, and regulated price caps mean they can’t pass on the cost to consumers -- at least for now. But those caps will be revised early next year, potentially bringing inflation and fuel poverty to lower-income Britons already struggling as the economy emerges from the pandemic. The power crisis is already spreading to the food industry -- another potential source of inflation.

Kwarteng will meet energy industry bosses again on Monday after emergency talks through the weekend with companies including Centrica Plc and EDF Energy, as well as regulator Ofgem. Prime Minister Boris Johnson, speaking on his way to New York, said the government would work to protect consumers, and said the price spike was “temporary.”

“The Business Secretary is in close contact with the energy industry on the impact of high global gas prices, having met senior figures today and yesterday, and will speak further on these issues at an industry roundtable planned for tomorrow,” a government spokesman said.

Across Europe, governments are taking steps to curb the impact of high prices on households. Italy is set to spend around 3.5 billion euros ($4.1 billion) protecting consumers, while Spain, France and Greece are acting to stem the hit to their economies.

As government talks continued in the U.K., the country’s sixth biggest supplier, Bulb Energy Ltd, was in negotiations with Lazard Group LLC about seeking new sources of financing, according to a person familiar with the discussions.

“From time to time we explore various opportunities to fund our business plans,” Bulb said in a statement. “Like everyone in the industry, we’re monitoring wholesale prices and their impact on our business.”

Kwarteng said the regulator and government would make sure consumers weren’t hit by supply outages. “Ofgem has robust measures in place to ensure that customers do not need to worry, their needs are met, and their gas and electricity supply will continue uninterrupted if a supplier fails.”

In these situations, the cost is typically pooled among energy companies and then passed on to consumers when an energy supplier goes under. There are also contributions toward renewables subsidies and security of supply measures that all suppliers have to pay. These unpaid bills will be shared around the companies still standing.

Ofgem chooses a new supplier for customers following a competitive bidding process but they can leave at any point. The regulator advises people to ask the new company to put them on their cheapest tariff or shop around and find a new deal.

The repercussions of the energy crisis on the broader economy are already being felt. Online grocer Ocado Group Plc stopped supplying frozen products to customers last week and the meat industry warned that businesses could “grind to a halt” within two weeks -- adding to supply chain kinks the industry is already suffering.

The food industry has been hit by the knock-on effect on the production of carbon dioxide -- a gas used both to chill food and in the slaughter of animals.

High gas prices prompted fertilizer maker CF Industries Holdings Inc. to close U.K. plants this week that make carbon dioxide as a byproduct. Yara International ASA also said Friday it will also curtail European fertilizer capacity -- a move that’s likely to push up food prices down the line. Kwarteng’s weekend meetings also included a session with Tony Will, chief executive officer of CF Industries Holdings Inc.

(adds Iceland Foods call on government in penultimate)

Research Update: The Numbers Game: How Lack of Race-Based Data Collection During Covid-19 In Canada Has Highlighted Systemic Racism

September 20, 2021
Download Research Update: September 2021


A review by Jayme Wong

EDMONTON SOCIAL PLANNING COUNCIL

https://edmontonsocialplanning.ca/

The Royal Society of Canada established its Task Force on COVID-19 in April 2020 to “provide evidence-informed perspectives on major scientific challenges in response to and recovery from COVID-19” (p. 2). The result of the task force’s findings is Impacts of COVID-19 in Racialized Communities, a collection of eleven essays published in May 2021.

Racism existed before COVID-19. The pandemic simply created conditions in which racism became more apparent. The attitudes, policies, and practices created and reinforced by individual, systemic, and cultural racism resulted in disparities that could no longer be ignored by mainstream society. In the anthology’s introductory essay, “The Background to Racism in Canadian Society,” author Frances Henry explains: “It is the racism that existed in settler societies, the racism that led to the subjugation of people through colonialism and the expansion of Europeans into far off places in the world, which created the conditions that exist today” (p. 14). COVID-19 became a racial issue when the historical roots of racism, colonialism, and imperialism created unequal conditions among people living in Canada.

Canada has never really collected race-based data related to the COVID-19 pandemic. Certain provinces, such as Manitoba and Ontario, started to collect this data recently—though only in clusters (p. 25). The result is that Canadians cannot accurately determine the impact that COVID-19 has had on different racial communities. However, just because we cannot determine how people of colour were affected does not negate the irrefutable fact that visible minorities were far more affected by the virus than white communities.

Take, for example, the data that the City of Toronto gathered throughout the pandemic: “In the Greater Toronto Area, whites account for 48 per cent of the population and 17 per cent of COVID-19 cases. This is in contrast to the situation with Black people who account for 9 per cent of the population and 21 per cent of cases” (p. 19). This data supports emerging statistics from the United States, which project that 1 in 1,125 Black Americans have died from COVID-19 compared to 1 in 2,450 White Americans (p. 25). Similar numbers collected from the United Kingdom also highlight the stark differences between rates for people of colour who are affected and dying from COVID-19 in comparison to white populations in the same areas.

The virus does not discriminate. Poor conditions grounded in centuries of systemic racism have worsened the impact of COVID-19 on certain groups. In addition to sickness, racialized communities have also had to deal with economic and social factors that cause uncertainty and instability in an already turbulent time. In the essay “Racial Inequality, COVID-19 and the Education of Black and Other Marginalized Students,” Carl E. James identifies the factors that contribute to inequality as access—or lack thereof—to nutrition, academic supports, mental health, and online learning (p. 30). People who face multiple barriers when accessing these resources are more likely impacted by the long-term health and social effects of COVID-19.




Source: The Canadian Medical Association

Health care experts have criticized the federal government’s decision not to collect race-based data during COVID-19. Many consider this decision a failure to provide support for marginalized communities and indicative of a flawed system built upon colonialism. In the essay “Race and Ethnicity Collection During COVID-19 in Canada: If You Are Not Counted You Cannot Count on the Pandemic Response,” Kwame McKenzie goes so far as to say that “seeing significant disparities and doing nothing active to deal with them is a form of systemic racism” (p. 67). The federal government’s silence on the issue does not hide the obvious harm that has already been inflicted by centuries of colonial policies that have prevented visible minorities from accessing necessary health and education resources or inhabiting clean, socially distanced spaces that increase quality of life.

Overall, the report’s primary recommendation is to begin collecting race-based data and to involve racialized communities in the collection and dissemination of the information. While this solution does not amend all of the damage that COVID-19, and other health crises, have already done, it is a step forward into a post-COVID and, more importantly, post-colonial nation. Having diverse voices at the table means that government decisions would no longer be made based on archaic legislation that—either intentionally or unintentionally—excluded and discriminated against minorities.

Although rebuilding in a post-COVID landscape is uncertain, it is also an opportunity to lay a new foundation that is informed by the mistakes made in the past. Re-examining the systems, institutions, and attitudes that have created unequal access to health care and other resources means people living in Canada can prevent history from repeating and begin a precedent for neighbouring nations.
Publication Source:

Henry, F., James, C., Allen, U., Collins, T., Dei, G. J. S., Ibrahim, A., Jean-Pierre, J., Kobayashi, A., Lewis, K., Mawani, R., McKenzie, K., Owusu-Bempah, A., Walcott, R., & Wane, N. N. (2021). Impacts of COVID-19 in racialized communities. Royal Society of Canada. https://rsc-src.ca/en/research-and-reports/end-life-decision-making-policy-and-statutory-progress/covid-19-policy-briefing?mc_cid=41ac70285f&mc_eid=4a6bf13a01

About the volunteer:
Jayme Wong graduated from the University of Lethbridge in 2014 with a BA in English and Philosophy, and more recently graduated from the University of Alberta in 2020 with an MA in English and Film Studies. She currently works at a local non-profit, the Learning Centre Literacy Association.

Gender Issues: Meet the artist who says Ladies Prefer Blondes but Diamonds are a Boy's Best Friend

Gender Studies: His by Phil Shaw (2020) - Copyright Courtesy of the artist and Rebecca Hossack Gallery

By Jez Fielder • Updated: 20/09/2021 - 19:23

Remember Chekhov's masterful play The Three Brothers? Graham Greene's The Third Woman? Surely you've read Evelyn Waugh's classic Groomshead Revisited? No?

To prove that Gender can be confusing in any period, artist Phil Shaw has masterminded two contemporary art masterpieces, namely G_ender Studies 'His' _ and _Gender Studies 'Hers'. _

On visiting the Art Paris Art Fair earlier in September, my attention was drawn to a large print hanging at the rear of the Rebecca Hossack Gallery showcase. A colourful bookshelf with very inviting spines. I soon found myself laughing out loud and attracting the attention of the curator. I am looking at 'His'.

I can see an edition of The Merry Husbands of Windsor featuring the faces of the males of the British Royal Family (and Mark Phillips!) nestled next to Agatha Christie's The Amazing Mr. Marple, with David Suchet (famous for his portrayal of another Christie detective, Hercule Poirot) as the illustration.

Detail from 'Gender Studies: His', by Phil ShawCourtesy of the artist and Rebecca Hossack Gallery

Switch to 'Hers' and you'll find Bernard Shaw's Arms and the Woman, replete with a picture of the Venus de Milo, just along from a copy of Ladies Prefer Blondes, with the tousled bonce of Boris Johnson peeking out at you from these seductive shelves.

Detail from 'Gender Studies: Hers' by Phil ShawCourtesy of the artist and Rebecca Hossack Gallery

The artist, Phil Shaw, cites "global fuss" over sexual identity as the catalyst for this creation. But for him the work is less about transphobia headlines and more about perspective and offering alternative stories.

"It’s more to do with turning things upside down, switching things round to see what happens," Shaw tells Euronews. "It’s something I’ve always done. It often leads to some quite profound realisations. I think turning things upside down should be taught in schools, along with ballroom dancing."

"It subverts the way we think about literature, it presents you with a new perspective, a fresh look at things," he adds.

I ask Shaw if the work is a comment on the Structuralist school of literary criticism, particularly Roland Barthes who announced the 'death of the author' in 1967 and rejects attribution (despite signing his own essay).

Shaw's having none of it. "I’m afraid I don’t find Barthes all that interesting - he’s too obvious."

Gender Studies: His by Phil Shaw (2020)Courtesy of the artist and Rebecca Hossack Gallery

Shaw's favourite spine?

"All about Yves," he says. And sure enough, top shelf, left hand side, there it is, with a dashing picture of Yves St Laurent, naturally.

Russia shooting: Six dead and dozens injured after gunman opens fire at Perm University

By Euronews • Updated: 20/09/2021 - 

People stand behind the fence near the Perm State University with the a Posguardia (National Guardia) on the left, in Perm, Russia, Monday, Sept. 20, 2021 - Copyright Anastasia Yakovleva/Copyright 2021 The Associated Press. All rights reserved

Six people have died and dozens have been injured in a shooting at Perm State University in Russia.

Russia's Investigative Committee said the suspected gunman has been detained after being injured by police while attempting to resist the arrest.

The man wasn't named but was identified as an 18-year-old student. Authorities said he carried out the attack with a smoothbore rifle and was also carrying a knife.


"It is known that he acquired the gun in May of this year," the Investigative Committee said.

Earlier on Monday, Perm State University had warned on social media that an "unknown person" began firing with a "traumatic weapon" around 11:00 local time.

Images shared on social media showed an armed individual walking onto the university campus, which is located around 1,300 kilometres east of Moscow, in the Urals.

The university urged all students to barricade themselves in the classrooms or leave the building. Footage from the scene also showed staff and students jumping out of windows to escape.


The university was evacuated after the incident. A number of those injured were hospitalised with injuries of "varying severity," the authorities added.

The governor of the Perm Territory, Dmitry Makhonin, has reached the scene and sent his condolences to the families and friends of the victims.

The investigative committee added that it had launched a criminal investigation. A memorial to the victims of the shooting will be opened off-campus on Tuesday, the university added.

The incident comes just four months after nine people were killed in a shooting at a school in the Russian city of Kazan.

The incident prompted Russian President Vladimir Putin to call for tighter gun regulations and raise the minimum purchase age from 18 to 21.

On Monday, Putin also offered his condolences and described the shooting as a "tremendous tragedy" for the whole of Russia.

BLACK & WHITE HATS 

'The regime is bleeding brains': Meet the hackers trying to bring down Belarus' disputed president

By Hannah Somerville • Updated: 14/09/2021

A gathering in Minsk on November 12, 2020 to honour a protester killed during the demonstrations last year. - Copyright AP Photo

The crackdown on dissent in Belarus has been ruthless, methodical and, at times, relentless. Most of Europe had been largely oblivious until the diversion of a Ryanair flight to Minsk and the arrest of a dissident journalist caught people's imagination in May.

But while the authorities may have tried to crush public opposition to long-time president Alexander Lukashenko, they may have only succeeded in driving dissent underground.

Last week, a group of anonymous so-called “ethical hackers” published the latest recording from a massive cache of information seized from the computers of the Belarusian Ministry of Internal Affairs.

In what, if verified, would be one of the most successful hacks of its kind in history, the Belarusian Cyber-Partisans (CP) said in July it had broken into the Ministry’s computers, obtaining more than five terabytes of data.

The group told Euronews that, so far, it had not even published 0.01 per cent of the stolen data. In time, CP says it plans to leak the details of every single operative helping President Alexander Lukashenko crush dissent in the country.

This is the group’s story so far.

The deputy police chief’s premonition

The recorded phone call CP released last Tuesday (September 7) is dated August 17, 2020: about two weeks after nationwide protests erupted over the disputed re-election of Lukashenko, who has ruled Belarus since 1994.

It is understood to have taken place between Podvoisky Igor, deputy police chief for Minsk city, and Kozlov Vitaly, first deputy police chief of Minsk oblast. Given what CP now says it has achieved, it was prescient in more ways than one.

A taped conversation said to be between two Minsk police chiefs in August 2020 was published by CP last week

Belarusian Cyber Partisans

In it, Podvoisky describes his exhaustion after weeks of dealing with what he terms “all this sh*t”. Police, he says, lack a coherent plan of action, state media directors are rebelling, and technical staff are downing tools in droves to join the uprising.

Orders given to police at that time, according to him, were to try to defuse the situation rather than inflame the protests any further. “For now, don’t pressure anyone. Then time will tell… It’s over. There is no plan. Currently, we’re taking the position of protracting the conflict.”

That stance didn’t last. As of March this year more than 33,000 people had been arrested after the regime cracked down on the protests.

The struggle is not over for a democratic Belarus | View

Revolt, repression and reprisals: A look back at a year of turmoil in Belarus

But that day, on August 17, 2020, Lukashenko was apparently in a conciliatory mood. According to the man identified as Podvoisky, he’d waded straight into a crowd of protesters heading for the Ministry of Health and tried to speak in earnest with around 12 of them, one at a time, for about 90 minutes. “[They] didn’t let him insert a word,” the deputy police chief says.

In addition, tellingly, Podvoisky expressed alarm at how the protesters always seemed to know where police and security forces would show up next. When he and others decided internally to leave Minsk Automobile Plant (MAZ) checkpoint via the delivery entrance, they still showed up in their thousands: “In five minutes 2,500 pop up at the gate, with posters.”

Thousands-strong crowds protest against Lukashenko's regime in Independence Square, Minsk, on August 23, 2020

AP Photo

“Vitalya,” the man goes on, “I have no f*cking idea how they [the protesters] organised it all. So many details. The preparations must have taken a month or two. It’s incredible, following everybody’s smallest f*cking movement…”

So paranoid was the Belarusian state at that time, it appears that even closed communications between police officers and government officials were being monitored and recorded.

Belarus: 100,000 take to the streets to protest against Lukashenko
Tens of thousands of protesters flood Belarus streets putting pressure on Lukashenko

And 12 months on from those turbulent days, the same issues Podvoisky agonised over on the phone – discontent within the ranks, an exodus of technical staff, and the Belarusian people’s incredible level of self-organisation – would play straight into the hands of groups like CP.

“We never expected to extract so much data undetected,” a representative of the group told Euronews. “But with the current regime, you never know.

“So many high-tech areas are neglected. IT professionals were forced to leave Belarus in the thousands. The regime is bleeding brains they can't make up for.”
Belarus’s digitised revolution

The brains, in this case, belong to a group of around 15 Belarusian citizens and activists, all IT specialists, who joined forces after the protests began last August.

They don’t know each other’s real names. Just three to four are actual hackers, and none are professionals – they learned on the go over the past 12 months.

CP is one member of a bigger consortium of cyberwarriors known as Suprativ, which was formed on September 18, 2020, and includes two other groups, partly made up of ex-regime operatives, called Flying Storks and The People’s Self-Defense Brigade.

The alliance does not recognise Lukashenko as the legitimate ruler of Belarus. Its manifesto lists three goals: “preservation of the independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity of Belarus”, overthrowing the Lukashenko regime, and aiding the country in a stable return to “democratic principles of governance and rule of law”.

The picture CP says is Alexander Lukashenko's passport photo

Belarusian Cyber Partisans

In turn, Suprativ forms part of a vast ecosystem of Belarusian digital activism that fomented for years and was turbo-charged last summer. Protesters used firewall-circumventing software on their phones to get around an internet blackout imposed by Lukashenko on election day, then used social media to organise.

Telegram channels like the Warsaw-based Nexta, founded by 22-year-old dissident blogger Stsiapan Putsila, and Belarus of the Brain kept people informed during those turbulent days by sharing on-the-ground photos and videos of the carnage going on inside the country.

A crowdsourced map of strikes, belzabastovka.org, showed would-be demonstrators where to go, while the Telegram channel Okretsina Lists kept track of those detained.

A constellation of other Belarusian platforms also kept the momentum going. One start-up, PandaDoc, crowdfunded cash to help law enforcement officers pay the heavy fines required to quit their jobs. On September 2, authorities raided its Minsk offices and arrested five staff members.

Meanwhile, campaigns like BY_help and the Belarusian Sport Solidarity Foundation raised funds to support those injured, fined or otherwise targeted during the protests.

Nexta and Belarus of the Brain editor-in-chief Roman Protasevich was arrested after his flight to Lithuania was diverted to Minsk earlier this year

AP Photo

Online platform Voice is engaged in a digital re-count of the 2020 election vote and has so far independently verified more than 1.6 million votes in a bid to show the officially-stated outcome was false.

All these initiatives and scores more were entirely self-generated, without state support or financing. The CP activist told Euronews that their own Suprativ alliance was “one big family” – albeit one thrown together by the cruellest of circumstances.

“We were all shocked by what happened in August 2020,” they said. “Each of us individually decided to do something about it.

“We could never have imagined we would grow so much and manage to pull off so many little stabs at the regime (some are not so little). We could never have imagined we would be working hand-in-hand with real-life partisans and have a real shot.”
The MVD hack: Mapping Europe’s last dictatorship

In July and August this year, CP publicly claimed responsibility for a series of cyberattacks on Belarusian state databases and websites. The most important was, it appears, the servers of the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MVD).

The group claims it now has access to the passport details of every single Belarusian citizen, including the files with restricted access such as members of the security services and the Belarusian KGB.

The group has already released the details of regime officials, including the locations of their villas

Belarusian Cyber Partisans

“We think that the KGB is, for the most part, a repressive and terroristic organisation that contributes very little to the country's security,” the spokesperson said.

“We'll gradually leak all their operatives and plan to assist in building new intelligence agencies in a new Belarus that will actually protect its citizens.”

Hundreds of alleged agents’ names and photographs have already been published, as have those of 200 judges. Operatives’ housing assignments were also included in the data.

On June 25 CP published a map detailing the given addresses of 500 state employees, from the secretary of the Republican Youth Union to Investigative Committee members.

A map published by CP in September purports to show the Minsk addresses of 500 Belarusian officials

Belarusian Cyber Partisans

The map came together with a statement: “Don’t think that if you didn’t personally beat with a club and didn’t torture people in the gyms of the police department or the temporary detention centre, that you’re removed.

“Those who are now sitting in ironed shirts in cool offices may well be punished for criminal inaction.”

CP has pledged not to touch the data of the millions of ordinary Belarusians whose details were included in the treasure trove. That information is reportedly being kept in encrypted form on a server isolated from the net.

Previously in May, in retaliation for Belarus’s arrest of ex-Nexta chief editor Roman Protasevich after his passenger plane was diverted to Minsk, Suprativ hacked the internal network of the Presidential Academy of Public Administration.

The group deleted academy documents, databases and servers. “Now they will have to work for a long time in the old-fashioned way,” they wrote, “with calculators and pieces of paper.”

Some of the emergency call records CP says it obtained, including calls placed by Belarusian citizens informing on their neighbours

Belarusian Cyber Partisans

The group also obtained some 10 years’ worth of emergency calls, 16,000 secret internal files including several on Lukashenko and his family – it claimed last month to have published the president’s phone number – and hundreds of thousands of hours of wiretapped phone calls.

“The most revelatory data we obtained are the phone call recordings of the MVD’s internal telephone system,” the CP spokesperson said. “Apparently the regime was recording its own people.

“High-ranking officials felt safe discussing the illegal commands they issued during the crackdown on protests in 2020. The regime kept a lot of incriminating material on its own people intentionally, to be able to extort them in the future and make them commit even harsher crimes.

“We ‘crashed the party’ and ruined their plans. We think this will reduce the chance of violence from the police in the future.”

Other recorded phone calls so far published include a police officer laughing as he describes pulling a woman from her car by the hair and beating her with two SWAT team members, and the head of the ministry saying officials were instructed not to feed or give bed linen to the detainees.

CP was instructed by BYPOL, a group of ex-Belarusian police officers and other defectors, on how to infiltrate some of the computer systems. It says it has hacked the police database and accessed cameras at police stations and jails but has yet to release any footage.

Stills from CCTV footage CP said it had accessed from the Belarusian police database

Belarusian Cyber Partisans

One dismal revelation the group recently reported on Telegram was that COVID-19 deaths in Belarus are likely to have been drastically under-reported to the World Health Organization.

The country’s national statistics portal, Belstat, stopped publishing new mortality data in June 2020. But CP’s passport system hack included the personal data of 1.4 million Belarusians who had died from January 2010 to March 2021.

Independent analysis by the TV channel Current Time found that excess deaths – the number of recorded deaths more than what would be expected in a normal year – from March 2020 to March 2021 stood at 32,000. The country’s officially reported COVID-19 death toll in March was 2,247.

'We removed the masks'

The Belarusian regime has tacitly acknowledged the magnitude of the hack on several occasions in the last month and a half.

At a meeting of the Council of Ministers on August 17, according to the official tribune of the Presidential Administration, Lukashenko warned officials: “If you cannot, as I often say, protect information on your computers, then go back to paper media. Write by hand and put it in your box.”

The head of the KGB, Ivan Tertel, had previously issued a stark warning about foreign hackers during a meeting with local council heads on July 30. “With the use of modern information technologies [and] hacker attacks on personal data,” he said, “a systematic collection of information is carried out.”

Lukashenko's spokeswoman Natallia Mikalaeuna Eismant, left, is among those whose calls were apparently recorded by the regime

Belarusian Cyber Partisans

The day after Lukashenko’s comments, a court in Belarus then designated two Telegram accounts linked to CP and Suprativ as ‘extremist’, accusing them of "discrediting law enforcement officers and representatives of government bodies" and "inciting social enmity."

The CP spokesperson alleged the regime was “actively trying” to gather information on the group. “We are very aware of the regime's efforts to infiltrate our rows,” they said. “We have already developed a methodology of working and recruiting new people without compromising the organisation.

“All members are protected by anonymity from other members. The amount of damage any member can cause is limited to the specific project they're working on, at worst. Each member goes through a long process of vetting and demonstrating actual work being done before they get any responsibility.”

Supporters of the hacker consortium in Serebryanka, Minsk

Belarusian Cyber Partisans

Apart from sorting the mass of data already acquired, the group says it is working on “other projects” it can’t yet talk about to preserve source security.

The personal information revealed as a result of the hack is arguably a violation of the subjects’ human right to privacy. In Belarus, unauthorised access of computer information is a crime punishable by up to two years in prison; the use of malware carries up to 10.

The CP spokesperson was clear on the group’s rationale. “We see ourselves as leaders of the resistance approach, which acknowledges that all democratic and peaceful ways of regime change have been exhausted in Belarus.

“Lukashenko hasn't left any options for the Belarusian people other than a revolt against the tyranny. We removed the masks of the regime's people that committed crimes.”