Amazon Astro robot leak alleges big privacy and durability concerns

Brittany A. Roston - Sep 28, 2021, 

Only hours after Amazon took the wraps off its pricey Astro robot comes a damning report that alleges numerous privacy, navigation, and durability concerns related to the product. Multiple sources who allegedly worked as developers on the Astro project made serious claims about the product, with one going so far as to call the robot “terrible.”

The claims were recently published by VICE‘s Motherboard, which alleges that it acquired internal video recordings and documents related to Amazon’s Astro robot. The report also cites multiple insiders who are said to have been developers on the Astro project, quoting allegations related to the robot’s performance and privacy.

Amazon presents Astro as a “helpful, capable robot for your home,” one that is intended to help its owner monitor their home, stay in contact with other people, and access Alexa anywhere in the home. Among other things, Ring Protect Pro subscribers can use Astro to patrol their home while away, using the various tech systems on the robot to investigate issues and save video clips for review later on.

The new Motherboard report paints a different picture, describing Astro as a surveillance device that works to identify anyone it encounters in the home, going so far as to follow around anyone it doesn’t recognize as they move throughout the house. Users have the option to turn this ‘Sentry’ mode off; when it’s on, the robot may, the report claims, do things like record audio and video of someone identified as a stranger and upload the content to the cloud.

Beyond that, Astro will, the leaked documentation allegedly revealed, follow their owners around in order to learn their behaviors and things about the home, such as where it is most likely to get bumped into by a human and where people generally congregate in the house. Amazon senior PR manager Kristy Schmidt commented on the report to Motherboard, stating that “a lot” of Astro’s data processing takes place on-device, which includes processing the raw sensor data and photos needed for the robot to navigate around the owner’s home.

Perhaps more troubling are allegations from sources who claim that Astro isn’t yet ready for the spotlight. One source claimed, “Astro is terrible and will almost certainly throw itself down a flight of stairs if presented the opportunity.” Other allegations include the claim that Astro’s “person detection is unreliable at best” and that the robot’s “feel fragile” for something that costs a grand.

ORDER FROM CHAOS

The agonizing problem of Pakistan’s nukes

Marvin Kalb

Tuesday, September 28, 2021

BROOKINGS

“This is a new world,” President Joe Biden declared, when justifying his pullout from Afghanistan and explaining his administration’s war on global terrorism in an August 31 speech. It will go “well beyond Afghanistan,” he alerted the world, focusing on “the threats of 2021 and tomorrow.”


Marvin Kalb
Nonresident Senior Fellow - Foreign Policy

The president will not have to look too far. Bordering Afghanistan, now again under Taliban rule, is Pakistan, one of America’s oddest “allies.” Governed by a shaky coalition of ineffective politicians and trained military leaders trying desperately to contain the challenge of domestic terrorism, Pakistan may be the best definition yet of a highly combustible threat that, if left unchecked, might lead to the nightmare of nightmares: jihadis taking control of a nuclear weapons arsenal of something in the neighborhood of 200 warheads.

Ever since May 1998, when Pakistan first began testing nuclear weapons, claiming its national security demanded it, American presidents have been haunted by the fear that Pakistan’s stockpile of nukes would fall into the wrong hands. That fear now includes the possibility that jihadis in Pakistan, freshly inspired by the Taliban victory in Afghanistan, might try to seize power at home.

Trying, of course, is not the same as succeeding. If history is a reliable guide, Pakistan’s professional military would almost certainly respond, and in time probably succeed; but only after the floodgates of a new round of domestic warfare between the government and extremist gangs has been opened, leaving Pakistan again shaken by political and economic uncertainty. And when Pakistan is shaken, so too is India, its less than neighborly rival and nuclear competitor.

Pakistani jihadis come in many different shapes and sizes, but no matter: The possibility of a nuclear-armed terrorist regime in Pakistan has now grown from a fear into a strategic challenge that no American president can afford to ignore.

Former President Barack Obama translated this challenge into carefully chosen words: “The single biggest threat to U.S. security, both short term, medium term and long term,” he asserted, “would be the possibility of a terrorist organization obtaining a nuclear weapon.” (Author’s italics).

The nation that has both nuclear weapons and a dangerous mix of terrorists was — and remains — Pakistan.

No problem, really, Pakistan’s political and military leaders have quickly assured a succession of anxious presidents. Whether it be Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan, the Haqqani network, Lashkar-e-Taiba, Tehreek-e-Labaik, al-Qaida, or the Afghan Taliban’s Quetta Shura — these terrorist organizations have always been under our constant surveillance, checked and rechecked. We keep a close eye on everything, even the Islamic madrassas, where more than 2 million students are more likely studying sharia law than economics or history. We know who these terrorists are and what they’re doing, and we’re ready to take immediate action.

These official assurances have fallen largely on deaf ears at the White House, principally because one president after another has learned from American intelligence that these same Pakistani leaders have often been working surreptitiously with the terrorists to achieve common goals. One such goal was the recent defeat of the Kabul regime, which had been supported by the U.S. for 20 years. During this time, the victorious Taliban secretly received political and military support from Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency. Shortly after 9/11, for example, the terrorist mastermind, Osama bin Laden, escaped U.S. capture, in part because sympathetic of ISI colleagues. Bin Laden fled to the one place where his security could be assured — Pakistan. In 2011, when the U.S. finally caught up with bin Laden and killed him, Obama chose not to inform Pakistani leaders of the super-secret operation, even though the target was down the street from a Pakistani military academy, fearful that once again bin Laden would be tipped off and escape.

Related Books



Deadly Embrace
By Bruce Riedel 2012



Pakistan Under Siege
By Madiha Afzal 2018

The U.S. has learned over the years not to trust Pakistan, realizing that a lie here and there might be part of the diplomatic game but that this level of continuing deception was beyond acceptable bounds. That Pakistan was also known to have helped North Korea and Iran develop their nuclear programs has only deepened the distrust.

Indeed, since the shock of 9/11, Pakistan has come to represent such an exasperating problem that the U.S. has reportedly developed a secret plan to arbitrarily seize control of Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal if a terrorist group in Pakistan seemed on the edge of capturing some or all of its nuclear warheads. When repeatedly questioned about the plan, U.S. officials have strung together an artful, if unpersuasive, collection of “no comments.”

Even though U.S. economic and military aid has continued to flow into Pakistan — reaching $4.5 billion in fiscal 2010, though on other occasions capriciously cut — America’s concerns about Pakistan’s stability and reliability have only worsened. Since the debacle in Afghanistan, and Pakistan’s barely disguised role in it, serious questions have been raised about America’s embarrassing predisposition to look the other way whenever Pakistan has been caught with its hand in a terrorist’s cookie jar. How long can America look the other way?

The anguishing problem for the Biden administration is now coming into sharper focus: Even if the president decided to challenge Pakistan’s dangerous flirtation with domestic and regional terrorism, what specific policies could he adopt that would satisfy America’s obvious desire to disengage from Afghan-like civil wars without at the same time getting itself involved in another nation’s domestic struggles with terrorists? Disengagement has become the name of the game in Washington.

One approach, already widely discussed, is that the U.S. can contain the spread of terrorism in South Asia by relying on its “over-the-horizon” capabilities. Though almost every senior official, including Biden, has embraced this approach, it’s doubtful they really believe it’s a viable substitute for “boots on the ground.”

Another possibility would be the Central Intelligence Agency striking a new under-the-table deal with the ISI that would set new goals and guidelines for both services to cooperate more aggressively in the war against domestic and regional terrorism. Unfortunately, prospects for such expanded cooperation, though rhetorically appealing, are actually quite slim. Veterans of both services shake their heads, reluctantly admitting it is unrealistic, given the degree of distrust on both sides.

But even if Biden, despite knowing better, decided to continue to look the other way, hoping against hope that Pakistan would be able to contain the terrorists and keep them from acquiring nuclear warheads, he will find that Prime Minister Imran Khan is not a ready and eager ally, if he ever was one. Lately he’s been painting the Biden administration as damaged goods after its hurried exit from Afghanistan. And he has been rearranging Pakistan’s regional relationships by strengthening his ties with China and extending a welcoming hand to Russia. Also Khan may soon discover that his pro-Taliban policy runs the risk of backfiring and inspiring Pakistani terrorists to turn against him. To whom would he then turn for help?

Khan, who won his mandate in 2018, surely knows by now that he runs a decidedly unhappy country, beset by major economic and political problems, waves of societal corruption and the no-nonsense challenge coming from domestic terrorists eager to impose a severe Islamic code of conduct on the Pakistani people. Sixty-four percent of the population are under the age of 30 and more desirous of iPhones and apps than of religious zealotry.

Pakistan is a looming problem with no satisfactory solutions. For Biden, no matter what policies he pursues, it remains a recurring nightmare, the stuff of a paperback thriller: a scary mix of terrorists who may one day be able to seize power and, with it, control over the nation’s stockpile of nuclear warheads — all of this happening in a shaky, strategically-located country that was once an ally.

Since the American withdrawal from Afghanistan, geostrategic relationships on the Asian subcontinent have been undergoing important changes. Pakistan has tilted its future towards a closer relationship with China, while its principal adversary, India, has tightened its ties to the United States, both of them sharing an already deep distrust of China. In this increasingly uneasy atmosphere, the U.S. remains concerned about Pakistan’s nuclear stockpile falling into terrorist hands. If this seemed to be happening, the U.S. would feel the need to intervene militarily to stop it. Pakistan would likely turn to China for help, setting the stage for the U.S. and China, because of Pakistan’s nukes, to head towards a direct and possibly deadly confrontation which neither superpower wants or needs.

Missing' Drunk Man Spent Hours Helping a Search Party Look for Himself

He helped look for himself for hours before realising who the search party was looking for. 

SJ

By Shamani Joshi

MUMBAI, IN

29.9.21

PHOTO FOR REPRESENTATIVE PURPOSES ONLY BY YURI_ARCURS / GETTY

A missing man in Turkey accidentally joined his own search party and looked for himself for hours before he realised he was the target of the rescue mission.

According to local media reports, Beyhan Mutlu, a 50-year-old man from a rural region in Turkey, was out drinking with his friends when he wandered off into a nearby forest and didn’t return. Worried about him, his friends then alerted authorities, who set up a search and rescue mission to find him. 

According to Turkish channel NTV, when news of the missing man got out, efforts to find him intensified in nearby neighbourhoods, with a large group of volunteers joining the mission. This search party was calling out Mutlu’s name for hours when suddenly a man from within the group spoke up and reportedly said: “Who are we looking for? I am here

It is unclear how Mutlu found himself in his own search party or how hi friends didn’t realise that he was right under their nose the whole time. Police were able to safely escort Mutlu to his home. 

This isn’t the first time a missing person joined their own rescue mission. In 2012, an Asian tourist who went missing in Iceland was also found in her own search party after she reportedly failed to recognise her own description. 

Follow Shamani on Instagram and Twitter.

Canaries volcano lava reaches sea, raising toxic gas fears

Issued on: 29/09/2021 - 

La Cumbre Vieja volcano erupted on September 19, spewing out rivers of lava that have slowly crept towards the sea 

Ramon de la Rocha POOL/AFP/File


Madrid (AFP)

Lava from an erupting volcano in the Canary Islands has reached the ocean, volcanologists said, raising fears of toxic gases being released as the molten magma hits the seawater.

The Spanish archipelago had earlier declared an exclusion zone of two nautical miles around the location the lava was expected to enter the Atlantic and asked residents to stay at home.

"The lava flow has reached the sea at Playa Nueva," the Canary Islands Volcanic Institute (Involcan) said on Twitter Tuesday night.

La Cumbre Vieja volcano, which straddles a southern ridge in La Palma, an island with 85,000 inhabitants, erupted on September 19, spewing out rivers of lava that have slowly crept towards the sea.

Television images showed a stream of glowing lava entering the water, creating a large cloud of smoke.

Residents of several areas of Tazacorte, a village near the coast, were told Monday to stay at home to avoid harm from the release of toxic gases that can take place due to a reaction between the 1,000 degrees Celsius (1,800 degrees Fahrenheit) molten lava and water.

On Tuesday afternoon, the slow-moving lava flow, which has varied in speed over the past few days, was still around 800 metres (half a mile) from the coast.

A state of natural disaster has been declared on the island, where molten rock has scorched its way across more than 258 hectares (640 acres) of land and destroyed 589 properties 

Ramon de la Rocha POOL/AFP/File

Residents were warned to stay home due to "the possibility that there will be a small shock when the magma enters the seawater, and that this small shock causes vapours which can be toxic," stressed Miguel Angel Morcuende, technical director of the Canary Islands Volcanic Emergency Plan (Pevolca).

- Homes destroyed -

Experts say the entry of lava into the seawater could cause explosions and a fragmentation of the molten rock like gunshots.

"Inhalation or contact with acid gases and liquids can irritate the skin, eyes and respiratory tract, and may cause breathing difficulties, especially in people with pre-existing respiratory diseases," Involcan warned.

The two last eruptions on La Palma, in 1949 and 1971, killed a total of three people, two of them from gas inhalation.

A state of natural disaster has been declared on the island, where the molten rock has so far scorched its way across more than 268 hectares (660 acres) of land and destroyed 656 buildings, according to the European Union's Copernicus Earth Observation Programme.

The eruption has forced the evacuation of more than 6,000 people from their homes DESIREE MARTIN AFP/File

The government on Tuesday released 10.5 million euros ($12.3 million) in aid for victims of the eruption, in particular to buy housing for those whose homes were engulfed in lava.

The eruption has forced the evacuation of more than 6,000 people from their homes but has not killed or injured anyone.

The lava flow has destroyed several roads, with the Canaries regional head Angel Victor Torres estimating last week that the damage to land and property would exceed 400 million euros.

Since it erupted, the volcano has been spewing huge columns of smoke and ash reaching several hundred metres high, disrupting air traffic.

Domestic flights were cancelled on Friday and the airport was closed the following day.

The airport has since reopened but flights remain suspended.

Experts estimate the eruption could last for several weeks, or even months.

Like other islands in the archipelago off the northwest coast of Africa, La Palma relies mainly on the cultivation of bananas and tourism.

© 2021 AFP

Bright lava flows, smoke pour from La Palma volcano eruption in new Landsat photos


By Samantha Mathewson 

about 20 hours ago

SPACE.COM



Bright streaks of lava flow through populated parts of the Spanish island of La Palma on Sept. 26, 2021. (Image credit: NASA Earth Observatory images by Lauren Dauphin, using Landsat data from the U.S. Geological Survey)

New satellite images of an active volcano on the Spanish island of La Palma capture vivid streams of lava pouring down the coastal mountain range and nearing the Atlantic Ocean.

The eruption began on Sept. 19 from fissures on the western flanks of the Cumbre Vieja crater on La Palma, which is one of Spain's Canary Islands, located off the coast of northwestern Africa. The Operational Land Imager (OLI) on NASA's Landsat 8 satellite captured glowing lava flows snaking across the island in images taken on Sunday (Sept. 26), a week into the eruption.

"After Cumbre Vieja split open and began erupting on Sept. 19, 2021, a slow-moving wall of basaltic lava began bulldozing its way through populated parts of one of the Canary Islands," according to a statement from NASA's Earth Observatory. "Lava flows have destroyed nearly 400 homes, covered dozens of kilometers of roads, and consumed farmland on the island of La Palma as they creep down the western flank of the volcanic island toward the ocean."


The Landsat 8 satellite images offer a natural-color view of lava streaming through the communities of El Paraiso and Todoque, along with clouds of white smoke rising from the area. The hot, molten lava spewing from the eruption glows red in the satellite imagery, while a dark, black crust appears in areas where the lava has cooled at the surface.


The satellite observations from Sept. 26 also captured infrared views of the volcanic eruptions, revealing the hottest parts of the red hot lava flowing down the slopes of the crater.





Smoke rises from the active volcano eruption of the Cumbre Vieja crater on the Spanish island of La Palma on Sept. 26, 2021. (Image credit: NASA Earth Observatory images by Lauren Dauphin, using Landsat data from the U.S. Geological Survey)

"Many of the white rectangular features near the coast are greenhouses. The dark green areas along the coast are crops, likely fields of bananas," according to the statement. "The volcanic plume streaming toward the northeast contains a mixture of ash, sulfur dioxide and other volcanic gases."

Volcanic activity briefly slowed in the early morning hours of Monday (Sept. 27). However, the Cumbre Vieja volcano began expelling lava and smoke again later in the day, and experts from the Volcanology Institute of the Canary Islands (INVOLCAN) suggest that the eruption could persist for weeks or months.


RELATED STORIES:
— La Palma volcano eruption's infernal beauty visible from space in astronaut and satellite photos
— Satellites watch as volcano erupts on Spanish island La Palma after half a century of silence
— La Palma volcano spews lava hundreds of feet in the air, but don't expect a 'mega-tsunami'

Lava flows may soon reach the Atlantic Ocean. Hot lava meeting the sea may trigger explosions and emit clouds of chlorine gas, posing further risk to residents in the area. Those along the eastern shore of the island were ordered into lockdown on Monday after thousands had already evacuated the area in days prior.

The Cumbre Vieja volcano last erupted in 1971, though that event was less significant than the current eruptions, experts say.

US officials say ivory-billed woodpecker, over 20 other species extinct

Scientists warn climate change could make disappearances more common

Associated Press

Death’s come knocking a last time for the splendid ivory-billed woodpecker and 22 more birds, fish and other species: The U.S. government is declaring them extinct.

It’s a rare move for wildlife officials to give up hope on a plant or animal, but government scientists say they’ve exhausted efforts to find these 23. And they warn climate change, on top of other pressures, could make such disappearances more common as a warming planet adds to the dangers facing imperiled plants and wildlife.

The ivory-billed woodpecker was perhaps the best known species the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service on Wednesday will announce is extinct. It went out stubbornly and with fanfare, making unconfirmed appearances in recent decades that ignited a frenzy of ultimately fruitless searches in the swamps of Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi and Florida.

Others such as the flat pigtoe, a freshwater mussel in the southeastern U.S., were identified in the wild only a few times and never seen again, meaning by the time they got a name they were fading from existence.

"When I see one of those really rare ones, it’s always in the back of my mind that I might be the last one to see this animal again," said Anthony "Andy" Ford, a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service biologist in Tennessee who specializes in freshwater mussels.

The factors behind the disappearances vary — too much development, water pollution, logging, competition from invasive species, birds killed for feathers and animals captured by private collectors. In each case, humans were the ultimate cause.

Another thing they share: All 23 were thought to have at least a slim chance of survival when added to the endangered species list beginning in the 1960s. Only 11 species previously have been removed due to extinction in the almost half-century since the Endangered Species Act was signed into law. Wednesday’s announcement kicks off a three-month comment period before the species status changes become final.

An ivory-billed woodpecker, now extinct, is seen on a display at the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco, Friday Sept. 24, 2021. Death’s come knocking a last time for the splendid ivory-billed woodpecker and 22 assorted birds, fish and other species: The U.S. government is declaring them extinct, the Associated Press has learned. It’s a rare move for wildlife officials to give up hope on a plant or animal, but government scientists say they've exhausted efforts to find these 23. (AP Photo/Haven Daley)

Around the globe, some 902 species have been documented as extinct. The actual number is thought to be much higher because some are never formally identified, and many scientists warn the earth is in an "extinction crisis" with flora and fauna now disappearing at 1,000 times the historical rate.

It’s possible one or more of the 23 species included in Wednesday’s announcement could reappear, several scientists said.

A leading figure in the hunt for the ivory-billed woodpecker said it was premature to call off the effort, after millions of dollars spent on searches and habitat preservation efforts.

"Little is gained and much is lost" with an extinction declaration, said Cornell University bird biologist John Fitzpatrick, lead author of a 2005 study that claimed the woodpecker had been rediscovered in eastern Arkansas.

"A bird this iconic, and this representative of the major old-growth forests of the southeast, keeping it on the list of endangered species keeps attention on it, keeps states thinking about managing habitat on the off chance it still exists," he said.

The International Union for Conservation of Nature, a Switzerland-based group that tracks extinctions globally, is not putting the ivory-billed woodpecker into its extinction column because it’s possible the birds still exist in Cuba, said the group’s Craig Hilton-Taylor.

Hilton-Taylor said there can be unintended but damaging consequences if extinction is declared prematurely. "Suddenly the (conservation) money is no longer there, and then suddenly you do drive it to extinction because you stop investing in it," he said.

Federal officials said the extinctions declaration was driven by a desire to clear a backlog of recommended status changes for species that had not been acted upon for years. They said it would free up resources for on-the-ground conservation efforts for species that still have a chance for recovery.

What’s lost when those efforts fail are creatures often uniquely adapted to their environments. Freshwater mussel species like the ones the government says have gone extinct reproduce by attracting fish with a lure-like appendage, then sending out a cloud of larvae that attach to gills of fish until they’ve grown enough to drop off and live on their own.

The odds are slim against any mussel surviving into adulthood — a one in a million chance, according to Ford of the wildlife service — but those that do can live a century or longer.

Hawaii has the most species on the list — eight woodland birds and one plant. That’s in part because the islands have so many plants and animals that many have extremely small ranges and can blink out quickly.

The most recent to go extinct was the teeny po’ouli, a type of bird known as a honeycreeper discovered in 1973.

Video

By the late 1990s just three remained — a male and two females. After failures to mate them in the wild, the male was captured for potential breeding and died in 2004. The two females were never seen again.

The fate of Hawaii’s birds helped push Duke University extinction expert Stuart Pimm into his field. Despite the grim nature of the government’s proposal to move more species into the extinct column, Pimm said the toll would probably have been much higher without the Endangered Species Act.

"It’s a shame we didn’t get to those species in time, but when we do, we are usually able to save species," he said.

Since 1975, 54 species have left the endangered list after recovering, including the bald eagle, brown pelican and most humpback whales.

Climate change is making species recovery harder, bringing drought, floods, wildfires and temperature swings that compound the threats species already faced.

How they are saved also is changing. No longer is the focus on individual species, let alone individual birds. Officials say the broader goal now is to preserve their habitat, which boosts species of all types that live there.

"I hope we’re up to the challenge," said biologist Michelle Bogardus with the wildlife service in Hawaii. "We don’t have the resources to prevent extinctions unilaterally. We have to think proactively about ecosystem health and how do we maintain it, given all thes

Illinois Man Dies After Rabid Bat Bites His Neck, in First Human Case of Rabies Since 1954


CC BY-SA 4.0 / Oasalehm / Vampire bat allogrooming

Maxim Minaev 

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has confirmed human rabies in Illinois after laboratory tests for the first time since 1954.

The Illinois Department of Public Health said that a man in his 80s residing in Lake County woke up when he was bitten by a bat. The bat was subsequently caught and tested positive for rabies. The man was advised to consult a specialist, but he refused.

Within a month, he began to feel symptoms of rabies: neck pain, headache, hand tremors, numbness in the fingers and speech impairment. He later died from the illness.

"Rabies has the highest mortality rate of any disease," the Illinois Department of Public Health Director Dr. Ngozi Ezike said as quoted by the CBS News. "However, there is life-saving treatment for individuals who quickly seek care after being exposed to an animal with rabies. If you think you may have been exposed to rabies, immediately seek medical attention and follow the recommendations of health care providers and public health officials."

Experts found a whole colony of these animals in the victim's house.

One to three human cases of rabies are reported annually in the United States. According to reports, 60,000 Americans receive post-exposure rabies vaccinations every year.

The rabies virus enters the nervous system, leads to severe disruption of the brain, and eventually, death occurs. Without preventive treatment, rabies is almost always fatal. In Illinois, the rabies virus is most commonly found in bats.

Toronto's ombudsman to investigate homeless encampment clearings

Toronto's ombudsman has launched an investigation into the city's clearing of homeless encampments this summer.

© Provided by The Canadian Press

The operations saw police clash with encampment residents and their supporters, and resulted in dozens of people facing charges.


"We have received complaints that raised concerns about the City's approach to the encampment evictions," Ombudsman Kwame Addo in a statement on Tuesday.

The city and police cleared four homeless encampments in three parks this summer. At three encampments, police officers in riot gear were used to clear the sites of residents and their supporters.

The ombudsman said his investigation will focus on how the city planned the clearings, engaged stakeholders and communicated with the public. The probe will also examine the policies and procedures that guided the city's actions.

The city said it would fully co-operate with the investigation.

"The city will ensure the ombudsman is provided with the entire scope of work undertaken by staff on this complex and important matter as it worked to ensure some of the city's most vulnerable residents had access to safe, indoor accommodation and services, while keeping parks safe and accessible for all," spokesman Brad Ross said in a statement.

The city has long maintained that the encampments were unsafe.

Toronto police have said they were supporting city staff in the encampment-clearing operations and carried out enforcement as a last resort.

Encampments sprouted up in many city parks when the pandemic hit in March 2020.

Hundreds fled the city's shelters for fears of contracting COVID-19. Many encampment residents said they also left due to violence within the shelter system.

Data obtained by The Canadian Press shows a significant rise in violent incidents in Toronto's shelter system over the last five years.

Police laid dozens of charges after helping the city clear encampments at Lamport Stadium, Trinity Bellwoods Park and Alexandra Park, and following a subsequent protest at a police station.

The majority of the alleged offences related to trespassing. The force also laid several assault-peace-officer charges.

Earlier this month, members of the homeless community and their supporters held a protest outside Toronto Mayor John Tory's downtown condominium demanding an end to the clearing of encampments and the dropping of trespass charges against those who live in the makeshift dwellings.

Several at that demonstration alleged they had been assaulted by police during the clearings and detained in police vehicles for hours.

The ombudsman said the office does not have the mandate to review the conduct of Toronto police officers.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 28, 2021.

Liam Casey, The Canadian Press

Rural Montana banded together in swift train wreck response

CHESTER, Mont. (AP) — Trevor Fossen was running late for a wedding Saturday afternoon when he turned onto a dusty, gravel road in rural Montana as a westbound train approached the crossing in front of him

.

© Provided by The Canadian Press

The train never made it to the crossing. The next thing Fossen saw was a wall of dust fill the sky.


“I started looking at that, wondering what it was, and then I saw the train had tipped over and derailed,” said Fossen, a 29-year-old farmer.

It was an Amtrak Empire Builder en route from Chicago to Seattle that had derailed, killing three people and injuring dozens. Investigators still don't know what caused the crash.

Fossen and at least nine other people called 911, setting off a chain reaction of help from residents in the nearby towns of Joplin and Chester as people jumped into action to get people off the train and care for injured passengers and those who were stunned and had suffered bumps, bruises and other less serious injuries.

Volunteer emergency responders, firefighters, law enforcement, medical providers and regular citizens all worked together to help those whose trip was so suddenly and violently interrupted, embodying the spirit of a rural part of Montana's Hi-Line region near the Canadian border.

Fossen said he started to help first responders get a handful of people out of a train car that was leaning, then moved back to three cars that were detached from the train and were lying on their sides. He and others helped get a badly injured woman out of a car. Others helped unload the baggage car near the front of the train.

The three who didn’t survive were identified as Donald Varnadoe, 74, and Marjorie Varnadoe, 72, a married couple from Georgia; and Zachariah Schneider, a 28-year-old from Illinois. All died at the scene, the Liberty County Sheriff’s Office said.

Dale Fossen, Trevor's uncle, farms nearby and arrived at the scene shortly after the crash. The 75-year-old amateur photographer said he wasn’t sure what he could do to help, but he observed the chaotic scene and took some pictures with his cellphone.

Some passengers stood in the dust, looking bewildered, he said. Others tended to their wounds.

“I saw a small child, mother and father, sitting on the railroad tracks right behind the first car that I saw laying sideways," he said. "The little girl was crying.”

Dale Fossen said he walked over a rise and saw the three cars on their sides.

“I could see people standing on top of the middle car and ladders and I saw them trying to cut a hole in the roof that was laying on the side,” he said. The effort to cut into the rail car failed, even with the Jaws of Life equipment.

He talked to one passenger who said he was in one of the cars when it started to tip sideways and a large spring went through the windshield by him.

“So he grabbed ahold of something as the car tipped over,” Fossen said. “He said the only thing that kept him from going underneath the train was him holding on.”

Meanwhile, Liberty Medical Center in the small community of Chester called in all of its staff — including housekeeping — and most responded, said Bev Halter, director of human resources. They triaged 31 patients Saturday evening.

“We may be a small Critical Access Hospital in a remote location, but we were able to show the size of our commitment to being here for those in need," Halter said in a statement. “We are so thankful for this facility, our employees, and the community who pulled together to provide the best response and care possible.”

People who were seriously injured were taken by ambulance or flown to other hospitals in the region that had called and offered their help, said Sarah Robbin, the Disaster and Emergency Services coordinator for Liberty County. Six people remained hospitalized Tuesday.

Those who were not seriously hurt were loaded onto school buses and the senior citizen bus and taken to a school gym and community center in Chester, where residents helped them charge their cellphones to call families and health care workers evaluated them. Some took showers, and the passengers were offered food.

Ricky Maan, owner of the Chester Supermarket, said he provided water and ice, made some pizzas and allowed residents to take whatever else was needed for the passengers, including napkins, wipes and bandages.

“I told my cashier, don’t charge them,” said Maan, whose family bought the grocery store five years ago. “We can help those people who already hurt."

He added: “We like to help all the time. This is our community. . . . We used to live in a big city, we never see like this. But in small town, everybody is like, once something happens, is all together."

A religious group brought in ingredients to make sandwiches. Some people drove passengers to Great Falls or Kalispell that night to reunite them with hospitalized family members, and others took passengers to Great Falls to catch a flight home, officials said.

Recordings of the 911 calls to the Liberty County sheriff's office included some breathless passengers asking for help, describing injuries to fellow passengers — including two men with cuts on their heads — and at least one Amtrak employee describing a co-worker's injuries and saying there were more than 90 people on board. People who had been driving along the highway and saw the derailment also called to make sure it had been reported.

“We've had a derailment. It's urgent,” one passenger said. “Get as many ambulances out there as you can.”

Robbin, the Disaster and Emergency Services coordinator, said the response across the Hi-Line was “fantastic.”

“We can’t thank our partners enough, who came from everywhere and did what they needed to do, and it’s just going to be one of those things that I don’t know that we’ll ever be able to repay, but know that when they put out the call, we will be there for them,” she said.

The county is offering a counselor-led debriefing on Wednesday.

“This is for community members to discuss their experiences and for those that may be struggling to process the recent events in our community,” the notice states. A counselor will be available on Thursday for individual discussions, as needed.

“Please reach out to your neighbors, friends and family members, to support them during this time,” the notice says.

The rail line was reopened to traffic early Tuesday, said Lena Kent, a BNSF Railway spokesperson.

Amy Beth Hanson, The Associated Press

WW3.0 PERMANENT ARMS ECONOMY

An intensifying arms race in Asia

© Reuters/KIM HONG-JI People watch a TV broadcasting file footage of a news report on North Korea firing what appeared to be a pair of ballistic missiles off its east coast, in Seoul

(Reuters) - Analysts warn Asia may be sliding into an accelerating arms race as countries react to China's military growth and tensions around North Korea's weapons programmes linger.

Here is a list of defence systems several Asian countries are looking to acquire.

AUSTRALIA

The country said on Sept. 16 it would build at least eight nuclear-powered submarines under an Indo-Pacific security partnership with the United States and Britain.

Australia will also enhance its long-range strike capability with Tomahawk cruise missiles deployed on naval destroyers and air-to-surface missiles for its F/A-18 Hornet and F-35A Lightning II jets that can hit targets at a range of 900 km (559 miles).

Long-Range Anti-Ship Missiles (LRASM) will be deployed on its F/A-18F Super Hornet jets, while precision strike guided missiles capable of destroying targets from over 400 km are planned for its land forces.

It will also collaborate with the United States to develop hypersonic missiles under the trilateral security deal, dubbed AUKUS.

Separately, the U.S. State Department approved in June the potential sale of 29 Boeing Co AH-64E Apache attack helicopters to Australia in a deal worth up to $3.5 billion.

TAIWAN

Taiwain announced a plan earlier this month to spend T$240 billion ($8.69 billion) over the next five years to upgrade its weapons capabilities - a programme that is likely to include long-range missiles and existing cruise missiles.

The programme will include a new missile, which Taiwanese media say could have a range of up to 1,200 km and is an upgraded version of the Hsiung Sheng cruise missile.

In 2020, the U.S. government approved the potential sales of 100 Boeing-made Harpoon Coastal Defense Systems, three weapons systems including missiles, sensors and artillery, and four sophisticated aerial drones to Taiwan. They are worth about $5 billion in total.

Last month, Washington approved the potential sale of 40 howitzer systems to Taiwan in a deal valued at up to $750 million.

SOUTH KOREA

It successfully tested a conventional submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM) on Sept. 15, becoming the first country without nuclear weapons to develop such a system.

The missile is believed to be a variant of the country's ground-based Hyunmoo-2B ballistic missile, with a flight range of about 500 km.

Last year, it developed the Hyunmoo-4

 https://www.reuters.com/article/us-northkorea-missiles-southkorea-analys-idUSKBN2BM0G8

 missile, which has an 800 km range and can mount a 2-ton payload.

South Korea unveiled other new missiles, including a supersonic cruise missile to be deployed soon.

It has been also striving to develop solid-fuel rocket engines as part of a plan to launch a spy satellite by the late 2020s, and successfully carried out a test firing in July.

Its defence ministry, in a midterm plan released in 2020, detailed a proposal to build three submarines. Officials have said two of them - with a displacement of 3,000 tons and 3,600 tons - will be based on diesel engines, but declined to specify how the largest one, at 4,000 tons, would will be powered.

Building a nuclear submarine has been among President Moon Jae-in's election pledges, but he has never officially announced it after taking office in 2017.

NORTH KOREA

In July 2019, North Korean state media showed leader Kim Jong Un inspecting a large, newly built submarine. While it did not describe the submarine's weapons, analysts said the apparent size of the vessel indicated it was designed to carry ballistic missiles.

Later that year, nuclear-armed North Korea said it had successfully test-fired a new SLBM from the sea, and in January it showcased a new SLBM design https://www.reuters.com/article/us-northkorea-politics-idUSKBN29J2YG during a military parade in Pyongyang.

The country said on Wednesday it tested a newly developed hypersonic missile a day before, joining an accelerating race to deploy the weapon involving the United States, Russia and China.

Hypersonic weapons are considered the next generation of arms aimed at depriving adversaries of reaction time and traditional defence mechanisms.

Unlike ballistic missiles that fly into outer space before returning on steep trajectories, hypersonic weapons can travel towards targets at lower altitudes at more than five times the speed of sound - or about 6,200 km per hour (3,853 miles per hour).

The launch came two weeks after North Korea's state media said the country tested its first railway-based missile launching system.

CHINA

It is mass producing its DF-26 

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-anniversary-military-idUSKBN1WG342

, a multipurpose weapon that can be fitted with nuclear warheads and has a range of up to 4,000 km.

At a 2019 parade, China also unveiled new unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and showcased its advancing intercontinental and hypersonic missiles, designed to attack the aircraft carriers and bases that undergird U.S. military strength in Asia.

Its hypersonic missile, known as the DF-17, theoretically can manoeuvre at many times the speed of sound, making it more difficult to counter.

It also has DF-41 intercontinental ballistic missiles, the backbone of China’s nuclear deterrent, which are capable of reaching the United States with multiple warheads.

JAPAN

It has spent millions of dollars on long-range air-launched weapons, and is developing a new version of a truck-mounted anti-ship missile, the Type 12 https://www.reuters.com/world/china/japan-develop-longer-range-anti-ship-missiles-china-pressure-mounts-2020-12-18

, with an expected range of 1,000 km.

In 2020, the U.S. State Department authorized a deal for Japan to buy 105 Lockheed F-35 fighter jets to Japan at an estimated cost of $23 billion.

(Reporting by Hyonhee Shin in Seoul, John Mair in Sydney, Ben Blanchard in Taipei; Writing by Miyoung Kim. Editing by Gerry Doyle and Lincoln Feast.)

Drug decriminalization movement gaining momentum in Canada as overdose deaths surge

Lauren Pelley 2 hrs ago

As overdose deaths keep surging in Canada, the movement to decriminalize illicit drugs is gaining steam, with one of the country's largest mental health facilities joining national advocates and several major cities in putting pressure on the federal government to act.

Earlier this summer, mayors from across B.C. signed a letter in support of Vancouver city officials who are seeking Health Canada's approval to decriminalize the possession of small amounts of illegal drugs.

Toronto is gearing up to submit a similar request, a move which follows the city recently hitting its highest one-day opioid overdose count in late July.

Now, the country's largest mental health teaching hospital, the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) in Toronto, is for the first time formally pushing for countrywide drug decriminalization as well, CBC News has learned.

In a new policy statement being released publicly on Wednesday, the hospital is calling on the federal government to decriminalize all drugs while working with the provinces to ramp up treatment and harm-reduction services and replace the "unregulated, toxic drug supply."

"The driving factor behind the shift has been the harms we're seeing," said Dr. Leslie Buckley, chief of the addictions division at CAMH, during an interview.

© Lauren Pelley/CBC The public health crisis of drug overdoses 'warrants a public health crisis response,' says Angela Robertson, executive director of the Parkdale Queen West Community Health Centre, one of the Toronto organizations gaining federal funding to launch safer supply programs.

Buckley says the legal framework around substance use hasn't been successful at curbing drug use, and instead causes social harms which disproportionately affect racialized communities.

"We should be thinking about substance use through a health lens," Buckley said, "and focusing on how to help people be well, rather than face criminal penalties."

CAMH is specifically calling on the federal government to "ensure decriminalization applies across the country and to all currently illicit drugs" — rather than a piecemeal approach relying on regional or substance-specific exemptions — with no fines or other administrative penalties.

The push comes as overdose deaths are hitting new highs in much of the country, in part fuelled by an increasingly toxic illegal drug supply and, advocates say, by the social isolation and stress sparked by the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

Federal data shows there were nearly 7,000 apparent opioid toxicity deaths reported in Canada between April 2020 and March 2021 — an 88 per cent increase from the same time period prior to the pandemic — with the bulk of the most recent deaths reported in British Columbia, Alberta and Ontario.

"We have not seen a commensurate response in prevention that signifies that there is urgency," said Angela Robertson, executive director of the Parkdale Queen West Community Health Centre, which operates sites for safer, monitored drug use in Toronto.

© Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press 

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau speaks to media as he visits a vaccine clinic in Ottawa on Tuesday. Trudeau has indicated his government might be open to exploring new avenues to tackle overdose-related deaths.

"Here is a public health crisis that warrants a public health crisis response."

There were some signals on the campaign trail that the Trudeau government may be open to exploring new avenues to tackle overdose-related deaths.

Although the Liberal platform didn't mention decriminalization specifically, or offer a commitment to providing a safe drug supply — approaches which were backed by other parties — Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has expressed a willingness to work with groups pursuing those solutions.

"We've seen a number of provinces, particularly British Columbia, very interested in moving forward on some forms of decriminalization and we are absolutely open to working with them," Trudeau said during an announcement on mental health commitments.

Fewer Canadians are also being charged with drug possession in recent years, with the number of people facing charges dropping from more than 35,000 people in 2015 to roughly 18,000 in 2019, the latest available Statistics Canada data show.

Canadians charged with drug possession annually

'People are really listening now'

It's a shift not lost on advocates like Arlene Last-Kolb, who lost her 24-year-old son Jesse to fentanyl poisoning in July 2014.

The Manitoba mother has since been calling for changes in how Canada handles the opioid crisis.

"We talk about decriminalization for people that have no choice but to go to the streets to get what they need, and they're most likely going to die from that," said Last-Kolb, who is a board member of the advocacy group Moms Stop the Harm and co-founder of Overdose Awareness Manitoba.

"Why are we not talking about making it safer?"

Recently, there's been growing momentum around those kinds of harm-reduction approaches, she said. "What is new is that people are really listening now — and they're really starting to understand it."

Yet drug use policies remain a patchwork across the country, with varying levels of support and access to facilities like supervised injection sites, even as deaths have surged in recent years.

In Edmonton, daily drug poisonings are now putting extra strain on a health system that's also being overwhelmed by patients battling COVID-19, said family physician Dr. Ginetta Salvalaggio, an associate professor at the University of Alberta.

As co-chair of the Edmonton Zone Medical Staff Association's opioid poisoning committee, Salvalaggio is part of a group advocating for the urgent expansion of new overdose prevention sites in all of Alberta's major cities and broader access to a safer drug supply to tackle the current crisis — and she said longer-term, decriminalization needs to remain part of the conversation.

"The drug supply that is currently circulating is, if anything, just getting from bad to worse, and that's not going to get solved by trying to take what's currently on the street off," Salvalaggio added. "So we need a much more comprehensive approach."

According to Buckley, the physician from CAMH, curbing the overdose crisis in both the short and long term requires a slate of tactics — including decriminalizing drugs, improving access to a safer drug supply and addiction treatments, and educating Canadians on the potential harms of drug use.

"We know that there is a possibility that we can be normalizing substance use, which we know can lead to people thinking it's less harmful," she acknowledged.

"Today's substances are not your parent's substances. The context has really changed."

Last-Kolb stresses that people like her late son have long used illegal drugs for a variety of reasons, and she maintains they deserve safer, legal options — just like those available to Canadians who choose to drink alcohol or smoke cannabis.

"My son would be married now with children. That's what I want for other people. I want people to be safe, I want our children to be safe," she said.

"And I don't want them to have to go to the streets and get something illegal that will most likely kill them."