India counters China in Sri Lanka with $700 million port deal

NEO-LIBERAL STATE CAPITALISM  

VS AUTHORITARIAN STATE CAPITALISM

Issued on: 30/09/2021 - 

The move by an Indian company to build a container terminal in Sri Lanka is seen as countering China's rising influence in the region

 ISHARA S. KODIKARA AFP

Colombo (AFP)

An Indian company entered into a $700 million deal Thursday to build a strategic deep-sea container terminal in Sri Lanka, officials said, in a move seen as countering China's rising influence in the region.

The Sri Lanka Ports Authority (SLPA) said it signed an agreement with India's Adani Group to build a brand-new terminal next to a $500-million Chinese-run jetty at the sprawling port in the capital Colombo.

"The agreement worth more than $700 million is the largest foreign investment ever in the port sector of Sri Lanka," the SLPA said in a statement.

It said Adani will enter into a partnership with a local conglomerate, John Keells, and the Sri Lankan government-owned SLPA as a minority partner.

John Keells said it will have 34 percent of the company while Adani will have a 51 percent controlling stake in the joint venture known as the Colombo West International Terminal.

The new container jetty will be 1.4 kilometres in length, with a depth of 20 metres and an annual capacity to handle 3.2 million containers.

The first phase of the project with a 600-metre terminal is due to be completed within two years, the company said. The terminal will revert to Sri Lanka ownership after 35 years of operation.

Plans to allow India into the strategic Colombo port goes back several years, but they were scuttled in February when trade unions linked to the ruling coalition opposed giving New Delhi a partially built terminal within the port.

Later, the government asked Indians to build a brand-new terminal adjoining the Chinese-operated Colombo International Container Terminal (CICT).

Colombo is located in the Indian Ocean between the major hubs of Dubai and Singapore, meaning influence at its ports is highly sought after.

Two Chinese submarines berthed at the CICT in 2014, sparking concerns in India which considers neighbour Sri Lanka to be within its sphere of influence.

Since then, Sri Lanka has refused permission for more Chinese submarines to be stationed there.

In December 2017, unable to repay a huge Chinese loan, Sri Lanka allowed China Merchants Port Holdings to take over the southern Hambantota port, which straddles the world's busiest east-west shipping route.

The deal, which gave the Chinese company a 99-year lease, raised fears about Beijing's use of "debt traps" in exerting its influence abroad.

India and the United States have also expressed concerns that a Chinese foothold at Hambantota could give Beijing a military advantage in the Indian Ocean.

© 2021 AFP

COMMODIFICATION OF ADOLESCENCE 
Facebook exec defends policies toward teens on Instagram
By MARCY GORDON

In this March 20, 2018 file photo, Facebook's head of global safety policy Antigone Davis speaks during a roundtable on cyberbullying with first lady Melania Trump, in the State Dining Room of the White House in Washington. Facing lawmakers’ outrage against Facebook over its handling of internal research on harm to teens from Instagram, Davis is telling Congress that the company is working to protect young people on its platforms, on Thursday, Sept. 30, 2021. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci, File)


WASHINGTON (AP) — Facing outrage over its handling of internal research on harm to teens from Instagram, a Facebook executive is telling Congress that the company is working to protect young people on its platforms. And she disputes the way a recent newspaper story describes what the research shows.

“We have put in place multiple protections to create safe and age-appropriate experiences for people between the ages of 13 and 17,” Antigone Davis, Facebook’s head of global safety, said in written testimony Thursday for a Senate Commerce subcommittee.

Facebook has removed more than 600,000 accounts on Instagram from June to August this year that didn’t meet the minimum age requirement of 13, Davis said.

Davis was summoned by the panel as scrutiny over how Facebook handles information that could indicate potential harm for some of its users, especially girls, while publicly downplaying the negative impacts.

The revelations in a report by The Wall Street Journal, based on internal research leaked by a whistleblower at Facebook, have set off a wave of anger from lawmakers, critics of Big Tech, child-development experts and parents. The outcry prompted Facebook to put on hold its work on a kids’ version of Instagram, which the company says is meant mainly for tweens aged 10 to 12. But it’s just a pause.

For some of the Instagram-devoted teens, the peer pressure generated by the visually focused app led to mental-health and body-image problems, and in some cases, eating disorders and suicidal thoughts. It was Facebook’s own researchers who alerted the social network giant’s executives to Instagram’s destructive potential.

Davis says in her testimony that Facebook has a history of using its internal research as well as outside experts and groups to inform changes to its apps, with the goal of keeping young people safe on the platforms and ensuring that those who aren’t old enough to use them do not.

“This hearing will examine the toxic effects of Facebook and Instagram on young people and others, and is one of several that will ask tough questions about whether Big Tech companies are knowingly harming people and concealing that knowledge,” Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., chairman of the consumer protection subcommittee, said in a statement. “Revelations about Facebook and others have raised profound questions about what can and should be done to protect people.”

Blumenthal and Sen. Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee, the panel’s senior Republican, also plan to take testimony next week from a Facebook whistleblower, believed to be the person who leaked the Instagram research documents to the Journal.

Despite the well-documented harms, Facebook executives have consistently played down Instagram’s negative side and have forged ahead with work on Instagram for Kids, until now. On Monday, Instagram head Adam Mosseri said in a blog post that the company will use its time out “to work with parents, experts and policymakers to demonstrate the value and need for this product.”

Already in July, Facebook said it was working with parents, experts and policymakers when it introduced safety measures for teens on its main Instagram platform. In fact, the company has been working with experts and other advisers for another product aimed at children — its Messenger Kids app that launched in late 2017.

The focused outrage transcending party and ideology contrasts with lawmakers’ posture toward social media generally, which splits Republicans and Democrats. Republicans accuse Facebook, Google and Twitter, without evidence, of deliberately suppressing conservative, religious and anti-abortion views.

Democrats train their criticism mainly on hate speech, misinformation and other content on the platforms that can incite violence, keep people from voting or spread falsehoods about the coronavirus.

The bipartisan pile-on against Facebook proceeds as the tech giant awaits a federal judge’s ruling on a revised complaint from the Federal Trade Commission in an epic antitrust case and as it tussles with the Biden administration over its handling of coronavirus vaccine misinformation.

Meanwhile, groundbreaking legislation has advanced in Congress that would curb the market power of Facebook and other tech giants Google, Amazon and Apple — and could force them to untie their dominant platforms from their other lines of business. For Facebook, that could target Instagram, the social media juggernaut valued at around $100 billion that it has owned since 2012, as well as messaging service WhatsApp.

__

Follow Marcy Gordon at https://twitter.com/mgordonap

#ABOLISHPRISONS
Ecuador bloodbath: Deadly unrest in Latin America's jails

Issued on: 30/09/2021 -

Inmates walk on the roof of a wing of the main regional prison in Guayaquil, Ecuador, where dozens of prisoners were killed in a gun battle among inmates Fernando Mendez AFP

Guayaquil (Ecuador) (AFP)

With at least 116 dead after clashes between prisoners in an Ecuador jail, here is a look at the deadliest riots in recent years in Latin America's notoriously overcrowded jails.

- Deadliest -

Over the past three decades, there have been several massive prison riots that left more than 100 inmates dead.

In 2005, a fire ripped through an overcrowded prison in the Dominican Republic's eastern city of Higuey after a dawn riot, leaving at least 135 people dead.

In 1994, 121 inmates were killed after prisoners set fire to three prison blocks during a riot at Sabaneta prison in Venezuela's northern city of Maracaibo.

In 1992 in Brazil, 111 prisoners were killed when security forces put down a riot at the enormous Carandiru jail outside Sao Paulo.

The massacre was later portrayed in an acclaimed 2003 film, "Carandiru".

- Ecuador's 'war' -

Tuesday's bloodshed in Guayaquil is believed to be linked to a "war" between Mexican drug gangs. It is the fifth major incident in the port city's prison in just over a year.

In all, some 200 inmates have died in violence in Ecuador's jails so far this year as they have become a battleground for thousands of prisoners with ties to powerful Mexican cartels.

More than 100 died in clashes last year -- with many beheaded -- with corruption allowing inmates to smuggle in arms and ammunition.

Ecuador's prison system has 65 facilities designed for about 30,000 inmates but a population of 39,000, watched over by 1,500 guards -- a shortfall of about 2,500, according to experts.

- Bloody Brazil -

Deadly riots are frequent in Brazil's overcrowded prisons, which roughly hold twice the number of inmates they were built for.

With more than 702,000 prisoners, Brazil has the world's third largest prison population after China and the United States.

In late May 2019, at least 55 prisoners were killed in several jails over two days in the northwestern state of Amazonas.

Two months later 57 died in a battle between rival gangs in a prison in Altamira in northern Brazil.

On April 11, 2018, at least 21 died in an attempted breakout from a prison near the northern city of Belem.

In early 2017, deadly riots left around 100 prisoners dead in the space of a month -- many were decapitated and even disemboweled.

- Venezuela -

Venezuela also has a long and bloody history of prison unrest, almost matching Brazil's grisly record of 756 death since 1992.

In May 2020, 47 prisoners died after a riot sparks by food shortages in a jail in the western city of Guanare.

Inmates pictured at a 2013 protest at Venezuela's Sabaneta jail, where 121 inmates were killed in a riot in 1994 

 JIMMY PIRELA/AFP/File

In May 2019, at least 29 prisoners were killed in clashes at a jail in the western town of Acarigua.

March 28, 2018 saw one of the worst prison riots in Venezuela, with 68 people dying in a blaze in a police station jail in the northern city of Valencia.

In August 2017, 37 were killed in a jailhouse in the southern Venezuelan state of Amazonas.

© 2021 AFP

National Day of Truth and Reconciliation

Content warning: this article mentions death, Indigenous residential schools, and the ongoing violence committed against Indigenous peoples.

Today, September 30th 2021, marks the first National Day of Truth and Reconciliation in Canada. The day is meant to honour the lost children and survivors of residential schools, their families and communities. [1] While this is an important moment to grieve and reflect—we cannot stop here.

Over the past six months, over 1,300 unmarked children's graves have been discovered on the sites of former Residential Schools. [2] It’s likely there are many more: over 150,000 Indigenous children were forced to attend Indian Residential Schools. [3] 139 of them were set up across the country, and so far, less than 10 have been searched. [4] We know there are thousands yet to be found, and countless others who we may never find.

These figures are hard to comprehend, but we cannot become numb to them. Each of those 1,300 represents a child who was stolen from their family and never returned.

Residential schools are one feature of the state-designed system to destroy Indigenous culture and to subjugate and eliminate Indigenous peoples. This is genocide. [5]

And it is ongoing: the Canadian state continues to undermine the rights of Indigenous peoples, spending millions to fight Residential School survivors in court, foregoing provision of basic rights and services like clean drinking water to Indigenous communities, and sending militarized police into unceded Indigenous territory to violently remove air, water, and land defenders in the name of resource extraction. [6-8]

Today is a day to remind ourselves that the land we live on was never given up freely, but stolen through violence. Non-Indigenous people who live here still benefit from this—and we have the responsibility today, and every day, to work towards reconciliation and dismantle the genocidal legacy of the country we call Canada.

Here are three ways you can take action today:

1. Learn about the history and ongoing genocide of Indigenous peoples in Canada: take the time to learn about the Indigenous Nations whose land you live on, and ways that you can support their calls to action for sovereignty. If you don’t know what territories you are on, you can enter your postal code here to find out. There’s also a list below of resources to get you started.2. Take action: the Truth and Reconciliation Commission has 94 calls to action, including 6 which directly relate to the Residential School systems. We ask that you take the time to read these calls to actions, acknowledge the privilege we all have living on stolen land, and act.3. Donate: today is a federal statutory holiday. There is a call to action to donate One Day’s Pay of your holiday’s earnings, or whatever you can manage, to an Indigenous-led organization or project. The Leadnow team have curated a list of national organizations as well as frontline communities to donate to below.
Here is a list of resources to learn more, and communities/organizations you can donate to and support. This is not a comprehensive list and we encourage you to use it as a starting point to delve deeper about how you can act in solidarity with Indigenous Nations in your community as well.

Articles and Reports

The Final Report of the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls
Overview of the Indian Residential School System
Indigenous Children and the Child Welfare System in Canada
Calls to Action Accountability: A 2020 Status Update on Reconciliation
The National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation Reports
The Truth and Reconciliation Commission's Calls to Action
What is Land Back? A settler’s FAQ
Stories from Survivors:
Residential School Survivors' Stories
Survivors Speak - A Report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada
Indigenous-led organizations to donate to and support:
National:

IRSS
National Center for Truth + Reconciliation
Orange Shirt SocietyBC Based:

Urban Native Youth Alliance Vancouver
Wet’suwet’en
Tiny House WarriorsOntario Based:

Assembly of 7 Generations
Toronto Indigenous Harm Reduction
1492 Land Back LaneAtlantic Based:

Mi'kmawPrairies Based:

Alberta Native Friendship Circle Association
The National Day of Truth and Reconciliation is just one day, but our solidarity with Indigenous communities must be year-round. For that reason, it is imperative for us to amplify the calls for justice and sovereignty from Indigenous peoples — not just in moments like these, but always.

In solidarity,
Adriana, Claire, and Maggie, for Leadnow

Sources
[1] https://www.canada.ca/en/canadian-heritage/campaigns/national-day-truth-reconciliation.html
[2] https://globalnews.ca/news/8074453/indigenous-residential-schools-canada-graves-map/
[3] http://www.anishinabek.ca/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/An-Overview-of-the-IRS-System-Booklet.pdf
[4] See [2]
[5] https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/genocide-and-indigenous-peoples-in-canada
[6] https://www.cbc.ca/news/indigenous/ottawa-st-anne-residential-school-court-costs-1.5809846
[7] https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/sterilization-of-indigenous-women-in-canada
[8] https://www.vice.com/en/article/7kvak9/video-shows-cops-pinning-down-indigenous-man-during-fairy-creek-arrest

Leadnow.ca is an independent campaigning community that brings Canadians together to hold government accountable, deepen our democracy and take action for the common good. You can follow us on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram.

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Leadnow.ca, PO Box 2091, Stn Terminal, Vancouver, BC, V6B 3T2 — 1‑855‑LEADN0W | 1‑855‑532‑3609

STATEMENT ON NATIONAL DAY FOR TRUTH AND RECONCILIATION



On this day we focus on truth and reconciliation with Indigenous peoples. We acknowledge, consider, and honour their contributions to the country we call Canada.

There can be no reconciliation without truth.

The Douglas Coldwell Foundation recognizes the inhumane and unjust treatment of our Indigenous sisters, brothers, and siblings through colonization. These injustices are not just historical; they continue today.

The brutal colonization of Indigenous people was horrific and the lasting effects are tragic: genocide’ stolen lands; broken treaties and promises;, structured dispossession; forced displacement; and continued anti-Indigenous racism.

A national day of recognition is not enough if we do not act upon the truth and work more for justice.

We must come together to ensure support and resources for all Indigenous communities. This commitment must include access to drinking water and safe schools, reform of the child welfare system, actualizing Indigenous peoples’ right to self-determination, a full and comprehensive investigation into Murdered and Missing Indigenous Women, and legal prosecutions for the children killed in residential schools.

We must all steward the earth better, live up to our commitments to each other, and strive to live in proper relation.

The founders of the DCF worked hand-in-hand with Indigenous leaders to establish the framework that would become our universal healthcare system and many of the social democratic concepts of which Canadians are proud. Tommy Douglas and MJ Coldwell collaborated with many Indigenous leaders with the goal of building a federation that could lift everyone up. This vision has still yet to come true.

During our 50th Anniversary celebrations, the Douglas Coldwell Foundation will be shining a bright light on the contributions of outstanding Indigenous leaders, artists, Elders, Knowledge Keepers, and youth in society, culture, and social democratic policy.

Indigenous people whether First Nations, Inuit, or Métis deserve more than words and promises. We all deserve respect, equality, justice, and full access to all benefits.

In a spirit of hope, we, the DCF, will strive to learn from our continued mistakes and help finally make Indigenous peoples - and the country - whole.

Learning, listening, and acting with a full heart, open mind, and strong hands in a spirit of solidarity can and will provide us a path toward realizing reconciliation and decolonization.

The Directors of the Douglas Coldwell Foundation thank our Indigenous sisters, brothers, and siblings for their wisdom, patience, and leadership.

We will do better including you and educating Canadians with you, as needed, about your histories, and accomplishments to create a better future together.

Especially today, we see you, hear you, appreciate you and seek to reconcile.

Chi Miigwech | Qujannamik | Marsee | Thank you | Merci

 

Content warning: This message contains details about Canada's residential schools.  

September 30th, marks the first National Day of Truth and Reconciliation in Canada. We honour the lives of the First Nations, Inuit and Métis children uprooted from their families and reflect on the deep wounds borne by Indigenous Peoples ever since.

An estimated 150,000 children were forcibly removed from their families and communities, transferred to residential schools, sometimes thousands of kilometres away from their homes. They endured horrific conditions of physical and sexual abuse, unsanitary conditions resulting in disease, malnutrition and starvation, forced labour, and indoctrination out of their identity, languages and cultures. Thousands of children never made it home. 

From 1831 to 1996, there were 140 federally run residential schools across the country. For years, survivors and communities spoke out about the intergenerational trauma caused by these institutions: from the trauma inflicted on these children within the system, their loss of language, community, and culture and ways of being, to the ongoing forcible removal and assimilation under the child welfare system.

The colonial policies and practices continue to this day: Indigenous children are overwhelmingly represented in Canada’s child welfare system; Indigenous women, girls, and two-spirit people experience staggeringly high rates of violence; and governments frequently approve industrial projects on Indigenous territories without their free, prior and informed consent.

Yesterday, in an important step towards justice for Indigenous children, the Federal Court upheld a landmark Canadian Human Rights Tribunal ruling ordering the federal government to compensate First Nations children and their families.   

On this day, all non-Indigenous people are called upon to witness and act upon this truth, without which there can be no reconciliation.

What can you do to mark this important day of reflection? Read more in our blog.

We also invite you to join us at 7:00 pm EST today for a virtual conversation with legal scholar Tamara Starblanket. Tamara is Spider Woman, a Nehiyaw iskwew (Cree woman) from Ahtahkakoop First Nation in Treaty Six. She is the author of “Suffer the Little Children: Genocide, Indigenous Nations, and the Canadian State”, a groundbreaking book in which she exposes the forcible removal of Indigenous children as a crime under the UN Genocide Convention. Register now >>>

Indigenous Peoples have led the way in seeking truth, justice and accountability. Settlers must reflect on the remarkable work Indigenous communities have been doing to gather and analyze evidence, support survivors, and lobby nationally and internationally for recognition and restitution. This work is exhausting and retraumatizing.

We call on all non-Indigenous people to find the courage to face up to benefitting from the living legacy of colonization. We must take on the work we are being asked to do.

On this, the first annual National Day of Truth and Reconciliation, we ask you to turn reflection into action. Please join us in calling for justice and accountability for Indigenous Peoples by taking action today.
 
In solidarity,  
 
Ketty & Mohamed 
 
Ketty Nivyabandi, Secretary General  
Mohamed Huque, Chair of the Board 
Amnesty International Canada 
 

The Indian Residential Schools Survivors Society is available for survivors and those affected at 1-800-721-0066 or on the 24 hour crisis line at 1-866-925-4419. British Columbia has a First Nations and Indigenous Crisis Line offered through the KUU-US Crisis Line Society at 1-800-588-9717.  

 

EVERY WOMAN HAS BEEN

Gloria Estefan says she was molested at music school at 9
By SIGAL RATNER-ARIAS

This image released by Facebook Watch shows co-hosts, from left, Lili Estefan, Gloria Estefan and Emily Estefan with guest Claire Crowley during a taping of "Red Table Talk: The Estefans." In the episode “Betrayed by Trusted Adults,” posted Thursday on Facebook Watch, Gloria Estefan revealed that she was sexually abused by someone her mother trusted when she was 9 years old. Crowley, the first Latina “Bachelorette,” spoke about being abused by a priest when she was young. (Facebook Watch via AP)

NEW YORK (AP) — Gloria Estefan has revealed that, at the age of 9, she was sexually abused by someone her mother trusted.

The Cuban-American superstar spoke for the first time publicly about the abuse and its effects on her during an episode of the Facebook Watch show “Red Table Talk: The Estefans” that aired Thursday.

“He was family, but not close family. He was in a position of power because my mother had put me in his music school and he immediately started telling her how talented I was and how I needed special attention, and she felt lucky that he was focusing this kind of attention on me,” the singer said.

Estefan, who was born in Cuba and moved to Miami with her family when she was a toddler, revealed the abuse at the top of the show, which featured Claire Crowley, the first Latina “Bachelorette.” On the episode, called “Betrayed by Trusted Adults,” Crowley talked about child abuse she experienced at the hands of a priest.

The Associated Press does not typically identify victims of sexual abuse unless they agree to be named or share their stories publicly.

Sitting at the round red table with her co-hosts — daughter Emily Estefan and niece Lili Estefan — Estefan opened by saying that “93% of abused children know and trust their abusers, and I know this, because I was one of them.”

“You’ve waited for this moment a long time,” her niece told her.

“I have,” Estefan replied.

The three held hands with teary eyes.

She did not name her abuser but described how she tried to stop him. She said the abuse started little by little before moving fast, and that she knew that she was in a dangerous situation after confronting him.

“I told him, ‘This cannot happen, you cannot do this.’ He goes: ‘Your father’s in Vietnam, your mother’s alone and I will kill her if you tell her,’” Estefan said. “And I knew it was crazy, because at no point did I ever think that it was because of me that this was happening. I knew the man was insane and that’s why I thought he might actually hurt my mother.”

Estefan said she started making up excuses to avoid going to music lessons. Her daughter Emily asked if her grandmother had any inkling something was going on. People didn’t talk about those things back then, Estefan replied.

She tried to reach her dad, with whom she exchanged voice tapes while he was posted in Vietnam.

Recordings in Spanish from when Estefan was 9 were played at the show with English subtitles:

Gloria: “I’m taking guitar lessons. I like them but the exercises are a little hard.”

Her dad: “Mommy told me that the owner of the academy where you’re taking your guitar lessons is very proud of you.”

Gloria: “I like the notes, but it’s a little boring to study the notes”.

Her dad: “Mommy tells me that he said that you are a born artist.”

Estefan said the level of anxiety made her lose a “circle of hair.”

“I couldn’t take it anymore,” she said, so one night she ran to her mother’s bedroom at 3 a.m. and told her what was going on.

Her mother called the police, but the officers advised her not to press charges because the trauma of testifying would be too harmful.

Both Crowley and Estefan said during the show that they didn’t like to be called victims. Crowley called herself a survivor.

Estefan said she didn’t tell the producers she was going to reveal her story on Thursday’s episode. No one knew about the abuse except for her family, said the singer, who has been married to music producer Emilio Estefan for over four decades.

She also said that, when her mother started inquiring about this man within the family, an aunt shared that he had abused her years back in Cuba.

The Associated Press asked the show’s publicist if Estefan could answer some questions, including if the man was still alive. The publicist told the AP that she would not make further comments.

On “Red Table Talk,” Estefan recalled almost going public in the mid-80s, when her hit “Conga” with the Miami Sound Machine was at the top of the Billboard charts and “this predator, who was a respected member of the community,” had the audacity to write a letter to a paper criticizing her music.

“At that moment, I was so angry that I was about to blow the lid off of everything,” she said. “And then I thought: ’My whole success is gonna turn into him!

“It’s manipulation and control, but that’s what they do, they take your power,” she added, also admitting the fear that there could be other victims makes her feel bad.

After introducing Crowley and telling her that she didn’t want to sit quietly while she shared her story, Estefan said she had been waiting for the right opportunity and space to tell hers.

The show was that space.

“This is one of the reasons why I said yes to the ‘(Red) Table (Talk)’ at all, because we wanted to create this space where we talk about important things that hopefully will make a difference to everybody that’s watching out there.”

___

Sigal Ratner-Arias is on Twitter at https://twitter.com/sigalratner.

ABOUT TIME!UNIONIZE!
NLRB memo: College football players are employees

By JIMMY GOLEN

Northwestern football players gather during practice at the University of Wisconsin-Parkside campus in Kenosha, Wisc., in this Monday, Aug. 17, 2015, file photo. College football players and some other athletes in revenue-generating sports are employees of their schools, the National Labor Relations Board’s top lawyer said in a memo Wednesday, Sept. 29, 2021, that would allow the players to unionize and otherwise negotiate over their working conditions. The nine-page NLRB memo revisited a case involving Northwestern University football players who were thwarted from forming a union when the board said that taking their side “would not promote stability in labor relations.”(AP Photo/Jeffrey Phelps, File)

College athletes who earn millions for their schools are employees, the National Labor Relations Board’s top lawyer said in guidance released Wednesday that would allow players at private universities to unionize and negotiate over their working conditions.

NLRB General Counsel Jennifer Abruzzo also threatened action against schools, conferences and the NCAA if they continue to use the term “student-athlete,” saying that it was created to disguise the employment relationship with college athletes and discourage them from pursuing their rights.

“The freedom to engage in far-reaching and lucrative business enterprises makes players at academic institutions much more similar to professional athletes who are employed by a team to play a sport,” Abruzzo wrote.

In a statement, the NCAA disputed the characterization of its athletes as employees and said that its member schools and conferences “continue to make great strides in modernizing rules to benefit college athletes.”

“College athletes are students who compete against other students, not employees who compete against other employees,” said the nation’s largest college sports governing body, with oversight of some 450,000 athletes. “Like other students on a college or university campus who receive scholarships, those who participate in college sports are students. Both academics and athletics are part of a total educational experience that is unique to the United States and vital to the holistic development of all who participate.”

Abruzzo’s memo does not immediately alter the dynamic between the schools and their athletes, who can receive scholarships and limited cost of attendance funding in exchange for playing sports. Instead, it is legal advice for the NLRB should a case arise.

That could be triggered by an effort by a team to unionize, a claim of an unfair labor practice or even by a school using the term “student-athlete” to mislead players about their employment status, Abruzzo said in an interview with The Associated Press.

“It just perpetuates this notion that players at academic institutions are not workers that have statutory protection,” she said. “It is chilling workers’ rights to engage with one another to improve their terms and conditions of employment.”

Gabe Feldman, the director of the Tulane Sports Law Program, said the memo is “yet another threat” to the NCAA and its business model, which relies on unpaid athletes to reap billions in revenue that is distributed to its 1,200 member schools.

“All signs point to an increasingly at-risk and fragile system of college athletics,” he said.

Although football in the five largest conferences is college sports’ biggest money-maker, the memo would extend protections to all athletes who meet the legal definition of an employee: someone who performs services for an institution and is subject to its control.

The NLRB has authority only over private schools; public university athletes would have to look to state legislatures or Congress for workplace protections. But the NCAA and the conferences could be viewed as joint employers if they control some essential terms of conditions of employment, Abruzzo told the AP.

“If they’re engaged in commerce in the private sector, they are subject to that statute,” she said.

The NLRB’s new stance — which reinstates an old opinion that had been rescinded during President Donald Trump’s administration — is the latest test for the NCAA and the infrastructure of U.S. college sports.

This spring, a unanimous Supreme Court said the NCAA cannot limit education-related benefits while hinting at the end of the NCAA’s business model. A few weeks later the organization, under pressure from multiple states, cleared the way for athletes to earn money based on their celebrity.


In this Feb. 11, 2020, file photo, NCAA President Mark Emmert testifies during a Senate Commerce subcommittee hearing on intercollegiate athlete compensation on Capitol Hill in Washington. College football players and some other athletes in revenue-generating sports are employees of their schools, the National Labor Relations Board’s top lawyer said in a memo Wednesday, Sept. 29, 2021, that would allow the players to unionize and otherwise negotiate over their working conditions.

(AP Photo/Susan Walsh, File)

Since March, the NCAA has also faced criticism over the disparity between the resources, branding and support afforded its men’s and women’s basketball tournaments. The organization is planning to overhaul its constitution, parts of which have been in place for a century.

Abruzzo also wrote that players across the country had engaged in collective action following the killing of George Floyd — action that “directly concerns terms and conditions of employment, and is protected concerted activity.” Players likewise banded together during the recent pandemic — both by arguing for games to go forward, and for rules to protect themselves once they did.

“Players at academic institutions have gained more power as they better understand their value in generating billions of dollars in revenue for their colleges and universities, athletic conferences, and the NCAA,” she wrote.

“And this increased activism and demand for fair treatment has been met with greater support from some coaches, fans, and school administrators. Players at academic institutions who engage in concerted activities to improve their working conditions have the right to be protected from retaliation.”

The nine-page NLRB memo revisited a case involving Northwestern football players who were thwarted from forming a union when the board in 2015 said that taking their side “would not promote stability in labor relations.”

Much has changed since then, including the collective social justice awakening and the Supreme Court’s Alston decision that Abruzzo said “clearly stated that this was a for-profit enterprise and wasn’t amateurism.”

If cases similar to the Northwestern one come before the NLRB, she said, it could be decided differently.

“I don’t think the board can or should punt,” she told the AP. “I think we have more information that they are statutory employees.”

The memo issued by Abruzzo, who was appointed by President Joe Biden, reversed a 2017 opinion by her predecessor. That memo had, in turn, rescinded a memo issued by President Barack Obama’s appointee, when Abruzzo was a deputy general counsel.

Southeastern Conference Commissioner Greg Sankey noted that the repeated reversals and conflicting court rulings make it difficult for institutions to plan.

“Considering the resulting uncertainty and to address the many other challenges facing college athletics, we hope that Congress will step in and provide clear and uniform legal standards consistent with recent court decisions,” he said.

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AP College Football Writer Ralph D. Russo contributed to this report.

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Jimmy Golen is a Boston-based sports writer for The Associated Press and a former Knight Journalism Fellow at Yale Law School. Follow him at https://twitter.com/jgolen

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More AP sports: https://apnews.com/hub/apf-sports and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports

US stem cell clinics boomed while FDA paused crackdown UNDER TRUMP

By MATTHEW PERRONE

David Stringham holds prescription bottles at his home Monday, Aug. 23, 2021, in Provo, Utah. Stringham says undergoing a procedure for shoulder and elbow pain at a local clinic in 2018 was "the worst decision of my life" and left him in more pain. Since then, a neurologist has told Stringham he probably suffered nerve damage at the places where he was injected. (AP Photo/Rick Bowmer)


WASHINGTON (AP) — Hundreds of clinics pushing unproven stem cell procedures caught a big break from the U.S. government in 2017: They would have three years to show that their questionable treatments were safe and worked before regulators started cracking down.

But when the Food and Drug Administration’s grace period expired in late May — extended six months due to the pandemic — the consequences became clear: Hundreds more clinics were selling the unapproved treatments for arthritis, Alzheimer’s, COVID-19 and many other conditions.

“It backfired,” says Leigh Turner, a bioethicist at the University of California, Irvine. “The scale of the problem is vastly larger for FDA today than it was at the start.”

The continuing spread of for-profit clinics promoting stem cells and other so-called “regenerative” therapies — including concentrated blood products — illustrates how quickly experimental medicine can outpace government oversight. No clinic has yet won FDA approval for any stem cell offering and regulators now confront an enormous, uncooperative industry that contends it shouldn’t be subject to regulation.

Although emerging research suggests stem cells could someday have broad use for a number of medical conditions, experts say they should not be used outside of well-controlled studies or a handful of established uses. For instance, stem cells collected from blood or bone marrow have long been used to treat leukemia and other blood diseases.

Many clinics use so-called adult stem cells collected from tissue like fat or bone marrow — not the more versatile but controversial stem cells from embryos used in research.

Turner and other experts have tracked the growth of the clinics for nearly a decade. Clinics charge between $2,000 to $25,000 for adult stem cell injections and other infusions which they advertise for an assortment of diseases, including diabetes, autism, cancer, multiple sclerosis and vision problems. Some clinics use stem cells derived from fat, harvested via liposuction then reinjected into patients, aiming to repair joints or fight disease. Others use bone marrow or blood taken from umbilical cords after birth.

There is no government tally of how many clinics operate in the U.S. But Turner counted more than 1,200 of them in 2019, up from the 570 clinics he and a co-author identified in 2016. He’s working on an update but says the number has consistently grown.

The FDA has repeatedly warned Americans to steer clear of unapproved and unproven stem cell therapies, which have occasionally caused blindness, bacterial infections and tumors. During FDA’s three-plus years of “enforcement discretion,” the agency sent formal warning letters to more than a dozen businesses performing the riskiest procedures. Regulators also prevailed in a Florida court case to shutdown a major clinic offering unproven treatments. Another case against a similar prominent company is pending in California.

“It’s time to actually get the data we need,” to assess clinics’ stem cell procedures, FDA’s Dr. Peter Marks said at an industry conference in June. He pointed to a multiyear effort by FDA to help clinics through the review process.

Many stem cell doctors continue to argue that their in-office procedures are outside FDA’s purview. But FDA has concluded that processing stem cells and giving them to patients with serious diseases amounts to creating a new drug, which the agency regulates.

The FDA hasn’t disclosed how many clinics sought approval since 2017, but public comments suggest it was troublingly low.

“We have been very disappointed in the number of clinics that have come in,” FDA’s Dr. Wilson Bryan said at the same conference.

Bryan, who directs FDA’s cell therapies division, added that he is “extremely concerned” by how many stem cell and related offerings remain available.

Tracking injuries from the procedures is difficult. Drugmakers and hospitals are required to report drug-related complications to the FDA, but no such requirements exist for individual doctors. And patients often don’t know where to report problems.

David Stringham of Provo, Utah, says undergoing a procedure for joint pain at a local clinic was “the worst decision of my life.”

In 2018, Stringham was looking for an alternative to surgery for chronic pain in his right shoulder and elbows after years of weightlifting. He paid $2,400 for injections of so-called platelet-rich plasma at a clinic. It doesn’t involve stem cells but the procedure is similar: doctors take a blood sample, process it to concentrate the platelets and then reinject them into the patient’s problem areas in an attempt to speed healing.

The procedure went smoothly, but within hours Stringham was wracked by pain in his back, shoulder and arms.

“It was a crazy amount of pain and I kept calling them saying ‘something is not right,’” said the 51-year-old. ”And to this day I’m not right.”

The clinic gave Stringham medication for the pain and told him to be patient. But things didn’t improve, even after months of physical therapy. Since then, a neurologist has told Stringham he probably suffered nerve damage at the places where he was injected.

His case was included in a Pew Charitable Trusts review of 360 reported injuries from stem cell and other regenerative procedures between 2004 and 2020. Nearly all the reports came from medical journals, government publications, social media or news reports. Just five came from FDA’s database for medical injuries.

“There are a lot of holes in the safety system,” said Liz Richardson of Pew, who led the project.

The FDA didn’t clearly assert its authority over such clinics until 2017. The next year, it began sending form letters to some 400 clinics, warning that they may be violating FDA rules. But the names of the clinics haven’t been publicized, and such warnings are often ignored.

Traditional medical researchers welcome the FDA actions but say it’s impossible to gauge their effect.

“The business model is this: ’We can keep offering these products until things get serious with the FDA — and then we can just take down our website,” said Laertis Ikonomou, a stem cell researcher at the University of Buffalo.

He and other specialists say the clinics have damaged the reputation of legitimate stem cell research while also siphoning off patients who might otherwise enroll in studies.

Lawyers representing stem cell clinics say they have no choice but to resist FDA regulation.

“FDA is pushing them into this drug development pathway, which nobody is adopting because it requires a million dollars’ worth of toxicology and animal studies just to show something is safe for human use,” said Marc Scheineson, a former FDA attorney.

For now, people on both sides are waiting to see what FDA does.

“We shouldn’t feel too confident that the FDA has this wrapped up” said Turner, the bioethicist. “They really have invested some resources and they are trying to do something here but I think they’re just outmatched and overwhelmed.”

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Follow Matthew Perrone on Twitter: @AP_FDAwriter

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The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

KULTURKAMPF SOCIAL FASCISTS CALLING FOR FREEDOM

School board group asks US for help policing threats

By CAROLYN THOMPSON

 In this Aug. 12, 2021 file photo, protesters against a COVID-19 mandate gesture as they are escorted out of the Clark County School Board meeting at the Clark County Government Center, in Las Vegas. The nation's school boards are asking President Joe Biden for federal assistance to investigate and stop a growing number of threats made against their members, on Thursday, Sept. 30. 

(Bizuayehu Tesfaye/Las Vegas Review-Journal via AP, File)

A group representing school board members around the country asked President Joe Biden on Thursday for federal assistance to investigate and stop threats made over policies including mask mandates, likening the vitriol to a form of domestic terrorism.

Parents and community members have been disrupting meetings and threatening board members in person, online and through the mail in a trend that merits attention from federal law enforcement agencies, the National School Boards Association said in a letter to Biden.

“Whatever you feel about masks, it should not reach this level of rhetoric,” NSBA Interim Executive Director Chip Slaven told The Associated Press by phone.

School boards around the country have been disrupted by unruly attendees out to interfere with business and silence other viewpoints.

Typically, threats toward school board members are handled by local law enforcement. But the association asked for the federal government to get involved to investigate cases where threats or violence could be handled as violations of federal laws protecting civil rights. It also asked for the Justice Department, FBI, Homeland Security and Secret Service to help monitor threat levels and assess risks to students, educators, board members and school buildings.

“As these acts of malice, violence, and threats against public school officials have increased, the classification of these heinous actions could be the equivalent to a form of domestic terrorism and hate crimes,” the association wrote.

The letter documents more than 20 instances of threats, harassment, disruption, and acts of intimidation in California, Florida, Georgia, New Jersey, Ohio and other states. It cites the September arrest of an Illinois man for aggravated battery and disorderly conduct for allegedly striking a school official at a meeting. In Michigan, a meeting was disrupted when a man performed a Nazi salute to protest masking.

“We are coming after you,” a letter mailed to an Ohio school board member said, according to the group. “You are forcing them to wear mask—for no reason in this world other than control. And for that you will pay dearly.”

It called the member “a filthy traitor.”

The association represents more than 90,000 school board members in 14,000 public school districts.

The threats have gone beyond board meetings.

In this Tuesday, Aug. 17, 2021 file photo, community members gather inside the Dr. Karen M. Trujillo Administration Complex to give public comment against masking policy at a Las Cruces Public Schools board meeting in Las Cruces, N.M. The nation's school boards are asking President Joe Biden for federal assistance to investigate and stop a growing number of threats made against their members, on Thursday, Sept. 30. (Miranda Cyr/The Las Cruces Sun News via AP, File)

In this Aug. 25, 2021 file photo, people hold signs and chant during a meeting of the North Allegheny School District school board regarding the district's mask policy, at at North Allegheny Senior High School in McCandless, Pa. The nation's school boards are asking President Joe Biden for federal assistance to investigate and stop a growing number of threats made against their members, on Thursday, Sept. 30. (Alexandra Wimley/Pittsburgh Post-Gazette via AP, File)

The father of an Arizona elementary school student was arrested after he and two other men brought zip ties to the campus, threatening to make a “citizen’s arrest” on the school principal over a COVID-19 quarantine.

School board members are largely unpaid volunteers, traditionally former educators and parents who step forward to shape school policy, choose a superintendent and review the budget. The current climate has led a growing number to resign or decide against seeking reelection.

Pot use by pregnant people rose during COVID-19 pandemic, study says

 

WHAT OTHER PEOPLE GET PREGNANT OTHER THAN WOMEN

By HealthDay News

Marijuana use by mothers-to-be may have increased by as much as one-quarter during the pandemic, a new study suggests.

Researchers found a substantial increase in the number of women in Northern California using pot early in their pregnancies after the pandemic emerged compared to the previous year.

"Our previous research has shown that the prevalence and frequency of prenatal cannabis use is increasing over time and that pregnant women are more likely to use cannabis if they are depressed, anxious, or have experienced trauma. It's very possible that more pregnant women are using cannabis in an attempt to self-medicate these issues during the pandemic," said lead author Kelly Young-Wolff.

She is a clinical psychologist and research scientist with the Kaiser Permanente Division of Research in Oakland, Calif.

RELATED Pot-consuming pregnant women have THC in breast milk weeks later

"The stay-at-home mandates, concerns about getting COVID-19, economic challenges, increased child-care burden, and other difficult aspects of the pandemic could contribute to pregnant women feeling more stressed and depressed during this time," Young-Wolff said in a Kaiser Permanente news release.

For the study, the researchers analyzed urine toxicology tests of more than 95,000 women having their first prenatal visit in Northern California Kaiser Permanente offices from January 2019 through December 2020.

The team compared the results to those for the 15 months prior to the pandemic.

RELATED CDC: 20% of U.S. women drink early in pregnancy

The investigators found a 25% increase in the rate of cannabis use. In the year before the pandemic, about 6.75% of pregnant women were using cannabis early in pregnancy in that area. During the pandemic, that rose to 8.14%.

The study did not differentiate among types of cannabis products used or concentrations of CBD or THC.

CBD, or cannabidiol, is the second most prevalent active ingredient in cannabis, or marijuana, but it does not cause a "high" by itself. THC is the main psychoactive compound in cannabis that produces the high sensation.

Prenatal pot use has been associated with neurodevelopmental effects in children. It also may carry the risk of low infant birth weight, the study authors noted.

The new findings were published online this week in a research letter in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

The findings can't prove a direct cause-and-effect relationship between the pandemic and greater prenatal pot use.

Still, "we need to get the word out more effectively that cannabis is not a healthy choice during pregnancy," said study co-author Dr. Deborah Ansley, regional medical director for Kaiser Permanente's Early Start prenatal health program.

"Women may be trying to manage nausea or mood problems early in pregnancy or may simply be continuing a habit from before they became pregnant. Clinicians -- and people who work in cannabis dispensaries -- need to help educate women that during pregnancy they should abstain from any type of cannabis use because of potential health risks to their babies," Ansley added.

Young-Wolff is also co-author of an editorial that was published earlier in JAMA Network Open that highlighted the need for legal and regulatory policies to protect infants and children.

She said she plans more in-depth, long-term research on use of various types of cannabis products and their health impacts on mothers and children.More information

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has more on marijuana use during pregnancy.

Copyright © 2021 HealthDay. All rights reserved.

Fugitive former Nazi death camp secretary 'found' hours after fleeing ahead of war crimes trial

"Healthy enough to flee, healthy enough to go to jail!"

Issued on: 30/09/2021 -

Judicial officers stand in the empty court room of the Langericht Itzehoe court in northern Germany, on September 30, 2021, prior the trial of a 96-year-old former secretary for the SS commander of the Stutthof concentration camp. © Markus Schreiber, AFP

Authorities in Germany have located a 96-year-old former Nazi concentration camp secretary who failed to turn up for the start of her trial in Germany on Thursday, a court spokeswoman said.

Irmgard Furchner, who is charged with complicity in the murders of more than 10,000 people, "has been found", said Frederike Milhoffer, a spokeswoman for the court, adding that the judge will determine whether to remand her in custody.

Furchner had failed to turn up for the start of her trial in Germany on Thursday, the judge said earlier, issuing an arrest warrant for the "fugitive" at the dramatic hearing.

One of the first women to be prosecuted for Nazi-era crimes in decades, Furchner is charged with complicity in thousands of murders at the Stutthof concentration camp in occupied Poland.

She left her retirement home near Hamburg on Thursday morning and took a taxi to a subway station, said Frederike Milhoffer, a spokeswoman for the court in the northern German town of Itzehoe.

But she failed to turn up at the trial.

A spokeswoman for the police in Itzehoe had told AFP they were searching for Furchner and "do not know where she is".

The defendant's lawyer, Wolf Molkentin, was present in the court room but did not make a statement to journalists.

Prosecutors accuse Furchner of having assisted in the systematic murder of detainees at Stutthof, where she worked in the office of the camp commander, Paul Werner Hoppe, between June 1943 and April 1945.

The trial is taking place in a youth court as she was aged between 18 and 19 at the time.

Around 65,000 people died at the camp, not far from the city of Gdansk, among them "Jewish prisoners, Polish partisans and Soviet Russian prisoners of war", according to the indictment.

After long reflection, the court decided in February that Furchner was fit to stand trial.

"Healthy enough to flee, healthy enough to go to jail!," Efraim Zuroff, an American-Israeli "Nazi hunter" who has played a key role in bringing former Nazi war criminals to trial, tweeted on Thursday.

Little time left

The planned opening of the trial in Itzehoe came one day before the 75th anniversary of the sentencing of 12 senior members of the Nazi establishment to death by hanging at the first Nuremberg trial.

It also comes a week before separate proceedings in Neuruppin, near Berlin, against a 100-year-old former camp guard.

Seventy-six years after the end of World War II, time is running out to bring people to justice for their role in the Nazi system.

Prosecutors are currently handling a further eight cases, including former employees at the Buchenwald and Ravensbrueck camps, according to the Central Office for the Investigation of National Socialist Crimes.

In recent years, several cases have been abandoned as the accused died or were physically unable to stand trial.

The last guilty verdict was issued to former SS guard Bruno Dey, who was handed a two-year suspended sentence in July at the age of 93.

Furchner is the only woman to stand trial in recent years for crimes dating to the Nazi era, as the role of women in the Third Reich has long been overlooked.

But since John Demjanjuk, a guard at a concentration camp, was convicted for serving as part of the Nazi killing machine in 2011, prosecutors have broadened the scope of their investigations beyond those directly responsible for atrocities.

Execution orders

According to Christoph Rueckel, a lawyer representing survivors of the Shoah who are party to the case, Furchner "handled all the correspondence" for camp commander Hoppe.

"She typed out the deportation and execution commands" at his dictation and initialled each message herself, Rueckel told public broadcaster NDR.

However, Furchner's lawyer told the German weekly Spiegel ahead of the trial that it was possible the secretary had been "screened off" from what was going on at Stutthof.

At least three other women have been investigated for their roles in Nazi camps, including another secretary at Stutthof, who died last year before charges could be brought.

The prosecutor's office in Neuruppin is currently looking into the case of a woman employed at the Ravensbrueck camp, according to officials at the Central Office in Ludwigsburg.

Among the women to be held to account for their actions during the Nazi era was Maria Mandl, a guard at the Auschwitz-Birkenau camp, who was hanged in 1948 after being sentenced to death in Krakow, Poland.

Between 1946 and 1948, in Hamburg, 21 women went on trial before a British military tribunal for their role at the Ravensbrueck concentration camp for women.

(FRANCE 24 with AFP)