Biden, anti-gun violence groups call for action on 4th anniversary of Parkland attack

"Biden has been a friend but not a leader," 

David Hogg, founder of March For Our Lives and a survivor of the Parkland shooting

EVERYONE WHO VOTED FOR HIM HAS DISCOVERED THIS

Students leave the area of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., following a mass shooting there on February 14, 2018.

 File Photo by Gary Rothstein/UPI | License Photo

Feb. 14 (UPI) -- President Joe Biden and multiple advocacy groups on Monday recalled the deadly shooting attack at a school in Parkland, Fla., four years ago and pushed for new actions to prevent gun violence.

Seventeen people died at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, near Fort Lauderdale, on Feb. 14, 2018, when former student Nikolas Cruz walked into the school with a gun and opened fire. A number of youth anti-violence groups were spawned from the attack -- some of which pressed Biden Monday for real efforts to keep guns out of the hands of people who shouldn't have them.

March For Our Lives, Guns Down America and Change the Ref launched an online tool Monday -- called "Shock Market" -- to track gun deaths nationwide since Biden took office in January 2021.

"Biden has been a friend but not a leader," David Hogg, founder of March For Our Lives and a survivor of the Parkland shooting, told CNN. "He's made small steps but it's not enough.

"The president hasn't been receptive to our demands. We expected this from [former President Donald] Trump, but we're shocked that it's coming from Biden."


Flowers and 17 crosses are seen outside Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, in Parkland, Fla., on February 26, 2018, to remember the victims of the shooting attack. File Photo by Gary Rothstein/UPI

In a message marking the anniversary of the Parkland shooting, Biden pressed Congress to do more.

"Out of the heartbreak of Parkland a new generation of Americans all across the country marched for our lives and towards a better, safer America for us all," he said.

RELATED Biden to visit NYC next week, meet with Mayor Eric Adams to talk about gun violence

"I've asked Congress to pass a budget that provides an additional half billion dollars for proven strategies we know reduce violent crime -- accountable community policing and community violence interventions. I have also requested increased funding for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and the U.S. Marshals.

"And Congress must do much more -- beginning with requiring background checks on all gun sales, banning assault weapons and high-capacity magazines, and eliminating immunity for gun manufacturers."

A young person holds a sign during a "March For Our Lives" rally in San Francisco, Calif., on March 24, 2018. The March For Our Lives movement was born out of the Parkland shooting. 

 Photo by Terry Schmitt/UPI | License Photo

Biden said that his administration is working to advance a plan to reduce gun violence, including an improved effort to find unlawful gun dealers and addressing "ghost guns." The proposal, he said, will also promote "extreme risk protection order" legislation for states and improve information sharing between federal and local law enforcement.

RELATED San Jose becomes first U.S. city to require gun owners to carry liability insurance

Authorities say that Cruz legally bought the gun that he used in the attack, although he had brain development problems and depression.

Biden, however, is limited in what he can do as president, as it's mainly Congress' responsibility to regulate the buying and selling of firearms. Few Republicans have supported efforts to make it more difficult to obtain guns, and Democrats have only the slimmest of majorities in the Senate.

In December, Sen.Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, blocked a request to proceed to legislation that the House passed a year ago to expand background checks.

Gun control groups press Biden to do more to stop violence

By ZEKE MILLER and COLLEEN LONG

WASHINGTON (AP) — Four years after 17 people were gunned down at Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, families and gun control advocates are pressing President Joe Biden to do more to address gun violence.

One father of a victim killed in the shooting sent an early morning tweet Monday, the anniversary of the Parkland shooting, saying that he’d climbed a 150-foot-tall (46-meter-tall) crane near the White House.

“The whole world will listen to Joaquin today. He has a very important message,” the father, Manuel Oliver, said in a video tweeted at about 6:50 a.m., referring to his son, Joaquin Oliver. “I asked for a meeting with Joe Biden a month ago, never got that meeting.”

Oliver unfurled a sign that showed a photo of his son and criticized Biden for gun deaths on his watch. Police were called to the scene, where at least two people were on the crane. They said later that three people were taken into custody but didn’t identify them.

Meanwhile, dozens of advocates were set to rally outside the White House and unveil a website chronicling the 47,000 gun deaths and 42,000 gun injuries in the country since Biden was inaugurated. The tracker also lists the number of young people killed and injured as well as the number of mass shootings in the same time frame, and it includes a feature allowing users to publicly call on Biden and other administration officials to act against gun violence.

“As a candidate, Joe Biden promised to prioritize gun violence prevention. As president, Joe Biden has not,” said Igor Volsky, founder and executive director of the group Guns Down America.

In his first year in office, Biden’s efforts to pass legislation to tighten gun laws haven’t left the drawing board. He also was forced to pull his nominee to lead the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. The group is calling on Biden to stand up a national office to address gun violence and to make a new nomination to head the ATF.

Biden said in a statement before the planned protest that the movement to end gun violence is “extraordinary.”

“We can never bring back those we’ve lost. But we can come together to fulfill the first responsibility of our government and our democracy: to keep each other safe,” he said. “For Parkland, for all those we’ve lost, and for all those left behind, it is time to uphold that solemn obligation.”

Since the Parkland shooting left 14 students and three staff members dead, gun violence at schools has only risen. There were at least 136 instances of gunfire on school grounds between Aug. 1 and Dec. 31, according to a tally last week by the gun control advocacy group Everytown for Gun Safety.

Biden has acted to crack down on “ ghost guns,” homemade firearms that lack serial numbers used to trace them and that are often purchased without a background check. He has worked to tighten regulations on pistol-stabilizing braces like the one used in a Boulder, Colorado, shooting that left 10 people dead. He’s also encouraged cities to use their COVID-19 relief dollars to help manage gun violence. But these efforts fall far short of major change.

There are limits to what the president can do when there is no appetite in Congress to pass gun legislation. The strongest effort in recent years failed, even after 20 children and six adults were killed in the 2012 Sandy Hook school shooting in Newtown, Connecticut. Parkland happened six years later.

Biden, a Democrat, said he’s asked members of Congress to provide funding to help reduce violent crime and said they must pass legislation requiring background checks on all gun sales, banning assault weapons and high-capacity magazines and eliminating immunity for gun manufacturers.

The U.S. Secret Service’s National Threat Assessment Center studied school attacks nationwide from 2006-18 and reported that most attackers were bullied and that warning signs were there. Most important, the researchers said, about 94% talked about their attacks and what they intended to do in some way, whether orally or electronically, and 75% were detected because they talked about their plots. About 36% were thwarted within two days of their intended attacks.

GREAT VALENTINES NEWS

Obama sex education program drove lower teen birth rates in US: study


In 2010 former president Barack Obama initiated two comprehensive sex-education programs:

 Personal Responsibility Education Program (PREP) and the Teen Pregnancy Prevention program (TPP) (AFP/POOL) (POOL)

Issam AHMED
Mon, February 14, 2022, 5:03 PM·3 min read

An Obama-era sex education program that was criticized by conservatives succeeded in reducing teen birth rates in parts of the US that implemented it, a large study said Monday.

Teen births are higher in the United States than in any other G7 country, and the topic of whether to teach adolescents about the use of contraceptives has remained heated among academics, politicians and the public.

A 1996 law allocated federal funding to abstinence-only education, but in 2010 then-president Barack Obama initiated two more comprehensive sex-education programs: Personal Responsibility Education Program (PREP) and the Teen Pregnancy Prevention program (TPP).

These programs provided more information about sex, contraception, and reproductive health compared to abstinence-only education, which research has shown has no effect on teen birth rates.

"We looked at 'Where did this funding go? And what happens to teen birth rates in the places that it went?'" Nicholas Mark, a researcher at New York University (NYU) and lead author of the study in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) told AFP.

Mark and his co-author, NYU professor Lawrence Wu focused on TPP, because this program's funding was allocated at the county rather than state level. This made it possible to draw comparisons between counties of similar income and poverty levels.

The researchers had access to public data on which counties received TPP funding, and a restricted birth certificate database that gave them birth rates in counties, as well as allowing them to capture the age of mothers at the time of birth and where they lived.

They examined teenage birth rates in 55 US counties from 1996-2009, the years before they received TPP funding, and during the years they received this funding, 2010-2016.

They also compared the birth rates in those 55 counties to more than 2,800 counties without the funding in the years before and after TPP was implemented.

This method allowed them to make the truest comparison possible, by disentangling the specific impact of the sex education program from an overall trend of declining teen birth rates in recent years.

Birth rates among 14 to 19 year olds in counties that received TPP funding dropped by approximately three percent in the years studied -- both compared to the period before they received funding, and compared to unfunded counties.

The paper is the first national effort to study the question, and its methods demonstrated cause-and-effect, rather than simply correlation, according to the authors.

Support for comprehensive sex education versus abstinence-only teaching remains a fault line in the country's ongoing culture wars.

The administration of former president Donald Trump attempted to reallocate funding back towards abstinence programs, but faced opposition in court by the reproductive health group Planned Parenthood.

Many teen pregnancies and subsequent births are unwanted by the mothers, and therefore can be affected by access to abortion.

The conservative-majority Supreme Court may soon be poised to overturn the ruling that made abortion a constitutional right in the United States 50 years ago, paving the way for state-level bans.

ia/caw

Climate-boosted drought in western US worst in 1,200 years


Human-caused global heating accounts for more than 40 percent of the megadrought ravaging the southwestern United States 

(AFP/Raul ARBOLEDA)

Marlowe HOOD
Mon, February 14, 2022, 

The megadrought that has parched southwestern United States and parts of Mexico over the last two decades is the worst to hit the region in at least 1,200 years, researchers said Monday.

Human-caused global heating accounts for more than 40 percent of the dry spell's intensity, they reported in the journal Nature Climate Change.

"The turn-of-the-21st-century drought would not be on a megadrought trajectory without anthropogenic climate change," lead author Park Williams, an associate professor at the University of California in Los Angeles, and colleagues wrote.

Over the last decade, California and other western states have experienced severe water shortages, triggering periodic restrictions on water usage and forcing some communities to import bottled water for drinking.

Occasional heavy snow or rainfall have not been enough to compensate.

2021 was especially dry. As of February 10, 95 percent of western US had drought conditions, according to the US government's Drought Monitor.

Last summer, two of North America's largest reservoirs -- Lake Mead and Lake Powell -- reached their lowest recorded level in more than a century.

The odds are high that the current dry spell will continue for at least a couple of years, probably longer, according to the findings.

Running simulations based on soil moisture records stretching back 1,200 years, the researchers calculated a 94 percent chance that the drought would extend through 2022.

There's a three-in-four chance it will run until the end of decade.

Tree-ring analysis shows that the area west of the Rocky Mountains from southern Montana to northern Mexico was hit repeatedly by so-called megadroughts -- lasting at least 19 years -- between the years 800 and 1600.

- Chronic water scarcity -

Earlier research had established that the period 2000-2018 was likely the second worst drought since the year 800, topped by one in the late 1500s.

Data from 2019-2021, backed by new climate models released last year, have revealed the current drought to be worse than any from the Middle Ages.

But without climate change it "wouldn't hold a candle to the megadroughts of the 1500s, 1200s or 1100s," Williams said in a statement.

Western North America is not the only region hit by increasingly severe dry periods.

Climate change worsened the El Nino-driven droughts of 2015-2016, leading to widespread crop failures, loss of livestock, Rift Valley fever outbreaks, and increased rates of malnutrition.

Globally, 800 million to three billion people are projected to experience chronic water scarcity due to drought caused by two degrees Celsius warming above preindustrial levels, according to a draft 4,000-page Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report on climate impacts seen by AFP.

In a 4C world, that figure is up to four billion people.

Earth's surface has already warmed 1.1C on average, and is almost certain to breach the 1.5C cap called for in the Paris Agreement within two decades.

Other natural extreme weather events enhanced by global warming include deadly heatwaves, flood-causing rainfall and superstorms.

mh/ach

West megadrought worsens to driest in at least 1,200 years

By SETH BORENSTEIN

Water drips from a faucet near boat docks sitting on dry land at the Browns Ravine Cove area of drought-stricken Folsom Lake in Folsom, Calif., on May 22, 2022. The American West's megadrought deepened so much last year that it is now the driest it has been in at least 1200 years and a worst-case scenario playing out live, a new study finds. (AP Photo/Josh Edelson, File)

The American West’s megadrought deepened so much last year that it is now the driest in at least 1,200 years and is a worst-case climate change scenario playing out live, a new study finds.

A dramatic drying in 2021 — about as dry as 2002 and one of the driest years ever recorded for the region — pushed the 22-year drought passed the previous record-holder for megadroughts in the late 1500s and shows no signs of easing in the near future, according to a study Monday in the journal Nature Climate Change.

The study calculated that 42% of this megadrought can be attributed to human-caused climate change.

“Climate change is changing the baseline conditions toward a drier, gradually drier state in the West and that means the worst-case scenario keeps getting worse,” said study lead author Park Williams, a climate hydrologist at UCLA. “This is right in line with what people were thinking of in the 1900s as a worst-case scenario. But today I think we need to be even preparing for conditions in the future that are far worse than this.”

Williams studied soil moisture levels in the West — a box that includes California, Wyoming, Utah, Nevada, Arizona, most of Oregon and Idaho, much of New Mexico, western Colorado, northern Mexico, and the southwest corners of Montana and Texas — using modern measurements and tree rings for estimates that go back to the year 800. That’s about as far back as estimates can reliably go with tree rings.

A few years ago, Williams studied the current drought and said it qualified as a lengthy and deep “megadrought” and that the only worse one was in the 1500s. He figured the current drought wouldn’t surpass that one because megadroughts tended to peter out after 20 years. And, he said, 2019 was a wet year so it looked like the western drought might be coming to an end.

But the region dried up in late 2020 and 2021.

All of California was considered in official drought from mid-May until the end of 2021, and at least three-quarters of the state was at the highest two drought levels from June through Christmas, according to the U.S. drought monitor.

“For this drought to have just cranked up back to maximum drought intensity in late 2020 through 2021 is a quite emphatic statement by this 2000s drought saying that we’re nowhere close to the end,” Williams said. This drought is now 5% drier than the old record from the 1500s, he said.

The drought monitor says 55% of the U.S. West is in drought with 13% experiencing the two highest drought levels.

This megadrought really kicked off in 2002 — one of the driest years ever, based on humidity and tree rings, Williams said.

“I was wondering if we’d ever see a year like 2002 again in my life and in fact, we saw it 20 years later, within the same drought,” Williams said. The drought levels in 2002 and 2021 were a statistical tie, though still behind 1580 for the worst single year.

Climate change from the burning of fossil fuels is bringing hotter temperatures and increasing evaporation in the air, scientists say.

Williams used 29 models to create a hypothetical world with no human-caused warming then compared it to what happened in real life — the scientifically accepted way to check if an extreme weather event is due to climate change. He found that 42% of the drought conditions are directly from human-caused warming. Without climate change, he said, the megadrought would have ended early on because 2005 and 2006 would have been wet enough to break it.

The study “is an important wake-up call,” said Jonathan Overpeck, dean of environment at the University of Michigan, who wasn’t part of the study. “Climate change is literally baking the water supply and forests of the Southwest, and it could get a whole lot worse if we don’t halt climate change soon.”

Williams said there is a direct link between drought and heat and the increased wildfires that have been devastating the West for years. Fires need dry fuel that drought and heat promote.

Eventually, this megadrought will end by sheer luck of a few good rainy years, Williams said. But then another one will start.

Daniel Swain, a UCLA climate scientist who wasn’t involved in the study, said climate change is likely to make megadrought “a permanent feature of the climate of the Colorado River watershed during the 21st century.”

A car crosses Enterprise Bridge over Lake Oroville's dry banks on May 23, 2021, in Oroville, Calif. The American West's megadrought deepened so much last year that it is now the driest it has been in at least 1200 years and a worst-case scenario playing out live, a new study finds. (AP Photo/Noah Berger, File)
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Read more of AP’s climate coverage at http://www.apnews.com/Climate

___

Follow Seth Borenstein on Twitter at @borenbears.

'Don't be Google': The rise of privacy focused startups


Startups are taking on Google Analytics, a product used by more than half of the world's websites to understand people's browsing habits 

(AFP/Kirill KUDRYAVTSEV)

Joseph BOYLE
Mon, February 14, 2022,

Google once used the slogan "don't be evil" to distinguish itself from its competitors, but now a growing number of pro-privacy startups are rallying to the mantra "don't be Google".

They are taking on Google Analytics, a product used by more than half of the world's websites to understand people's browsing habits.

"Google made a lot of good tools for a lot of people," says Marko Saric, a Dane living in Belgium who set up Plausible Analytics in Estonia in 2019.

"But over the years they changed their approach without really thinking what is right, what is wrong, what is evil, what is not."

Saric and many others are benefitting from GDPR, a European privacy regulation introduced in 2018 to control who can access personal data.

Last week, France followed Austria in declaring Google's practice of transferring personal data from the EU to its US servers was illegal under GDPR because the country does not have adequate protections.

Google disagrees, saying the data is anonymised and the scenarios envisaged in Europe are hypothetical.

Nevertheless, startups see an opening in a true David vs Goliath battle.

"The week that Google Analytics was ruled illegal by the Austrian DPA (data protection authority) was a good week for us," says Paul Jarvis, who runs Fathom Analytics from his home in Vancouver Island, Canada.

He says new subscriptions tripled over that week, though he does not give exact numbers.

Google dominates the analytics market with 57 percent of all websites using its service, according to survey group W3Techs. The best-established privacy-focused tool, Matomo, accounts for one percent of websites.

The smaller players know they are not going to overturn Google's domination, rather their aim is to inject a bit of fairness and choice into the market.

- 'Behemoth' application -

The supercharging moment for pro-privacy software developers came in 2013 when former CIA contractor Edward Snowden revealed how US security agencies were engaged in mass surveillance.

"We already knew some of it," says Matomo founder Matthieu Aubry. "But when he came out, we had proof that we weren't just paranoid or making stuff up."

Snowden showed how the US National Security Agency, aided by a system of secret courts, was able to gather personal data from users of websites including Google, Facebook and Microsoft.

Snowden's revelations helped to solidify support across Europe for its new privacy regulation and inspired software developers to make privacy central to their products.

The first thing the startups have taken aim at is the sheer complexity of Google Analytics.

"You have 1,000 different dashboards and all this data, but it doesn't help you if you don't understand it," says Michael Neuhauser, who launched Fair Analytics last month.

Jarvis, who had previously trained people to use Google Analytics, describes it as a "behemoth".

Unlike Google, the privacy-focused products do not use cookies to track users around the web and offer a much simpler array of data, helping them to keep within the boundaries of GDPR.

And they all make this a key selling point on their websites.

- 'An alternative internet' -

But making a living from these tools is no mean feat.

Saric of Plausible and Jarvis of Fathom both sank time and money into their projects before they could pay themselves a wage.

Both firms still operate with a startup mentality -- tiny teams working remotely across countries having direct contact with clients.

Aubry, who founded Matomo in 2007 when he was in his early 20s, remembers being in a similar position.

"For a long time, we didn't even have a business around the project, it was pure community," says the Frenchman from his home in Wellington, New Zealand.

But he says his firm now has global reach and he wants to help create "an alternative internet" not dominated by big tech.

His peers are at a much earlier stage but they certainly agree with the sentiment.

Jarvis reckons anyone switching from a big tech product is "a win for privacy" and helps to create a fairer system.

But a huge barrier remains: Google can afford to offer its tools for free, whereas the smaller firms need clients to pay, even if just a few dollars a month.

The privacy-focused firms say it is time to overhaul our understanding of these transactions.

"All of these free products that we use and love, we're not paying for them with money, we're paying for them with data and privacy," says Jarvis.

"We charge money for our product because it's just a more honest business model."

jxb/lth

GOP ASSAULT ON FACEBOOK

  G 

US: Texas sues Facebook parent Meta over biometric data 'violations'

Meta has been accused of collecting and storing biometric data to "grow its empire'"without consent of users. The state attorney general said the company "knowingly" violated state law.

Facebook discontinued the the autotag function on photos over privacy regulations at the end of 2021, before the state of Texas decided to sue

The Attorney General of Texas filed a lawsuit against Facebook parent company Meta for allegedly violating state laws in how the social media giant collects and handles biometric data.

In a statement posted on Twitter Monday, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said that the biometric data of millions of Texans had been captured without "properly obtaining their informed consent to do so, in violation of Texas law."

"Facebook will no longer take advantage of people and their children with the intent to turn a profit at the expense of one's safety and well-being,” Paxton said. "This is yet another example of Big Tech's deceitful business practices and it must stop. I will continue to fight for Texans' privacy and security.”

Biometric data stored 'without consent'

The feature, which automatically tagged people appearing in photos was scrapped at the end of 2021. 

However, Paxton said that Facebook has been storing millions of biometric identifiers contained in photos and videos uploaded onto the social media platform.

Paxton alleged Meta and Facebook exploited personal information of both users and non-users in order to "grow its empire and reap historic windfall profits." This, its alleged was done repeatedly and without consent.

A spokesperson for Meta said: "These claims are without merit and we will defend ourselves vigorously."

In 2020 a similar lawsuit saw the state of Illinois settle with Facebook for an amount of $650 million.

OLD FASHIONED CRIMINAL CAPITALI$M
Hollywood actor jailed for $650 million movie ponzi scheme

Zachary Horwitz promised healthy returns on investments, but was running a giant ponzi scheme and using the cash to fund a lavish lifestyle

 (AFP/Apu GOMES) 


Mon, February 14, 2022,

An American actor who swindled $650 million in a huge Hollywood ponzi scheme, using it to finance a lavish lifestyle of yachts, jets and fast cars, was jailed Monday for 20 years.

Zachary Horwitz created fake contracts that he told investors were with HBO and Netflix to trick them into handing over vast sums of money, which he splurged on private flights, top-of-the-range autos and a luxury Los Angeles mansion, complete with a wine cellar.

"Horwitz portrayed himself as a Hollywood success story," prosecutors said, according to the Department of Justice.

"He branded himself as an industry player, who... leveraged his relationships with online streaming platforms like HBO and Netflix to sell them foreign film distribution rights at a steady premium.

"But, as his victims came to learn, (Horwitz) was not a successful businessman or Hollywood insider. He just played one."

Horwitz, who acted in small-time horror films under the name Zach Avery, told investors he was buying foreign distribution rights for US movies, and then selling them to streaming platforms.

The 35-year-old gave each victim a note promising a handsome profit six or 12 months later.

Over seven years he kept the scheme going by using new investors' money to repay the old ones.

By the time it all fell apart, more than $230 million had vanished.

He admitted security fraud in October, and acknowledged that he had never bought any film rights, or secured any distribution contracts.

It would be "difficult to conceive a white-collar crime more egregious," prosecutors said in a memo to the judge, noting he started his life of crime by swindling university friends, according to the Los Angeles Times.

"He began by betraying the trust of his own friends, people who lowered their guard because they could not possibly imagine that someone they had known for years would unflinchingly swindle them and their families out of their life savings," they wrote.

Horwitz was jailed for 20 years, and ordered by Judge Mark Scarsito to repay $230 million to his victims.

hg/mlm

'My heart and body shake': Afghan women defy Taliban




In the 20 years since the Taliban last held power in Afghanistan, a generation of women became business owners, university graduates, and held government positions. Now they are battling for their rights

 (AFP/Rouba EL HUSSEINI)

Rouba EL HUSSEINI
Mon, February 14, 2022, 7:13 PM·8 min read

One after the other, quickly, carefully, keeping their heads down, a group of Afghan women step into a small Kabul apartment block -- risking their lives as a nascent resistance against the Taliban.

They come together to plan their next stand against the hardline Islamist regime, which took back power in Afghanistan in August and stripped them of their dreams.

At first, there were no more than 15 activists in this group, mostly women in their 20s who already knew each other.

Now there is a network of dozens of women –- once students, teachers or NGO workers, as well as housewives -— that have worked in secret to organise protests over the past six months.

"I asked myself why not join them instead of staying at home, depressed, thinking of all that we lost," a 20-year-old protester, who asked not to be named, tells AFP.

They know such a challenge to the new authorities may cost them everything.

Four of their colleagues were recently seized for weeks, until the UN confirmed their release on Sunday.

When the Taliban first ruled Afghanistan between 1996 and 2001, they became notorious for human rights abuses, with women mostly confined to their homes.

Now back in government and despite promising a softer rule, they are cracking down on women's freedoms once again.

There is enforced segregation in most workplaces, leading many employers to fire female staff and women are barred from key public sector jobs.

Many girls' secondary schools have closed, and university curriculums are being revised to reflect their hardline interpretation of Islam.

Haunted by memories of the last Taliban regime, some Afghan women are too frightened to venture out or are pressured by their families to remain at home.

For mother-of four Shala, who asked AFP to only use her first name, a return to such female confinement is her biggest fear.

A former government employee, her job has already been taken from her, so now she helps organise the resistance and sometimes sneaks out at night to paint graffiti slogans such as "Long Live Equality" across the walls of the nation's capital.

"I just want to be an example for young women, to show them that I will not give up the fight," she explains.

The Taliban could harm her family, but Shala says her husband supports what she is doing and her children are learning from her defiance -- at home they practise chants demanding education.

- 'Fear can't control me' -

AFP journalists attended two of the group's gatherings in January.

Despite the risk of being arrested and taken by the Taliban, or shunned by their families and society more than 40 women came to one event.

At another meeting, a few women were fervently preparing for their next protest.

One activist designed a banner demanding justice, a cellphone in one hand and her pen in the other.

"These are our only weapons," she says.

A 24-year-old, who asked not to be named, helped brainstorm ideas for attracting the world's attention.

"It's dangerous but we have no other way. We have to accept that our path is fraught with challenges," she insists.

Like others, she stood up to her conservative family, including an uncle who threw away her books to keep her from learning.

"I don't want to let fear control me and prevent me from speaking and telling the truth," she insists.

Allowing people to join their ranks is a meticulous process.

Hoda Khamosh, a published poet and former NGO worker who organised workshops to help empower women, is tasked with ensuring newcomers can be trusted.

One test she sets is to ask them to prepare banners or slogans at short notice -- she can sense passion for the cause from women who deliver quickly.

Other tests yield even clearer results.

Hoda recounts the time they gave a potential activist a fake date and time for a demonstration.

The Taliban turned up ahead of the supposed protest, and all contact was cut with the woman suspected of tipping off officials.

A core group of the activists use a dedicated phone number to coordinate on the day of a protest. That number is later disconnected to ensure it is not being tracked.

"We usually carry an extra scarf or an extra dress. When the demonstration is over, we change our clothes so we cannot be recognised," Hoda explains.

She has changed her phone number several times and her husband has received threats.

"We could still be harmed, it's exhausting. But all we can do is persevere," she adds.

The activist was one of a few women flown to Norway to meet face to face with the Taliban's leadership last month, alongside other civil society members, when the first talks on European soil were held between the West and Afghanistan's new government.

- Crackdown on dissent -

In the 20 years since the Taliban last held power, a generation of women -- largely in major cities -- became business owners, studied PHDs, and held government positions.

The battle to defend those gains requires defiance.

On protest days, women turn up in twos or threes, waiting outside shops as if they are ordinary shoppers, then at the last minute rush together: some 20 people chanting as they unfurl their banners.

Swiftly, and inevitably, the Taliban's armed fighters surround them -- sometimes holding them back, other times screaming and pointing guns to scare the women away.

One activist recalls slapping a fighter in the face, while another led protest chants despite a masked gunman pointing his weapon at her.

But it is becoming increasingly dangerous to protest as authorities crack down on dissent.

A few days after the planning meeting attended by AFP, Taliban fighters used pepper spray on the resistance demonstrators for the first time, angry as the group had painted a white burqa red to reject wearing the all-covering dress.

Two of the women who took part in the protests -- Tamana Zaryabi Paryani and Parwana Ibrahimkhel -- were later rounded up in a series of night raids on January 19.

Shortly before she was taken, footage of Paryani was shared on social media showing her in distress, warning of Taliban fighters at her door.

In the video, Tamana calls out: "Kindly help! Taliban have come to our home in Parwan 2. My sisters are at home."

It shows her telling the men behind the door: "If you want to talk, we'll talk tomorrow. I cannot meet you in the night with these girls. I don't want to (open the door)... Please! Help, help!"

Several women interviewed by AFP before the raids, who spoke of "non-stop threats", later went into hiding.

The UN also demanded information about two more female activists allegedly detained two weeks ago, named by rights advocates as Zahra Mohammadi and Mursal Ayar.

Taliban government spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid denied any women were being held, but said authorities had the right "to arrest and detain dissidents or those who break the law", after the government banned unsanctioned protests soon after coming to power.

On Sunday the UN said all four women were released after being held by the "de facto authorities" of Afghanistan.

- Starting from scratch -

The women are learning to adapt quickly.

When they began the movement last September, demonstrations would end as soon as one of the participants was pushed or threatened by the Taliban.

Hoda says they have now developed a system where two activists take care of the victim, allowing the others -- and the protest -- to continue.

As the Taliban prevents media coverage of protests, many of the female activists use their phones to take photos and videos to post on social media.

The content, often featuring them defiantly showing their faces, can then reach an international audience.

"These women... had to create something from scratch," says Heather Barr of Human Rights Watch.

"There are a lot of very experienced women activists who have been working in Afghanistan for many years... but almost all of them left after August 15," she adds.

"(The Taliban) don't tolerate dissent. They have beaten other protesters, they have beaten journalists who cover the protests, very brutally. They've gone and looked for protesters and protest organisers afterwards."

Barr believes it is "almost certain" those involved with this new resistance will experience harm.

A separate, smaller women's group is now trying to focus on protest that avoids direct confrontation with the Taliban.

"When I am out on the streets my heart and body shake," said Wahida Amiri.

The 33-year-old used to work as a librarian. Sharp and articulate, she is used to fighting for justice having previously campaigned against corruption in the previous government.

Now that is no longer possible, she sometimes meets a small circle of friends in the safety of their homes, where they film themselves holding candlelit vigils and raising banners demanding the right to education and work.

They write articles and attend debates on audio apps Clubhouse or Twitter, hoping social media will show the world their story.

"I have never worked as hard as I have in the past five months," she says.

Hoda's biggest dream was to be Afghanistan's president, and it is difficult for her to accept that her political work is now limited.

"If we do not fight for our future today, Afghan history will repeat itself," the 26-year-old told AFP from her home.

"If we do not get our rights we will end up stuck at home, between four walls. This is something we cannot tolerate," she said.

Kabul's resistance is not alone. There have been small, scattered protests by women in other Afghan cities, including Bamiyan, Herat and Mazar-i-Sharif.

"(The Taliban) have erased us from society and politics," Amiri says.

"We may not succeed. All we want is to keep the voice of justice raised high, and instead of five women, we want thousands to join us."

rh/aya/ecl/lto/jts/jd/ser

 

Rocket set to hit Moon was built by China, not SpaceX, say astronomers

A rocket will indeed strike the lunar surface on March 4, but contrary to what had been announced, it was built not by Elon Musk's company, but by China, experts now say 

(AFP/Laurent EMMANUEL) 

Mon, February 14, 2022, 4:19 PM·

Astronomy experts say they originally misread the secrets of the night sky last month: it turns out that a rocket expected to crash into the Moon in early March was built by China, not SpaceX.

A rocket will indeed strike the lunar surface on March 4, but contrary to what had been announced, it was built not by Elon Musk's company, but by Beijing, experts now say.

The rocket is now said to be 2014-065B, the booster for the Chang'e 5-T1, launched in 2014 as part of the Chinese space agency's lunar exploration program.

The surprise announcement was made by astronomer Bill Gray, who first identified the future impact, and admitted his mistake last weekend.

"This (honest mistake) just emphasizes the problem with lack of proper tracking of these deep space objects," tweeted astronomer Jonathan McDowell, who advocates for greater regulation of space waste.

"The object had about the brightness we would expect, and had showed up at the expected time and moving in a reasonable orbit," he wrote in post.

But "in hindsight, I should have noticed some odd things" about its orbit, he added.

NASA said in late January that it would attempt to observe the crater that will be formed by the explosion of this object, thanks to its probe that orbits around the Moon, the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO).

The agency called the event an "exciting research opportunity."

la/ia/caw

Beijing 2022: Even before gold, Kaillie Humphries had already won

Kaillie Humphries has picked up her third Olympic gold medal, winning the inaugural monobob competition. 

After a hard transition from Canada to the United States, the Olympic veteran won long before Beijing 2022.

AMERICA'S KIND OF MIGRANT;

WHITE MIDDLE CLASS WITH SOMETHING TO OFFER

Winning in the inaugural monobob was just the icing on the cake for former Canadian Kaillie Humphries

Although she has been competing for the United States for three years, seeing Kaillie Humphries in red, white and blue at the Yanqing National Sliding Center on Monday was still a bit strange. Born in Calgary, Alberta, the 36-year-old had previously won two gold medals and a bronze for Canada in the two-woman bobsled.

But after filing a harassment lawsuit against a former coach, her bobsled now sports the stars and stripes, and her gold medal in the women's monobob gives the US seven at Beijing 2022.

The event, the first of its kind at the Olympics, was Humphries' to lose. She set a course record on her first run on Sunday and had a second-and-a-half lead going into the final run on Monday. She wound up with a total time of 4:19.27, 1.54 seconds ahead of Monobob World Series winner Elana Meyers Taylor.

Afterward, Humphries jumped out of her sled, threw an American flag in the air and yelled "USA! USA!" During the medal ceremony, she proudly sang along with the "Star Spangled Banner," the American national anthem.

The gold medal was Humphries' third, and given all she's done for bobsledding, it was only appropriate that she is the first monobob Olympic champion. But her victory came long before her arrival in Beijing.

Change of allegiance

Humphries has admitted that after every Olympics there is a lull when the fanfare and press tours are done. Following the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, the lull led to a depression she didn't fully understand.

"It's not something I chose. I'm not ashamed of it, either," Humphries told the Player's Own Voice, a podcast from the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, in 2019. "My body had given up. My mind had shut off completely from what had occurred during the Olympics."

This Olympic hangover was also different, Humphries said, because of the verbal and mental abuse received from head coach Todd Hays leading up to the Pyeongchang Games. In 2018, she filed a harassment complaint against Bobsleigh Canada Skeleton (BCS) and asked to be released from the federation.

An initial independent investigation found in September 2019 that there was "insufficient evidence" to support Humphries' harassment complaint. However, the Sport Dispute Resolution Centre of Canada found that the investigation, conducted by Hill Advisory Inc., was "neither thorough nor reasonable."

Meanwhile, Humphries had been released by Canada bobsled and began competing for the United States in the 2019-20 World Championships.

"I didn't recognize myself. I felt unsafe in my environment, I was scared physically for my safety as well as for my mental health," Humphries told DW before Beijing 2022.

"I love the country and the support and the people, the citizens of Canada. I just could no longer work with Bobsled Canada as a federation and needed to move on."

Learning who 'real friends are'

She added that the switch hasn't necessarily changed her relationships within the bobsledding world. If anything, it has strengthened the way people have always felt about her.

"The people that liked me still like me. The people that didn't like me were given more ammo to not like me," she said. "I've definitely seen the true colors of people and you learn very quickly who your actual real friends are and who actually cares about you.

"When it comes to issues of abuse and harassment and safety within sport, it's a very hard topic to discuss and you learn very quickly who actually believes in you, is on your side and wants you to be in a very safe, positive, great environment and who wants to see you fail."

Kaillie Humphries (left) also won Olympic medals for her former country

For Meyers Taylor, Humphries' longtime rival and training partner, the switch to the US team hasn't really changed much about their relationship.

"It's funny actually because I train less with her now than I did when she was Canadian," Meyers Taylor said. "Whether she has the Canadian flag on her or the American flag, I was going to have to go toe-to-toe with her and beat her, regardless."

Becoming part of Team USA

Although she was already in her third year of competing for the United States, until just a few weeks ago it still wasn't clear whether Humphries, who now resides with her husband Travis Armbruster in San Diego, would be able to compete in her fourth Olympics. The International Olympic Committee (IOC) requires an athlete to have citizenship in the country they represent, and until December, the bobsled legend only had residency. She admitted that the cloud of her citizenship was "extremely hard and it weighed a lot on my heart and my mind."

But on December 2, Humphries was granted American citizenship, making her eligible to compete for Team USA. So there she was, pushing her stars-and-stripes monobob sled at the Yanqing Sliding Center with the same power and ferocity she had for years.

She's also set to compete in her specialty, the two-woman bobsled, later this week. For her, winning the gold medal will undoubtedly be another career highlight, but her real victory in Beijing came long before the Games started.

"I stood up for myself. A lot of people don't, won't, and it was extremely hard," Humphries said. "I feel mentally so much stronger as a female athlete to have pulled myself out of such a dark place and to know that a country supports me in the process." 

Earth's Core Is in a Weird Superionic State: 'Quite Abnormal'

Orlando Jenkinson 

Newsweek
© Rost-9D/Getty Images

Earth's inner core is likely a weird composition of superheated elements making it both liquid and solid at the same time, a study has suggested.

The extreme temperatures and pressures found at the center of the Earth were once thought to cumulate in a solid inner core made mostly of iron. This core gives the planet its magnetic field that shields us from solar radiation.

However, research published by scientists with the Institute of Geochemistry at the Chinese Academy of Sciences (IGCAS) in the journal Nature said that various "lighter" elements were likely present at the center of the Earth in a stew of superheated solid and liquid states known as "superionic."

The materials found in the inner core of the Earth behave in this way due to the extreme conditions found there. Including huge pressure, the temperature at the center of the Earth is believed to be over 10,000 degrees Fahrenheit—as hot as the surface of the sun.

Researchers used the study of earthquake data, known as seismology, to reach their conclusions. The scientists also used quantum mechanics theory, which helps explain how atoms and particles behave at the microscopic level, to create simulations that mimicked the intense pressures and temperatures found at the inner core. Their simulations showed how some alloys transformed into a superionic state when placed under conditions found in the Earth's inner core.

The findings add to a paper published in Physics of the Earth and Planetary Interiors in December 2021, which also used earthquake readings to suggest that the inner core was likely composed of elements in several different states including "mushy" material.

The latest findings could have implications for our understanding of processes that relate to Earth's core. These include volcanism, earthquakes and Earth's magnetic field, the authors said.

The paper found that the superheated solids that occur in the inner core create strong convection currents, giving buoyancy for lighter elements there. These in turn float around and produce the convection currents of the outer core that drives liquid metal found there in motion and combine with the inner core to give Earth its magnetic field.

"It is quite abnormal," He Yu, the study's lead author, said in a statement. "The solidification of iron at the inner core boundary does not change the mobility of these light elements, and the convection of light elements is continuous in the inner core."

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NO DEBATE IN PARLIMENT

Canada is sending lethal aid to Ukraine amid Russian invasion threat: Trudeau

Rachel Gilmore -
Global News

Canada is sending $7.8 million worth of lethal equipment and ammunition to Ukraine as Russia continues to escalate tension in the region, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said on Monday.

Canada to offer $500M loan and $7.8M worth of weapons, ammunition to Ukraine: Trudeau

On top of that, Canada will be sending Ukraine a $500 million loan -- in addition to the $120 million the government previously promised.

"The intent of this support from Canada and other partners is to deter further Russian aggression," Trudeau said, speaking during a press conference on Monday.

"We're not seeking confrontation with Russia. But the situation is intensifying rapidly, and we are showing our resolve."

The decision marks an escalation for Canada, which had refused to send any lethal aid to Ukraine earlier this month. At the time, Canada had only sent Ukraine non-lethal aid – a decision that drew criticism, since the country had specifically requested lethal help.

Russia has been building up its forces near Ukraine, with well over 100,000 troops lined along the border. Meanwhile, CBS reported on Monday that Russian troops are currently leaving their assembly points and moving into “attack positions” — the latest escalation in Russia’s ongoing aggression towards Ukraine.

“It’s important for Canadians and the world to know that Canada will continue supporting Ukraine and its independence, integrity, sovereignty,” Trudeau said, ‘including its right to defend itself.”

As tensions have continued to escalate, countries have been urging their citizens to return home.

U.K. prime minister meets with Ukrainian president in Kyiv amid soaring tensions with Russia

The U.K. government warned its citizens in Ukraine to “leave now.” Canada has issued a similar warning to its citizens, telling them to “avoid all travel to Ukraine” due to the ongoing threats from Russia.

“If you are in Ukraine, you should leave while commercial means are available,” Canada’s advisory adds.

The U.S. government has given similar directives to its own citizens, as well.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, however, asked state officials, politicians, and business leaders who have recently left the country to return within 24 hours. The goal, he said, is to show solidarity amid fears of an impending Russian invasion.

"It is your direct duty in such a situation to be with us, with the Ukrainian people. I suggest that you return to your homeland within 24 hours and stand shoulder to shoulder with the Ukrainian army, our diplomats, and our people," Zelenskiy said in the video address.

Meanwhile, he says his country stands ready to respond to whatever “aggressive actions” Russia may take.

“We clearly know where exactly the enemy's army is located next to our borders, number of troops, locations, equipment and plans,” Zelensky said.

Ukraine president plays down U.S. warnings of imminent Russian invasion

Trudeau, meanwhile, has said it’s apparent Russia is “looking actively for excuses” to act against Ukraine.

“Russia must de-escalate,” Trudeau said, speaking to reporters on Friday.

“This is an evolving situation, but the bottom line is this: we’re not seeking confrontation with Russia, but we’re resolved to stand firm with the Ukrainian people’s right to determine their own future.”

– With files from Reuters