Oldest evidence of Mayan calendar found in Guatemala


An exterior view of the Great Jaguar, main building of Tikal, the most important city of the ancient Maya civilization at the province of Peten, Feb. 28, 2011. Tikal was one of the main cultural centers of the Maya civilization. The oldest known fragments of the Maya calendar were found in San Bartolo, Guatemala. 

Photo by Sandra Sebastian/EPA


April 14 (UPI) -- The oldest evidence of the Maya calendar has been excavated at San Bartolo, Guatemala, found among fragments of painted murals.

Acording to a new study, two fragments with a "7 deer" date notation date to between 300 and 200 BCE, based on radiocarbon dating.

Authors of the study said that the finding "represents a day in the 260-day divinatory calendar used throughout Mesoamerica and among indigenous Maya communities today."

"It's the one calendar that survives all the conquests and the civil war in Guatemala," the latter of which was waged from 1960 to 1996, study first author David Stuart told Live Science.

"The Maya of today in many communities have kept it as a way of connecting to their ideas of fate and how people relate to the world around them. It's not a revival. It's actually a preservation of the calendar," said Stuart, the Schele professor of Mesoamerican art and writing at the University of Texas at Austin.

Stuart was part of the team that discovered the San Bartolo site in 2001.

The 7 Deer day record represents the earliest securely dated example of the Maya calendar, according to the study.

The previous oldest known evidence of the Maya calendar also came from San Bartolo. the new discovery pre-dates that one by 150 years.

The fragments from the Maya calendar came from an architectural complex known as the Las Pinturas pyramid.

It consists of a pyramid with seven construction phases and several auxiliary structures.

The researchers say the fragments indicate it is a record in the Mesoamerican 260-day calendar, "7 Deer," or, in the colonial Maya system of 16th century Yucatán, "7 Manik."

The 260-day count is the traditional divination calendar used throughout ancient Mesoamerica, surviving up to the present day among some indigenous communities in southern Mexico and Guatemala, according to the study.

Until these fragments were discovered all early Maya calendar records came from stone monuments.

Quebec Health Ministry tweets adult video rather than COVID advice

The ministry in the Canadian province said it was investigating why it tweeted a link to pornographic material. The department has apologized for the "inconvenience" caused by posting "inappropriate content."

Quebec's Health Ministry tweeted out a link containing "inappropriate content"

The Health Ministry in the Canadian province of Quebec apologized on Thursday after publishing a tweet that linked "inappropriate content."

The tweet was reportedly meant to connect users to Quebec's COVID-19 portal.

But the local branch of the CTV News broadcaster reported that the tweet featured a link to a fetish video on pornography streaming site PornHub.

'Out of our control'

"Due to a situation out of our control, a link containing inappropriate content was published on our Twitter account," the ministry tweeted after the incident.

"We are searching for the causes of this," the ministry added, before apologizing for the inconvenience.

Pornhub is based in Montreal and owned by Canadian pornography firm MindGeek.

In 2021, dozens of women filed a lawsuit against MindGeek, accusing the company of profiting from sexual exploitation.

AFP material contributed to this report.

Edited by: John Silk

New California bill proposes four-day workweek for larger companies



Tue, April 12, 2022

Yahoo Finance Live examines the proposed legislation in California that would limit workdays and work hours in large businesses and how similar proposals are believed to affect worker productivity.

Video Transcript

RACHELLE AKUFFO: Welcome back to Yahoo Finance Live, everyone. We're never going back to the four-day workweek. That tweet from [INAUDIBLE] executive chairman after piloting a three-month test to see how effective and productive it is for the unicorn startup.

Now, he said he saw heightened productivity, engagement, and wellness, and he rejected what he calls fear to work-- work that looks good, but doesn't actually move the needle or make an impact. You know, and sometimes, you'll see someone sort of walking around busily with a coffee cup and scheduling a ton of meetings. But are they actually being productive? Does he have a point? Dave, what do you think?

DAVE BRIGGS: I am much more productive away from this house and in an office. I might stand alone on that. I'm OK with businesses making that decision. Where I draw the line is what they're doing in California, proposing legislation in the state assembly that would mandate it, mandate 32-hour weeks for businesses of 500 or more employees.

That's one of the five California businesses, and the Chamber of Commerce calls it a job killer. They also would require, if this law were to pass, you to pay time and a half anything over 32 hours, pay double time anything over a 12-hour day over a seven-day week. I have to agree with the Chamber of Commerce in California. That, to me, Brad, is a job killer.

BRAD SMITH: You know, when you started off your answer, I mean, I totally agree because the fact that we've already seen businesses need to stand in the gap for so many things that the federal legislation has dragged their feet on, whether that be on trying to make sure that even election day is a federal holiday, or making Juneteenth a holiday, or even making sure that your workers have certain rights internally, a lot of businesses have needed to step up to that task prior to the public sector actually doing so. And so how is a four-day workweek any different in this instance?

And so as we move forward from here, you're going to hear all the different test cases and studies of how businesses have taken this onus upon themselves to see how it's better for productivity, where they're seeing better work-life balance and camaraderie among their workforce and their team base, and also, how they're able to still retain the revenue that they've come to expect over time. And all of that is going to be the basis for whether or not they decide to move forward.

Of course, it's going to be harder in certain industries and roles and town sectors than others. But it's all about seeing exactly where we can start to draw the framework. And coming back to that Charlie Day reference, that's the CEO's job or the C-suite's job to be that Charlie Day and figure out, OK, how can we make sure we're adequately mapping to see how everything can still get done, how we can still retain our profitability and be a successful business, while also having success within the ethos and the corporate culture within our company as well?

DAVE BRIGGS: Yeah, I think it's just to each his own when it comes down to the businesses. Mandating it is a very slippery slope. It works for Kickstarter [INAUDIBLE]

A bill proposing a 4-day workweek is moving through the California legislature and would target companies with 500+ employees


Hannah Getahun
Tue, April 12, 2022

AB 2932 could potentially shorten the workweek in California to 32 hours.

Two California assembly members are proposing a 32-hour workweek.

The bill is similar to a proposed bill in Congress from Rep. Mark Takano, also from California.

Asm. Cristina Garcia told Insider that she hopes California will set an example for other states.

California is taking the lead on making the four-day workweek a reality.

State Assembly members are proposing a bill that would create shortened workweek for non-union, hourly workers at companies with 500 or more employees.

The bill, authored by Asm. Evan Low and Asm. Cristina Garcia, is currently moving through committee. It's similar to a federal bill proposed by Rep. Mark Takano, also from California, that is currently awaiting a vote in the House Education and Labor Committee.

Low told Insider support surrounding Takano's bill partially inspired this one: "As we come out of the COVID pandemic, I am excited about how we reimagine our workforce while uplifting the voices of workers to get back in the job market in response to the Great Resignation," Low said.

Garcia told Insider that now is the perfect time for discussions surrounding a lessened workweek, especially as labor shortages continue across the country and companies begin experimenting with the concept. "Two years into this pandemic, you see a moment of employees driving change and employees reimagining what they think their work week or their work-life balance should be," Garcia said.

It could take years before a proposed bill like this can become a law, but "there's been a lot of enthusiasm more recently now that this bill was introduced out there," Garcia added.

AB 2932 would change state law and shorten the workweek to 32 hours but compensate employees at a similar pay rate. Employees who work over 32 hours would receive overtime at 1.5 times their hourly wages.

Companies around the world have tested or embraced the 4-day workweek, like Microsoft, which reported a 40% increase in productivity, and Buffer, which found that employees are less likely to burn out. The country of Iceland also had a trial of the 4-day workweek, which was so successful that 86% of the country's workforce moved to a shorter workweek.

Critics say it's a 'job killer'

Ashley Hoffman, policy advocate for the California Chamber of Commerce, argued in a letter to Low that the bill is a "job killer" and would present added costs to employers.

"AB 2932's impact on labor costs in California will discourage job growth in the state and likely reduce opportunities for workers," Hoffman wrote.

In a comment to Insider, a spokesperson from the Chamber of Commerce said they would not be able to support a proposal that "requires employers to pay for 32 hours of work at the rate they are currently paying for a 40 hour work week."

Garcia said that although labor costs are a concern, she feels a bill targeting larger companies would help protect smaller businesses. Additionally, she said boosting employee morale through a shortened workweek could help companies with hiring and retention.

"Especially if you're seeing more productivity, you're seeing less attrition, all those things are good things for companies," Garcia said. "All those things help with the bottom line."

Garcia hopes that as discussions on the bill progress, other states will look to California as an example.

"We like to say if California goes, the nation goes," Garcia said.

California takes a giant step toward making the 4-day workweek dream a reality

Colin Lodewick
Tue, April 12, 2022

Legislators in California are attempting to fulfill the dreams of countless workers and are taking steps toward enshrining a four-day workweek into law.

A new bill introduced in the state assembly, known as AB 2932, aims to lower the maximum threshold for overtime pay from 40 hours to 32 hours for companies with over 500 employees in the state. Assembly members Cristina Garcia and Evan Low coauthored the bill, which has not yet been set for a hearing.

“We’ve seen over 47 million people voluntarily leave their jobs for better opportunities. We’re seeing a labor shortage across the board from small to big businesses,” Garcia told Fortune. “And so it’s very clear that employees don’t want to go back to normal or the old way, but to rethink and go back to [something] better.”

She added that while catered meals or game rooms might have been enough for companies to attract workers in the past, she believes they want more now.

“They are looking for a healthier work/life balance. They want to feel less stress.”

The idea of a four-hour workweek has been gaining steam for years, but the pandemic and the subsequent so-called Great Resignation have dramatically expanded popular interest. And now, even politicians are getting serious about it. Advocates like Joe O’Connor, CEO of 4 Day Week Global, a nonprofit established to promote the idea of a four-day workweek, told Fortune that the California bill is significant.

“A bill such as this puts the idea of reduced work time on the legislative agenda in a way that wasn’t previously the case,” he said.

He argues the five-day workweek persists as a cultural norm despite decades-old innovations since the 1980s like email and the internet that have made workers more productive.

“That has not translated to working less,” he noted.

But that could be changing. Garcia and Low are not the only California politicians introducing four-day workweek legislation. Last July, Rep. Mark Takano (D-Calif.) introduced a similar bill at the federal level.

Takano’s bill found support among progressive labor rights organizations and unions including the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO), the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), and the National Employment Law Project (NELP). The bill has yet to be heard in the House.

The new California law is unlikely to pass the statehouse, and the California Chamber of Commerce added it to its “job killer” list.

But a slew of companies have announced four-day workweeks over the past few years. With the dissolution of the traditional workplace, employers are now more likely than ever to consider flexible work policies—especially when it seems as if workers have the upper hand and when those policies might ultimately be good for the bottom line.

Social media management software company Buffer initiated a four-day workweek in 2020 as a one-month test trial. The company made it a permanent policy later in the year after employees responded positively, said Hailley Griffs, Buffer’s head of communications and content.

“Folks felt that they were getting the same amount of work done,” Griffs told Fortune. She says that recent internal company data shows that 91% of her team reported feeling happier as a result of the policy change.

The four-day workweek is especially helpful for Griffs, who became a mother during the pandemic: “I get an extra day that I get to spend with [my daughter] as a baby.” There’s a financial benefit, too: Griffs needs to pay for childcare only Monday through Thursday.

“Very few employers that we speak to would say the four-day workweek can’t work,” O’Connor noted. “The question they’re asking is, can the four-day workweek work for my business?”

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

WAR IS RAPE
Ukraine rights group tells top U.N. body that rape used as weapon of war


The United Nations Security Council meets, amid Russia's invasion of Ukraine, at the U.N. in New York

Mon, April 11, 2022
By Michelle Nichols

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - The United Nations is increasingly hearing accounts of rape and sexual violence in Ukraine, a senior U.N. official told the Security Council on Monday, as a Ukrainian human rights group accused Russian troops of using rape as a weapon of war.

Kateryna Cherepakha, president of La Strada-Ukraine, said her organization's emergency hotlines had received calls accusing Russian soldiers of nine cases of rape, involving 12 women and girls.

"This is just the tip of the iceberg," she told the council via video. "We know and see - and we want you to hear our voices - that violence and rape is used now as a weapon of war by Russian invaders in Ukraine."

Russia has repeatedly denied attacking civilians since its invasion of Ukraine began on Feb. 24.

The United Nations said last week that U.N. human rights monitors were seeking to verify allegations of sexual violence by Russian forces, including gang rape and rapes in front of children, and claims Ukrainian forces and civil defense militias had also committed sexual violence.

Ukraine's U.N. mission did not immediately respond to a request for comment on allegations against Ukraine forces.

"Russia, as we have stated more than once, does not wage war against the civilian population," Russia's deputy U.N. Ambassador Dmitry Polyanskiy told the Security Council on Monday, accusing Ukraine and allies of "a clear intention to present Russian soldiers as sadists and rapists."

UN Women Executive Director, Sima Bahous, said that all allegations must by independently investigated to ensure justice and accountability.

"We are increasingly hearing of rape and sexual violence," she told the council. "The combination of mass displacement with the large pressure results of conscripts and mercenaries and the brutality displayed against Ukrainian civilians has raised all red flags."

All sides in the Ukraine war have systems of conscription, where young men are required by law to do military service. Ukraine and Russia have accused each other of using mercenaries.

Russia says it is carrying out a "special military operation" to support independence declarations by separatists in two provinces in eastern Ukraine.

Ukraine's U.N. Ambassador Sergiy Kyslytsya told the Security Council that the Prosecutor General's Office of Ukraine was "launching a special mechanism of documentation of cases of sexual violence by Russian soldiers against Ukrainian women."

(Reporting by Michelle Nichols; Editing by Mary Milliken and Grant McCool)

Russian troops in Bucha turned to sexual violence against Ukrainian women — killing some and impregnating others — according to reports


A woman witnesses bodies being processed from a mass grave in Bucha, Ukraine.

Erin Trieb for Insider

Taiyler Simone Mitchell
Mon, April 11, 2022, 

The Ukrainian region of Bucha has been host to some of the war's worst atrocities.

Sexual violence against women is "the new weapon" used by Russian troops, a Ukrainian official said.

It's currently "impossible" to gauge how widespread sexual abuse is, the official added.

After Russian troops backed out of Kyiv and the surrounding areas, the world is learning about the damage left behind in the suburb of Bucha, just over an hour's drive to Ukraine's capital, which had been under Russian control.

Bucha has been the scene of some of the war's worst atrocities — largely including sexual violence against the region's civilian women.

A woman clothed only in a fur coat was found with a bullet to the head inside of the basement of a pillaged home, the home's owner told The New York Times.

Volodymyr Shepitko, 66, told the publication his home was overtaken by Russian troops. The woman's body was found near several condom wrappers and a single used one, the outlet reported.

The Ukrainian ombudswoman for human rights, Lyudmyla Denisova, previously called abuse by Russian soldiers their "new weapon."

She told BBC that a group of "About 25 girls and women aged 14 to 24 were systematically raped during the occupation in the basement of one house in Bucha."

"Russian soldiers told them they would rape them to the point where they wouldn't want sexual contact with any man, to prevent them from having Ukrainian children," she said, adding that nine of them wound up pregnant

Denisova told the outlet that it's currently "impossible" to gauge how widespread the sexual violence against women is in the region because not everyone is willing to speak up about it.

"The majority of them currently call for psychological support, so we cannot record those as crimes unless they give us their testimony," she added.

UN tells UK to stop matching single Ukrainian women fleeing the invasion with single men, following reports of sexual exploitation


Bill Bostock
Wed, April 13, 2022

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy (L) and Britain's Prime Minister Boris Johnson (R) shake hands during their walk in downtown Kyiv, Ukraine, Saturday, April 9, 2022.Ukrainian Presidential Press Office via AP

The UN says a UK refugee program for Ukrainians must stop pairing single women with single men.

Reports have detailed how some men are trying tried to exploit vulnerable women seeking shelter.

150,000 UK homes signed up to house Ukrainian refugees, but the scheme is beset with delays.

The UN's refugee agency says the UK must stop placing single Ukrainian women fleeing the invasion in the homes of single British men, the Guardian reported.

Following Russia's invasion of Ukraine, the UK government launched the "Homes for Ukraine" scheme, which saw more than 150,000 people offer up rooms in their homes to those fleeing the invasion.

However, several UK media reports have detailed how British men are targeting vulnerable single Ukrainian women arriving in the country, in some cases asking for sexual contact in return for accommodation.

A spokesperson for the UN's High Commissioner for Refugees told the Guardian that "a more appropriate matching process" was needed so that single women could be paired with with women or families.

"Matching done without the appropriate oversight may lead to increasing the risks women may face, in addition to the trauma of displacement, family separation and violence already experienced," the spokesperson said.

The government's "Homes for Ukraine" system has been heavily criticized domestically, and applicants have been subject to long delays.

Several Ukrainian refugees previously told Insider that they are choosing to return to war-torn Ukraine as they are exhausted by the "hunger and homelessness" inflicted by the long wait for UK visas.

In late March, 16 refugee and anti-trafficking organizations warned that the program was in danger of becoming "Tinder for sex traffickers."

"By adopting a hands-off approach to matching, there is a high risk that traffickers, criminals and unscrupulous landlords set up matching sites and Facebook pages to prey upon the vulnerable," the letter said.

According to a tracker run by the UNHCR, more than 4.6 million Ukrainians have fled the country since Russia invaded on February 24.

AGAINST OUR WILL; MEN, WOMEN AND RAPE

SUSAN BROWNMILLER

PDF

https://www.academia.edu/5832605/Against_our_will_men_women_and_rape_blackatk_

Top Russian cleric accused of 'moral crimes' by fellow Orthodox leaders for sanctioning invasion of Ukraine


Alexander Nazaryan
·Senior White House Correspondent
Mon, April 11, 2022,

WASHINGTON — Patriarch Kirill, leader of the Russian Orthodox Church, has been a loyal ally of President Vladimir Putin for years. But his vociferous support of the invasion of Ukraine has drawn strong rebukes from religious leaders who say he has forsaken Christian teachings by supporting the Kremlin’s destructive campaign.

In his most recent Sunday sermon, delivered at the Church of the Intercession of the Most Holy Theotokos in Moscow, Kirill told worshippers to respect official power — a message seemingly intended to bolster a military campaign that has gone badly for Russia. Once called “the politicking patriarch,” Kirill was enthroned in 2009 and is closely associated within Russia with the current political regime.

“May the Lord help us all in this difficult time for our Fatherland to unite, including around the authorities,” Kirill said in the sermon. He hoped that the Russian people would maintain “the ability to repel external and internal enemies.”

Kirill has been a vociferous and consistent supporter of Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, despite the fact that the vast majority of Ukrainians are Eastern Orthodox. On Sunday, nearly 300 leaders of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church signed a letter accusing Kirill of “moral crimes” for his endorsement of the unprovoked attack on Ukraine, which has killed thousands of civilians.

Russian Patriarch Kirill celebrating a Christmas service in Moscow on Jan. 6. 

(Kirill Kudryavtsev/AFP via Getty Images)

“Our position is fully consistent with the Gospel and the church tradition,” the Ukrainian clergymen wrote. “Defending the homeland from the enemy is one of the main Christian virtues.”

Many Christian leaders in the West have denounced the invasion, including Pope Francis and members of Kirill’s own church. Most Russian clergy, however, share Kirill’s views. Metropolitan Mitrofan of Murmansk said the invasion of Ukraine was a battle against “the Antichrist.”

Mitrofan also said the Orthodox Church in Ukraine is “not a real church,” in reference to the schism between the Ukrainian and Russian churches three years ago, angering both Putin and Kirill.

Long suspected of having once been an agent of the KGB — the Soviet era security service that frequently singled out religious dissidents — Kirill is a symbol of the resurgence of the Orthodox Church under Putin, who has used religion to bolster his nationalistic, anti-Western vision. In 2013, Kirill decried same-sex marriage as “a very dangerous sign of the apocalypse.” Four years later, he criticized Western Europe for the “grave mistake” of straying from Christianity.

Although Russian society has become increasingly religious since the fall of the Soviet Union, which officially embraced atheism, Kirill has not wholly escaped scrutiny. In 2012, a photograph of him wearing a $40,000 watch was airbrushed to remove the timepiece, leading to widespread derision and mockery. Two years ago, he was seen wearing a watch costing $16,000, this time without apparent concern for public backlash.

When Putin decided to launch an invasion of Ukraine in late February — in what he described as an effort to “de-Nazify” the country’s government, which is led by a Jewish president — Kirill told members of the armed forces that they were on “the correct path.” He also alluded to threats mounting “on the borders of our Fatherland,” an obvious reference to Ukraine and its Western allies.

A sovereign nation since 1991, Ukraine has sought to chart a course distinct from its Soviet legacy. Kyiv’s desire for autonomy has always been viewed as an affront by Putin, who first invaded Ukraine in 2014. He invaded again eight years later, expecting an easy victory, only to face protests at home and condemnation abroad.

Kirill remains a key ally for an increasingly embattled Kremlin. “The Russian Orthodox Church's moral blessing of this war has been years in the making,” Russia expert Samuel Ramani of Oxford University said earlier this month. While few have been surprised by Kirill’s loyalty to Putin, his seeming lack of concern for the plight of ordinary Ukrainians has renewed criticism of his tenure.

Though he has made generic calls for peace, the 75-year-old bishop has also made no secret of his true sympathies. “We have entered into a struggle that has not a physical, but a metaphysical significance,” Kirill said in early March.

In a widely condemned sermon earlier this month, Kirill struck out against the West while envisioning the same fictitious unity of Slavic peoples that Putin has invoked and Ukrainians have rejected.

Debris and destroyed Russian military vehicles in Bucha, Ukraine, on April 6. (Chris McGrath/Getty Images)

“Today the word ‘independence’ is often applied to almost all countries of the world,” Kirill said on the same day that much of the world was encountering the images of slaughtered civilians in Bucha. “But this is wrong, because most of the countries of the world are now under the colossal influence of one force, which today, unfortunately, opposes the force of our people.”



The April 3 sermon was delivered at the main cathedral of the Russian Armed Forces. Kirill did not name the malevolent force he had in mind, but Putin has blamed the United States for engineering Ukraine’s successful resistance to Russia.

“We are a peace-loving country and a very peace-loving, long-suffering people who suffered from wars like few other European nations,” Kirill went on to say.

“We have no desire for war or for doing something that could harm others. But we have been so educated by our entire history that we love our Fatherland and will be ready to defend it in the way that only Russians can defend their country.”

The April 3 sermon led to a rebuke from a leader of the Greek Orthodox Church in the United States. “From the words and actions of Patriarch Kirill, we can conclude he has made the same bargain with Putin and his cronies. This is, indeed, a sad moment for our church, and the whole world is watching,” Archbishop Elpidophoros said in a speech the following day.

Rowan Williams, the former archbishop of Canterbury, called for the World Council of Churches to eject Russia after the April 3 sermon.

Former Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams. (Dan Kitwood/Getty Images)

“The riot act has to be read,” Williams said in an interview with the BBC.

“When a Church is actively supporting a war of aggression, failing to condemn nakedly obvious breaches in any kind of ethical conduct in wartime, then other churches have the right to raise the question and challenge it — to say, unless you can say something effective about this, something recognizably Christian, we have to look again at your membership.”

Present at the sermon Kirill delivered on Sunday were several representatives of Norilsk Nickel, the mining giant that helped construct the church where service took place. The corporation is helmed by Vladimir Potanin, an oligarch close to Putin.

Anonymous vows to continue cyber war against Putin’s Russia until aggression in Ukraine stops

Hasan Esen—Anadolu Agency/Getty Images

Carmela Chirinos
Mon, April 11, 2022

Hacker collective Anonymous continues to monitor Putin’s invasion of Ukraine and reports that it will continue its cyber war until Russia’s aggression stops.

In a recent tweet, Anonymous said it will continue hacking and releasing confidential information. The declaration came after recent reports of Russia's brutality in Ukraine.

https://twitter.com/YourAnonNews/status/1513598586772197378

Since Russia invaded Ukraine, the collective has leaked the data of 120,000 Russian soldiers. It also took over state-controlled television to show the real devastation in Ukraine.

https://twitter.com/YourAnonOne/status/1496965766435926039?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1496965766435926039%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_u0026ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fworld%2F2022%2Ffeb%2F27%2Fanonymous-the-hacker-collective-that-has-declared-cyberwar-on-russia

It also retweeted the S&P report that Russia had defaulted on its foreign debt by offering to pay in rubles.

https://twitter.com/YourAnonNews/status/1513580972364730374

Until last week, Russia had access to some of its frozen assets to pay back some of its investors in dollars. However, last week, the U.S. treasury blocked the country's access to its reserves in American banks.

Anonymous attacking Russia

Since the Ukraine invasion began in February, Anonymous has led a cyber war against Russia, claiming it successfully hacked into government and bank records.

Anonymous publicly said it hacked the personal information of 120,000 Russian soldiers, including dates of birth, addresses, passport numbers, and unit affiliations.

https://twitter.com/YourAnonNews/status/1510494900713840641?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1510494900713840641%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_u0026ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Ffortune.com%2F2022%2F04%2F04%2Fanonymous-leaks-russian-soldier-data-ukraine-invasion%2F

Anonymous also claimed it hacked the country’s central bank and stole 35,000 files. A Twitter account affiliated with the collective posted images of some of the alleged stolen documents.

https://twitter.com/Thblckrbbtworld/status/1506751109297287174

The collective also proudly posted on the official AnonymousTwitter account that it had hacked Russian television channels to show citizens the devastation of Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.

https://twitter.com/YourAnonTV/status/1500557635686486023?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1500558889678516224%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es2_u0026ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Ffortune.com%2F2022%2F03%2F07%2Fanonymous-claims-hack-of-russian-tvs-showing-putins-ukraine-invasion%2F

The hackers have also hacked a censorship agency, government, corporate, and news websites.

https://twitter.com/YourAnonNews/status/1499757707141726212?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1499757707141726212%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_u0026ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Ffortune.com%2F2022%2F03%2F18%2Fanonymous-cyberwar-on-putins-ukraine-invasion%2F

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

The Kremlin plans to send 100,000 Ukrainians to Siberia and the Arctic Circle, report says, as Zelenskyy warns of 'filtration camps' for captured people


Sophia Ankel
Tue, April 12, 2022,

Civilians trapped in Mariupol are evacuated in groups under the control of pro-Russian separatists, in Mariupol, Ukraine, on March 20, 2022.

Stringer/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images

Russians are forcibly sending Ukrainians to remote regions in Russia, Ukrainian officials said.

The Kremlin plans on sending them as far as Siberia and the Arctic Circle, The i reported.

Nearly 100,000 Ukrainians will be sent to these regions, The i said, citing a Kremlin document.

Russia plans to send nearly 100,000 Ukrainians as far as Siberia and the Arctic Circle, UK newspaper The i reported, as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy warned of "special filtration camps" for captured people.

A Kremlin document, cited by The i, shows Russia made an emergency order last month to forcibly move 95,739 Ukrainians to far-away regions in Russia.

The document suggests that Ukrainians will not be sent to major cities like Moscow or St. Petersburg, but rather to remote areas located thousands of miles away from their homes.

The areas include the Siberian town of Magadan, the Arctic port of Murmansk, and the Caucasus regions of Chechnya, Ingushetia, and Dagestan, according to The i.

Some Ukrainians are also being sent as far as Sakhalin — a Russian island in the Pacific Ocean, located just north of Japan — The i reported.

The regions have reportedly been told to update Moscow on new arrivals monthly.

The report comes after Ukrainian officials accused Russia of moving thousands of people from Mariupol — a heavily bombarded southern port city in Ukraine — to so-called "filtration camps" along the border before forcibly relocating them to far-away regions in Russia.

In a speech to the Lithuanian parliament on Tuesday, Zelenskyy said: "There are mass deportations of people from the occupied areas. Hundreds of thousands of people have already been deported."

"They are placed in special filtration camps," he added. "Documents are taken away from them. They are interrogated and humiliated. It is unknown how many are killed."

A temporary accommodation center where evacuees take shelter at a former sports hall in Taganrog in the Rostov region, Russia on March 21, 2022.Fedor Larin/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images

The Mariupol City Council said last month that Russians kidnapped 20,000 of the besieged city's residents.

Several women from Mariupol who said they were forced to go to the "filtration camps" have since spoken to media outlets, including The Guardian and The Washington Post, about what their experience was like.

One unnamed woman told the Post that she was brought via bus to the Ukrainian border town of Novoazovsk after Russian soldiers found her sheltering in an underground bunker.

Once in Novoazovsk, the woman told the post she was interrogated by men who said they were part of the Russian security service, the FSB. She said she was photographed and fingerprinted and also had to hand over her phone and passwords.

"At all stages of the journey, we were treated like captives or some criminals. I felt like a sack of potatoes tossed around," the woman told the Post.

Another unnamed woman told The Guardian that she, alongside "two or three hundred" others, faced interrogation and had her personal items confiscated at the "filtration camp" in Novoazovsk.

"It was very degrading," she told The Guardian about the interrogation.

Both women were able to break away from their groups and managed to escape to Europe, according to the Post and The Guardian.

Russia has denied that anyone from Ukraine is being relocated against their will, the Post reported.

Last month, the Kremlin said it had rescued 420,000 people "from dangerous regions of Ukraine, the Donetsk and Luhansk People's Republics" and evacuated them to Russia, according to the Post.

A small tent camp in Sri Lankan city becomes focus of national protests



Gota-Go village run by protestors, in Colombo

   

   

Tue, April 12, 2022,
By Uditha Jayasinghe and Devjyot Ghoshal

COLOMBO (Reuters) - On a patch of grass near Sri Lankan President Gotabaya Rajapaksa's office in the commercial capital Colombo, around two dozen tents have been erected in a small but growing camp that is becoming the focal point of national protests.

Thousands of people have taken to the streets nearby and across the country in recent days to call for Rajapaksa to step down, venting their anger at soaring inflation and lengthy power cuts caused by the spiralling economic crisis.

On a handwritten board next to the tents, not far from the colonial-era presidential building adjoining Colombo's water front, stands the sign: "Gota-Go Village".

The slogan "Gota go back," also referring to Gotabaya, is being chanted at demonstrations sweeping Sri Lanka, in an unprecedented public outcry that has brought together people of different faiths, ethnicities and social groups.

Close to the protest camp on Monday evening, a group of Christian nuns in white habits walked past a police barricade, atop which 11 protesters sat chanting. One held a poster saying "Our Govt Failed Us".

A short distance away, three Buddhist monks in bright saffron robes stood amid the crowd.

'OUR ONLY HOPE'

At the edge of a lawn, behind some tents, around 30 Muslim men sat in two lines to break their Ramadan fast.

Farzana F. Haniffa, a professor of sociology at the University of Colombo, said the protest site had become a space where all Sri Lankans could come together in a rare show of unity.

One common cause was anger at what protesters said was economic mismanagement by the Rajapaksa family.

Mahinda Rajapaksa, the president's elder brother, serves as prime minister and their younger brother, Basil, was finance minister until recently.

The administration says it is doing what it can to drag Sri Lanka out of a crisis that has left it unable to buy fuel and medicine and struggling to pay its debts.

Some protesters said they would only leave if the Rajapaksas stepped down. Mahinda Rajapaksa said in a televised address that the protests were hampering attempts to improve the situation.

Walking around barefoot early on Tuesday, after another night of heavy rain, Mary Suwen was rearranging tents that her husband had brought in from his adventure tourism business.

"The country is in a crisis so you can't stay at home," said Suwen, 27, a civil engineer.

"We need to pressure them," she said, talking of the Rajapaksas. "They need to be accountable to the people."

Gagana Atapattu, 22, said he was part of the election campaign that brought Gotabaya Rajapaksa to power in 2019, but now regretted working for him.

"I'm now suffering for what I did," he said, as he helped to manage donations of food, water and other supplies that Sri Lankans were bringing to be stored in large open tents.

Among those donating was Y.C. Kanthi, who waited in a long queue for fuel and then drove 15 km (9 miles) to deliver a pile of buns stuffed with caramelised onions for the protesters.

"I gave a special order to a nearby bakery and had them made for these youngsters," said Kanthi, 53. "They are our future, they are our only hope out of this mess."

(Reporting by Uditha Jayasinghe and Devjyot Ghoshal; Editing by Mike Collett-White and Janet Lawrence)

INSIGHT-Drugs running out, surgeries cancelled as Sri Lanka's health system buckles


* Sri Lankan healthcare system hit hard by economic crisis

* Some patients unable to access key drugs through state hospitals

* Some medical procedures being suspended due to shortages

* Officials hope aid from India, WHO will relieve pressure

By Devjyot Ghoshal and Uditha Jayasinghe

COLOMBO, April 12 (Reuters) - Rosanne White was first diagnosed with cancer eight years ago and lost a kidney. After the cancer returned five years ago, an oncologist in Sri Lanka's commercial capital Colombo started her on Bevacizumab last May, a treatment she was responding to.

White, a 58-year-old Sri Lankan retiree, said she had received the injections free of charge as part of the country's universal government health system, which the vast majority of its 22 million people depend on.

But after 13 rounds of treatment, White said she now cannot find the injection in government hospitals.

Bevacizumab costs 113,000 Sri Lankan rupees ($359) per shot in the private market and, because she does not have insurance, White said the costs were eating into her limited savings.

"We have to call the hospital before going in for treatment to find out if our medication is available," White told Reuters. "But what do you do when the nurses say the hospital doesn't have the medication?"

White's struggle to find Bevacizumab in state-run facilities is an early sign of how Sri Lanka's healthcare system is close to collapse, under the weight of the island nation's worst economic crisis. As well as shortages of vital drugs, some procedures and tests have been suspended.

The lack of foreign exchange has left President Gotabaya Rajapaksa's government unable to import essentials including medicines and fuel, causing crippling power cuts and bringing thousands of protesters on to the streets demanding his ouster.

Reuters spoke to two government officials, six doctors and a healthcare union leader who said they had not seen Sri Lanka's health system in such a bad way before.

An internal memo from a major state-run hospital in Colombo seen by Reuters said that only emergency, casualty and malignancy surgeries would be conducted from April 7 onwards because of a lack of surgical supplies.

Sri Lanka's health ministry did not respond to detailed questions from Reuters about the problems facing the sector.

The economy, which relies heavily on tourism, has been devastated by the COVID-19 pandemic and hit by the sharp rise in oil prices in the wake of the war in Ukraine, which has made importing enough fuel unaffordable.

Some analysts have also criticised Rajapaksa's administration for its decision in 2019 to make deep tax cuts and delay talks with the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Those negotiations are now going ahead.

A close aide to the Rajapaksas has said previously that the tax cuts had been designed to boost the economy, but that COVID-19 then struck.

Sri Lanka now has just $1.93 billion in foreign exchange reserves, the equivalent of less than a month's imports, while government debt repayments of twice that amount are due in 2022.

The Sri Lanka Medical Association, the country's oldest professional medical body, wrote to Rajapaksa last week warning him that even emergency treatments may have to be stopped in the coming days.

"This will result in a catastrophic number of deaths," the association said.

'CRUCIAL FIVE MINUTES'

In late March, a 70-year-old woman was wheeled into a government-backed tertiary care hospital in a Colombo suburb. The patient was in septic shock, leading to dangerously low blood pressure.

The doctor dealing with the emergency said the patient ideally needed to be injected with albumin.

"In this case, it wasn't available," said the doctor, who declined to be identified because hospital medical staff are not authorised to speak to the media. "Which means I lost a crucial five minutes."

The patient died, the doctor said.

Out of 1,325 drugs that the government provides to state-run hospitals, three life-saving medicines have completely run out and another 140 essential ones are in short supply, the secretary to Sri Lanka's pharmaceuticals ministry said.

"This will not end in two months," Saman Rathnayake told Reuters. "The dollar crisis will go on."

But he added that new sources of supply could help alleviate immediate shortages.

Some medicines ordered through a credit line with neighbouring India, which supplies 80% of the island's requirement, would likely arrive within two weeks.

"If this Indian credit line works, there won't be an issue for the next six months," Rathnayake said.

Beyond that, Sri Lanka has sought help from the World Health Organization, the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank. "Their things will come after six months," he said. "That is how we've planned."

Desperate for supplies, some doctors' groups have made public appeals for donations.

Running out of endotracheal (ET) tubes used to help newborn infants with respiratory distress, the Perinatal Society of Sri Lanka issued a list of supplies that can be donated via the health ministry.

"We have almost used all the stocks and no ET tubes will be available in few weeks," the society's president Saman Kumara said in a letter shared on social media.

"I have instructed (staff) not to discard used ET tubes but to clean and sterilize them from now onwards as we may have to reuse them."

A list of out-of-stock supplies from the major state-run hospital in southern Colombo seen by Reuters featured more than 40 items, including urethral catheters, different types of tubes, umbilical cord clamps and glucose test strips used for checking blood sugar levels.

'WE ARE FIGHTING'

A crowd of patients waited on plastic chairs and wooden benches inside a large, brightly lit hall at a major government hospital in northern Colombo late last week.

The hospital, which records around 50,000 patient visits every month with a staff of just over 2,500, is one of the country's major urban health facilities that serves multiple districts, an official said.

"We are still fighting," the official said, asking that he and the hospital not be named. "But I don't know how long we can maintain services."

Last August, as early signs of a brewing crisis became clear, the official said the hospital stopped infrastructure improvements and major renovations, diverting the money to shore up medical supplies.

In recent weeks, after Sri Lanka devalued its currency amid soaring inflation, the official said the cost of medical supplies had increased by 30-40% and put further pressure on the finances of the hospital, already some 350 million rupees ($1.11 million) in debt.

Overall, the government owed around 4 billion rupees ($12.70 million) to suppliers of items such as gloves and reagents used for medical testing, said Rathnayake from the pharmaceutical ministry.

Ravi Kumudesh, president of the Medical Laboratory Technologists Association, said testing had dropped by 30%, with some high-end tests completely stopped. Maintenance of equipment like Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) machines has also been delaye

"There is a gap between the treatment a patient should be getting and what they are getting," Kumudesh told Reuters.

"No one is being held accountable. Even though we are not calculating the numbers, people are dying," he said.

In an interview with Reuters on Saturday, Sri Lanka's new Finance Minister Ali Sabry said his first priority was to stabilise the supply of essentials such as medicines.

But for patients like White, coping with the crisis is becoming increasingly difficult. Slow-release morphine tablets to manage pain are often not available, she said.

"The other day my son went to get it and came back empty-handed," White said.

"I feel very helpless ... I cannot even go to a protest." ($1 = 315.0000 Sri Lankan rupees) (Reporting by Devjyot Ghoshal and Uditha Jayasinghe; Editing by Mike Collett-White and Raju Gopalakrishnan)

Psaki rumors, Mulvaney hire at CBS News trouble journalists


White House press secretary Jen Psaki speaks during a press briefing at the White House in Washington on March 9, 2022, left, and then White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney addresses the media at the White House on Oct. 17, 2019. The hiring of non-journalists as contributors to television news organizations isn't new. Far less common is seeing pushback from the journalists working there, as has happened recently at CBS and NBC News. CBS is hiring Mulvaney, a former Trump administration official and MSNBC is in discussions to hire Psaki when her time in the Biden administration is through. 

DAVID BAUDER
Tue, April 12, 2022,

NEW YORK (AP) — The hiring of non-journalists as contributors to television news organizations isn't new. Far less common is seeing pushback to such decisions from journalists working there, as has happened recently at CBS and NBC News.

Discontent emerged over CBS' hiring of former Trump administration official Mick Mulvaney as a commentator and discussions about current White House press secretary Jen Psaki working at MSNBC when her time in the Biden administration is through.

In both cases, journalists have been quiet publicly about their concerns over the decisions. Because of concern about Psaki — which has raised ethical issues for the press secretary — NBC News President Noah Oppenheim was compelled to address the discussions in a phone meeting with Washington-based staff, first reported by CNN.

While both cases are different, the fact that these internal complaints surfaced illustrates some of the pressures many journalists feel under, said Mark Whitaker, a former executive at NBC News, CNN and Newsweek. They already work in a hyper-partisan time and face accusations of promoting “fake news,” he said.

“There's a feeling of ‘this just makes our job harder when we’re under attack anyway,'” Whitaker said.

Each case is more complex than rubbing elbows at the water cooler with a partisan.

Neither MSNBC nor Psaki have publicly confirmed their talks about a role there. MSNBC has already hired Symone Sanders, former chief spokeswoman for Vice President Kamala Harris, for a job that begins in May. NBC News has taken pains to draw distinctions between its journalists and MSNBC, which has beefed up its opinion programming, although that's awkward when journalists like Andrea Mitchell and Chuck Todd both have shows on the cable network.

At least until the situation becomes clearer, NBC News journalists are put in the uncomfortable position of having professional contact with someone who may soon become a colleague.

NBC White House correspondent Kristen Welker asked Psaki about her status at a recent White House briefing, saying “is it ethical for you to keep conducting this job while negotiating with a media outlet?”

Without confirming or denying those talks, Psaki said she had already gone “over and above” stringent ethical requirements. Welker followed up twice, asking “how can you be an effective briefer if you do, in fact, have plans to join a media outlet?”

Psaki said she has taken steps to make sure there is no conflict. While the situation is still in flux, CNN reported that she is not expected to do any on-camera interviews with NBC News or MSNBC personnel, and won't be involved in decisions about booking administration officials on the networks.

Oppenheim declined an opportunity to discuss the issue, through a spokesman.

CBS News said Mulvaney's signing was part of the network's buildup of its roster of contributors in advance of the 2022 midterm and 2024 presidential elections. The news division's co-president, Neeraj Khemlani, said in a staff meeting prior to the announcement that CBS is making sure that it hires contributors that ensure the network has access to officials in both parties with a midterm election looming, according to a tape of that meeting provided to the Washington Post.

In addition to internal grumbling, CBS News received outside criticism; Post columnist Margaret Sullivan, for example, blasted the “ galling cynicism ” of the move. A former congressman, Mulvaney served Trump as chief of staff, as well as director of the Office of Management and Budget.

CBS has had other like-minded outsiders as contributors, like former Trump chief of staff Reince Priebus, and it recently announced the signing of former national security adviser H.R. McMaster.

Mulvaney, however, drew criticism for lying when he publicly admitted Trump had withheld aid to Ukraine to pressure the country into investigating political opponents, then later suggesting he hadn't said that. In the early days of the coronavirus, he said the media was hyping the virus as a way to bring down Trump.

“Even in opinion journalism, a respect for facts is essential,” said Geneva Overholser, a veteran consultant who's worked at both the University of Missouri and USC Annenberg journalism schools.

“I read the CBS staff reaction as trying to hold onto that principle, to continue to uphold the network's honor,” she said. “More power to them.”

Khemlani was not made available for an interview. CBS said that when Mulvaney makes appearances as a commentator on political news, he will be with news anchors who can give context to his statements.

Since the March 29 announcement that he'd been hired as a contributor, he's appeared once on the network's streaming service but not yet on TV, a spokeswoman said.

Canada's housing bubble is a cautionary tale for the US real estate market


Alcynna Lloyd
Wed, April 13, 2022

Edwin Remsberg/Getty Images

Canada's housing market is in overdrive as prices soar to record highs.


That's because, like in the US, there aren't enough homes for sale to meet demand.


The US housing market is starting to resemble Canada's — and should be a cautionary tale for us all.

Canada's red hot housing market is in overdrive as housing affordability sinks — it sounds too familiar to Americans.

The national average home price in Canada climbed to $816,720 CAN in February, hitting an all-time high according to the Canadian Real Estate Association, and 50% higher than that of the median US home price when converted to USD. The 20.6% year-over-year growth is attributed to a home buying frenzy — like that in the US — that was spurred on by record low mortgage rates in 2020.


In both the US and Canada, the problems in the housing market boil down to the simple fact that there just aren't enough homes to house everyone who wants to buy, following years of underbuilding and investors entering the market looking to make a profit.

"Ultimately, to tame housing affordability challenges, more homes and apartments must be built," Robert Dietz, National Association of Homebuilders chief economist, told Insider.

Although home prices showed signs of cooling in March, Canada's tremendous lack of available housing remains a hurdle stabilizing the market. To aid the recovery, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's government last week announced a two year ban on home purchases by foreign investors, among other measures, in hopes of cooling demand in the oversaturated housing market.

But housing experts say the move is just not enough.

"I don't think prices are going to fall as a result, though I do think it takes away at least some of the competition in what is the most competitive market in Canadian housing history," Simeon Papailias, founder of real estate investment firm REC Canada told Bloomberg, adding that it's unlikely that a "two-year band-aid" is going to have an impact on a fundamental lack of homes.

As housing affordability plummets in Canada, it's impossible to ignore the similarities to the US real estate market. Whatever side of the border you're on, one thing is clear — housing availability is shockingly low in Canada and the US. If more homes aren't built to meet housing demand, the US could follow in Canada's footsteps.
Canada's housing bubble could be the future of the US real estate market

Canada may have the lowest average number of homes available per capita – but America isn't doing too hot either.

According to HUD and the US Census Bureau, housing starts — the number of privately owned new houses on which construction has been started in the US — increased 6.8% in February. However, the NAHB estimates there are still 152,000 single-family units that have yet to begin construction. This is up 24.6% from a year ago and marks a four-month high of delayed starts.

Dietz said that's helping. "However, the availability of materials, lumber, labor and lots remain key headwinds, with access to labor in particular likely to become more challenging in 2022," he said.

Employment has also been a huge challenge for the US homebuilding sector, which has experienced some of the worst job losses of the pandemic. Between December 2019 and December 2020, the field lost nearly 441,000 jobs. Although the construction employment rate is up 5.15% since Feb 2020, job losses have been damning.

According to the Home Builders Institute, 2.2 million new workers are needed within the next three years to meet housing demand. Until employment improves, the NAHB estimates the US real estate market lacks at least one million single-family homes.

While there are notable differences between the US and Canadian real estate market, the lack of available home for sale has prompted experts to discuss a possible bubble in the US market as well. As affordability plunges in Canada, it stands as a reminder of how inventory can offset a real estate market. With US housing supply remaining near four-decade lows and home prices surging to $405,000 in March, America may not be too far behind its northern neighbor.

The solution for both countries, Dietz said, is simple in theory, but harder in practice:

"The key to improving housing affordability is increasing inventory."