REDUX

Report calls out rising extremism in Canada military

Canada's Prime minister Justin Trudeau talks with soldiers during a visit of the Adazi military base, north east of Riga, Latvia, in March 2022.

 (AFP/Toms Norde) (Toms Norde)


Mon, April 25, 2022

The number of white supremacists and other violent extremists within Canada's military is growing at an "alarming rate" and commanders are not doing enough to root it out, a report said Monday.

The report by a four-member government advisory panel also found widespread anti-Indigenous and Black racism, Islamophobia and anti-Semitism, as well as gender bias and prejudice against gays and lesbians within military ranks.

A failure to address these issues, it concluded, "negatively impacts operational capabilities, undermines the well-being of (military) members, and puts the security of Canada in peril."

"The reality is that systemic racism exists in our institution and we need to root it out and eliminate it," Defense Minister Anita Anand told a news conference.


She noted that a total of Can$326.5 million (US$256 million) had been earmarked in the last two federal budgets "for culture change in the military."

The report found that "in addition to sexual misconduct and domestic violence, hate crimes, extremist behaviours and affiliations to white supremacy groups are growing at an alarming rate."

It noted that members of extremist groups are becoming better at hiding their activities and affiliations, for example using encryption and Darknet, while the military's efforts to detect extremist pockets or individuals are "still very much siloed and inefficient."

And despite a zero tolerance for hateful behaviour, when it is found out, the consequences for such conduct or affiliation with hate groups "is not standardized," it said.

Advisory panel member Ed Fitch said military leaders "still don't know enough about these groups, who they are, where they are" and that a concerted effort is needed "to completely clean out this nasty area."

Over the past 20 years, some 258 recommendations stemming from dozens of inquiries were made to address diversity, inclusion, respect and professional conduct in the military.

But when the panel tried to identify progress on those recommendations, it found that many of them were "poorly implemented, shelved or even discarded," noted Sandra Perron, another panel member.

The advisory panel made 13 of its own recommendations.

Chief of the Defense Staff, General Wayne Eyre, said the top challenge is that "once the spotlight goes on (these groups), they change their names, they change their symbology."

"As hate groups become mainstream in our society we have to be very vigilant and continue to educate ourselves as to what these signs and symbols are," he said.

amc/jh

Somalia affair - Wikipedia

https://en.wikipedia.org › wiki › Somalia_affair

The Somalia affair was a 1993 Canadian military scandal. It peaked with the beating to death of a Somali teenager at the hands of two Canadian soldiers ...

‎Background · ‎Canadian Airborne Regiment · ‎Airborne in Somalia · ‎Somalia Inquiry

Missing: 101ST ‎| Must include: 101ST

Rites of Passage and Group Bonding in the Canadian Airborne

https://www.jstor.org › stable

by D WINSLOW · 1999 · Cited by 232 — As one soldier put it: "I am proud to have done it, it proves to myself and others that as a member of the Canadian Airborne Regiment, I will face

Right-Wing Extremism, Radicalization, and the Canadian ...

https://www.cfc.forces.gc.ca › Boire

PDF

by MS Boire — Right-wing extremism spreads hate and causes hateful conduct, incites radicalization, fosters disenfranchisement and dissent, and challenges ...

• 
  

  Manifestation of Hateful Conduct to Radical Extremism as a ...

  https://www.cfc.forces.gc.ca › csc › mds › Vandor

  PDF

  by MAT Vandor — extremist acts of violence continue to be both consistent and persistent. ... numerous members of the Canadian Airborne Regiment (CAR). ... 101-113).

Far-right infiltration of Canada's military poses a serious threat ...

https://www.cbc.ca › radio › day6 › far-right-infiltratio.

.

.

Sept 18, 2020 — Earlier this week, Lt.-Gen. Wayne Eyre of the Canadian army told CBC News that he plans to issue a special order that will give Canadian army ...

Missing: 101ST ‎AIRBORNE

Drop in Vaccines Exposes Latin American Children to Disease, Report Shows

April 25, 2022
Agence France-Presse

A Venezuelan woman and her baby are vaccinated against measles in Cucuta, Colombia, at the international brigde Simon Bolivar on the border with Venezuela, on March 21, 2018.

PANAMA CITY, PANAMA —

One in four children in Latin America and the Caribbean does not have vaccine protection against three potentially deadly diseases, a U.N. report said Monday, warning of plummeting inoculation rates.

While 90% of children in the region in 2015 had received the vaccine for diphtheria, tetanus and whooping cough (DTP3), by 2020 coverage had dropped to three-quarters, according to the U.N. Children's Fund (UNICEF) and the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO), a regional office of the World Health Organization.

This means that some 2.5 million children were not fully protected — and 1.5 million of them have not had even one dose in the three-shot regimen.

Globally, according to WHO, 17.1 million infants did not receive an initial dose of the DTP3 vaccine in 2020, and another 5.6 million were only partially jabbed.

Outbreaks of preventable diseases "have already occurred" in Latin America and the Caribbean, the agencies said.

A health worker applies a vaccine against diphtheria to a baby in Lima, on Oct. 28, 2020.

In 2013, only five people in the region contracted diphtheria — a bacterial disease that can cause breathing difficulties, heart failure and potentially death.

Five years later, the number was nearly 900.

There has also been a rise in cases of measles — another disease that can be prevented with inoculation — from nearly 500 cases in 2013 to more than 23,000 in 2019, said the statement.

"The decline in vaccination rates in the region is alarming," said UNICEF regional director Jean Gough.

The reasons were multifold.

"The context in the region has changed in the last five years. Governments have focused their attention on other emerging public health issues such as Zika, chikungunya and more recently COVID-19," UNICEF neonatal expert Ralph Midy told AFP.

"The existence of migrant populations that are difficult to locate and do not always have access to regular health services, in addition to people living in isolated or hard-to-reach areas, also hinders the vaccination process," Midy said.

The downward trend started even before the COVID-19 epidemic, which worsened the situation by interrupting primary health care services and causing some people to avoid clinics and hospitals for fear of the virus.

"As countries recover from the pandemic, immediate actions are needed to prevent (vaccine) coverage rates from further dropping, because the re-emergence of disease outbreaks poses a serious risk to all of society," said Gough.

Overuse and climate change kill off Iraq's Sawa Lake




A meagre pond is all that remains of the once flourishing wetlands 

known as Sawa Lake in southern Iraq's al-Muthanna province 

(AFP/Asaad NIAZI)

Tony GAMAL-GABRIEL
Mon, April 25, 2022

A "No Fishing" sign on the edge of Iraq's western desert is one of the few clues that this was once Sawa Lake, a biodiverse wetland and recreational landmark.

Human activity and climate change have combined to turn the site into a barren wasteland with piles of salt.

Abandoned hotels and tourist facilities here hark back to the 1990s when the salt lake, circled by sandy banks, was in its heyday and popular with newly-weds and families who came to swim and picnic.

But today, the lake near the city of Samawa, south of the capital Baghdad, is completely dry.

Bottles litter its former banks and plastic bags dangle from sun-scorched shrubs, while two pontoons have been reduced to rust.

"This year, for the first time, the lake has disappeared," environmental activist Husam Subhi said. "In previous years, the water area had decreased during the dry seasons."

Today, on the sandy ground sprinkled with salt, only a pond remains where tiny fish swim, in a source that connects the lake to an underground water table.

The five-square-kilometre (two-square-mile) lake has been drying up since 2014, says Youssef Jabbar, environmental department head of Muthana province.

The causes have been "climate change and rising temperatures," he explained.

"Muthana is a desert province, it suffers from drought and lack of rainfall."

Bottles and plastic bags litter what were once the banks of Sawa Lake

 (AFP/Asaad NIAZI)

- 1,000 illegal wells -

A government statement issued last week also pointed to "more than 1,000 wells illegally dug" for agriculture in the area.

Additionally, nearby cement and salt factories have "drained significant amounts of water from the groundwater that feeds the lake", Jabbar said.

It would take nothing short of a miracle to bring Sawa Lake back to life.

Use of aquifers would have to be curbed and, following three years of drought, the area would now need several seasons of abundant rainfall, in a country hit by desertification and regarded as one of the five most vulnerable to climate change.

The Ramsar Convention on Wetlands, a global treaty, recognised Sawa as "unique... because it is a closed water body in an area of sabkha (salt flat) with no inlet or outlet.

"The lake is formed over limestone rock and is isolated by gypsum barriers surrounding the lake; its water chemistry is unique," says the convention's website.

A stopover for migratory birds, the lake was once "home to several globally vulnerable species" such as the eastern imperial eagle, houbara bustard and marbled duck.

The dried-up bed of Sawa Lake

 (AFP/Asaad NIAZI)

- 'Lake died before me' -

Sawa is not the only body of water in Iraq facing the perils of drought.

Iraqi social media is often filled with photos of grotesquely cracked soil, such as in the UNESCO-listed Howeiza marshes in the south, or Razzaza Lake in the central province of Karbala.

In Sawa, a sharp drop in rainfall -- now only 30 percent of what used to be normal for the region -- has lowered the underground water table, itself drained by wells, said Aoun Dhiab, a senior advisor at Iraq's water resources ministry.

And rising temperatures have increased evaporation.

Abandoned hotels that once catered for lakeside tourists

 (AFP/Asaad NIAZI)

Dhiab said authorities have banned the digging of new wells and are working to close illegally-dug wells across the country.

Latif Dibes, who divides his time between his hometown of Samawa and his adopted country of Sweden, has worked for the past decade to raise environmental awareness.



The former driving school instructor cleans up the banks of the Euphrates River and has turned the vast, lush garden of his home into a public park.

He remembers the school trips and holidays of his childhood, when the family would go swimming at Sawa.

"If the authorities had taken an interest, the lake would not have disappeared at this rate. It's unbelievable," he said.

"I am 60 years old and I grew up with the lake. I thought I would disappear before it, but unfortunately, it has died before me."

tgg/gde/hc/fz/dwo

Ancient goddess sculpture found by farmer in Gaza Strip

Mon, April 25, 2022

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip (AP) — A Palestinian farmer found a rare 4,500-year-old stone sculpture while working his land in the southern Gaza Strip, ruling Hamas authorities announced Monday.

The Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities said the 22-centimeter (6.7-inch) tall limestone head is believed to represent the Canaanite goddess Anat and is estimated to be dated to around 2,500 B.C.

“Anat was the goodness of love, beauty, and war in the Canaanite mythology,” said Jamal Abu Rida, the ministry’s director, in a statement.

Gaza, a narrow enclave on the Mediterranean Sea, boasts a trove of antiquities and archaeological sites as it was a major land route connecting ancient civilizations in Egypt, the Levant and Mesopotamia.

But discovered antiquities frequently disappear and development projects are given priority over the preservation of archaeological sites beneath the urban sprawl needed to accommodate 2.3 million people packed into the densely populated territory.

In 2017, the militant Hamas group, which had seized control of the Gaza Strip a decade earlier, destroyed large parts of a rare Canaanite settlement to make way for a housing development for its own employees.

And to date, a life-size statue of the Greek god Apollo that had surfaced in 2013 and then disappeared has yet to be found.

In January, bulldozers digging for an Egyptian-funded housing project unearthed the ruins of a tomb dating back to the Roman era.

Image: pinterest.com

Anat or Anath is the Canaanite warrior Goddess, the maiden who loves battle, the virgin Goddess of sacrifice, a warrior and archer. She is famous for having a violent temperament and for taking joy in slaughter.

Anat, the Canaanite Goddess of War and Sacrifice

thaliatook.com/AMGG/anat.php

Anath: Bible - Jewish Women's Archive

https://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/anath-bible

Anath (Anat) is a prominent figure in the Canaanite mythological texts, dating to c. 1400 BCE, discovered at Ugarit on the Syrian coast. She is a maiden/warrior goddess, the sister or consort of the fertility and storm god Baal. She plays a major role in the Ugaritic myths, rescuing Baal from the underworld and defeating Mot, the god of death.

Anat - Ancient Egypt Online

https://ancientegyptonline.co.uk/anat

Anat (also known as Anant, Anit, Anti, Anthat and Antit) was an ancient Canaanite 

Anat - Wikipedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anat

• Overview
• In Egypt
• In Ugarit
• In Mesopotamia
• In Israel
• In Phoenician and Cyprian inscriptions, Athene
• Possible late transfigurations
• See also

Anat is sporadically attested in Egypt since the 18th century BCE, and is found in the name of Anat-her, a fragmentarily attested figure (possibly a Hyksos ruler) of the 12th, 15th or 16th dynasty whose name means "Anat is content" and is taken to indicate Canaanite descent. As a warrior-goddess, Anat was one of several Syrian / northwest Semitic deities who was prominently worshipped by the warrior-pharaohs of the 16th Dynasty. She was often paired with the goddess

Wikipedia · Text under CC-BY-SA license

ANAT Meaning- Palestinian Mythological Goddess – ANAT ...

https://anat-international.com/blogs/news/goddess-anat

2020-02-11 · Anat was a revered Goddess in Canaanite mythology. Before we explain what the Goddess Anat represents, it is integral to first briefly highlight key aspects of Canaanite 

ABC News Exclusive: Dr. Birx speaks to Trump disinfectant moment, says colleagues had resignation pact

BEN GITTLESON
Mon, April 25, 2022,

ABC News Exclusive: Dr. Birx speaks to Trump disinfectant moment, says colleagues had resignation pact


The coronavirus response coordinator for President Donald Trump's COVID task force, Dr. Deborah Birx, told ABC News in an exclusive interview that she became "paralyzed" when Trump raised the possibility of injecting disinfectant into people to treat the virus – and revealed how she thinks data meant to keep New York City playgrounds open led the president to make that ill-advised jump.

PHOTO: Dr. Deborah Birx, White House coronavirus response coordinator, speaks with President Donald Trump and members of the coronavirus task force during a briefing in the James S. Brady Press Briefing Room at the White House, April 23, 2020. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post via Getty Images)

Birx, who spoke with Dr. Jennifer Ashton, ABC News' chief medical correspondent, before the Tuesday release of her new book, also said she had a pact with other doctors on Trump's team – including Anthony Fauci – that if one of them was fired, then they would all resign.

From the start, she wrote in the book, "Silent Invasion: The Untold Story of the Trump Administration, COVID-19, and Preventing the Next Pandemic Before It’s Too Late," she was unequipped to deal with the toxic political atmosphere that was the Trump White House.


MORE: Birx on Trump's disinfectant 'injection' moment: 'I still think about it every day'

And even though she was the only one on Trump’s team with on-the-ground experience dealing with a deadly pandemic, she was constantly sidelined, she said.
’I wanted it to be “The Twilight Zone”’

But many Americans have come to associate Birx with her failure to more forcefully correct Trump during that White House press briefing on April 23, 2020.

New York City had recently closed its playgrounds and, according to Birx, a Department of Homeland Security scientist had just briefed Trump on how it appeared sunlight made them safe.

PHOTO: Dr. Deborah Birx is interviewed by ABC's Dr. Jennifer Ashton, April 24, 2022. (ABC News)

"So supposing we hit the body with a tremendous -- whether it's ultraviolet or just a very powerful light -- and I think you said that hasn't been checked because of the testing," Trump said. "And then I said, supposing you brought the light inside the body, which you can do either through the skin or in some other way, and I think you said you're going to test that, too."

"I see the disinfectant that knocks it out in a minute, one minute. And is there a way we can do something like that by injection inside or almost a cleaning? As you see, it gets in the lungs, it does a tremendous number on the lungs, so it would be interesting to check that," the president continued.

“I wanted to be able to reassure the parents that the natural disinfection activity of the sun, with its ability to produce those free radicals that eat these viruses and bacteria and fungi, their membranes, that that would work,” Birx told Ashton. “And that they could get their children outside to play on the playground.”

But when Birx said she saw Trump and the government scientist informally continue their conversation before cameras – and the president make the leap to publicly question whether humans could be treated with disinfectant – she shifted uncomfortably in her seat.

"I just wanted it to be 'The Twilight Zone' and all go away," Birx said. "I mean, I just-- I could just see everything unraveling in that moment."

MORE: More than 100 million Americans have received 1st COVID booster shot since August

Birx also addressed that moment in a Monday interview with "Good Morning America."

"This was a tragedy on many levels," she told co-anchor George Stephanopoulos.

"I immediately went to his most senior staff, and to Olivia Troye, and said this has to be reversed immediately," she said; Troye was an adviser to then-Vice President Mike Pence.

PHOTO: Dr. Deborah Birx, White House coronavirus response coordinator, listens as President Donald Trump speaks with members of the coronavirus task force during a briefing in the James S. Brady Press Briefing Room at the White House, April 23, 2020. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post via Getty Images)

"And by the next morning, the president was saying that was a joke," Birx said. "But I think he knew by that evening, clearly, that this was dangerous."

Birx said she was concerned Americans thought Trump had been speaking directly to her, when in reality he was mainly speaking with the Homeland Security scientist. Trump did at one point, though, ask her: "Deborah, have you ever heard of that? The heat and the light, relative to certain viruses, yes, but relative to this virus?"

"Not as a treatment," she replied. "I mean, certainly fever is a good thing. When you have a fever, it helps your body respond. But not as — I’ve not seen heat or (inaudible)."

Birx now says she regretted not saying more.

"We had spent so much time getting everyone to take the virus seriously, and we had these whole series of actions that were critical to saving American lives in that moment," Birx said. "And I could see everything would be unraveled after that moment
Birx: Doctors had pact to resign

Birx also wrote in her book about how she had a pact with other doctors on Trump's coronavirus task force that if one of them was removed from the task force, then all of them would resign from it.

She said the doctors included Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases; Robert Redfield, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; and Stephen Hahn, the commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration.

PHOTO: Dr. Deborah Birx is interviewed by ABC's Dr. Jennifer Ashton, April 24, 2022. (ABC News)

"I actually wasn't worried about myself being fired because I was dual-hatted, and I would go back to the State Department and my PEPFAR job, full time," Birx told Ashton, referring to her role as the coordinator of the U.S. government's program to combat HIV/AIDS, the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief.

MORE: Trump claims 'virus is receding' one day after Birx says pandemic 'extraordinarily widespread'

"I was very worried about Bob and Steve-- because you can hear in the hallways how people were talking about them," she said, referring to Redfield and Hahn. "And so, I went to the vice president multiple times to call Bob and Steve because I was worried about them feeling like they were--at that risk. And I was very clear to the chief of staff that if anything happened to Bob or Steve, we would all leave."

Asked if that ever came close to happening, Birx said "there were times that I felt like Steve particularly was under a lot of pressure" over vaccine development.

"I wanted him to know that I had his back, no matter what," she said. "And I think all of us knew-- all of us knew what it was like to be there and in the trenches. Although, they got to go home after the task force and back to their agencies. I was still in the White House.

"But," she continued, "they had enough understanding about what was happening in the White House to understand that all of us were at risk at one time or another."

ABC News Exclusive: Dr. Birx speaks to Trump disinfectant moment, says colleagues had resignation pact originally appeared on abcnews.go.com

Jameela Jamil quits Twitter after Elon Musk buys site for $44bn


Nicole Vassell
Mon, April 25, 2022,

Jameela Jamil has announced that she’s leaving Twitter after news that Elon Musk has purchased the platform.

The Tesla founder successfully acquired the social media site on Monday (25 April) for around $44bn (£34.5bn). As a result, Twitter will now be a privately owned company.

Hours before the announcement, billionaire Musk urged his “worst critics” to stay on Twitter.

Users of the site have been reacting to news of the sale, with some announcing that they’d be abandoning their accounts.

Former The Good Place actor and presenter Jamil has stated that she’d also be leaving the platform due to fears of how the environment will change under Musk’s ownership.


She sent a final message to her followers, attaching four photos of herself with her pet dog.

“Ah he got Twitter,” Jamil’s message began. “I would like this to be my what lies here as my last tweet. Just really *any* excuse to show pics of Barold.”



She continued her goodbye statement by sharing worries that Musk’s proposed bid to encourage free speech would lead to further harmful behaviour on the site.

She wrote: “I fear this free speech bid is going to help this hell platform reach its final form of totally lawless hate, bigotry, and misogyny. Best of luck.”

Jamil had previously hinted at her plans to stop using the site if Musk’s acquisition succeeded. Earlier on Monday, she tweeted: “One good thing about Elon buying Twitter is that I will *FINALLY* leave and stop being a complete menace to society on here. So it’s win win for you all really.”

Musk-ruled Twitter: users left to fight trolls and misinformation?


Elon Musk's deal to buy Twitter for $44 billion raises concerns the platform will be subject to the capricious rule of the world's richest person.

 (AFP/Patrick Pleul)


Glenn CHAPMAN
Mon, April 25, 2022

Elon Musk's vow to let everyone say whatever they want on Twitter after his takeover of the social media giant could put the onus on users to combat bullying and misinformation on the platform, experts say.

Details of Musk's plans for Twitter were slim after his deal to buy the tech firm was announced Monday, but the Tesla chief portrays himself as a free-speech absolutist.

But the privatization of Twitter with Musk as its master has raised concerns from analysts and activists that the site will be capriciously ruled by the world's richest man, with more focus on attention and profit than on promoting healthy online conversations, which has been a priority at the service.

For Syracuse University assistant professor of communications law Kyla Garrett-Wagner, Musk's takeover of Twitter is not a free speech rights victory.

"What we have done is put even more power into fewer hands," she told AFP.

"If Elon Musk decides tomorrow that he wants to shut Twitter down for a week, he can do that."

She noted the US Constitution's first amendment only bars governments from gagging what citizens say -- leaving the billionaire entrepreneur the power to decide what can and cannot be posted on the private entity of Twitter.

"This is not the street corner," Garrett-Wagner said. "This is the proverbial Wild West but owned by a minority elite that doesn't represent minority voices."

- 'The trolls take over' -

Musk's promised hands-off approach to content is a particularly thorny matter when it comes to high-profile cases like that of former US president Donald Trump, who was banned from Twitter after an assault on the Capitol by his supporters.

"Musk says he is going to turn Twitter into a social media platform with no moderation; there have been several of those and they don't work," said analyst Rob Enderle of Enderle Group.

"The trolls take over, they get too hostile and drive people away from the platform."

Musk has said he is averse to banning people from Twitter due to misbehavior, prompting speculation that he would lift Trump's ban.

But Trump on Monday said he would not be returning to Twitter even if his account were reinstated, saying he would stick to his own site, Truth Social.

- App store trouble? -

If Musk pulls back on policing content at Twitter, advertisers would also have to take the lead to ensure their messages were not associated with toxic content, according to advocates and academics.

"Accountability now rests with Twitter's top advertisers, who need to make it clear that if Twitter becomes a free-for-all of hate, extremism and disinformation, they will walk," said Media Matters for America chief Angelo Carusone.

"It is also critical that Google and Apple hold Twitter to the same standards they applied to other apps like Parler," he added, referring to a social network popular among conservatives.

The tech giants would need to reiterate that "Twitter will not get special treatment and that a violation of their terms of service will result in the platform being removed from the app stores," according to Carusone.

Musk will also face tough judgement in the court of public opinion, with Twitter users apt to turn away from the platform if it becomes hostile and flooded with misinformation, Garrett-Wagner said.

Some of Musk's own tweets have raised eyebrows, as he once mocked a Tesla whistleblower and in 2018 called a rescue worker who criticized a plan to save children from a flooded cave in Thailand "a pedo guy."

While Musk has talked about ridding Twitter of software "bots" that fire off spam, actually confirming that users are living people could prove challenging, Baird analyst Colin Sebastian told investors in a note.

Sebastian noted that Musk's idea of charging for coveted blue check marks that verify users' identities is a "no-brainer," but it is likely only a small minority of people would pay for the status.

Musk has also said he believes anyone should be able to scrutinize the software behind the service.

But that kind of transparency could come with the unintended consequence that it will just be exploited by "bad actors" who find ways to game the system to promote their posts, analysts have warned.

"The rhetoric around transparency is that it will lead to an epiphany and people will change," Garrett-Wagner said.

"It's a misleading comfort to think everything will be okay if we know how it is working."

gc/sw/caw

THE QUANTUM UNIVERSE HAS CHANGED
Large Hadron Collider hits world record proton acceleration
AGAIN

By Chelsea Gohd 
APRIL 25,2022

The Large Hadron Collider restarted after a three-year shutdown on April 22, 2022. 

(Image credit: CERN)

The newly-upgraded Large Hadron Collider (LHC) just broke a world record with its proton beams.

The LHC, located at CERN near Geneva, Switzerland, restarted on Friday (April 22) after a planned, three-year hiatus during which a number of upgrades were made to the facility. These improvements are already being put to the test and, in restarting and preparing for its new operating phase, called Run 3, the LHC has already beaten a previous record.

This particle accelerator is both the largest and most powerful in the world. And, in a test run conducted shortly after being switched back on, the LHC accelerated beams of protons to a higher energy than ever before.

"Today the two #LHC pilot beams of protons were accelerated, for the first time, to the record energy of 6.8 TeV per beam. After #restartingLHC, this operation is part of the activities to recommission the machine in preparation of #LHCRun3, planned for the summer of 2022," CERN tweeted today (April 25).

Related: The Large Hadron Collider will explore the cutting edge of physics after 3-year shutdown

The LHC works by accelerating two beams of particles like protons towards each other. These high-energy beams collide, allowing particle physicists to explore the extreme limits of our physical world and even discover aspects of physics never seen before.

With the upgrades implemented during the planned shutdown, the energy of the LHC's proton beams was set to increase from 6.5 teraelectronvolts (TeV) to 6.8 TeV. For reference, one teraelectronvolt is equivalent to 1 trillion electron volts and, in terms of kinetic energy, is roughly equal to the energy of a mosquito flying. While this might seem like a very small amount of energy, for a single proton it is an incredible amount of energy.

The LHC facility is used to explore cosmic mysteries ranging from investigating possible candidates for dark matter to completely breaking apart our understanding of physics. Now both switched on and working as intended with the new upgrades, the LHC is well on its way to enabling a new round of groundbreaking physics research.

RELATED STORIES:

— Photos: Behind the scenes at the largest U.S. atom smasher

— What does it take to be an astrophysicist?

— 20 trailblazing women in astronomy and astrophysics

SEE 

LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment: Search results for LHC 

LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment: Search results for CERN 

LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment: Search results for QUANTUM 

Melissa Lucio granted temporary stay of execution, but no clemency

Chase Lawrence
WSWS.ORG

The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals issued a stay of execution Monday for Melissa Lucio, just two days before she was scheduled to be executed by lethal injection on April 27. The 138th Judicial District Court of Cameron Country, the same that convicted her, has been ordered to consider new evidence.

Melissa Lucio [Photo by "The State of Texas vs. Melissa"]

The stay came after significant sections of the political establishment, nervous about the execution of a clearly innocent person discrediting the death penalty and aware of the outrage it was provoking, called for a delay in Lucio’s execution.

Coerced into a confession after having claimed her innocence over 100 times to police interrogators, Lucio was convicted of the murder of her two-year-old daughter Mariah in 2007.

Lucio faced a trial where evidence critical to her defense was omitted, such as that her child suffered a physical disability that made her walk unsteadily, which pointed to an accidental death by falling down the stairs. She has spent the last 14 years since her 2008 capital murder conviction languishing on death row in conditions amounting to torture, being deprived of social contact and only allowed two one-hour sessions a week for gardening, with the rest of her time spent in a barren cell.

The trial court is to evaluate four claims to determine whether Lucio will be granted a new trial including that she would not have been convicted without the state’s use of false testimony, that the new scientific evidence undermines her conviction, that the state committed a “Brady violation” by suppressing favorable evidence, and that she is innocent.

Vanessa Potkin, director of special litigation at the Innocence Project and one of Lucio’s attorneys, wrote in a statement released after the stay was announced:

The Court of Criminal Appeals did the right thing by stopping Melissa’s execution. Medical evidence shows that Mariah’s death was consistent with an accident. But for the State’s use of false testimony, no juror would have voted to convict Melissa of capital murder because no murder occurred.

It would have shocked the public’s conscience for Melissa to be put to death based on false and incomplete medical evidence for a crime that never even happened. All of the new evidence of her innocence has never before been considered by any court. The court’s stay allows us to continue fighting alongside Melissa to overturn her wrongful conviction.

A recording of Lucio receiving the news of the delay of her execution from Republican state Representative Jeff Leach and becoming emotionally overwhelmed at the sudden reprieve can be heard here.

Near the end, Leach states, “This isn’t the end. We’re going to continue to work together to make sure that the right thing is done, that hopefully you are ultimately free.” Leach, who has been in the forefront of the official opposition to the execution, is a self-described death penalty supporter.

Speaking to the Dallas News, Leach said, “I’m not the only conservative death penalty supporter who has great concern about the way we, no pun intended, execute the death penalty in Texas,” and that “We policymakers have an obligation not just to speak up on Melissa’s behalf, but to speak up on behalf of all death row inmates and the victims of these crimes.” Along with Leach, around half of the Texas House issued a bipartisan call for clemency, with half of both the House and Senate calling for a delay in the execution.

If readers’ eyes are not rolling by now, they should be. The Republican Party has instituted the laws, along with their Democratic Party colleagues, that have made it not only possible but likely that innocent people like Melissa Lucio are put on death row.

Lucio has languished in prison for 14 years with little commotion up until this point by the political establishment, despite the state of Texas appealing a US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit decision in July 2019 overturning the case. Texas has carried out 574 executions since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976, the most of any state. Texas alone accounts for more than one third of all executions over the last 46 years. This particular case just happened to be too obviously unjust, too exposing and poorly timed for sections of the political establishment. Collectively, they have no concern for justice.

The Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles was, in addition to voting on a reprieve, supposed to meet separately to consider a clemency request. According to officials speaking to the New York Post, the Board of Pardons and Paroles decided not to vote on her clemency due to the appeals court ruling. That is, that there is still a possibility that Lucio will be executed.

Sabrina Van Tassel, writer and director of The State of Texas vs. Melissa, told the WSWS, “This was an egregious miscarriage of justice. But I am so happy that my film helped to put light on this just shameful case. This case really represents everything that could have possibly gone wrong in a case. And if we can have that kind of justice in our country, it’s very scary. And when is that good?”

Van Tassel noted there is no date set for a new trial and she thought there was little chance that Lucio would be released pending that trial. It is also very unlikely that the charges against her would be dropped.

To date, the Biden administration and Republican Texas Governor Greg Abbott have made no calls for clemency, despite Abbott having the ability to grant one given a recommendation by the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles, the members of which are all appointees of Abbott’s.

Texas is about to execute an innocent woman for a crime that never occurred

Mia Brett
April 25, 2022

Greg Abbott

Melissa Lucio is set to be executed, as the first Hispanic woman in Texas, on April 27 for a crime that never happened.

It’s not just that she is innocent of her daughter’s murder. It’s that her daughter died from a tragic accident and no murder occurred.

On February 15, 2007, Melissa’s 2-year-old daughter, Mariah, fell down a flight of stairs. Two days later she took a nap and never woke up.

Without evidence or confession, prosecutors convicted Lucio of murder in July 2008 and a jury sentenced to death. Now we only have a few days left to get the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles and Governor Abbott to grant her clemency and stop this execution.

Two hours after Mariah was pronounced dead, police began a six-hour interrogation. Melissa Lucio declared her innocence over 100 times, but after five hours of officers employing the controversial Reid method for interrogations, Lucio broke down and said, “I don’t know what you want me to say … I’m responsible for it … I guess I did it.”

This interrogation technique has led to so many false confessions that a police consulting group said it would stop using it in 2017.

At the time, Lucio had 12 other children and was pregnant with twins. During police interrogation, her children were being questioned in another room. They told investigators they saw Mariah fall down a flight of stairs and appear listless before sleeping for long hours.

Mariah also had a minor disability that likely contributed to her fall and the bruises on her body. None of this was presented at trial to explain Mariah's injuries. Alternatively, scientifically inaccurate testimony was given by the medical examiner to support the theory that Mariah’s injuries were the result of abuse.

Child Protective Services found no evidence of violence or abuse. The District Attorney, who’d later serve 13 years for unrelated corruption, was seeking reelection at the time and needed a high profile win.

Like many women caught in the criminal justice system (86 percent have a history of abuse), Melissa Lucio suffered child sexual abuse from the age of 6. She married at 16 to escape her family but her husband was also abusive and abandoned her and their five children.

Her next partner was also abusive. This lifelong abuse made Lucio particularly vulnerable to police coercion and likely contributed to a demeanor of shock and numbness that made police suspect her.

Eighty percent of women in jail are mothers. Seventy-one percent of exonerated women were convicted of crimes that never happened (though it’s rare for women accused of killing their children to get the death penalty). Lucio and others like her are criminalized when people in their care die accidentally if they’re not seen as “a good mother.”

Now five jurors from Melissa Lucio’s trial have joined the call to halt her execution. In particular, the jurors objected to the trial court allowing police to give testimony that Lucio’s demeanor showed she was guilty, but didn’t allow testimony about her history of abuse. More than 100 Texas state legislators from both parties as well as 130 Christian faith leaders also support clemency for Melissa Lucio.

(Join the fight to save Melissa Lucio and call Governor Abbott’s office, add your name to the petition, and use The Innocence Project’s social media toolkit to spread the word).

Mia Brett, PhD, is a legal historian. She lives with her gorgeous dog, Tchotchke. You can find her @queenmab87