Senegal probing feared homophobic attack by mob

Wed, 18 May 2022

Senegal has been gripped by the row over by Idrissa Gana Gueye's alleged refusal to don a rainbow shirt in France's Ligue 1 matches last Saturday

 (AFP/Pascal GUYOT) (Pascal GUYOT)

Senegalese police said Wednesday they were probing a possible anti-gay attack by a mob, an incident coinciding with a storm over a football star's apparent refusal to join a campaign against homophobia in Europe.

Videos began circulating Tuesday evening showing a crowd in the centre of the capital Dakar beating a man and hurling homophobic insults at him.

Anti-LGBTQ rhetoric has increased on social media in Senegal since Paris Saint-Germain (PSG) footballer and Senegalese international Idrissa Gana Gueye's alleged refusal to wear a rainbow jersey during a match in France on Saturday.

Despite facing criticism in France, Gueye has received a flood of support in Senegal, including the backing of President Macky Sall.

In several videos posted to YouTube and TikTok, an angry mob of several dozen people can be seen in broad daylight surrounding a barefoot young man wearing only boxer shorts.

They are seen holding him firmly by the wrists and slapping his back and head as blood trickles down his neck and chest.

A member of the crowd is heard shouting in Wolof: "Homosexuality will not be accepted in Senegal," while another calls the man a "dirty homosexual" and says, "let us kill him before the police arrive."

Another person is heard shouting: "He does not deserve to live."

In one clip, a crowd uttering homophobic slurs gathers in front of a police station in the HLM neighbourhood in the centre of Dakar.

A police officer on Wednesday told AFP journalists that the young man had been brought there the day before. No information was given on his condition.

A witness to the incident told AFP that he believed the young man was a foreigner and "around 100" people had hauled him to the police station.

He "was bleeding from injuries to the head and feet," the witness said.

An online investigation shows that the videos, viewed several thousand times, are recent, although the time and date are unclear. AFP has not been able to establish their source.

A police official, also speaking on condition of anonymity given the sensitivity of the case, confirmed on Wednesday that an investigation was underway.

In many parts of Africa, same-sex relations are taboo or even criminalised.

In Senegal, where 95 percent of the population is Muslim, so-called "unnatural acts" with a person of the same sex are punishable by law with one to five years in prison.

Members of the LGBTQ community say attacks and homophobic incidents have increased in recent years, with a number of people fleeing the country.

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PSG's Gueye asked to explain absence after homophobia accusations


AFP - 

Paris Saint-Germain midfielder Idrissa Gana Gueye has been ordered by the French football federation's ethics board to answer accusations he missed a game to avoid wearing a rainbow jersey in support of the LGBTQI+ movement.

The Senegal international was absent for Saturday's 4-0 win over Montpellier in Ligue 1 for "personal reasons" rather than injury, according to coach Mauricio Pochettino.

Gueye must "issue a public apology" or say the rumours he refused to take part in French football's fight against homophobia are "unfounded", according to a letter seen Wednesday by AFP addressed to the player.

He also missed a match last year on a day dedicated to raising awareness against discrimination.

"This absence (against Montpellier)... is very widely interpreted as a refusal to participate," wrote the FFF's ethics board.

"One of two things, either the hypotheses are unfounded and we invite you to immediately express yourself in order to silence these rumours," the letter continued.

"Or the rumours are true. In this case we ask you to be aware of the impact of your actions and the very serious error committed."

"In refusing to take part in this collective initiative you are validating discriminatory behaviour... and not only against the LGBTQI+ community," it added.

Gueye on Tuesday received the support of Senegal's President Macky Sall.

"I support Idrissa Gana Gueye. His religious beliefs must be respected," he wrote on Twitter.

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Proud of his bravery’: Josh Cavallo reacts to Jake Daniels coming out as gay

Australian footballer’s coming out inspired Blackpool player

Cavallo says it is a ‘wonderful feeling’ that his story helped

Melbourne City fans show support for Adelaide United’s Josh Cavallo at the teams’ meeting in February.

 Photograph: Darrian Traynor/Getty Images


Mike Hytne
THE GUARDIAN

Tue 17 May 2022 0


Jake Daniels, the UK’s first male professional footballer to come out as gay since 1990, has been lauded for his bravery by Josh Cavallo, the Australian player whose own coming out provided inspiration for the Blackpool forward.

Daniels’s announcement on Monday that “the time is right to be myself, be free and be confident” in his identity prompted widespread support from across the football world, just like Cavallo’s decision to come out last year.

Thanks for your leadership, Jake Daniels: a gay man and professional footballer

Daniels, 17, said he had been inspired by the Adelaide United player, who made global headlines in October when he became the only openly gay man playing top-flight professional football anywhere in the world.

At the time, Cavallo said he suspected there were other players “living in silence”, but until Daniels’s landmark revelation, no other gay men had felt comfortable enough to go public with their sexuality.

Cavallo, whose team meet Melbourne City this week in a two-leg A-League Men semi-final, said on Tuesday he was proud to have been able to help provide Daniels with the confidence to make the public revelation.

“As myself and Adelaide United prepare for the A-League semi-final, I want to stop and take a moment to acknowledge Jake’s announcement and say how very proud I am for his bravery,” Cavallo said. “It’s a wonderful feeling knowing that my story has helped guide Jake to be his true self.

“It’s touching to see the millions of people that my story has impacted and inspired around the world, and to see it help evolve the world game at all levels, is fantastic. This world and the game of football has a place for everyone. Love will always win.”

Gerard Piqué, Raphaël Varane and Marcus Rashford congratulated Cavallo last year, and there was no shortage of big names lining up to praise Daniels on Monday; Harry Kane, David de Gea, Gary Lineker and Rio Ferdinand were among those to offer support to the promising striker.

But football’s apparent inability to keep pace with wider societal advances on inclusivity was put into sharp relief for Cavallo in January, when he was targeted by homophobic abuse from the crowd during an A-League Men game at Melbourne Victory.

There have been only a handful of openly gay male players, and none besides Daniels and Cavallo have come out while actively playing top-flight football. Thomas Hitzlsperger of Germany is arguably the most high profile, although, like the American former Leeds player Robbie Rogers, he waited until after retirement to reveal his sexuality publicly.

In 2019, the former Newcastle Jets player Andy Brennan became Australia’s first professional male footballer to come out while still playing.

'Historic' equal pay deal for US men's and women's football teams


The US men's and women's national soccer teams will receive equal pay under a "historic" agreement announced by the US Soccer Federation on Wednesday, following years of pressure from female players

.

© Tiziana Fabi, AFP

The move makes the federation the first in the world to equalize World Cup prize money awarded to its men's and women's teams.

"This is a truly historic moment. These agreements have changed the game forever here in the United States and have the potential to change the game around the world," said US Soccer president Cindy Parlow Cone.

The terms of Wednesday's landmark agreement include "identical compensation for all competitions, including the FIFA World Cup, and the introduction of the same commercial revenue sharing mechanism for both teams," USSF said.

The deal stipulates that players from both teams "pool and share" the otherwise unequal prize money paid by FIFA for participation in their respective World Cups.

For non-World Cup tournaments, players from "both teams will earn an equal amount of the total prize money paid when both teams participate in the same competition."

In February, the US national women's team won a $24 million payout and a promise of equal pay in a najor settlement with US Soccer, that was contingent on the new collective bargaining agreement.

The question of World Cup prize money had formed a prominent part of the lawsuit, which was filed in 2019 and accused the federation of "stubbornly refusing" to pay its men and women's players equally.

"The accomplishments in this CBA (collective bargaining agreement) are a testament to the incredible efforts of WNT players on and off the field," said US women's captain Becky Sauerbrunn, who is also her team's players association president.

She added that she hoped the agreement "will similarly serve as the foundation for continued growth of women's soccer both in the United States and abroad."

'Achieved it'

The agreement, which runs through 2028, also aims to improve "player health and safety, data privacy and the need to balance responsibilities to both club and country," USSF said.

Women's star Megan Rapinoe, who has forged a reputation as an unflinching advocate for social justice causes including equal pay and conditions for her and team-mates, said in February that the settlement marked a moment in which "US Soccer changed for the better."

Center-back Walker Zimmerman, a member of the men's team players association, welcomed Wednesday's deal saying that "we hope this will awaken others to the need for this type of change."

"They said equal pay for men and women was not possible, but that did not stop us and we went ahead and achieved it," he added.

The United States women have won four Women's World Cup titles and four Olympic gold medals. They are chasing an unprecedented third consecutive Women's World Cup crown after hoisting trophies in 2015 at Canada and 2019 in France. They last won Olympic gold in London in 2012.

(AFP)

Soccer: U.S. women, men to pool World Cup money, get equal pay


The U.S. Women's National Team and U.S. Men's National Team will receive identical compensation for all competitions as part of new collective bargaining agreements with the U.S. Soccer Federation. File Photo by David Silpa/UPI | License Photo


May 18 (UPI) -- The U.S. men's and women's national teams will receive equal pay and prize money as part of a new collective bargaining agreement, the United States Soccer Federation announced Wednesday.

"This is a truly historic moment," federation President Cindy Parlow Cone said in a news release. "These agreements have changed the game forever here in the United States and have the potential to change the game around the world.


"U.S. Soccer and the USWNT and USMNT players have reset their relationship with these new agreements and are leading us forward to an incredibly exciting new phase of mutual growth and collaboration as we continue our mission to become the pre-eminent sport in the United States."

The move follows years of legal battles between the federation and more than two dozen members of the women's national team. U.S. Soccer is the first federation to equalize FIFA World Cup prize money.

RELATED U.S. Soccer, members of women's team settle equal pay lawsuit for $24 million

"The accomplishments in this CBA are a testament to the incredible efforts of WNT players on and off the field," women's team defender and players union President Becky Sauerbrunn said.

"The gains we have been able to achieve are both because of the strong foundation laid by the generations of women's team players that came before the current team and through our union's recent collaboration with our counterparts at the USNSTPA and leadership at U.S. Soccer."

The men's and women's respective labor deals each run through 2028. They include identical economic compensation for roster appearances and performances in all competitions, based on the outcome of the match and rank of opponent.

For the World Cup, the parties agreed to pool and share a portion of prize money paid for the teams' participation in the 2022 men's competitions and the 2023 women's competitions.

Players on those rosters will be paid an equal percentage of the collective prize money, which is provided globally by FIFA in uneven sums. The men's and women's teams will do that same thing for the 2026 Men's World Cup and 2027 Women's World Cup.

The federation also agreed to provide equal quality of venues and field playing surfaces and "comparable budgets" for hotel accommodations for matches and camps for both teams. The teams also will be provided with an equal number of chartered flights during national team camps for travel to competitions.

The decision to provide equal pay comes three months after women's team players settled their gender discrimination lawsuit against the federation.

As part of that settlement, the federation agreed to pay $22 million to the 28 women's players who filed the suit and $2 million to create a fund for women's and girl's soccer programs.

Women's players asked for $67 million in their 2019 lawsuit, which reached class-action status. Judge R. Gary Klausner issued a partial summary judgment, which dismissed most of the players' claims, in May 2020 at the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California in Pasadena.

"We hope that this agreement and its historic achievements in not only providing for equal pay, but also in improving the training and playing environment for national team players will similarly serve as the foundation for continued growth of women's soccer both in the United States and abroad," Sauerbrunn said.

The U.S. men's team will face Morocco in a friendly on June 1 at TQL Stadium in Cincinnati. The men's team will start group play at the 2022 World Cup at 2 p.m. EST Nov. 21 at Ahmad bin Ali Stadium in Al Rayyan, Qatar. The Men's World Cup final will be Dec. 18 at Lusail Stadium in Doha.

The women's team will face Colombia in a friendly at 7:30 p.m. EDT June 25 at Dick's Sporting Goods Park in Commerce City, Colo.

The US Women's National Team's historic equal pay deal is already inspiring other countries' soccer stars to 'fight for' fair wages


Spain's Irene Paredes (left) shakes hands with USWNT star Megan Rapinoe

 ahead of their 2019 World Cup match.

Robert Cianflone/Getty Images

Meredith Cash
Wed, May 18, 2022, 


The USWNT agreed to a historic deal that secures a pay structure that is identical to what applies to the men's team.


The agreement with US Soccer equalizes World Cup prize money between the men's and women's teams.


The deal is already inspiring female players from other countries to fight for fair wages of their own.

After years of fighting its own federation for fair wages, the US Women's National Soccer Team has finally secured equal pay.

US Soccer announced Wednesday that its men's and women's national teams had agreed to identical Collective Bargaining Agreements, that equalized pay and resources afforded to the men's and women's squads. Perhaps most notably, the deal evenly splits World Cup prize money between the two national teams.

US Women's National Team players celebrate their 2019 World Cup victory.

AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino

No other country's soccer federation has ever taken the revolutionary step to pool FIFA prize money, which is significantly higher on the men's side.

"I think this is going to have international ramifications in sport in general," US Soccer President Cindy Parlow Cone told TODAY. "And hopefully into the business world as well."

In fact, it already has.

Moments after news of the agreement became public, FC Barcelona superstar and Spain women's national team captain Irene Paredes told Insider that the USWNT's successful fight for equal pay inspires her, and likely other women's players across the globe, to "fight for" fair wages and resources of their own.

Paredes battles USWNT star forward Alex Morgan for the ball.

Michael Chow-USA TODAY Sports

"Now there's a reason and someone who is doing it, so we have to fight for that," Paredes said. "I think that for playing with your national team, you can't make a difference between a man and a woman. Of course there are a lot of things of filling the stadium or not, or selling T-shirts or not, but because of the fact of wearing the same T-shirt, it should be the same."

"I just say congrats," she added. "And I hope that the rest of the national teams can reach that."

The heart of soccer's pay disparity issues lies with FIFA, which offers a considerably larger prize pool for the men's World Cup than for the women's. At this year's men's World Cup in Qatar, the 32 teams vying for soccer's most prestigious trophy will also compete for a share of the $400 million pot, according to The Guardian.

In the women's tournament, which will take place in Australia and New Zealand the following year, the same number of teams will compete for $60 million total.

FIFA President Gianni Infantino

.REUTERS/Kai Pfaffenbach

In 2016, FIFA President Gianni Infantino told Sports Illustrated that the stature of "women's football in the US is not yet comparable to what women's football should be around the world." He says that the vast divide justifies the disparity between the men's and women's World Cup prize pools.

"So what our task must be is to develop women's football, to invest much more," Infantino added. "Of course the adjustment of the prize money goes with that as well."

But Walker Zimmerman, a defender for the USMNT and a member of the players' association leadership group, challenged the notion that "equal pay for men and women was not possible."

USMNT defender Walker Zimmerman.

AP Photo/Julio Cortez

"That did not stop us, and we went ahead and achieved it," he added via US Soccer's announcement. "We hope this will awaken others to the need for this type of change, and will inspire FIFA and others around the world to move in the same direction."

Goddesses and witches star in British Museum show


Wed, May 18, 2022,

Alluring, warrior-like or nurturing, goddesses and other female spiritual beings from around the world are the focus of a new exhibition at the British Museum.

Entitled "Feminine Power: The Divine to the Demonic", it includes ancient sculptures of Roman goddesses Venus and Minerva and Egypt's lioness-headed goddess Sekhmet, as well as modern images of deities worshipped today.

The exhibition is the "first with a cross-cultural approach to this extraordinary, absolutely fundamental subject", the London museum's director Hartwig Fischer told reporters.

Specially for the show, the museum commissioned a brightly painted icon of the Hindu warrior goddess Kali wearing a garland of severed heads, from Kolkata-based artist Kaushik Ghosh.


The exhibition, which runs until September 25, also features commentary from high-profile figures including the feminist writer Bonnie Greer and classicist Mary Beard.

"We're not trying to tell people what they should think or how they should feel about this," curator Belinda Crerar told AFP, saying she wanted the exhibition to start a conversation.

One section on "compassionate" figures such as the Virgin Mary, the mother of Jesus, notes that reverence for such female divinities "in many societies has not translated into a higher status for women themselves".

"This is the big question" raised by the exhibition, Crerar said.

"It's not straightforward and there is no singular answer to it."

"I believe there is a link between spiritual ideas relating to femininity and masculinity and how... women and men are viewed, but it is culturally specific."

For a section called "Magic and Malice" about witches and demons, the museum consulted a collective of practising British witches called Children of Artemis.

"What we felt was really important to do in this section was to actually work with a group of men and women today who identify as witch or modern pagan or who practise Wicca," said project curator Lucy Dahlsen.

"Those relationships have been really important, to ensure we are looking at a living tradition in an appropriate way."



Some reactions came as a surprise.

She pointed to a Pre-Raphaelite-style painting by John William Waterhouse of Greek goddess Circe casting a spell while wearing a see-through gown over her naked body.

Many see this painting as "epitomising the male gaze and an image of a sorceress depicted as a kind of femme fatale," Dahlsen said.

But one British witch, Laura Daligan, commented that the picture was not far off.

Witches "don't always practise with clothes on – it is kind of realistic in a way," she said in a comment posted online by the museum.

The show includes a book entitled 'The Witches' Sabbath' from 1510 by the German Renaissance artist Hans Balding Grien 

What is monkeypox and should UK residents be worried?

With seven cases identified in Britain, experts are looking for the source of the infections and how it is being spread

Dr Susan Hopkins says UKHSA is ‘rapidly investigating the source … because the evidence suggests there may be transmission in the community’. 

Photograph: Hannah McKay/AFP/Getty Images


Nicola Davis 

Science correspondent
THE GUARDIAN

Tue 17 May 2022 

With the number of cases of monkeypox in the UK rising to seven, what is the situation and is it cause for concern?

What is monkeypox?

Monkeypox is a viral infection typically found in central and western Africa. A handful of cases have previously been diagnosed in the UK, with the first recorded in 2018 in an individual thought to have contracted the virus in Nigeria.

There are two forms of monkeypox, a milder west African strain and a more severe central African, or Congo strain. It is thought the recently diagnosed individuals have the west African strain.
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According to the UK Health Security Agency, early symptoms of monkeypox include fever, headache, muscle aches, swollen lymph nodes and chills, as well as other features such as exhaustion.

“A rash can develop, often beginning on the face, then spreading to other parts of the body, including the genitals,” the UKHSA says. “The rash changes and goes through different stages, and can look like chickenpox or syphilis, before finally forming a scab, which later falls off.”

Most patients recover from monkeypox in a few weeks.

How is it spread?

Monkeypox does not spread easily between humans, and requires close contact. According to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, it is thought that human-to-human transmission primarily occurs through large respiratory droplets.

“Respiratory droplets generally cannot travel more than a few feet, so prolonged face-to-face contact is required,” the CDC says. “Other human-to-human methods of transmission include direct contact with body fluids or lesion material, and indirect contact with lesion material, such as through contaminated clothing or linens.”

How many new cases are there in the UK?

The first recent case in the UK was reported on 7 May, with the patient having recently travelled to Nigeria. A week later a further two patients were reported to be receiving treatment for monkeypox in London. They lived in the same household and their infections are thought to be unconnected to the previous case.

On Monday another four cases of monkeypox were reported, three in London and one in the north-east of England. These four cases do not appear to be linked to any of the previous ones, and all those involved are thought to have been infected in London. All four of these cases are in men who self-identify as gay, bisexual, or men who have sex with men.

The World Health Organization said on Tuesday that it was now coordinating with UK and other European health officials.

Does this mean monkeypox is sexually transmitted?

Dr Michael Head, a senior research fellow in global health at the University of Southampton, says the latest cases may be the first time transmission of monkeypox though sexual contact has been documented, but this has not been confirmed, and in any case it is probably close contact that matters.

“There is no evidence that it is a sexually transmitted virus, such as HIV,” Head says. “It’s more that here the close contact during sexual or intimate activity, including prolonged skin-to-skin contact, may be the key factor during transmission.”

The UKHSA is advising gay and bisexual men, as well as other communities of men who have sex with men, to look out for unusual rashes or lesions on any part of their body, in particular their genitalia. “Anyone with concerns that they could be infected with monkeypox is advised to make contact with clinics ahead of their visit,” the UKHSA says.

How concerned should we be?

At present, the answer seems to be not very. Experts have suggested it is unlikely there will be a large outbreak, although it is important contacts of those infected are identified.

Dr Susan Hopkins, the chief medical adviser at UKHSA, calls the situation “rare and unusual” but adds: “UKHSA is rapidly investigating the source of these infections because the evidence suggests that there may be transmission of the monkeypox virus in the community, spread by close contact.”

JOHN BIRCH SOCIETY ANTI VAX POSTER 1953

Private Notebooks 1914-1916 by Ludwig Wittgenstein review – sex and logic


Translated into English for the first time, these diaries provide a glimpse into the innermost thoughts of a great philosopher

Ludwig Wittgenstein: ‘Remember how great the blessing of work is!’ 

Photograph: Pictorial Press/Alamy


Anil Gomes
Wed 18 May 2022 

Ludwig Wittgenstein joined the army the day after his native Austria-Hungary declared war on Russia in August 1914. He had been serving for almost three months when he received word that his brother Paul, a concert pianist, had lost his right arm in battle. “Again and again,” he wrote in his notebook, “I have to think of poor Paul, who has so suddenly been deprived of his vocation! How terrible! What philosophical outlook would it take to overcome such a thing? Can it even happen except through suicide!”

Wittgenstein was an unusual philosopher. He became obsessed with the foundations of logic while an engineering student and presented himself to Bertrand Russell in Cambridge, ready to solve all its problems. His intent was to provide an account of logic that was free from paradox and his solution came in the form of the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, sent to Russell from the Italian prisoner-of-war camp in which Wittgenstein was held at the end of the first world war.

The Tractatus is written as a series of numbered propositions, closer in form to modernist poetry than philosophical treatise. Its central ideas can be traced back to the notebooks Wittgenstein kept during the early years of the conflict. The right-hand side of each spread was used to set out his evolving thoughts on logic and language. The left-hand side was saved for his personal notes, written in a simple code in which the letters of the alphabet were reversed (Z = A, and so on).

The Journey of Humanity review – ambitious bid to explain society’s economic development

It is these private remarks that are published in English here for the first time, edited and translated by Marjorie Perloff. They range from complaints about the other soldiers – “a bunch of swine! No enthusiasm for anything, unbelievable crudity, stupidity & malice!” – to the number of times he masturbates (“Yesterday, for the first time in 3 weeks”). He recounts his depression – “like a stone it presses on my chest. Every duty turns into an unbearable burden” – and his living conditions. These are accompanied by constant updates on how his work is going. And by “work”, he always means philosophy. “Remember how great the blessing of work is!” he writes. This work is the focus; the war, a backdrop.

Wittgenstein’s solution to the problems of logic was largely in place by 1916. And had his contribution to philosophy ended there, the Tractatus might be unknown beyond that particular sub-field. But the book ends with a series of puzzling remarks on ethics, value and the meaning of life – remarks that Wittgenstein thought central to his project but which both confused and frustrated his first readers. It is here that the Notebooks tantalise. For in the material on the left-hand pages Wittgenstein first begins to reflect on the inner self, on God’s presence in the world, on what is required for life to make sense. It can sometimes seem irrelevant to the discussion of logic taking place on the right-hand side. “Have thought a great deal about all sorts of things,” he writes, “but curiously enough cannot establish their connection to my mathematical train of thought.”

He has the obsessive focus of a philosophical genius – one who thinks constantly about his work, even under enemy fire

And then in 1916, facing death on the frontline, the connection is forged. Paradox in logic arises when you try to say those things that can only be shown. But that applies equally to God, the self and meaning. As he writes on a left-hand page, “What cannot be said, cannot be said”. The purview of ethics, like the purview of logic, lies outside the realm of what can be stated in language. And thus we get to the seventh and final statement of the Tractatus: whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.

For those who know the Tractatus, there is some interest in seeing how concerns that start life among the personal remarks slowly drift over to the facing page. For those who do not care about these details, there is interest in seeing first-hand the obsessive focus of a philosophical genius – one who thinks constantly about his work, even under enemy fire. When he writes of “laying siege”, it is to philosophical problems; when he wants to “spill [his] blood before this fortress”, it is in the context of logic.

Even the masturbation is hard to separate from the philosophy: it happens when work is going well. For Wittgenstein, it seems, masturbation and philosophy are both expressions of living in the face of death.

Perloff sees allusion to sexual affairs in some of Wittgenstein’s taciturn remarks. He records evening visits to the baths in Kraków and notes, somewhat matter-of-factly at the start of a new year, that “my moral standing is now much lower than it was at Easter”. More affecting is his unambiguous love and desire for his Cambridge friend David Pinsent. “A letter from David!! I kissed it. Answered right away.” Pinsent didn’t survive the war. He was a test pilot in Farnborough and died in an accident in May 1918. The Tractatus – one of the most significant works in 20th-century philosophy – is dedicated to his memory.

Private Notebooks 1914-1916 is published by WW Norton 

Mexican farmers demand redress for illegal mining and violence on their land

Owners of community land bought shares to join annual meeting of Fresnillo, a Mexican FTSE 100 company

Javi Martinez, from London Mining Network, left, Sergio Camacho, lawyer for El Bajío and Bartolo Pacheco, from El Bajío, protest at the annual meeting in London of Fresnillo. 

Photograph: Graeme Robertson/The Guardian

Haroon Siddique 

Legal affairs correspondent

The Guardian

Tue 17 May 2022 18.56 BST

Mexican farmers have travelled to London to demand that a FTSE 100 company compensates them for illegal mining on their land and explain violence against anti-mining activists.

Penmont mining, a subsidiary of Fresnillo, was ordered by an agrarian court in Mexico in 2013 to pay members of El Bajío community, co-owners of common land in Sonora, north-west Mexico, for the gold extracted and to restore the land to its original state.

Having bought shares in Fresnillo, three El Bajío representatives, as well as activists from London Mining Network and London Mexico Solidarity, entered the company’s annual meeting to ask the chairman why it had not complied with the court order and about the kidnapping, disappearance and murder of anti-mining activists.

Fresnillo told the Guardian it had complied with the court order by vacating the land and that it had no connection to any violence.

Jesús Thomas, one of the co-owners, said after the meeting: “We have spent eight years trying to get justice for our people. There are tonnes of cyanide in the soil, a lot of animals are dead. I made it clear to them [in the meeting] that they are in the wrong. They never said anything in reply, they don’t have any answer.

“At least the owners of the company now have the right information to decide whether they are going to do the right thing.”

In 2018, two members of El Bajío community – Raúl Ibarra de la Paz and his wife, Noemí López – were killed and disappeared respectively. Last year the president of the community, José de Jesús Robledo Cruz, and his wife, María de Jesús Gómez Vega, were killed and a list of the names of 13 other members who have fought against mining was found next to their bodies. Penmont has previously suggested criminal gangs were to blame for the violence.

Fresnillio, which in 2008 became the first Mexican company to list on the London Stock Exchange, made gross profit of $936.9m (£788m) last year, according to its annual report.

El Bajío says that between 2010 and 2013 the company extracted 236,709 ounces of gold and removed 10,833,527 tonnes of earth, making profits of about $436m.

A spokesperson for Fresnillo said: “Our purpose is to contribute to the wellbeing of people through the sustainable mining of silver and gold. Core to this is how we engage with our local communities and we are proud to have an extensive series of community programmes across our business based on decades of trust and cooperation.

“We comply with all laws, in all our markets, at all times and obviously reject immediately any suggestion we are in any way responsible for the tragic deaths of community members. Fresnillo employees themselves have been victim of continued inter-community violence. More specifically, Fresnillo has complied fully with the court order and as a result, vacated 1,824 hectares of land, resulting in the suspension of operations at Soledad-Dipolos since 2013.”

Canada: trial of white men who killed two Indigenous hunters in 2020 begins

Roger Bilodeau and his son Anthony Bilodeau believed that Jacob Sansom and Maurice Cardinal were thieves, court hears

Jacob Sansom (L) and his uncle Maurice Cardinal were shot dead on a rural road in eastern Alberta, Canada in March 2020. Composite: Nobleford & District Emergency Services/Facebook

Leyland Cecco 

in Toronto

THE GUARDIAN

Tue 17 May 2022 

Two white Canadian men followed and then shot dead two Indigenous hunters because they believed they were thieves, prosecutors have told a court at the start of a murder trial in Alberta.

Roger Bilodeau, 58, and his son Anthony Bilodeau, 33, have both pleaded not guilty to second-degree murder over the deaths of Jacob Sansom and his uncle, Maurice Cardinal in March 2020.

The bodies of Sansom, 39, and Cardinal, 57, were found early on 28 March beside Sansom’s pickup truck on a country road near Glendon, a farming town 160 miles north-east of Edmonton.

Sansom had recently lost his job as a mechanic and worked as a volunteer firefighter. Cardinal was a keen hunter and outdoorsman. Both were Métis – a distinct group that traces lineage to both Indigenous nations and European settlers – and had permission to hunt the area out of season.

The killing of the men, who were returning from a successful moose hunting trip to help provide food for family members, shocked the region.

Prosecutors told an Edmonton jury on Monday that the two Bilodeaus followed the two hunters, assuming the men were thieves. Roger Bilodeau believed the hunters’ truck resembled a vehicle that had been on his property earlier that day.

As he followed the truck, Bilodeau called his son and asked him to follow behind and to bring a gun, said the Crown.

Roger Bilodeau and the hunters stopped their trucks along a country road near Glendon.

Anthony Bilodeau arrived moments later and prosecutors say he shot Sansom, then Cardinal. A postmortem concluded that Sansom was shot once in the chest and Cardinal was shot three times in his shoulder.

The Bilodeaus then drove away without notifying police or paramedics. The bodies of the two men – Sansom lying in the middle of the road and Cardinal in a ditch – were discovered early the next morning by a motorist.

“These were in no way justified killings,” said prosecutor Jordan Kerr, adding that the younger Bilodeau “freely made the decision to arm himself” and pursue the two men. Roger Bilodeau “clearly anticipated having a confrontation” and so “recruited” his son into bringing a weapon, Kerr said.

But a lawyer for the Bilodeaus say the men acted in self defence amid concerns over property crime in the area.

Lawyer Shawn Gerstel told the jury that the encounter on the rural road that night quickly escalated and that Sansom had smashed a window of Roger’s truck and punched him multiple times.

“[Roger] asked for a gun for protection because he didn’t know who he was dealing with,” said Gerstel. The defence said the collar of Roger’s shirt was torn half off and Sansom’s blood was found on three areas of Bilodeau’s shirt.

RACIST TROPE OF THE DRUNK INDIAN

The defence also alleges the hunters were drunk and a medical examiner is expected to testify that Sansom’s blood alcohol level was almost triple the legal driving limit. Cardinal’s blood alcohol limit was nearly double the legal the limit for driving, the defence says.

On Monday, Sansom’s brother James told the court that Jacob was trained as a martial artist and had the ability to de-escalate tense situations.

The trial continues.

THE SO CALLED FEAR OF THE STRANGER ON PRIVATE PROPERTY IS OFTEN USED AS A JUSTIFICATION IN CASES LIKE THIS INVOLVING FIRST NATIONS HUNTERS AND WHITE FARMERS 

SEE https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/2022/05/property-is-theft-private-property.html

Accidental discovery that scallops love ‘disco’ lights leads to new fishing technique

Scientists hail breakthrough that could maximise catches while reducing damage caused by fishing

The marine scientist Dr Rob Enever and his team at Devon-based Fishtek Marine designed small underwater ‘potlights’ to help protect fish stocks by replacing the need to use fish to bait crab and lobster pots.

 Photograph: Simon Hird/Fishtek Marine


Seascape: the state of our oceans is supported by

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Anna Turns
Wed 18 May 2022

An unusual technique for catching scallops that was stumbled upon accidentally by scientists could potentially reduce some of the damage caused to our seabeds by fishing.

The marine scientist Dr Rob Enever and his team at Fishtek Marine, a fisheries consultancy based in Devon, designed small underwater “potlights” to help protect fish stocks by replacing the need to use fish to bait crab and lobster pots.

The lights were supposed to attract crabs into the pots. But quite unexpectedly, scallops, which can have up to 200 eyes, were more attracted to the LED lights. “It’s like a scallop disco – illuminate the trap and they come in. It’s astonishing that no one else has discovered this before. It’s quite an exciting find,” said Enever.

Scallops jump into pots with ‘disco’ lights in potential new fishing strategy – video

“This has the potential to open up a whole new inshore fishery and that’s a global first.”

Commercially, scallops are the most valuable fishery in England and the fourth most valuable in the UK, according to the latest government sea fisheries statistics. Most are caught by dredging, which at an industrial-scale is damaging to marine habitats. However, using scuba divers to hand-pick them is labour intensive, time-consuming and therefore more expensive.

Enever hopes scallop potting could create a low-input, low-impact fishery that supplements the income of crab and lobster fishers with this high-value catch.
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In 2019, Enever, who specialises in reducing the impacts of fishing on the marine environment using technology, trialled the potlights with the Newlyn-based fisher Jon Ashworth off the Cornish coast. Although Ashworth did not notice any difference in crab or lobster catches, he found huge numbers of European king scallops in his pots.

The lights were supposed to attract crabs into the pots but unexpectedly scallops were more attracted to the LED lights. 

Photograph: Simon Hird/Fishtek Marine

“Pretty much every pot that we hauled had scallops in them and yet every haul without lights had no scallops. It was conclusive, there and then,” said Ashworth. “To have proof that lights can be used to catch scallops has got to have some awesome implications looking forward.”

In further experiments, a total of 1,886 pots were hauled – 985 experimental pots with lights caught 518 scallops; 901 control pots without lights caught only two. Overall, 99.6% of scallops were caught in pots with lights. This research, funded by Defra and Natural England, is outlined in a peer-reviewed paper published in the Journal of Fisheries Research this week.

In experiments, of 1,886 pots hauled, 985 pots with lights caught 518 scallops while 901 pots without lights caught only two. 

Photograph: Simon Hird/Fishtek Marine

Dr Bryce Stewart, a marine ecologist and fisheries biologist at the University of York, has studied scallops for more than 20 years and co-authored the paper with Evener

“This is one of the most exciting things I have come across in my whole career – it’s such a surprise,” said Stewart, who describes scallop eyes as ‘pretty weird’. Scallops can have up to 200 eyes on their mantle, along the inner edges of their shell openings.

“Most animals, including us, have lenses but scallops don’t. They have mirrors at the back of their eyes and they also have two retinas, one which senses darker things, one that senses lighter things, so they can possibly use that contrast to sense movement. Perhaps they prefer illuminated areas because they provide safety from predators or because it’s easier to find the plankton they eat.”



Powered by two rechargeable AA batteries, each small potlight is secured inside the pot and is expected to last between five and 10 years. The trap design has been modified with a ramp for easier access into the modified pot and Enever continues to refine the potlight technology – tank experiments indicate that scallops are more attracted to blue light than white light, for example. If the team can design a light system aimed specifically to catch scallops, that could open up the possibilities of doing this at scale, according to Stewart.

“Scallops are famous for their good vision,” said Dr Vicky Sleight, a marine biologist at the University of Aberdeen. “Scallop eyes have a surprisingly high degree of visual clarity and their attraction to artificial light is intriguing. Follow-up laboratory experiments are required to understand why they are attracted into pots, and if it’s a reliable and reproducible behaviour at a range of different types of scallop sites, then it’s certainly an exciting prospect to grow a more sustainable scallop fishery.”

The Fishtek team are repeating these experiments in four more UK locations, from Lyme Bay to the Orkney Islands, using different trap designs in various conditions and depths.

“Our goal is to get as close to a commercially viable fishery as we can,” added Enever. “I genuinely think we can do that, it’s got mileage.”

US supreme court abortion reversal would be global ‘catastrophe’ for women

If Roe v Wade is overturned, it will encourage anti-choice groups – particularly in the developing world, activists warn

GLOBAL PENTACOSTALISM

A pro-choice activist in Alberta, Canada, protests in solidarity with women in the US after the supreme court’s opinion was leaked. 

Photograph: Artur Widak/NurPhoto/Rex/Shutterstock


Global development is supported by

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Lizzy Davies

Wed 18 May 2022 07.00 BST

The probable demise of abortion as a federal right in the US will be a “catastrophe” for women in low and middle-income countries, with an emboldened anti-choice movement likely to raise renewed pressure on hard-won gains, doctors and activists have warned.

The leak this month of the US supreme court’s draft majority opinion, which argued that the 1973 ruling effectively legalising abortion had been “egregiously wrong from the start”, stunned and enraged many in America.

But those shock waves did not stop at the borders of the US, as pro-choice figures around the world – many in countries with restrictive abortion laws and high levels of social stigma around reproductive rights – warned that Justice Samuel Alito’s words would “send a really clear message” of inspiration to anti-choice groups.

“I’m sure the pro-life or anti-choice movement in [Uganda] must be hoping and praying that the Roe v Wade legislation be overturned. I’m sure if that succeeds, it will be the biggest achievement the anti-choice movement [has] registered. I’m sure they will use it significantly to counter the work and the gains we thought we had registered,” said Kenneth Buyinza, a Kampala-based doctor.

Abortion in Uganda is legal in certain circumstances but highly restricted and dogged by stigma and misinformation. A ministry of health report in 2010 attributed about 8% of the country’s maternal deaths to unsafe abortion.

It is far from the only country in sub-Saharan Africa to see a strong link between stubbornly high levels of maternal mortality and unsafe abortions carried out by unlicensed practitioners, often in unsanitary conditions and without the proper equipment.

In such countries, the potential for the US move to encourage anti-choice politicians, judges and activists and further hold back abortion rights could not be more worrying.

“If Roe v Wade is reversed it would be a victory for anti-choice groups who finance the opposition in Africa and a catastrophe for us. It could influence policymakers and mean that in Africa we will keep seeing women dying. Whatever we have gained could be lost,” said Abebe Shibru, Ethiopia country director for MSI Reproductive Choices.

Another region where Alito’s words have caused alarm is Central America, where three countries have total bans on abortion: El Salvador, Honduras and Nicaragua. In another, Guatemala, lawmakers recently increased prison sentences for women found to have had an abortion, legal only if the mother’s life is at risk.
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Eugenia López Uribe, regional director for the International Planned Parenthood Federation, warned the US move would inspire anti-choice policymakers in countries such as Guatemala.

“They can see that if they change the laws and they go against women’s rights, they can do it without any consequence,” she said. “The sign they are giving now is that women’s rights can be on the table for negotiations. So this is very worrisome.”

An unplanned pregnancy information poster in Kampala, Uganda. Campaigners fear a chilling effect on African governments’ funding for family planning services. Photograph: Bsip Sa/Alamy

Sarah Shaw, head of advocacy at MSI, said the potential for legislative backsliding was clear. “A lot of the countries in which we work that have less restrictive abortion laws are probably a little bit ahead of where the country is socially. So they are very, very fragile. So it’s not going to take much to undermine them, overturn them,” she said.

In recent years US funding has been essential to the anti-choice movement globally, and Shaw said she feared the overturning of Roe would prompt a surge in the flow of money. In countries where corruption is rife and political systems are vulnerable to “dark money” lobbying, the impact could be sizeable.

The other major concern was that in countries heavily dependent on US aid for public health programmes the move could have a “chilling effect” on African governments’ commitment to abortion provision and other reproductive rights, making them “think twice about what they spend money on”, said Shaw.


Killed by abortion laws: five women whose stories we must never forget

“If there’s a chilling on prioritisation and funding for services that are already massively deprioritised and massively underfunded it’s going to be catastrophic,” she added.

Buyinza, who also works at the Uganda family planning consortium, said he worried the move could affect “fundraising and resource allocations to maternal and child health interventions”. He added that in Uganda – perhaps as in the US – anti-choice forces would be unlikely to stop at abortion, broadening their attacks on other areas such as LGBT+ rights.

“[By] taking this kind of action, [the US] is actually holding the flag very high now for countries that are still struggling with human rights issues, like, for instance, Uganda, but many other countries. There is no doubt that having this legislation overturned is going to have a significant bearing, [and] most likely it is going to be negative,” he said.

In his draft opinion laying out why Roe should fall, Alito concluded that the right to abortion was “not deeply rooted in the nation’s history and traditions”. Such reasoning was deeply problematic, warned Buyinza.

“Someone might be looking at abortion rights in isolation, but … there are so many things that are not … rooted in Ugandan and African ‘traditions and history’. And that goes beyond just abortion rights,” he added.