Vietnam halts scuba diving off popular Hon Mun island to protect coral

The waters off Hon Mun island are a popular diving spot in Vietnam. 

(Photo: AFP/Quang Duc)

27 Jun 2022 

HANOI: Vietnam has banned swimming and scuba diving at a popular central tourist spot in an attempt to revive its damaged coral reef, officials said Monday (Jun 27).

The communist nation boasts more than 3,200km of coastline with crystal clear waters, vibrant sea life and sandy beaches that are a huge tourism draw.

Coral reefs across Southeast Asia have been badly hit by global warming, with scientists warning their degradation could have devasting environmental and economic knock-on effects.

Recent photos taken off Hon Mun island - about 14km from the city of Nha Trang and popular with divers thanks to its diverse ecosystem - showed the reef bleached and damaged.

"The Nha Trang bay management authority decided to halt swimming and scuba diving activities in areas around Hon Mun island," officials said.

In a statement they said the ban was to "evaluate the condition of sensitive area so that an appropriate plan to enact the sea conservation area" could be made.

Effective from Monday, the ban would last "until further notice", they added.

About 60 per cent of the coastal bed in the area was covered by living coral in 2020, according to state media, but more recent findings showed that had shrunk to less than 50 per cent.

Previously local authorities blamed the shrinking ecosystem on climate change, noting that powerful storms in 2019 and 2021 had damaged the coral.

They also blamed illegal fishing, dredging, construction of industrial parks and waste disposal.

Divers expressed anger over the decision to close the waters.

"Swimming and diving activities were the least influence on the coral reefs, compared to other activities," diver Nguyen Son, from Ho Chi Minh City, told AFP.

"The ecosystem (around Hon Mun) should have recovered after two years of pandemic," said diver Trinh Ngoc Sang.

"Without proper management, the fishing vessels came in and destroyed the sea bed," he told AFP, recalling the sight of rubbish and dead coral during a recent dive.

"It would take dozens of years for the coral reefs to be restored, so they want to close it throughout?"

The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has warned that 4.5 million people in Southeast Asia and the Indian Ocean region could be affected by damaged coral reefs.

The reefs support about 25 per cent of marine biodiversity.

Vietnam's decision follows a similar move in Thailand, which restricted access to Maya Bay - immortalised in the Leonardo DiCaprio film The Beach - to give the local ecosystem a chance to recover.

Why women use baby formula instead of breast milk

Breastfeeding is the healthiest option to feed your baby, experts say. However, breastfeeding rates have stagnated in the last decades while formula sales have doubled. Why?

More and more parents around the world feed their children with baby formula

This is the first piece in a two-part article series about some of the reasons why some mothers opt for formula instead of breastfeeding. We have attempted to cover as many of the deciding factors across these two articles, but this is at heart a very personal, individual decision for every new mother. Click here to read the second part of the series.

Most of the world's women start breastfeeding after giving birth, but  only 44% exclusively breastfeed to the sixth month, according to the World Health Organization.

Infants can't eat solid food in the first half-year of their lives, leaving them reliant on either breast milk or baby formula. This fact makes the current formula shortage in the US, where only one in four babies are exclusively breastfed to six months, dire.

The baby formula shortage was caused by production and supply-chain issues and an investigation by the US Food and Drug Administration at factory run by a major producer of baby formula, Abbott Nutrition. The company is one of four that together produce about 90% of formula on the US market. Although production had been getting back on track, Abbott Nutrition had to pause production yet again at the factory when a storm hit the site in Michigan on June 13.

Women in rich, developed countries are the least likely to exclusively breastfeed their children to six months

Research suggests that exclusively breastfeeding is a healthy, natural way for women to nourish their newborns. It's good for the mother-infant relationship and cheaper than formula. So, why do so few women stick with it? 

In this two-part series, we want to explain some of the structural and medical reasons why some women use formula and how the importance of breastfeeding may be different depending on where you live. In part one, we're asking why so many women use baby formula instead of breast milk.

It starts at the hospital

There are various reasons why women opt against breastfeeding. But a lot of experts say that a woman's experience at the hospital after birth plays a decisive role.

For decades, the WHO has been pushing hospitals to implement "baby friendly" measures to promote breastfeeding at birth. Those first 24 hours are crucial for a baby to learn how to feed directly from its mother.

Most hospitals in the US and Europe are "baby friendly." But in other parts of the world, that's not always the case.

Antonina Mutoro, a maternal and child well-being researcher for the African Population and Health Research Center in Nairobi, Kenya, helped conduct a survey in the informal settlements of Nairobi, which a recent UN report called "some of the most dense, unsanitary and insecure slums in the world."

Of the new mothers surveyed, only 2% were exclusively breastfeeding their babies and not bottle feeding.

That's despite the fact that many of the women Mutoro encountered could not afford a regular supply of formula. They were using cow's milk or foods like porridge to feed their babies before the age of six months, she said.

Mutoro said the lack of breastfeeding in the settlements was due in part to the fact that the women probably didn't learn about breastfeeding at the hospital after giving birth.

In many developing countries where clean water is scarce, lack of education

 about breastfeeding can cause infant malnutrition

"If it's not a baby friendly facility, at times, health workers offer to take the child and give it formula. That sets the precedent," Mutoro said.

Other times, women were told by doctors that they don't have enough milk. Mutoro said a woman's ability to produce breast milk typically depends on demand. Shortly after birth, that demand is created by placing the baby on the mother's breasts, which helps stimulate milk production.

"But you find that the narrative is usually, 'Oh, I do not have enough milk.' So, the solution is to look for other options and formula is usually the fastest option," said Mutoro.

It is not due to ignorance, said Mutoro — most staff who work in pediatrics or gynecology know that breastfeeding is good for the baby, she said. But the structures aren't in place to promote it, and when the workload becomes overwhelming, some doctors and nurses don't take the time to train new mothers if they can offer baby formula instead.

Impact of formula producers

Then there's the baby formula industry.

In 1981, the World Health Assembly, the decision-making body of the WHO, adopted an international marketing code for breast-milk substitutes. The code banned the marketing of formula, with an aim to prevent women from being discouraged from breastfeeding.

But a WHO report published in February shows companies have continued to aggressively market their products online through methods that didn't exist when the code was adopted, like advertising algorithms tailored to reach new moms and parenting apps. 

The report says that while breastfeeding rates have largely stagnated in the four decades since the code's implementation, formula sales have doubled.

In China, only around 1 in 5 babies are exclusively breastfed to 6 months

Lack of hands-on training

Rafael Perez Escamilla, one of the authors of the WHO report, said that even at baby friendly hospitals, women did not always receive the support they need to understand how to breastfeed once they got home.

Perez Escamilla said there were two reasons for that. In most medical nursing schools, students may only receive a couple of hours of breastfeeding training throughout their education.

"I'm at a great institution, Yale University, and I'm in charge of [teaching] breastfeeding, a component of the training of medical school students, and it's like two hours," Perez Escamilla said.

Without sufficient hands-on training, health care providers lack the skills to teach women how to nurse their own babies. That work is often passed onto breastfeeding peer counselors or lactation consultants, Perez Escamilla said.

But in many countries, lactation consultants aren't paid for by public health systems, making their services available only to women who can pay for them privately.

And sometimes providers may understand the benefits of breastfeeding but do not promote it because they're being courted by the formula industry, Perez Escamilla said.

"Many of them get invited to dinners, they get their conferences paid, they get books, some of them may even get a kickback if they prescribe a minimum of X number of products," he said.

Not all women receive proper training about how to breastfeed at the hospital

Breastfeeding is a full-time job

If a woman is breastfeeding, her breasts will fill with milk every few hours. That milk needs to leave her body in some way — either by feeding a baby or by pumping — or it will cause her pain.

In Germany and many other European countries, women are allowed to take up to a paid year off work after giving birth, making the question of pumping less of a problem.

In other countries, like the US or Kenya, that is not the case. Women are not granted any paid time off work by law after a pregnancy.

If a woman cannot afford to leave work for six months, she will need to pump on the job. That is possible in the US and protected by law — women must be granted a place where they can pump their breast milk at work.

For women who work in the knowledge industry and have their own office, this may be OK, said Kailey Snyder, a professor at the Creighton University School of Pharmacy and Health Professions in Omaha, Nebraska. But not all women have access to a personal office.

Some countries lack legal protections for mothers, making breastfeeding difficult when

 they have to go back to work

"It's a completely different story if you're asking a young woman that works in a fast food industry to ask her manager to give her space to pump, and maybe the only ample space is his office," said Snyder. "That's not feasible and doesn't often happen even if she's legally protected to pump."

In situations like this, formula may present itself as the only feasible option, even if the woman might theoretically be more interested in exclusive breastfeeding.

The reasons why some women use formula aren't just structural — some women want to nurse their babies, but can't. We explore some of the reasons in the second part of this series here. 

Edited by: Zulfikar Abbany, Carla Bleiker

How corporate food monopolies caused the baby formula scandal

The fact that a handful of companies produce the majority of our food means that small disruptions will have big impacts. This time the impacts are borne by American babies.

By Sonali Kolhatkar
-June 23, 2022

SOURCE

NationofChange




It’s a tough time to be the parent of a newborn in the United States today. Not only is child care prohibitively expensive, but the cost of all things including baby products is rising, COVID-19 poses a threat to children too young to be vaccinated—and there has been a months-long shortage of baby formula.

The formula scarcity began when the COVID-19 pandemic led to a disruption of ingredient supply chains and transportation delays. Then, this past February, the Food and Drug Administration found that several leading brands produced by Abbott Laboratories were contaminated with dangerous bacteria leading to a recall and a temporary closure of Abbott’s main Michigan factory where government inspectors found “shocking” conditions. Then, just as the Michigan plant reopened, torrential flooding forced it to shut down again.

There is nothing more important to a parent than providing for their child, especially during the most vulnerable, early years of their child’s life. As a mother who was unable to breastfeed when my children were newborns, I relied on formula and remember once having to drive quite far to a store in a neighboring town because my local store was out of the brand I relied on and that my child was used to. It was a stressful experience, one that is a mild example of what millions of parents are feeling right now as they face store shelves emptied of formula.

The shortage has driven prices up—yay, capitalism! For a variety of systemic reasons that include economics, geography, and health, Black and Latino parents are disproportionately more likely to rely on formula feeding. To add to that, low-income parents of color are also disproportionately impacted by the formula shortage, as they may live in food deserts with fewer options for formula, and they may be unable to drive long distances to search other stores or pay premium prices for online shipping.

There is a simple reason why such a shortage has transpired: global capitalism and the food monopolies it has fostered. Although store shelves (when fully stocked) appear to offer a wide variety of baby formula products, some with different name brands, only two companies produce more than 70 percent of these products, at a small handful of factories: Abbott and Mead Johnson. A third company, Nestlé, produces about 12 percent.

Therefore, when Abbott shuttered its Michigan plant, that single closure affected a very significant portion of the nation’s stock of formula.

The U.S. government has encouraged this monopoly by choosing to buy formula for the Women, Infants and Children (WIC) program from Abbott alone.

It’s the definition of putting all of one’s eggs in one basket. If that basket breaks, a shortage of eggs is inevitable.

And it’s not just baby formula. In the U.S. market, only three companies produce 81.7 percent of all baby food products; four companies produce 85.4 percent of all canned tuna; three companies make 80.3 percent of all chocolate; three companies make 78.5 percent of all pasta products; and so on.

Now, food prices overall are sharply rising this year as inflation hits grocery suppliers. In response, manufacturers are engaging in “shrinkflation,” a form of theft: shrinking their package sizes while maintaining the same price so as to dupe customers into believing they’re paying the same amount.

Meanwhile, big food manufacturers are reaping record profits, undermining claims that they’re simply passing on their higher costs to customers.

Decades ago, food policy analysts warned of the pitfalls of food monopolies, such as Vandana Shiva, author of the 2000 book Stolen Harvest: The Hijacking of the Global Food Supply, and Raj Patel, author of the 2007 book Stuffed and Starved: The Hidden Battle for the World Food System.

Both Shiva and Patel linked the profits of the world’s wealthiest food corporations to the plight of the world’s poorest farmers, and pointed out that in the relentless corporate drive to lower costs and maximize profits, food supply chains were consolidating and becoming more vulnerable to disruptions.

They also highlighted the folly of a global food supply chain relying on subsidized fossil-fuel-based global transportation systems that exacerbate climate change. The extreme flooding in Michigan that led to the closure of Abbott’s formula factory only two weeks after it reopened is a consequence of the carbon dioxide we’ve been pumping into the Earth’s atmosphere.

Advocacy organizations like Farm Action and Food and Water Watch have likewise been sounding the alarm about food monopolies for years. In late 2020, Farm Action released a report titled “The Food System: Concentration and Its Impacts” in which it drew attention to the growing monopoly power of food corporations. The report’s authors warned against the “concentration of ownership, wealth and power” in our food system, where “just a few companies dominate almost all aspects of food production.”

A year ago, Food and Water Watch did the same, warning the federal government in a report titled “Well-Fed: A Roadmap to a Sustainable Food System That Works For All” of the looming food crisis in the U.S., and saying that the only solution to creating a sustainable food future was to break up the corporate food monopolies. The organization recommended that the federal government ban the expansion of factory farms, place a moratorium on food corporate mergers, and invest in small, organic and sustainable farming systems.

On one end of the food chain there are starving farmers, and on the other end there are starving families—including babies. In the middle are a handful of fat cats—massive corporations like Abbott and Cargill—that keep getting fatter.

As is the case with most economic problems that can be traced back to corporate greed, the solutions are simple, and can be easily enacted if there is a political will to do so.

The Biden-Harris administration claims to understand the problem and the solution. For example, in a January 2022 fact sheet about the meat industry, the White House released its plan for “a Fairer, More Competitive, and More Resilient Meat and Poultry Supply Chain,” in which it acknowledged problems such as how “[f]our large meat-packing companies control 85 percent of the beef market.”

But the administration’s solutions to the problem of food monopolies did not even touch upon preventing mergers. Instead, it announced a toothless “portal” for “reporting concerns about potential violations of the competition laws.”

Representative Mark Pocan of Wisconsin has gone further than Biden, however, in sponsoring a new bill called the Food and Agribusiness Merger Moratorium and Antitrust Review Act of 2022, which would enact a moratorium on food industry mergers.

In the meantime, what are formula-feeding parents to do in order to feed their babies? Baby formula is a product that can be neither made at home nor watered down. Parents often search for the product that best suits their newborn’s sensitive digestive systems.

One mother, Laura Stewart, told the Associated Press how difficult it has been for her 10-month-old daughter to deal with switching to whatever brands are available: “She spits up more. She’s just more cranky. She is typically a very happy girl,” said Stewart. “When she has the right formula, she doesn’t spit up. She’s perfectly fine.”

Now that corporate food monopolies are impacting the most vulnerable human beings in our society—babies—will government take drastic measures to break them up?



Sonali Kolhatkar is a columnist for Truthdig. She also is the founder, host and producer of “Rising Up With Sonali,” a radio and television show that airs on Pacifica stations KPFK and KPFA and will begin airing on Free Speech TV. She is the former founder, host and producer of KPFK Pacifica’s popular morning drive-time program “Rising Up With Sonali,” based in Los Angeles. She is also the co-director of the Afghan Women’s Mission, a U.S.-based non-profit solidarity organization that funds the social, political, and humanitarian projects of RAWA.

US basketball star Griner appears in Russian court
By JIM HEINTZ

1 of 6
WNBA star and two-time Olympic gold medalist Brittney Griner is escorted to a courtroom for a hearing, in Khimki just outside Moscow, Russia, Monday, June 27, 2022. More than four months after she was arrested at a Moscow airport for cannabis possession, American basketball star Brittney Griner is to appear in court Monday for a preliminary hearing ahead of her trial.

CBD IS NOT THC

 (AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko)

MOSCOW (AP) — More than four months after she was arrested at a Moscow airport for cannabis possession, a Russian court has set the start date of the criminal trial of U.S. basketball star Brittney Griner for July 1.

The Phoenix Mercury star was also ordered to remain in custody for the duration of her criminal trial. She could face 10 years in prison if convicted on charges of large-scale transportation of drugs. Fewer than 1% of defendants in Russian criminal cases are acquitted, and unlike in the U.S., acquittals can be overturned.

On Monday, the court in the Moscow suburb of Khimki extended Griner’s detention for another six months after she appeared for a preliminary hearing held behind closed doors. Photos obtained by the AP showed her appearing in handcuffs. Griner had previously been ordered to remain in pretrial detention until July 2.

Griner’s detention and trial come at an extraordinarily low point in Moscow-Washington relations. She was arrested at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo Airport less than a week before Russia sent troops into Ukraine, which aggravated already-high tensions with sweeping sanctions by the United States and Russia’s denunciation of U.S. weapon supplies to Ukraine.

Amid the tensions, Griner’s supporters had taken a low profile in hopes of a quiet resolution, until May, when the State Department reclassified her as wrongfully detained and shifted oversight of her case to its special presidential envoy for hostage affairs — effectively the U.S. government’s chief negotiator.

That move has drawn additional attention to Griner’s case, with supporters encouraging a prisoner swap like the one in April that brought home Marine veteran Trevor Reed in exchange for a Russian pilot convicted of drug trafficking conspiracy.

Russian news media have repeatedly raised speculation that she could be swapped for Russian arms trader Viktor Bout, nicknamed “The Merchant of Death,” who is serving a 25-year sentence on conviction of conspiracy to kill U.S. citizens and providing aid to a terrorist organization.

Russia has agitated for Bout’s release for years. But the discrepancy between Griner’s case — she allegedly was found in possession of vape cartridges containing cannabis oil — and Bout’s global dealings in deadly weapons could make such a swap unpalatable to the U.S.

Others have suggested that she could be traded in tandem with Paul Whelan, a former Marine and security director serving a 16-year sentence on an espionage conviction that the United States has repeatedly described as a set-up.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, asked Sunday on CNN whether a joint swap of Griner and Whelan for Bout was being considered, sidestepped the question.

“As a general proposition ... I have got no higher priority than making sure that Americans who are being illegally detained in one way or another around the world come home,” he said. But “I can’t comment in any detail on what we’re doing, except to say this is an absolute priority.”

Any swap would apparently require Griner to first be convicted and sentenced, then apply for a presidential pardon, Maria Yarmush, a lawyer specializing in international civil affairs, told Kremlin-funded TV channel RT.

French athlete assaulted just before race, still wins in eyepatch

Mon, June 27, 2022 


French hurdler Wilfried Happio won the national title at the weekend despite running with an eyepatch after he was assaulted 20 minutes before his race.

Happio, 23, was warming up for the men's 400m hurdles final at the national championships in Caen, northern France, on Saturday when he was attacked, taking several punches to the face.

"There was a big incident in the warm-up. Someone jumped on him and hit him," Happio's coach Olivier Vallaeys said.

"Some guy came out of nowhere and asked him if he was Wilfried Happio and then jumped on him. I managed to hold him back.

"It was 20 minutes before the race, we were ready to go to the call area.

"We're shocked. The guy was arrested and Wilfried is fine. But I'm speechless, it was pure aggression, it's scandalous. These are the methods of a savage."

After Happio crossed the line in a new personal best time of 48.57sec to book his place in the French team for next month's world championships in Oregon, blood was streaming from his nose.

"I don't want to say any more about the (assault)," he said. "The race was more complicated than normal because I only had one eye."

The French Athletics Federation said a man had been arrested in connection with the attack and an investigation had begun.

rg-es-lg/gj/jc

Ecuador protests: The volunteers resupplying indigenous anti-government activists

Issued on: 27/06/2022

02:08

For the past two weeks, members of Ecuador’s indigenous population has blocked roads and occupied oil wells to protest higher fuel prices and living costs. At least five people have died in the protests, and around 500 others have been injured. FRANCE 24 went to meet the volunteers supplying the protesters with food and clothes. “Many people don’t realise how poor people live, that’s why we came here to support our comrades fighting,” Eliza Sanchez, one of the volunteers, explained. “There’s lots of suppression, the government is shooting, some of us are dying. The government doesn’t want to take indigenous people into account, and we’re indigenous people.”

Ecuador promises fuel price cuts amid protests

Mon, June 27, 2022

Violent protests in the capital were replaced this weekend by normal events such as a cultural festival

Ecuador's president has promised to lower fuel prices across the country after weeks of disruptive mass protests over the cost of living.

Protesters have blocked key roads and staged mass rallies demanding action on fuel and food prices - some of which have turned violent.

In response, Guillermo Lasso vowed to cut 10 cents a gallon from both petrol and diesel prices.

That is only a third as much as demonstrators had demanded.

Since 2020, the cost of diesel has almost doubled and petrol prices have risen dramatically in the oil-producing nation.

President Lasso also said that despite his move to lower fuel prices, any violent protesters would face consequences for their actions.

"Ecuadorians who seek dialogue will find a government with an outstretched hand," he said in a Sunday night address. "Those who seek chaos, violence and terrorism will find the full force of the law."

The move comes after an initial meting between the government and the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador (Conaie), which began the demonstrations.

No deal was reached, but the two sides agreed to begin dialogue after a state of emergency was lifted at the request of Conaie, more than a week after President Lasso imposed it.

But the president is also facing political pressure amid the crisis. Over the weekend, the national parliament began a debate tabled by the opposition on removing him from office. It is set to conclude later this week.

The extent of the disruption caused by the mass demonstrations is significant.

The blocking of key roads has led to fears of food shortages in the capital, Quito, as agricultural workers outside of it campaign for fairer food prices.

Leonidas Iza, the leader of Conaie who was briefly arrested over the protests, asked his supporters to guarantee "corridors" into the capital over the weekend for essential supplies.

The weekend was broadly calm, as demonstrators took a break amid the political movements.

But concerns about supplies and the broad economic impacts remain.

On Sunday, the energy ministry issued a statement warning that oil production - a key export which the country's economy relies on - could come to an end within 48 hours if protests and roadblocks continued this week.

Production was at a "critical" point, it said, and could stop because of "vandalism, takeover of wells and closing of roads".

The country was hard-hit by the Covid pandemic and its economy is still recovering.

Mass same-sex wedding in Mexico challenges discrimination

Even after five years of living together in the Pacific resort city of Acapulco, something as simple as holding hands or sharing a kiss in public is unthinkable for Dayanny Marcelo and Mayela Villalobos

By Fabiola Sánchez 

Associated Press
June 25, 2022


MEXICO CITY -- Even after five years of living together in the Pacific resort city of Acapulco, something as simple as holding hands or sharing a kiss in public is unthinkable for Dayanny Marcelo and Mayela Villalobos.

There is an ever-present fear of being rejected or attacked in Guerrero, a state where same-sex relationships are not widely accepted and one of five in Mexico where same-sex marriage is still not allowed.

But this week they traveled the 235 miles (380 kilometers) to Mexico’s capital, where the city government hosted a mass wedding for same-sex couples as part of celebrations of LGBT Pride Month.

Under a tent set up in the plaza of the capital’s civil registry, along with about 100 other same-sex couples, Villalobos and Marcelo sealed their union Friday with a kiss while the wedding march played in the background.

Their ability to wed is considered one of the LGBT community’s greatest recent achievements in Mexico. It is now possible in 27 of Mexico’s 32 states and has been twice upheld by the Supreme Court.

Mexico, Brazil and Argentina top Latin America in the number of same-sex marriages.

Mariaurora Mota, a leader of the Mexican LGBTTTI+ Coalition, said the movement still is working to guarantee in all of Mexico the right to change one’s identity, have access to health care and social security and to let transsexual minors change their gender on their birth certificates.

Walking around Mexico City a day before their wedding, Marcelo and Villalobos confessed to feeling strange holding hands in the city streets. Displays of affection between same-sex couples in the capital are commonplace, but it was difficult to shed their inhibititions.

“I feel nervous,” said Villalobos, a 30-year-old computer science major, as Marcelo held her hand.

Villalobos grew up in the northern state of Coahuila in a conservative Christian community. She always felt an “internal struggle,” because she knew she had a different sexual orientation, but feared her family would reject her. “I always cried because I wanted to be normal,” she said.

She came out to her mother when she was 23. She thought that moving to Acapulco in 2017 with a young niece would give her more freedom.

Villalobos met Marcelo, a native of the beach town, there. Marcelo, a 29-year-old shop employee, said her acceptance of her sexual orientation was not as traumatic as Villalobos’, but she still did not come out as pansexual until she was 24. She said she had been aided by the Mexico City organization Cuenta Conmigo, — Count on Me — which provides educational and psychological support.

Walking around the capital this week with massive rainbow flags hanging from public buildings and smaller ones flapping in front of many businesses, Villalobos could not help but compare it to her native state and her present home in Guerrero.

“In the same country the people are very open and in another (place) ... the people are close-minded, with messages of hate toward the community,” she said.

Elihú Rendón, a 28-year-old administrative employee for a ride-sharing application, and Javier Vega Candia, a 26-year-old theater teacher, grew up in Mexico City and coming out for them was not so complicated.

“We’re in a city where they’re opening all of the rights and possibilities to us, including doing this communal LGBT wedding,” said Vega Candia as he held out Rendon’s hand to show off a ring he had given him shortly before they moved in together.

When they walk through the city’s streets they don't hesitate to express affection, sometimes hugging and dancing in a crosswalk while traffic was stopped.

“I’m happy to have been born in this city thinking that we have these rights and not in another country where we could be killed,” Vega Candia said.

Villalobos and Marcelo do not expect much in their daily lives to change when they return to Acapulco as a married couple. But Marcelo said that with the marriage certificate, she will try to get Villalobos included on the health insurance she receives through her employer.

“With a marriage certificate it is easier,” Marcelo said. “If something happens to me or something happens to her, we’ll have proof that we’re together.”

Turkish police release all activists detained during Istanbul Pride march

Turkish police have released all of the nearly 400 activists detained during a banned Pride march in Istanbul, organisers said on Monday.

© Dilara Senkaya, Reuters

Although homosexuality has been legal throughout the period of the modern Turkish republic, Istanbul Pride has been banned since a 2014 parade drew tens of thousands of participants in one of the biggest LGBTQ events in the majority Muslim region.

Kaos GL Association, which campaigns to promote the human rights of LGBTQ people against discrimination, said on Twitter that all 373 people detained by police on Sunday have been released, many of them “after a night in custody”.

The detention began even before the banned rally’s start, with riot police raiding cafes and streets in a scenic district of Istanbul near Taksim Square where the event was to be held, according to an AFP team.

Those detained included an AFP photographer, who was released late on Sunday.

Police prevented the media from filming the Istanbul arrests, according to AFP journalists.

The Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights, Dunja Mijatovic, had urged Turkish officials to let the the march to go ahead and to ensure the safety of the marchers.

“The human rights of LGBTI people in Turkey need to be effectively protected,” she said in a statement.

(AFP)

Turkish police detain over 200 at Pride march — organizers

The LGBTQ march in Istanbul had been banned by Turkish officials, who said it might lead to unrest. But a crowd still gathered near the city's Taksim Square.

LGBTQ activists said they were not intimidated by the clampdown

Turkish police detained more than 200 participants at an LGBTQ Pride march in Istanbul on Sunday, organizers said.

Local authorities in Istanbul's Beyoglu district banned Pride Week events between June 20-26, saying that they could lead to public unrest. The event has been officially banned every year since 2015, but crowd still gather near the city's Taksim Square to mark the end of the Pride Month.

What happened at the march?

Authorities cordoned off large parts of the city's central Cihangir neighborhood ahead of the march. Public transportation in the area was also shut down.

Local residents banged pots and pans from their windows and balconies in a show of support for marchers.

According to the MLSA lawyers' association, Agence France-Press photographer Bülent Kilinc was among those detained.

Journalists' union DISK Basin-Is said "many" participants in the march were beaten by police.

LGBTQ activist organization Kaos GL published a video from the event on Twitter. 

"We do not give up, we are not afraid! We will continue our activities in safe places and online," pride week organizers said.

Pride events banned

Turkey's first pride march was held in 2003, the year after President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's conservative AKP party came to power. Istanbul authorities banned the event more than ten years later.

The Turkish government has adopted a harsh approach to pride events, and police have made large numbers of arrests and have used tear gas and plastic pellets.

Demonstrations by nationalists and Islamists have also threatened participants.

sdi/dj (AP, AFP, dpa, Reuters) 

02:30Two women kiss as they hold up a placard that reads in Turkish: "I live free. Who's the fool who will put me in chains? I would be shocked" during the LGBTQ Pride March in Istanbul, Turkey, Sunday, June 26, 2022. © AP - Emrah Gurel


Turkish authorities arrest more than 200 at banned Pride march in Istanbul

Issued on: 26/06/2022 - 

Turkish police on Sunday broke up a banned Pride march in Istanbul, detaining more than 200 demonstrators and an AFP photographer, journalists and organisers reported.
The governor's office had forbidden the march around Taksim Square in the heart of Istanbul, but protesters gathered nearby under heavy police presence earlier than scheduled.

Police detained protesters, loading them on to buses. AFP journalists saw four busloads of detained people, including AFP's chief photographer Bulent Kilic.

Kilic, who was taken away handcuffed from the back, was being held in police custody. He was also detained during last year's Pride march.

Police prevented the press from filming the Istanbul arrests, according to AFP journalists.

Turkey's largest city has banned the march since 2015, but large crowds nonetheless gather every year to mark the end of Pride Month. Organizers called the ban unlawful.

“We do not give up, we are not afraid! We will continue our activities in safe places and online,” the Istanbul LGBTI+ Pride Week Committee said on Twitter.

Kaos GL, a prominent LGBTQ group, said shortly before the march’s 5 pm (1400 GMT) start that 52 people had been detained. The Pride Week Committee later said more than 100 had been arrested.

There was no immediate word on the number of arrests from the police or the governor’s office.

Images on social media showed people being frisked and loaded onto buses, including at least one news photographer. Journalists' union DISK Basin-Is said “many” were beaten by police.

Local residents banged pots and pans from their windows and balconies in a show of support for the marchers as a police helicopter circled overhead.

Metal fences and lines of riot officers cordoned off streets around Taksim Square and Istiklal Avenue in the Beyoglu district, the heart of the city’s shopping and tourism sectors, as well as a traditional gathering point for protesters.

Metro services around Taksim Square were shut down for hours ahead of the march.

Turkey previously was one of the few Muslim-majority countries to allow Pride marches. The first was held in 2003, the year after President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s party came to power.

In recent years, the government has adopted a harsh approach to public events by groups that do not represent its religiously conservative views. Large numbers of arrests and the use of tear gas and plastic pellets by police have accompanied Pride events.

Counter-demonstrations by nationalists and Islamists, who claim the LGBTQ community is a danger to “Turkish values,” have also threatened marchers.

(FRANCE 24 with AFP and AP)

INDO-CANADIAN MOOSE WALA
Murdered rapper’s song pulled from YouTube in India

By AFP
Published June 27, 2022

Sidhu Moose Wala's murder sparked anger and outrage from fans from across the world - 

Copyright AFP Narinder NANU

YouTube has removed a viral music video in India released posthumously by murdered Sikh rapper Sidhu Moose Wala following a complaint by the government.

The song “SYL” talks about the Sutlej-Yamuna Link (SYL) canal which has been at the centre of a long-running water dispute between the late Sikh rapper’s home state of Punjab and neighbouring Haryana.

The track, released posthumously on Thursday, also touches on other sensitive topics such as deadly riots targeting the Sikh community that broke out in India in 1984 and the storming of an important Sikh temple in Amritsar by the army the same year.

It had garnered nearly 30 million views and 3.3 million likes on the singer’s YouTube page before it was pulled down over the weekend.

“This content is not available on this country domain due to a legal complaint from the government,” said a message posted on the song link.

The song is still available in other countries.

In an email to AFP, a YouTube spokesperson said it had only removed the song in “keeping with local laws and our Terms of Service after a thorough review”.

The government did not immediately respond to enquiries.

Moose Wala’s family termed the removal of the song “unjust” and appealed to the government to take back the complaint, local media reports said.

“They can ban the song but they cannot take Sidhu out of the hearts of the people. We will discuss legal options with lawyers,” uncle Chamkaur Singh was quoted as saying by the Hindustan Times daily.

Moose Wala — also known by his birth name Shubhdeep Singh Sidhu — was shot dead in his car in the northern state of Punjab last month.

The 28-year-old was a popular musician both in India and among Punjabi communities abroad, especially in Canada and Britain.

His death sparked anger and outrage from fans from across the world.

Last week, Indian police arrested three men accused of murdering Moose Wala and seized a cache of weaponry including a grenade launcher.

The men had allegedly acted at the behest of Canada-based gangster Goldy Brar and his accomplice Lawrence Bishnoi who is currently in jail in India.

Moose Wala rose to fame with catchy songs that attacked rival rappers and politicians, portraying himself as a man who fought for his community’s pride, delivered justice and gunned down enemies.

He was criticised for promoting gun culture through his music videos, in which he regularly posed with firearms.

His murder also put the spotlight on organised crime in Punjab, a major transit route for drugs entering India from Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Many observers link the narcotics trade — mostly heroin and opium — to an uptick in gang-related violence and the use of illegal arms in the state.

'Get your boy Elon in line:' Former NASA official says she was ridiculed for supporting SpaceX in new memoir

Grace Kay
Sun, June 26, 2022 

Elon Musk and Lori Garver  Getty

Former NASA official Lori Garver said in a new memoir that she faced criticism for supporting SpaceX.

NASA Administrator Bill Nelson told her to "get your boy Elon in line," in one exchange, she said.

Garver's book follows the commercialization of space and her history with Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos.

Former NASA Deputy Administrator Lori Garver said government and NASA officials ridiculed her for supporting SpaceX.

"Senior industry and government officials took pleasure in deriding the company and Elon in the early years," Garver said in her new book, "Escaping Gravity: My Quest to Transform NASA and Launch a New Space Age," published June 21.

The memoir follows the commercialization of the US space industry during Garver's time as NASA's Deputy Administrator during Obama Administration, highlighting the agency's early interactions with SpaceX and Garver's efforts to make space launches more affordable — despite pressure from NASA to keep production in-house.

In recent years, NASA has appeared to embrace the commercial space industry as billionaires Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos vie for multi-billion dollar contracts with the agency, but Garver says it was not always this way.

Getty Images/Insider

The book takes aim at current NASA Administrator Bill Nelson, who Garver accuses of attempting to rewrite history and "wrap himself in the Commercial Crew flag" after years of fighting against it. She said that if it were up to Nelson, NASA would still be entirely dependent on Russia's Soyuz rocket to send astronauts to the International Space Station.

She recalled an incident where Nelson, then a Florida senator, took her to task for allowing private companies a chance to propose alternatives to NASA programs.

"In one particularly uncomfortable one-on-one meeting in his Senate hideaway, the intensity of his ire felt personally threatening," Garver wrote. "In response to public comments Elon Musk had made about SpaceX's ability to improve on NASA existing programs, Bill Nelson shouted at me to 'get your boy Elon in line.'"

A spokesperson for NASA and Nelson did not respond to a request for comment from Insider.

A 'Target'

In her book, Garver describes an environment where senators and NASA workers were motivated more by self-interest than the greater good of the program.

"NASA's leaders were typically astronauts and engineers who didn't question the public value or relevance of their activities, indeed, many considered flying themselves and their friends in space to be an entitlement," Garver said. "They had little interest in transitioning what they enjoyed and got paid to do over to the private sector and they assumed that was their decision."

In this photo provided by NASA, NASA Deputy Administrator Lori Garver talks during a press conference with Sierra Nevada's Dream Chaser spacecraft in the background at the University of Colorado at Boulder on February 5, 2011 in Boulder, Colorado.

Bill Ingalls/NASA via Getty Images

The space community's early opposition to SpaceX is well documented. In 2010, Neil Armstrong was one of several astronauts to diss the commercial space industry.

"I was very sad to see that," Musk told "60 Minutes" in 2012. "Those guys are heroes of mine, so it's really tough."

Garver said her support of commercial space initiatives — as well as her gender — made her a "target." She described an environment that was often hostile, despite her role as second in command.

"Many who disagreed with my views attacked me with vulgar, gendered language, depredation, and physical threats," Garver wrote. "I've been called an ugly whore, a motherfucking bitch, and a cunt; told I need to get laid, and asked if I'm on my period or going through menopause."

The 'space barons'

In her book, Garver is quick to praise Musk, Bezos, and Virgin Galactic founder Sir Richard Branson. She affectionately dubs them the "space barons."

"Whether we personally like the billionaire space titans as individuals is beside the point," she wrote. "By all accounts, they are following established laws, and instead of investing in space companies, they could be spending all of their money on creature comforts that do little for our national economy."

Elon Musk, the founder of SpaceX, stands beside a rocket in Los Angeles in 2004.

Paul Harris/Getty Images

Garver said she quickly developed close personal relationships with all three. Her discussions with Bezos were "like talking to a friend I've known for years," Garver wrote. She says Branson is the "most naturally charismatic" of the group and credits him with making space tourism glamorous.

But, Garver's highest praise is saved for Musk and Spacex -- which she says is leaps and bounds ahead of other space ventures.

"My story is difficult to separate from Elon's because I wouldn't have managed to pull off much of a transformation at NASA without him and SpaceX. We've bled for the same cause and amassed the same enemies," she wrote. "We each needed the other to succeed."