Federal handgun freeze now in effect amid fears MPs will water down the measure

OTTAWA — Federal regulations aimed at capping the number of handguns in Canada took effect Friday amid concerns from firearm-control advocates that MPs will weaken the effect through changes to accompanying legislation.

In May, the Liberals announced a plan to implement a freeze on importing, buying, selling or otherwise transferring handguns in order to help stem firearm-related violence.

At the time, the government tabled regulatory amendments in both the House of Commons and the Senate.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino held a news conference in the Vancouver area Friday to announce the regulations had come into effect.

A temporary ban on the importation of handguns into Canada that kicked in Aug. 19 remains in place.

"We have frozen the market for handguns in this country," Trudeau said Friday. "This is one of the strongest actions we've taken on gun violence in a generation."

Trudeau and Mendicino were flanked by Eileen Mohan, whose son Christopher was fatally shot in 2007. She praised the government for ushering in the handgun freeze.

"Today, the Liberal government has chosen life over death," Mohan said.

Accompanying legislative measures that would reinforce the freeze have yet to be approved by Parliament.

The legislation would allow elite sport shooters to continue to buy handguns — an exemption some want expanded to include a wider range of recreational shooters.

The government says the exemption applies to about 8,000 athletes, a number that could rise significantly if it is broadened.

Wes Winkel, president of the Canadian Sporting Arms and Ammunition Association, told the House of Commons public safety committee this week that other competition shooters should be exempted from the proposed legislative provisions.

He suggested that should include participants in international competitions organized by the Single Action Shooting Society, the International Practical Shooting Confederation and the International Defensive Pistol Association.

Gun-control group PolySeSouvient said in a written brief to the committee that the exemption should be limited to current athletes that compete, train or coach in an Olympic or Paralympic discipline involving handguns in order to prevent "a future scenario which would render the freeze on new handguns meaningless."

Asked about possible new exemptions, Trudeau said it would "surprise me" if the Bloc Québécois and NDP members of the Commons committee would move to water down the provisions in the bill.

Justice Minister David Lametti, speaking in Montreal on Friday, criticized any effort to ease the handgun freeze.

"It is worrisome and even shocking to see an attempt of reducing the extent of this bill and giving more space to handguns," Lametti said in French, adding the goal is to shrink "the number of handguns in our streets."

Conservative public safety critic Raquel Dancho said Friday the fact the Liberals' handgun freeze is taking effect while a parliamentary committee studies the accompanying legislation "shows they're not serious about consulting experts."

"We are in the midst of an extensive committee study into their current legislation on gun control and we are hearing from experts across the country that there is clearly a division on what experts believe should be done about firearms."

The Liberals are politicizing the issue and the freeze will not reduce gun violence, she added.

The Conservatives believe the millions the government will spend to advance its gun control agenda would be better used to bolster security at the border to prevent the illegal smuggling of firearms and provide more resources to police, Dancho said.

Trudeau said the government is strengthening the borders and giving law enforcement tools and resources to stop gun smuggling.

The federal firearms bill would also increase maximum penalties for gun smuggling and trafficking to 14 years from 10, as well as allow for the automatic removal of gun licences from people committing domestic violence or engaged in criminal harassment, such as stalking.

Two years ago, the government announced a ban on over 1,500 models and variants of what it considers assault-style firearms such as the AR-15. The Liberals plan a mandatory buyback program to offer compensation to affected owners and businesses.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 21, 2022.

— With files from Lee Berthiaume and Stephanie Taylor

Jim Bronskill, The Canadian Press

Heritage Minister Pablo Rodriguez says he is open to amendments of online news bill

OTTAWA — Heritage Minister Pablo Rodriguez told a House of Commons committee Friday that he would be open to amendments on a bill he says would make Canada a world leader in supporting a modern free press.


CRTC head is confident about managing online news bill despite 'challenges' ahead

Bill C-18 would require tech giants to negotiate deals to pay media outlets in order to make their news content available on major online platforms. It wouldn't affect any deals that the companies have already made with journalism outfits.

"It's about the future of journalism in our country," Rodriguez said. "The act is about making sure that news outlets in Canada get fair compensation for the work that they do."

Oversight would fall under the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission, which would develop regulations, investigate complaints and levy administrative penalties if parties contravene the law.

Canada's move to make internet behemoths pay for journalism and be subject to a regulated arbitration process follows similar legislation passed in Australia last year.

As the Australian bill was being finalized, Facebook, which has since rebranded itself as Meta, removed news content from its platform in that country for several days, but restored it after the government made tweaks to its legislation.

Meta Canada has not appeared before the committee and a statement from its head of media partnerships says the company was "surprised not to receive an invitation to participate, particularly given public comments by lawmakers that this law is targeted at Facebook."

The statement from Marc Dinsdale outlines concerns with the bill and argues that it would essentially make the company pay for content that media voluntarily share on the platform, which it says already amounts to "free marketing" for the news content.

"We feel it is important to be transparent about the possibility that we may be forced to consider whether we continue to allow the sharing of news content in Canada," says Dinsdale's statement, adding that Meta is "open to working with the government."

Conservative MP Marilyn Gladu asked Rodriguez whether Canada is doing anything to prevent an outcome where Facebook content is banned.

"It's a business decision that has to be taken by the platform," Rodriguez said.

Under the new framework, Canada would take a similar approach to Australia but with more mechanisms for transparency, the minister said.

"To the point where even the Australians are looking at us and saying, 'Wow, that's good, let's see if we can make the same thing,'" he added. "The world is watching us and I hope we will rise to the occasion."

News organizations have been largely supportive of the bill, but associations representing smaller outlets have complained that eligibility requirements requiring that newsrooms have two full-time journalists on staff could leave out many struggling community newspapers.

Rodriguez said the bill is not intended to be a "silver bullet" and the government is putting money into other programs that support local journalism. But he said he is open to discussing changes that would address any concerns.

He added that a collective bargaining provision in the bill is designed to support smaller outlets by allowing them to band together when they sit across the table from major platforms.

Google Canada criticized the legislation this week, saying that a provision requiring platforms not to give "undue preference" to particular outlets would prevent the search engine from elevating trusted information sources over "lower-quality" content and disinformation.

And documents Google provided to the heritage committee outline further concerns around how the bill defines "eligible" news organizations.

A too-loose definition means that companies headquartered elsewhere and that do not meet standards of journalistic ethics could still be eligible, as long as they employ two people in Canada, the documents say — raising the possibility of unintentionally including foreign propaganda.

Asked whether he would support amendments that specifically write provisions around journalistic integrity into the bill, Rodriguez said he is always open to discussing changes.

"I'm always ready to listen to suggestions and recommendations," he said. "My phone is there. You can reach me."

He said the bill tries to be as "arm's length" as possible and there is no role for the government to play in picking and choosing which outlets can enter the bargaining process beyond the criteria set out in the bill. "I don't think it's up to me to decide and name organizations that would be included."

CRTC officials who testified at the committee earlier Friday said they would look only to the legislation itself to figure out which outlets are eligible.

Rachelle Frenette, the regulator's general counsel and deputy executive director, confirmed that in order to consider "journalistic integrity" in the list of criteria, it would need to be explicitly written into the bill.

Chair Ian Scott said there will be challenges along the way but the regulator is well equipped to iron out the details of the bill and oversee its complaints mechanisms.

Scott said he has already consulted with officials in Australia and other countries on how similar provisions are applied in other jurisdictions.

An analysis by the Office of the Parliamentary Budget Officer earlier this month suggested that the measures in Bill C-18 could result in $329.2 million a year being provided to Canadian news businesses.

A breakdown by the PBO suggests that $247.7 million of that would go toward broadcasters that have a presence online, while $81.6 would go toward other journalism organizations.

Asked whether that seems like a fair distribution, Scott said it's not possible to say whether those numbers will turn out to be accurate. "We don't know yet … who exactly will be eligible and who will be on the hook, so to speak, to pay for it," he said.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 21, 2022.

Meta funds a fellowship that supports journalism positions at The Canadian Press.

Marie-Danielle Smith, The Canadian Press

120 YEARS AFTER ANTI-CHINESE RIOTS
Vancouver mayor-elect Ken Sim talks racism, heavy metal music, and losing friends to drugs

Lori Culbert - Vancouver Sun

Vancouver, mayor-elect Ken Sim at Vancouver city hall Wednesday, October 19, 2022. Sim defeated Kennedy Stewart in the civic election October 15.

Ken Sim’s success at the ballot box a week ago will make him Vancouver’s first mayor of Chinese descent, a historic milestone the son of immigrants achieved with zero experience at city hall.

So, who is Ken Sim?

His relatively brief foray into politics means he hasn’t often been in the limelight or, for most voters, become a household name yet.

He has a UBC business degree and worked as an accountant and investment banker before starting two successful companies, Nurse Next Door and Rosemary Rocksalt bagels.

He first entered politics in 2018 with his failed bid for mayor under the old NPA party, and then on his second try emerged victorious last Saturday after forming the new ABC party.

We’ve heard the priorities in his ABC platform , and Sim explained this week how he will try to achieve them.

To learn more about the man who will be the city’s next mayor, we first spoke with several people who have known him for years about his childhood, his careers and his campaigns. Then we asked Sim about the things we discovered, which range from rather silly to quite serious.

(His answers are verbatim but have been edited for length)



Mayor-elect Ken Sim’s parents Theresa and Francis Sim, in an undated photo.© . Source: Ken Sim campaign team

Q: You’ve spoken about your parents immigrating to Vancouver in 1967 with $3,200 to make a better life for their three children, and after arriving here they had your sister and then you in 1970. Paint a picture for me of that Sim household when you were a young boy, both from a financial and emotional perspective?

A: From an emotional point of view, I think it just sort of seemed like a normal childhood, because I didn’t have any reference points. So it was normal. But looking back at it, you know, it was challenging. I remember I went to five elementary schools in seven years all across the city: East Van, South Van, even on the west side. I remember Grade 4 going over to Brandon’s house, and I was blown away. They had a VCR and their fridge was full — two things that we did not have in our house …. The other thing I remember is my mom and dad being up at night, or in the morning at the kitchen table at 3 a.m., my mom sometimes would have tears in her eyes. I didn’t realize what that meant at the time, but in hindsight my mom was concerned about where we would be living the next week.

Q: Is that why you went to five different elementary schools, because they were concerned about paying rent?

A: Yeah, we couldn’t make rent. And you know, it was challenging back then to find a place that would take on five kids and a dog.

Q: You’ve spoken about making money when you were in Grade 5 by buying 10-cent comic books in east Vancouver and riding the bus to a shop on the west side, where you resold them for 25 cents. How does an 11-year-old come up with that idea and are there other examples of how you made money while a boy?

A: I don’t know where the idea came up. It just seemed kind of normal …. I probably did that for a couple of years until they caught on. (He laughs). I think at some point, they figured out: Hey, there’s some kid showing up with these old comic books all the time, where are they getting them from? They figured out there was another comic store that was selling them.

Q: So they removed you as the middleman?

A: They took me out as the middle person.



Baby Ken Sim sits on his mother Theresa’s knee, beside siblings Ed, Tina, Sabrina and Juliana while on a family trip to Victoria.

Q: Did you experience racism while growing up in Vancouver, and is there a particular incident that’s had a lasting impact on who you are today?

A: There were always a lot of songs. You know, the whole “ Chinese, Japanese, dirty knees, look at these .” I remember, people used to say, “ C—, c—, Chinaman sitting on a fence trying to make a quarter out of 15 cents. ” I’ll think about that. I still remember that song as a 52-year-old. It’s quite brutal …. We’ve gotten a lot better but, at the same time, it’s still out there, for sure.



Sir Winston Churchill Secondary School yearbook photo of Vancouver Mayor Ken Sim (Kenny Sim) in Grade 9 in 1985.

Q: You’ve said gangs targeted Chinese teens when you were a student at Churchill Secondary, and as a result a friend picked a fight with you. And that the school liaison officer helped you?

A: In Grade 8, we’re in French class together and we were buddies. And then by Grade 10, he joined either the Lotus or the Red Eagles, two prominent gangs at the time …. I don’t know if it was his initiation, but he had to pick a fight with me, and basically he jumped me and started throwing fists at me. And we were friends and he was forced to do it. And if it wasn’t for the school liaison officer program, I’d have had nowhere to turn to. Just their presence there, but also having someone to be able to talk to you, made a big difference.

Q: You stayed at Churchill until the end of Grade 11, and graduated from Magee in Grade 12. Why did you switch high schools?

A: I had a lot of fun in Grade 11 and so I missed a lot of classes in French, and I didn’t manage to pass French 11. And Magee was the only school anywhere close to where we were living that was on the semester system, so you can actually take 10 courses versus eight. And so I took French 11 and French 12 so I could get into university …. You make mistakes as a kid and you have to leave your school and all your buddies in your grad year. It was memorable, that’s for sure.



In 2010, Jan Paul Snip (left) and Ken Sim show off the funny hats they wore to Olympic events.© Handout

Q: Your first high school job was as a night janitor at Wendy’s. What other minimum-wage jobs did you have in your youth and did you ever think back then: One day I’m going to be mayor of this city?

A: Well, I can tell you I definitely did not think at any point I would be mayor of the city — that only happened about 4½ years ago. So clear that off the table right now. In no particular order, Wendy’s as the janitor was my first job, I was making $3.05 an hour. And then I went to the Dutch Omelette House on Cambie and 17th, I was making $4 an hour there as a prep cook and I was cleaning toilets as well. And then I went to the Keg Coal Harbour, that no longer exists. I was an appie cook and a sous chef there, I think was making $4.75 an hour, plus some tips which added up to about six bucks a week. Then I became a busboy at the Pan Pacific Hotel, and it was great. I thought I was rich, I was making $8.65 an hour plus a bunch of tips. Then I became a waiter at the Pelican Bay, in the Granville Island Hotel. I thought I was really rich, because there’d be some days I’d make over $100 in tips. Now I’m in university, I’m putting myself through school, and so it was great.

Q: A Churchill student who was in your auto class remembers you driving a convertible Volkswagen with a giant dog as your passenger. You also listened to heavy metal music. So, what was teenage Ken Sim like?

A: Oh God, are you guys trying to embarrass me? Yes, I had a convertible Rabbit — that’s one of my skeletons in the closet that I’m not too proud about — I had a convertible Rabbit. The dog was a big chow chow at that point in time. I loved, and I still do love, heavy metal. It doesn’t seem that heavy now, but Van Halen, Iron Maiden, Krokus, Judas Priest, the list goes on and on. I love that music. We would blare the tunes. It was a really weird look. Here’s some kid in a convertible Rabbit, playing You’ve Got Another Thing Comin’ by Judas Priest, going down the street. It’s kind of bizarre now if you think about it.

Q: You’re 52 and you’ve never held public office before. It’s much different than running a private corporation. What in your life has prepared you for your new job?

A: I think a couple of things. First of all, over the last four years, we’ve literally created the largest municipal political party in the province. And so we’ve been speaking with politicians, and city managers and what have you, throughout the province and actually throughout North America. Two, our team . So it’s bigger than any one person. I’m a team builder. We have three sitting councillors that have been in that chamber for the last four years who’ve seen the inner workings of City Hall. Plus, we’ve surrounded ourselves with other people that have a deep understanding of the various parts of the city.



Ken Sim’s sons react in the background after Sim won the NPA leadership over John Coupar (right) in 2018.© Arlen Redekop

Q: I understand you knew five people who ended up in the Downtown Eastside, and two of them died. Can you tell me more about these friends, and how their experiences shape your approach to addictions and mental health issues?

A: One individual was my brother’s training buddy, training partner. He actually accomplished a lot, he was Mr. Canada. He had some issues, he had some injuries, got addicted. He was a fixture in the Downtown Eastside and he passed away. There’s another person I went to high school with, a great kid. At 16, the family discovers that he actually has schizophrenia, and then ends up in the Downtown Eastside after he gets off his meds …. These are mental health, addiction, or people experiencing homelessness issues. Everyone is someone’s son or daughter. When we start looking at it from that perspective, as opposed to judging people, I think we will go a long way in coming up with solutions to tackle the big challenges that we have.

Q: Will you commit that your city hall won’t cut funding for services in the Downtown Eastside?

A: What I would commit to is we will make sure that services don’t get cut, but we’re actually going to look at all our different departments and see what the outcomes are and hold people accountable. And if people are doing a great job in various departments, absolutely, we may even provide more resources to those areas, kind of like Car 87 .



In 2015, Nurse Next Door President Cathy Thorpe with co-founders Ken Sim and John DeHart.© Mark van Manen

Q: The public knows you’ve been an accountant and an investment banker, they know about Nurse Next Door and Rosemary Rocksalt. But you also co-ran another company for, I think, about 15 years called CareSource, which provided staff to care homes, that’s been criticized in the past for labour-related issues. Why don’t you talk about CareSource on your LinkedIn or your official bio?

A: CareSource was operating for about five or six years. There are a lot of things that we just don’t talk (about) on the bio because they’re not really relevant. But no, CareSource was a great opportunity at the time, we’re actually really proud of what we did. It was also the period where caregivers were getting laid off across the province. And a lot of these caregivers were actually people that we cared about that were working at Nurse Next Door as well. And so we set up CareSource as an opportunity to make sure that people had jobs who had been laid off. And so we started to get some contracts from different nursing homes. And, you know, at the end of the day, the bulk of the operations was basically just providing caregivers and activity aids to facilities that wanted that support.

Q: It’s no longer operating?

A: No. Over a decade ago, we decided that as beneficial as it was to help our people out, our core business, what we really care about, is making lives better on an individual basis … things that we don’t get to do in an institutional setting.

Q: I’ve heard you adored your late mother, and that she wanted you to learn Mandarin. Why didn’t you take her advice, and is that a big regret?

A: Yeah, it was Cantonese and Mandarin, it was both my mom and my dad. At the end of the day, the reason I didn’t take their advice as a little kid growing up in the ’70s, we were bullied. And it wasn’t just the kids of Chinese descent, it was South Asians, anyone that looked different. As much as we loved our heritage, we didn’t embrace it because you are made fun of, you’re actually pushed around. And so that’s the reason why I speak French versus Cantonese.

Q: Your late father is originally from Chaozhou city in China’s Guangdong province, and a friend introduced you to a local Chaozhou association meeting while you were campaigning. What was that experience like for you?

A: We met with community groups — Greek community groups, Jewish community groups, we’ve been in gurdwaras and temples, and business groups. So it was interesting to see like all the support that we’re getting from those different communities. This (Chaozhou) one was special in the sense that it was as if I was part of the village, which sounds funny because it’s a huge region now, but it felt like we’re going back three, four or five generations of history and I was part of the tribe, so to speak. It was a bit emotional.


Teena Gupta and husband, Ken Sim, in 2013.© Ric Ernst

Q: I’ve been told that you, your wife, Teena, and your four sons are avid skiers?

A: We are, except for I’m a snowboarder, so I don’t know if I just upset half the electorate here. I used to be a skier. I skied for a long time. I could never get boots that didn’t hurt and once I tried those snowboarding slippers on I was hooked.

Q: Your life now is very different from the life your parents had when they came here in 1967, the life you are providing to your boys today is different than the life you’ve had. Have you maintained a connection with your working-class roots?

A: Sure. When I think of our kids, our kids don’t get allowances. They have to basically earn their keep, so they do jobs, they’re paying for their own education beyond the base level education at university. Our kids go to public school, they went to Trafalgar, they went to Kits, because I think that’s incredibly important — diversity of experiences …. And then, at Nurse Next Door, that’s the thing that actually keeps me the most humble and down to earth. When I think of all of our caregivers, make no mistake about it, they are better individuals than I ever could be. … They come here to do an incredibly challenging job. They do it because they love it, they actually care for people, and they sacrifice. They come to Vancouver, and for a while they probably have their families and young kids back in the Philippines, and they’re sending money back home. They’re coming here for a better life, not for themselves, but for the kids and the family.



Ken Sim at Vancouver city hall on Oct. 19.© Jason Payne

Q: Do you wear an Oura smart ring? Tell me about how it helps to track your sleep and stress levels, and how much you’re going to need that with your new job?

A: Maybe this actually is relevant for city hall. There is a school of thought that you have to work super long hours, and you have to kill yourself and you have to do FaceTime and all that. And then there’s a view that, look, we can be way more effective, get more accomplished in less time. The significance of the Oura ring is studies have shown that if you don’t get enough sleep, you don’t perform well, and actually your health outcomes deteriorate. So I track my sleep. I used to be one of those individuals that used to celebrate the fact that I get four hours of sleep a day. I’m trying to get seven, I’m at six right now, but I (want) seven. It’s going to be that thought process that we’re going to take to city hall, we’re going to be way more effective with the resources that we’re given.

lculbert@postmedia.com

NDP 

Soon-to-be B.C. premier David Eby lays out plan for first 100 days in office

Karin Larsen - CBC

Premier-designate David Eby says he will be introducing significant initiatives to tackle the issues of housing, health care, the environment and public safety in his first 100 days in office.

Premier-designate David Eby speaks during a news conference at the Chan Centre in Vancouver on Friday, Oct. 21, 2022.© Ben Nelms/CBC

Speaking to the media and a crowd of supporters at the Chan Centre in his Vancouver-Point Grey riding, Eby also said he is firmly committed to not calling an early election before the next fixed date of Oct. 19, 2024.

"I haven't heard a single person say they are wanting an election right now," he said.

Eby, 46, is poised to become the 37th premier of the province when John Horgan retires in December after being acclaimed leader of the ruling B.C. NDP party in a controversial non-contest that saw his only rival disqualified.

On housing, Eby said his government will go back to the future and rebuild partnerships with nonprofits, the private sector, cities and the federal government.

"Government used to believe that it had an obligation to build housing for middle-class families. Somehow we got away from that. We need to get back into that and deliver that housing."

He also said new measures would be introduced to preserve rental housing and create opportunities for new rental development.

On health care, Eby pointed to his partner, a doctor in family practice, to highlight his understanding of the "profound barriers" facing family physicians and others working in the sector.

He said systems need to be developed to recognize and employ internationally health-care workers who have moved to B.C.

"Our ability to assess people with international skills, to get them working as quickly as possible, is going to be part of our response to the challenges of the health-care system.," he said.

Regarding the climate and environment, Eby pledged to accelerate the NDP's old growth plan and reduce and redirect fossil fuel subsidies to clean energy projects. He did not answer a question about whether LNG subsidies will be targeted.

"We cannot continue to subsidize fossil fuels and expect clean energy to manifest somehow," he said. We cannot continue to expand fossil fuel infrastructure and hit our climate goals."

On public safety, Eby said he will make downtowns across the province safe again and look at solutions involving "profound interventions" to stop repeat offenders cycling in and out of the justice system by addressing issues of mental health, homelessness and addiction.

"I'm setting down a marker today: this is a priority for our government," he said. "What you will see is action that actually addresses the core issue that is causing so much chaos in our communities."

UN determines that the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territory is illegal

A United Nations commission of inquiry has determined Thursday that the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territory is illegal under international law.


A 'checkpoint' in Hebron, West Bank - 

MAMOUN WAZWAZ / ZUMA PRESS

The chairwoman of the commission, Navi Pillay, former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, said there are "reasonable grounds" to conclude that the Israeli occupation violates international norms.

The United Nations International Independent Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel issued its first report to the General Assembly on Thursday, explaining that the Israeli government's continued annexation policies are the reason for its failure to comply with international law.

According to international humanitarian law, the occupation of territory in time of war is a temporary situation and does not deprive the occupied power of its statehood or sovereignty.

"Recent statements by (UN Secretary-General António Guterres) and numerous member states have clearly indicated that any attempt at unilateral annexation of the territory of one state by another state is a violation of international law and is null and void," Pillay explained in reference to last week's General Assembly vote in which 143 member states, including Israel, rejected Russia's annexation of four Ukrainian territories.

The commission has indicated that, therefore, this fundamental principle of the UN Charter "will cease to have meaning" in the event that it is not universally applied.

In reaching its conclusions, the commission has reviewed the policies and actions employed by Israel to maintain the occupation and annex parts of the occupied Palestinian territory.

Among those actions, they highlight how Israel has sustained and advanced its "settlement enterprise," which includes statements by Israeli officials reaffirming the intention to maintain permanent control over the land in violation of international law.

"By ignoring international law in establishing or facilitating the establishment of settlements, and by directly or indirectly transferring Israeli civilians to these settlements, successive Israeli governments have established facts on the ground to ensure Israel's permanent control in the West Bank," said Pillay.

According to the report, Israel continues to violate the rights of Palestinians individually and as a people as a whole, as it expropriates land and natural resources, actions that require confiscation, demolition and displacement of residents.

"There is so much 'silent harm' and psychological trauma, which may not be immediately apparent, as a result of the erosion of economic, social and cultural rights. These debilitating processes have serious short- and long-term consequences and must be addressed urgently," warned Commissioner Miloon Kothari.

In this regard, the independent UN body analyzed the impact of occupation and annexation policies specifically on women and children. In addition, he assured that "this continuous coercive environment has fragmented Palestinian society".

The report concludes that some of the policies and actions of the Government of Israel leading to the permanent occupation and de facto annexation may constitute elements of crimes under international criminal law, including the war crime of transferring, directly or indirectly, part of the civilian population's own property to the occupied territory, and the crime against humanity of deportation or forcible transfer.

‘Unlike anything you’ve ever played’: Immortality, the video game that’s actually three movies

A video game exploring the treatment of women in Hollywood has set a new standard of sophistication. We talk to its creator and star

Down the rabbit hole: Manon Gage as Marissa Marcel Photograph: Half Mermaid Productions

Keza MacDonald

Mon 17 Oct 2022 

Every now and then you play a video game that you just cannot stop thinking about. Candy Crush might leave colourful imprints on the back of your eyelids. The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild may creep into your dreams. And then, very occasionally, a game comes along that is so entirely unlike anything you’ve ever played that it becomes an obsession. Immortality, the latest from lauded game-maker Sam Barlow and his studio Half Mermaid, is one of those. It is something that has never existed before: a video game that is also three feature-length films, wrapped around a mystery so compelling that I couldn’t concentrate on anything else for days. It is so delicate and complex that it’s difficult to figure out how it even works.

The first thing you see when you load up Immortality is a talkshow clip from the late 1960s, in which a bright-eyed, red-haired young actor is being interviewed about her recent starring role in a film called Ambrosio, an adaptation of a 1796 novel about a devil temptress who draws a monk down the path of sin. This is Marissa Marcel, who was at this point on the brink of stardom – but this film she appears in, with an eminent but slimy director, is never released. Her next picture, an erotic thriller about art and murder, also never makes it into theatres. She retreats into obscurity for a long time, before emerging for a comeback in the 1990s in a Lynchian thriller about artifice and celebrity – but that film, too, is lost, and after that she disappears entirely.

Freeze frame… players use a grid to organise their search. Photograph: Half Mermaid Productions

The question of what happened to Marissa is an irresistible mystery – and you, the player, now have access to a full archive of clips, rushes and behind-the-scenes footage from her career. Somewhere within these segments, you can find the answer. Freezing the footage and zooming in on any detail – a plant, a mug, a director’s slate – will transport you to another clip in which that same thing appears. You time-travel through the decades, jumping between all three films, following motifs or particular actors, slowly piecing together not just what happens in the movies, but what happens to the people who are making them.
In the history of cinema, the more extreme compromises and restraints would be landed on the women

Put together, these three films tell a story about film-making, about the price of art, and about Hollywood’s exploitation of women. But it is in the way that you experience them – recreating them piecemeal by following your intuition, noticing something in an actor’s face or an off-camera comment, diving down rabbit holes and discovering that they are deep and branching – that the true story of Immortality is told. It is a delicate and multilayered mystery that you unravel yourself, scrubbing through these scenes and searching for clues. As a player, you reach a turning point after maybe an hour, maybe two, when you’ll be watching a scene and think, wait – did I just see what I thought I saw? You’ll wind it back. Watch again. Follow the thread. And an extraordinary mystery starts to reveal itself at the centre.
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Barlow is the director of Immortality – a role that is uncommon in video games, because they are typically such huge-scale, collaborative creative efforts. But this is not a normal video game, and neither are Barlow’s previous projects Her Story and Telling Lies, both smaller-scale mysteries that use live footage of human actors rather than motion capture and computer graphics. “I thought, if people keep calling my games interactive movies, why don’t I actually make an interactive movie?” says Barlow. “Why don’t I express what I think about cinema, and why films are so interesting and special to me? If we deconstruct movies and their creative process, it really always comes back to the actors … and in the history of cinema, the more extreme compromises and indeed restraints would be landed on the women.”

This is a game that reveres and criticises Hollywood and film-making. It is not a discomfiting, upsetting story about an exploited actor, even if it looks like it might be at first. There is empowerment in here; Immortality is thankfully confident and complex enough to hold both these themes (and many more) at once. Early in development, Barlow zoned in on the golden-age cinema of the 1970s, the death of the studio system and the rise of the auteur director and the European New Wave – along with the explosion of sex and sexuality depicted on screen.
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“We spoke to a lot of people who were involved in making movies back then,” says Barlow. “The women playing the femmes fatales are playing a character that has more agency, that is driving the plot, has a level of sexual expression that is denied to most female characters – but, at the same time, the femme fatale was a character trope that was created to titillate men. We followed that thread throughout the 80s and 90s, through the erotic thriller, a lens through which men could deal with their growing panic at what a world in which people were equal looked like.”

Looking for clues … behind-the-scenes footage for players to piece together. Photograph: Half Mermaid Productions

Immortality was shot over three months in LA during the summer of 2021 (and was almost scuppered several times by Covid). Manon Gage, the actor who plays Marissa in the game, was instantly drawn to the character – even if it was difficult to envision what Immortality was actually going to be. “When I got the first audition it was just a few scenes,” she says. “Marissa in each of the three movies, and I thought, this scope is incredible – what are we doing here? How is this a video game? The script was 400 pages long, and some of the best writing I’d read in years. You don’t read writing that’s this good, honestly, especially as a relative newcomer … I was enamoured from the start.”

The cast tell me that Barlow sat down with each of them and talked for hours, explaining how the game was going to work. “I bought into what he was saying, but I was still struggling to wrap my head around what was going on,” says Hans Christopher, who plays John Durick, the director of photography who is one of the few constants in Marissa’s career. “But I had this sense that he understood it, and that’s all we needed to worry about.”

Because this is a story with many layers, in which each performer is an actor playing an actor playing a role, the performances are crucial: if the player doesn’t believe they’re watching real people, getting a glimpse behind the scenes of real film projects, then the whole conceit at the heart of the game begins to fall apart. “We were always thinking about our relationship to the audience in an interesting way,” says Gage. “If there’s an off-camera glance, you know that the person playing is going to catch that and think, what was that, and follow that lead. That was fun to play with. You’re breaking the fourth wall, but you’re also inviting people in.”

It was nonetheless difficult to visualise how people would experience their work, says Charlotta Mohlin, whose character in Immortality is nameless but vital. “At one point I was wondering, is anyone going to find me in the game? Will players actually see me?” she laughs. “We all understood it as a story, but understanding it as a concept – how people would find things in scenes, and move between them – was something I couldn’t wrap my head around until I played it.”

Immortality is not just a feat of film-making, encompassing 10 hours of footage and three different films – it’s also a feat of coding. After they’d shot it Barlow and Half Mermaid had to go through frame by frame, picking out doorknobs and plants and different actors and adding them to the game’s database so that the player would be able to click on them and piece the footage together. The disjointed way in which you experience these films is jarring at first, but it’s what makes Immortality special: no two players (or viewers) will take the same route through it. How do you design a story that makes sense no matter what order you see it in?

Immortality review – a spellbinding cinephile puzzle about a vanished actor

Barlow’s answer is surprising: you don’t really need to design it that way. “The modern audience member is so much more intelligent when it comes to story than someone from 50 years ago,” he says. “We are so saturated with storytelling that we’ve internalised all the tropes and the structures. So in giving people pieces of story, it is quite easy for them to put those pieces together. But even if we see the same pieces, involving the player’s brain and imagination more is a win-win. It’s inherently more involving.”

You will, eventually, reach an ending after somewhere north of five hours with Immortality. You will find some kind of answer, no matter which footage you’ve found and which remains hidden within the archive. But what it all actually means is open to interpretation: what you bring to the game, and your path through it, will leave you with a different set of answers. Even the actors who star in the game don’t share a fixed interpretation of its themes.

“The concept of film capturing a moment of truth – in a way that is immortal,” says Christopher. “That is something that will live on for ever. The game wants to capture that, bring you in and feel like you are now part of this grand, living moment – that you, too, are immortalised.”

 

Niemann files $100M US defamation lawsuit against Carlsen, Chess.com over cheating allegations

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American grandmaster claims defendants are 'colluding to blacklist' him from professional chess world

Thomson Reuters · Posted: Oct 20, 2022 6:16 PM ET | Last Updated: 1 hour ago

Grandmaster chess player Hans Niemann, left, claims he has been shunned by tournament organizers since five-time world champion Magnus Carlsen publicly accused him of cheating. Carlsen's surprise defeat to Niemann and his subsequent withdrawal from the Sinquefield Cup in September sparked cheating allegations. (Tim Vizer/AFP via Getty Images

Hans Niemann, the teenage American grandmaster at the centre of an alleged cheating scandal, sued world champion Magnus Carlsen, online platform Chess.com and others for slander and libel on Thursday and is seeking at least $100 million US in damages.

The lawsuit, filed at a U.S. District Court in Missouri, also lists Carlsen's online chess platform Play Magnus, Chess.com executive Danny Rensch and American grandmaster Hikaru Nakamura as defendants.

Niemann, 19, claimed that the defendants are "colluding to blacklist" him from the professional chess world and that he has been shunned by tournament organizers since five-time world champion Carlsen publicly accused him of cheating.

Carlsen's surprise defeat to Niemann and his subsequent withdrawal from the Sinquefield Cup in St Louis, Missouri in September sparked a furore of comments and allegations, including from Nakamura, that the American had cheated.

• Chess world rocked by cheating accusations made by game's leading player

Weeks after the Sinquefield Cup, the Norwegian resigned after just one move against Niemann in an online tournament and said later in September he believed the American had "cheated more — and more recently — than he has publicly admitted."

'Fallout is of his own making'

In a statement on Thursday, lawyers for Chess.com said there was no merit to Niemann's allegations and that the company was saddened by his decision to take legal action.

"Hans confessed publicly to cheating online in the wake of the Sinquefield Cup, and the resulting fallout is of his own making," the statement read.

"Chess.com looks forward to setting the record straight on behalf of its team and all honest chess players."

Representatives for Carlsen and Nakamura did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Chess.com banned Niemann after the first match against Carlsen and published a report earlier this month that said he had likely cheated more than 100 times in online games.

• OPINION
  Old adage - if you ain't cheatin' you ain't tryin' - put to test in series of strange plays

• FRONT BURNER
  The cheating scandal rocking pro chess

Niemann had previously been banned from Chess.com for cheating online, having admitted he had not played fairly in non-competitive games on the website in his youth, but denied any wrongdoing while contesting over-the-board games.

His lawsuit said that Chess.com "banned Niemann from its website and all of its future events, to lend credence to Carlsen's unsubstantiated and defamatory accusations of cheating."

"Carlsen, having solidified his position as the 'King of Chess,' believes that when it comes to chess, he can do whatever he wants and get away with it," the complaint added.

The lawsuit further accused Nakamura, a streaming partner of Chess.com, of publishing "hours of video content amplifying and attempting to bolster Carlsen's false cheating allegations."

The International Chess Federation (FIDE) said last month it would open an investigation into the allegations of cheating.

WATCH | Chess world rocked by cheating scandal:

The world of chess has been in turmoil over accusations of cheating made by the game's leading player. Magnus Carlsen has publicly accused an up-and-coming American chess player named Hans Niemann of cheating after Niemann beat him at a tournament in St. Louis.

 

Ostrich-like dinosaurs found in Mississippi are among the world's largest ornithomimosaurs at more than 800 kg

by Public Library of Science

Paleohistological transverse sections of select elements of (A) large- and (B) 

medium-bodied individuals of the Eutaw ornithomimosaurs, and (C) relative body-size

 of the Eutaw ornithomimosaurs within known ornithomimosaur taxa through a geological 

time. Credit: Tsogtbaatar et al., CC-BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)

Ostrich-like dinosaurs called ornithomimosaurs grew to enormous sizes in ancient eastern North America, according to a study published October 19, 2022, in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Chinzorig Tsogtbaatar of the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences and colleagues.

During the Late Cretaceous Period, North America was split by a seaway into two landmasses: Laramidia to the west and Appalachia to the east. But fossils from Appalachia are rare, and therefore ancient ecosystems from this region are poorly understood. In this study, Chinzorig and colleagues describe new fossils of ornithomimosaur dinosaurs from the Late Cretaceous Eutaw Formation of Mississippi.

Ornithomimosaurs, the so-called "bird-mimic" dinosaurs, were superficially ostrich-shaped with small heads, long arms, and strong legs. The new fossils, including foot bones, are around 85 million years old, making them a rare glimpse into a poorly known interval of North American dinosaur evolution

By comparing the proportions of these fossils and the patterns of growth within the bones, the authors determined that the fossils likely represent two different species of ornithomimosaurs, one relatively small and one very large. They estimate the larger species to have weighed over 800 kg, and the individual examined was likely still growing when it died. This makes it among the largest ornithomimosaurs known.

These fossils provide valuable insights into the otherwise poorly understood dinosaur ecosystems of Late Cretaceous eastern North America. They also shed light on ornithomimosaur evolution; giant body sizes and multiple species living side-by-side are recurring trends for these dinosaurs across North America and Asia. Further study will hopefully elucidate the reasons behind the success of these life strategies.

The authors add, "The co-existence of medium- and large-bodied ornithomimosaur taxa during the Late Cretaceous Santonian of North America does not only provide key information on the diversity and distribution of North American ornithomimosaurs from the Appalachian landmass, but it also suggests broader evidence of multiple cohabiting species of ornithomimosaurian dinosaurs in Late Cretaceous ecosystems of Laurasia."

Chinese fossil eggs show dinosaur decline before extinction

More information: Large-bodied ornithomimosaurs inhabited Appalachia during the Late Cretaceous of North America, PLoS ONE (2022). DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0266648

Journal information: PLoS ONE 

Provided by Public Library of Science 

48 YEARS OF CONSERVATIVES FIXING HEALTHCARE

Alberta premier says journey to fix health system in 90 days will be 'bumpy'

EDMONTON — Alberta Premier Danielle Smith is promising rocky times ahead as she reorganizes the entire governance structure of provincial health services before the end of January.


Alberta premier says journey to fix health system in 90 days will be 'bumpy'© Provided by The Canadian Press

“It’s going to be a bit bumpy for the next 90 days,” Smith said Thursday in a speech to the Edmonton Chamber of Commerce.

“I know that it’s perilous to try to reform an area this big this close to an election, but we must do it.”

She added: “I would hope that there’s a bit of goodwill, that some of the successes get reported as well, (and) if we're making some mistakes along the way, just be patient and gentle with us. Because we know that we have to do this for all Albertans.”

Smith, on her first day as premier last week, reiterated her United Conservative Party leadership campaign promise to fire the governing board of Alberta Health Services, the agency responsible for delivering front-line care provincewide under policy direction from the Health ministry.

She has publicly blamed AHS for botching the COVID-19 pandemic by not delivering promised extra hospital beds to handle the flood of patients. She has also criticized the agency for directing employees to be vaccinated for COVID-19, saying that led to needless vacancies and staff shortages.

Speaking to the chamber, Smith also laid current hospital problems and long wait times at the feet of AHS.

“We cannot continue on hearing stories of people dying in the back of ambulances or waiting for nine hours in an ambulance or waiting 29 hours on a hospital floor,” she said.

Smith repeated that her government will follow through this fall on her campaign promises to not implement any future COVID-19 restrictions or vaccine mandates. And she said the legislature will amend the provincial Human Rights Act to not allow any discrimination on the basis of COVID-19 vaccination.

“I know there’s going to be pressure on our health-care system,” said Smith.

“But the way you solve the pressure on your health-care system … is not by shutting down restaurants. And it’s not by shutting down hotels. And it’s not by making the business community be the ones to bear the brunt of it.

“We’re not going to be closing schools. We’re not going to be disrupting kids’ activities.

“We want to send the message to the world community, and to the investment markets, that this is a place that is open for business, that this is a place that believes in freedom, this is a place that believes in free enterprise.”

That announcement was greeted with a smattering of applause.

Smith is also scheduled to announce a new cabinet on Friday. The new members are to be sworn in on Monday.

She said the UCP caucus had a retreat this week in Sylvan Lake and played paintball, blasting each other with pellets to build trust and foster camaraderie.

When asked by the chamber's moderator how her first week as premier has been, Smith replied: "bumpy," without elaborating.

She began her first day in office by announcing she was rolling back on a promise to give the legislature the option to ignore rulings from the Supreme Court of Canada. She was also criticized for saying the COVID-19 unvaccinated have endured the most discrimination of anyone in her lifetime.

On Tuesday, she apologized for making comments earlier this year on the Russia-Ukraine war that were deemed to be pro-Russia. Smith had said it would be better for Ukraine to follow Russia’s desire to remain militarily neutral, which upset many in Alberta’s large Ukrainian community.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 20, 2022.

Dean Bennett, The Canadian Press

Scientists Reconstruct the Genome of the 180-Million-Year-Old Common Ancestor of All Mammals

By UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA - DAVIS OCTOBER 15, 2022

The mammal ancestor had 19 autosomal chromosomes and 2 sex chromosomes.

University of California, Davis scientists help reveal the genome of the common ancestor of all mammals

From a platypus to a blue whale, all living mammals today are descended from a common ancestor that existed some 180 million years ago. Although we don’t know a lot about this animal, a global team of experts has recently computationally reconstructed the organization of its genome. The findings were recently published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

“Our results have important implications for understanding the evolution of mammals and for conservation efforts,” said Harris Lewin, distinguished professor of evolution and ecology at the University of California, Davis, and senior author on the paper.

The researchers used high-quality genome sequences from 32 living species, spanning 23 of the 26 known mammalian orders. Humans and chimpanzees were among these species, as were wombats and rabbits, manatees, domestic cattle, rhinos, bats, and pangolins. The chicken and Chinese alligator genomes were also used as comparison groups in the analysis. Some of these genomes are being produced as part of the Earth BioGenome Project and other large-scale biodiversity genome sequencing initiatives. Lewin is the chair of the Earth BioGenome Project’s Working Group.

According to Joana Damas, the first author of the study and a postdoctoral researcher at the UC Davis Genome Center, the mammal ancestor had 19 autosomal chromosomes, which control the inheritance of an organism’s characteristics other than those controlled by sex-linked chromosomes (these are paired in most cells, making 38 in total), plus two sex chromosomes. The researchers identified 1,215 blocks of genes that appear on the same chromosome in the same order across all 32 genomes. Damas said that these building blocks of all mammal genomes include genes that are essential for the development of a normal embryo.

Chromosomes stable for over 300 million years

The researchers found nine whole chromosomes or chromosome fragments in the mammal ancestor whose order of genes is the same in modern birds’ chromosomes.

“This remarkable finding shows the evolutionary stability of the order and orientation of genes on chromosomes over an extended evolutionary timeframe of more than 320 million years,” Lewin said.

In contrast, regions between these conserved blocks contained more repetitive sequences and were more prone to breakages, rearrangements, and sequence duplications, which are major drivers of genome evolution.

“Ancestral genome reconstructions are critical to interpreting where and why selective pressures vary across genomes. This study establishes a clear relationship between chromatin architecture, gene regulation, and linkage conservation,” said Professor William Murphy, Texas A&M University, who was not an author of the paper. “This provides the foundation for assessing the role of natural selection in chromosome evolution across the mammalian tree of life.”

The researchers were able to follow the ancestral chromosomes forward in time from the common ancestor. They found that the rate of chromosome rearrangement differed between mammal lineages. For example, in the ruminant lineage (leading to modern cattle, sheep, and deer) there was an acceleration in rearrangement 66 million years ago when an asteroid impact killed off the dinosaurs and led to the rise of mammals

The results will help to understand the genetics behind adaptations that have allowed mammals to flourish on a changing planet over the last 180 million years, the authors said.

Reference: “Evolution of the ancestral mammalian karyotype and syntenic regions” by Joana Damas, Marco Corbo, Jaebum Kim, Jason Turner-Maier, Marta Farré, Denis M. Larkin, Oliver A. Ryder, Cynthia Steiner, Marlys L. Houck, Shaune Hall, Lily Shiue, Stephen Thomas, Thomas Swale, Mark Daly, Jonas Korlach, Marcela Uliano-Silva, Camila J. Mazzoni, Bruce W. Birren, Diane P. Genereux, Jeremy Johnson, Kerstin Lindblad-Toh, Elinor K. Karlsson, Martin T. Nweeia, Rebecca N. Johnson, Zoonomia Consortium and Harris A. Lewin, 26 September 2022, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2209139119

The study was funded by the National Institutes of Health and the U.S. Department of Agriculture.