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USask survey shows food bank use highest in Saskatchewan and Alberta

A University of Saskatchewan poll found that food bank use in the Prairies is the highest in the nation as grocery prices continue to skyrocket across the country.

The finding is among several from a national comprehensive survey on food security conducted from Sept. 6 to Oct. 17 by the University of Saskatchewan’s (USask) Canadian Hub for Applied and Social Research (CHASR).

“The Prairies were quite a lot higher, at 10.3 per cent, versus the next lowest, British Columbia, at five per cent,” said Dr. Jessica McCutcheon (PhD), survey research manager at CHASR.

Faced with soaring grocery bills that have grown at their fastest rate since August of 1981, more Prairie residents are turning to food banks and community fridges to feed themselves than citizens of any other region in Canada.

“I looked into what might be causing this, and there wasn’t a clear answer. What was clear is that it’s not just a finding in this survey but it’s also in other surveys pretty consistently, that Alberta and Saskatchewan have among the highest food bank use rates,” McCutcheon said.

Prairie residents (27.8 per cent) are also more likely than Ontarians (17.5 per cent) or Quebecers (15.7) to say they have reduced meal sizes or skipped meals entirely to save money. And Prairie residents (52.2 per cent) are more apt to have grown or hunted their own food than Quebecers (37.1 per cent) and Ontarians (41.1 per cent), something McCutcheon said could be attributed to the relatively larger rural component of the Prairie population.

Low income is the driving cause for food insecurity, said McCutcheon, and these numbers likely far underestimate the true extent of the problem because low-income persons are the most difficult to get to complete surveys.

Locally, Executive Director for the Prince Albert Food Bank, Kim Scruby, said they have seen an increase of around 15 per cent in recent months compared to pre-COVID. That works out to be around 1,100 hampers per month for approximately 3,000 people, with half of those being children.

“The first spike occurred in June or July when gas prices started to go up a lot,” said Scruby. “Food inflation has been the other major contributor.”

The Prince Albert Food Bank is always taking donations for non-perishable goods, food donations can be dropped off at 64 11th Street East to help individuals in need.

CHASR’s Taking the Pulse of Canada survey had 1,001 respondents across Canada who were contacted via landlines and cellphones. Nearly 78 per cent of respondents said they had used coupons or bought food items on sale, 58.6 per cent said they had decreased household food waste, and 54.5 per cent said they had planned meals to ensure they had enough money and food. As well, 30.7 per cent said they had eaten less healthy food because it’s cheaper.

Notably, nearly five per cent of respondents nationally said they had stolen food out of necessity, while seven per cent of Prairie residents said they had done so.

“Again, that’s probably an underestimate because we are talking about a social desirability bias in the response,” said McCutcheon. “Some people might not admit it, but people having to go to such extremes paints a stark picture.”

As for strategies to help Canadians cope with food insecurity and raise funds to offset costs, 90 per cent support increasing funding to publicly accessible community gardens, 88.5 per cent support increasing funding to food banks, 88 per cent support implementing a universal healthy school food program, and 87 per cent providing grocery subsidies to low-income households.

While nationally 56.6 per cent support implementing a tax on sugar and artificially sweetened beverages, the strongest support for the measures is in Quebec with 77 per cent and lowest in the Prairies, where opinion is evenly split. Similarly, when it comes to penalizing carbon emissions, 73.5 per cent of Quebecers are in support while the support drops to just 30.6 per cent on the Prairies and 39 per cent in British Columbia.

Bailey Sutherland, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, Prince Albert Daily Herald

New UN rights chief decries women's rights 'pushback'

Issued on: 02/11/2022 - 

Iran has been rocked by protests following the death of Mahsa Amini after she was arrested over the way she was wearing her headscarf - AFP

Geneva (AFP) – The new United Nations rights chief voiced deep concerns Wednesday over a swelling "pushback" on women's rights across much of the world.

During his first press conference as UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Turk said he was deeply worried to see rises in misogynistic attitudes and efforts to reverse the rights of women and girls in many countries.

There has been "a real pushback, and that's very worrying and it affects women and girls in many parts of the world in a way that is unparallelled," he told reporters.

Turk, who became the UN rights chief two weeks ago, did not point to specific country situations.

His comments however came as Iran continues to be rocked by over six weeks of deadly protests following the death of Mahsa Amini after she was arrested by the morality police in Tehran over the way she was wearing her headscarf.

Protests are also continuing, albeit on a much smaller scale, in Afghanistan, where the Taliban have issued a slew of restrictions controlling women's lives since they returned to power in August 2021.

They have also blocked girls from returning to secondary schools and barred women from many government jobs.

Turk meanwhile hinted that there was a much broader trend of pushbacks against women's rights "both in the global north and in the global south".
'Very divided world'

The Austrian national, who has spent most of his career within the UN system, voiced alarm at a growing "strongman mentality" and "autocratic tendencies" in a number of places.

This was contributing to an erosion of civic space and "the repression of and the silencing of dissent," with particular impacts for women and girls, he said.
Small protests are also continuing in Afghanistan, after the Taliban returned to power in August 2021 Wakil KOHSAR AFP

Slamming "the rise in misogyny and misogynistic attitudes", he insisted that this was not something we should need to "even deal with ... in the 21st century".

More broadly, Turk voiced deep concern about the deepening geopolitical divisions at a time when the world is still wallowing in the Covid crisis and reeling from the conflict in Ukraine.

"I am taking up my function in a world where we see a lot of geopolitical tensions, where we see a lot of fragmentation within the international system," he said.

"We face incredible challenges... We are in a very divided world."

Turk warned that countries' refusal to cooperate towards resolving those challenges was taking a dire toll on the respect for human rights "which we cannot afford".

© 2022 AFP

UN chief warns of ‘relentless’ pushback on women’s rights

By EDITH M. LEDERER
March 11, 2019

In this Friday, March 8, 2019 photo provided by the United Nations, Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, third from right, executive director of UN Women, speaks at the United Nations Observance of International Women's Day at the United Nations headquarters. Mlambo-Ngcuka is calling for the revolution in technology to be used to benefit the world's poor and especially women who will not achieve gender equality without "the giant leap that 21st century innovations can bring." At left is U.N. secretary General Antonio Guterres, and at right is Geraldine Byrne-Nason, chair of the Commission on the Status of Women and Permanent Representative of Ireland to the United Nations. 

(Eskinder Debebe/The United Nations via AP)


UNITED NATIONS (AP) — Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned Monday that there is a “deep, pervasive and relentless” pushback on women’s rights and called for a fight to “push back against the pushback.”

Calling himself “a proud feminist,” the U.N. chief said, “It is a fight we must win — together.”

Guterres spoke at the opening of the annual meeting of the Commission on the Status of Women, which since its establishment in 1947 has been committed to achieving “equality with men in all fields of human enterprise.”

The secretary-general told hundreds of ministers, delegates and representatives from civil society and business that the U.N. body could equally go by another name: “the Commission on the Status of Power — because this is the crux of the issue.”

While advocates for gender equality are mobilizing as never before, Guterres said, “around the world, there is a pushback on women’s rights.”

He pointed to increased violence against women, especially defenders of human rights and women running for political office. He cited “online abuse of women who speak out,” women 26 percent less likely to be employed than men, and “an ongoing uphill battle for reproductive rights.”

“And nationalist, populist and even austerity agendas are tearing social fabric — aggravating inequality, splintering communities, curtailing women’s rights and cutting vital services,” Guterres said.

The fight against these negative trends is a fight that must be won, he said.

“So let us say it loud and clear,” Guterres said. “We will not give ground. We will not turn back. We will push back against the pushback. And we will keep pushing. For wholesale change. For rapid change ... our world needs, starting by addressing the imbalance in power relations.”

Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, head of the U.N. women’s agency, gave some examples of pushback in an Associated Press interview ahead of the commission’s meeting.

In negotiations on its final document, she said, some countries don’t want health care facilities to provide “sexual and reproductive rights,” issues that were fought over and are part of the 1995 platform for action adopted by the world’s nations at the U.N. women’s conference in Beijing.

In addition, she said, “Some countries don’t want to use the word gender. You must always say men and women, so that you do not include people who are gender non-conforming.”

She said these ideological issues are “the usual pushback” that are “ultimately about women’s bodies.”

Mlambo-Ngcuka told the commission on Monday that gains for women over the past two decades “are fragile, and we are seeing them reverse.”

The latest data indicate 131 million girls worldwide aren’t going to school and there has been a 6 percent increase in girls not attending elementary school, she said.

“On average, globally, women still have only three-quarters of the legal rights of men, and more than one billion have no recourse against violence or are restricted in their education or employment — what is now being called ‘economic violence,’” Mlambo-Ngcuka said.

And every day, approximately 830 women — 99 percent of them in developing countries — die of preventable causes related to pregnancy and childbirth, she said.

Ireland’s U.N. ambassador, Geraldine Byrne Nason, who presides over the Commission on the Status of Women, said the Beijing declaration statement that women’s rights are human rights generated optimism, but “we have been disappointed.”

Today, she said, less than 7 percent of heads of state and government are women, and only one in four parliament members around the world are female. And, she said, “it’s estimated if we don’t act, it will take 217 years to reach parity between men and women in pay and employment opportunities.”

“So what went wrong?” Byrne Nason said. “The truth is that collectively we haven’t yet succeeded in making sure that women are wherever decisions are being made.”

She said gender empowerment means handing over or sharing power “and we know how hard that is.”

“What we’re trying to achieve is that men have their rights, and nothing more, and that women have their rights, and nothing less,” Byrne Nelson said.

She said the commission will be deliberating in the next two weeks about maternity, pensions, safe roads and transport, schools that teach girls skills to succeed, women’s access to vital health care, “and the fair distribution of care and the domestic work between men and women.”

Albanian PM blasts UK for 'discrimination' over migrant comments

Wed, 2 November 2022 


Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama lambasted the British government on Wednesday for allegedly "discriminating" against Albanians, after a top UK official singled out the nationality for their role in illicit migration to the country.

Small-boat crossings of the Channel from mainland Europe have become a political headache for UK ministers, who vowed that Brexit would lead to tighter immigration controls.

Official statistics in the UK have stated that Albanians are now the largest single group making small-boat crossings of the Channel.

In a series of messages posted on his personal Twitter account Rama said UK officials have been actively "discriminating" against Albanians.

"Targeting Albanians (as some shamefully did when fighting for Brexit) as the cause of Britain's crime and border problems makes for easy rhetoric but ignores hard fact," Rama tweeted.

"Albanians in the UK work hard and pay tax. UK should fight the crime gangs of all nationalities and stop discriminating... to excuse policy failures," he added.

Britain's Home Secretary Suella Braverman was recently panned for her choice of language during a heated Commons debate, when she alleged that there is an "invasion" of England by migrants.

Braverman has also pointed the finger at Albanian asylum seekers, saying that many Albanian adult males who seek asylum in the UK have posed as children, a practice she intended to "clamp down" on.

British MPs were told recently that 12,000 Albanians had arrived in the country after crossing the Channel so far this year, compared to only 50 in 2020.

The number of migrant arrivals have reached record levels, causing delays in asylum applications and increasing costs in terms of housing and other social services.

Albanian organised crime gang groups are believed to be among the main players in smuggling migrants across the Channel to Britain from northern Europe.

Earlier this week, British and Belgian law enforcement officers said they had arrested three people suspected of being part of an Albanian people-smuggling ring.

FIFA WORLD CUP

Canadian D Kennedy to miss World Cup with shoulder injury

Canadian men's national team head coach John Herdman confirmed Wednesday that defender Scott Kennedy will miss the 2022 World Cup in Qatar with a shoulder injury.

The Canadian Press

• 
  

Scott Kennedy (4) , The Canadian Press

TORONTO (AP) — Canadian defender Scott Kennedy will miss the World Cup after injuring a shoulder.

The 25-year-old, who has eight international appearances, was hurt Saturday while playing for Regensburg against Rostock in the German second tier, leaving the match in the seventh minute.

“He was devastated this morning,” Canada coach John Herdman said during a conference call Wednesday. “He will be a big loss to this group on and off the field. Just one of those tough moments as a coach where you've got to share that grim reality with someone.”

Herdman was relieved Bayern Munich's Alphonso Davies, who turned 22 Wednesday, was not seriously hurt when he sustained a cranial bruise against Dortmund on Oct. 8. Davies, Canada's top player, returned eight days later.

“Every game we’re monitoring you’ve just got that sort of pit in your stomach that you’re going to lose a critical player but it’s going to happen,” Herdman said. “Every weekend you’re dreading it. One part is you’re going to miss some quality from the team, but the next part is just knowing the pain that those players are going to go through.”

Atiba Hutchinson, a 39-year-old midfielder and Canada’s captain, is the only player in the pool who was alive during Canada’s last World Cup appearance in 1986. He has not appeared for Turkey’s Beşiktaş this season due to a bone bruise, but Herdman hopes he can play in a Turkish Cup match against Serik Belediyespor on Nov. 9.

“He feels good,” Herdman said. “All the signs are positive there.”

Herdman selected 21 players for a training camp opening Sunday ahead of a Nov. 11 exhibition against Bahrain in Manama. Players selected for the World Cup will travel to the Middle East the following day and Europe-based players will report ahead of a Nov. 17 friendly against Japan at Dubai, United Arab Emirates.

Midfielder Jonathan Osorio, who has 55 international appearances, has played one match since Aug. 20 due to post-concussion syndrome, 19 minutes at Orlando on Sept. 17.

“We've had staff monitoring his scrimmages,” Herdman said. “The feedback has been super positive. He seems to be really having an impact on the field and looking back to his old self. Playing international football in desert conditions is going to be a bit different to what he's experiencing now in his club training enviornment.”

Canada opens Group F in Qatar against Belgium on Nov. 23, before facing Croatia four days later and Morocco on Dec. 1.

Twenty players headed to the camp are from Major League Soccer and one is Europe-based midfielder Liam Fraser of Deinze in Belgium's second tier.

Four have not appeared for Canada’s senior team: goalkeeper James Pantemis; defenders Lukas MacNaughton and Joel Waterman; and midfielder Mathieu Choiniere.

Eight players are from Montreal's MLS team, seven from Toronto and one each from Vancouver, Los Angeles FC, LA Galaxy, Minnesota and Nashville.

Toronto and Vancouver last played Oct. 9, Nashville on Oct. 15, Minnesota on Oct. 17, LA Galaxy on Oct. 20 and Montreal on Oct. 23. LAFC plays Philadelphia in the MLS championship game on Saturday.

“Are they going to be at the match fitness levels that we require to take them to Qatar?” Herdman said.

The roster:

Goalkeepers: Maxime Crepeau (Los Angeles), James Pantemis (Montreal), Dayne St. Clair (Minnesota).

Defenders: Zachary Brault-Guillard (Montreal), Raheem Edwards (LA Galaxy), Doneil Henry (Toronto), Alistair Johnston (Montreal), Richie Laryea (Toronto), Lukas MacNaughton (Toronto), Kamal Miller (Montreal), Joel Waterman (Montreal).

Midfielders: Mathieu Choiniere (Montreal), Liam Fraser (Deinze, Belgium), Mark-Anthony Kaye (Toronto), Ismael Kone (Montreal), Jonathan Osorio (Toronto), Samuel Piette (Montreal).

Forwards: Ayo Akinola (Toronto), Lucas Cavallini (Vancouver), Jayden Nelson (Toronto), Jacob Shaffelburg (Nashville).

___

AP World Cup coverage: https://apnews.com/hub/world-cup and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports

Miami (AFP) – Canada coach John Herdman says the absence of defender Scott Kennedy for the World Cup due to a shoulder injury is a "big loss" to his team.

The 25-year-old central defender picked up the injury playing in Germany on Saturday for his second division club, Jahn Regensburg.

Herdman told reporters on a conference call on Wednesday that he had spoken to the Calgary-born player and that there was no way he could be fit in time for this month's tournament in Qatar.

"We looked at every angle of trying to bring him into this World Cup squad and getting him back. But with that type of injury there is just no way back for Scott unfortunately. He was devastated and he is going to be a big loss," said Herdman.

"It has been tough. We had a conversation with him, myself and the medical team and he is just sitting in Germany in pain at the moment with that shoulder."

Kennedy would likely have made the 26-man squad as the main back-up central defender but Herdman said his absence would be felt in other ways.

"For anyone who knows Scott, he is just a good man, a good human being in the environment. He has great character, always seems to contribute in a quiet way and very, very reliable on the field," said the Englishman.

"So he will be a big loss to this group on and off the field. Just one of those tough moments as a coach when you have got to share that grim reality with someone. Never easy," he said.

Herdman, who will take a squad of Canadians from Major League Soccer clubs for a week-long camp in Bahrain concluding with a friendly on November 11, conceded that he is confronting the fear of injuries every time he watches his players in action in Europe.

"Every game we are monitoring you have just got that pit in your stomach, that you are going to lose a critical player," he said.

"But I think it is going to happen, these things happen, losing Scott Kennedy was awful. You know what is coming in the conversations you have got to have with the player and its tough."

© 2022 AFP

'Many legal tools are available' : Fighting sexual harassment in France today

Issued on: 02/11/2022 

A woman holds a placard reading "722 women each day are victims of sexual harassment " as she takes part in a demonstration on May 5, 2012, in Paris, to protest against the Constitutional Council's decision to immediately repeal the current French sexual harassment law. © François Guillot, AFP

Text by: Barbara GABEL

On November 2, 1992, the French Parliament unanimously approved legislation criminalising sexual harassment for the first time. This law – which applies to the workplace, public spaces and even online – is constantly evolving to better identify situations and protect victims.

For several days now, French female streamers have been expressing frustration at the online sexual harassment they have endured for years in the form of obscene photos, threats and insults. Videographer Maghla, who is known for her video game lives on Twitch, posted a long series of tweets in which she described, using photos and screenshots, the pornographic photomontages that have been made of her.

Sexual harassment in France, whether it takes place online, in public spaces or at work, is a criminal offense that is punishable by up to three years in prison and a €45,000 fine. The exact definition of sexual harassment has been enshrined in French law since November 2, 1992 but it has been constantly evolving over the last 30 years to remove legal uncertainties.

Hierarchical relationships

"The activists of the European Association against Violence against Women at Work (AVFT) put sexual harassment on the political agenda in the 1980s and 1990s. They helped victims lodge their first complaints," says Françoise Picq, a feminist historian and vice president of the National Association of Feminist Studies (Anef).

The notion of sexual harassment first introduced into French criminal law on July 22, 1992 was defined as: "the fact of harassing another person using orders, threats or constraints with the aim of obtaining favours of a sexual nature".

Picq emphasises that the law only concerned harassment committed by superiors at work. "At that time, French feminists did not want to follow the US model: Over there, the norm was not to allow female students to be alone in a professor's office," says the historian. "But in France, the aim was above all to penalise people who committed sexual harassment within the context of a hierarchical relationship at work."

 
Redefining the terms

In 1998, the words "serious pressure" were added to the text. Then, in 2002, the definition was refined and characterised by the sole fact of "harassing another person with the aim of obtaining favours of a sexual nature". Now sexual harassment of any kind, whether committed by colleagues at work, strangers in the street or people online, is considered an offence.

The objective was to harmonise the definition of sexual harassment with that of moral harassment, which was introduced into French law in 2002. Unlike sexual harassment, moral harassment presupposes an employment relationship.

A legal vacuum

The events of May 2012 shocked the nation when the Constitutional Council repealed the Penal Code’s article on sexual harassment, as it felt its definition was too evasive and therefore unconstitutional. For a few months, victims of sexual harassment were left in a legal vacuum.

"We had a big problem with criminal law at that time, none of the procedures underway succeeded," says Nathalie Leroy, a lawyer specialised in labour law and an investigator at H.E.R., an agency which specialises in cases of moral and sexual harassment at the workplace. She continues: "Some people who were charged with sexual harassment, the definition of which was deemed too vague, were acquitted. The victims were appalled by this."

On August 6, 2012, the new law on sexual harassment was promulgated after it was voted on during an emergency session. The text gave a new definition for sexual harassment, established aggravating circumstances and strengthened the associated penalties.

The criminal definition evolved in 2018, with the latest version defining sexual harassment as "the fact of repeatedly imposing on a person comments or behaviour with a sexual or sexist connotation".

At work

Although sexual harassment in the workplace can be difficult to identify, "one must take into account the nature of the acts committed, their frequency, their effects on the victim and/or the perpetrator's objective", says Leroy. "Today, it is sufficient that the behaviour has a sexual connotation, which does not require it to be explicitly and directly sexual in nature."

The French Labour Code now aligns with the French Criminal Code. Since March 31, 2022, "you are in a situation of sexual harassment at work if the first person makes a sexist remark, such as 'There are people on the balcony' [a French expression meaning buxom] and another person follows up with a comment such as 'Well, given the way you dress….' Before this text was adopted, the same person would have had to repeat the sexist remark. This is no longer the case."

Between 2017 and 2019, a study conducted by the International Labour Organisation (ILO) on 4.5 million French employees revealed that 52 percent of women had been victims of sexual harassment at work. For men, the figure was 27 percent. Only 4 percent of these women had filed a complaint and 1 percent of men.

According to the lawyer, "prevention is the key". The Labour Code states that the employer must take all necessary steps to prevent, stop and punish sexual harassment. If they have not complied with this obligation, "they may be sued before the industrial tribunal for damages".

In public places

But how can sexual harassment outside of work be prevented?

The online platform Twitch, which has been making headlines following a wave of sexual allegations by its female streamers, tightened its policy in January 2021. Sexual harassment, which until then had been prohibited on the platform but not given a definition, is now defined as making repeated, obscene or explicit comments regarding physical appearance or sexuality, sending unwanted nude images or videos, etc. Prevention is clearly not enough to protect videographers.

And in public spaces? According to feminist historian Picq, the #MeToo movement in 2017 "radically changed the level of tolerance demonstrated towards behaviour that falls under the heading of sexual harassment" in public spaces. But victims often don’t file a complaint due to a lack of evidence or fear of the consequences. "My generation didn’t always want to appeal to the authority of the state, and we couldn't. Today, many legal tools are available to help us."

Lastly, the "Schiappa" law, named after France's former minister of gender equality, Marlene Schiappa, was introduced in 2018, making verbal sexist contempt an offense in an effort to reduce so-called "street harassment", according to Picq. Four years after it was introduced, the law is showing its limits. From 2020-2021, the security services recorded 3,700 incidences of sexist contempt in France. In reality, this figure is much higher as 81 percent of women in France have been victims of sexual harassment in a public place, according to an Ipsos survey published in July 2020.

This article was translated from the original in French.

India's Modi visits bridge collapse site, calls for 'extensive inquiry'

Issued on: 01/11/2022 

03:39

This handout photograph taken on November 1, 2022 and released by the Indian Press Information Bureau (PIB) shows India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi (C) meets with a victim who was injured in the bridge that collapsed over river Machchhu in Morbi, at Morbi Hospital in Morbi 200 kms from Ahmedabad. © AFP

Text by: NEWS WIRES

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi said lessons must be learned as he visited the site of a bridge collapse that killed 135 people and met some of the injured in hospital on Tuesday.

Army, navy and national disaster response force teams continued their search while locals gathered on the banks of the Machchhu river in Modi's home state of Gujarat.

The colonial-era suspension foot bridge in Morbi was packed with sightseers - many in town to celebrate the Diwali and Chhath Puja festivals - when it gave way on Sunday evening, sending people plunging about 10 metres (33 feet) into the water.

A senior police official told Reuters that about 200 people were on the bridge when it collapsed. Local municipality officials said tickets for about 400 people had been sold, although not necessarily to be on the bridge at the same time.

"The prime minister said the need of the hour is to conduct a detailed and extensive inquiry which will identify all aspects relating to this mishap," Modi's office said in a statement as he saw the scene of the disaster.

"He also added that the key learnings from the inquiry must be implemented at the earliest."

Opposition leader Rahul Gandhi, from the Congress party, said earlier he refused to politicise the incident, but in the capital New Delhi dozens of protesters demanded the resignation of the Gujarat state chief and called for more compensation.

"The country is angry today that around 150 people have died in Morbi but this government did nothing apart from shedding crocodile tears," an unidentified protester shouted. Police detained the crowd within minutes.

The protesters called for compensation of 2 million rupees ($24,000) for all victims - the injured and the families of those killed. So far the state and central governments have offered 600,000 rupees ($7,000) for the kin of those who lost their lives.

Local residents at the scene on Tuesday told Reuters they feared the death toll could rise further.

GT Pandya, a senior administrative official in Morbi, said a person who was injured had died from their injuries on Tuesday, taking the toll to 135. One person was still missing according to the authorities' estimate, he said.

Some 56 people have been discharged from the hospital, while 10 are still admitted with injuries, senior police official Ashok Kumar Yadav told Reuters.

The bridge - 233 metres in length and 1.25 metres wide - was originally built in 1877 and had been closed for six months for repairs until last week.

CCTV footage of the incident showed a group of young men trying to rock the bridge from side to side while others took the photos before they tumbled into the river below as the cables gave way.

Police arrested nine people on Monday on charges including culpable homicide not amounting to murder. Those arrested included ticketing clerks accused of letting too many people onto the bridge and contractors that had been in charge of repair work.

U.S. President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping were the latest to send condolences for the loss of lives, many of whom were children.

Monkeypox still global health emergency: WHO

A medical employee walks in a corridor of a Monkeypox vaccination site in Paris

 in August 2022.

The World Health Organization said Tuesday that its emergency committee had determined that monkeypox should continue to be classified as a global health emergency.

Following a meeting on October 20 about the virus that suddenly started spreading across the world in May, the experts "held the consensus view that the event continues to meet the ... criteria for a Public Health Emergency of International Concern," WHO said in a statement.

The UN health agency first declared the so-called PHEIC—its highest level of alarm—on July 23, and the experts said that while some progress had been made in reining in the disease, it was too soon to declare the emergency over.

WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus had accepted and agreed with the experts' advice, the statement said.

Since monkeypox suddenly began spreading beyond the West African countries where it has long been endemic six months ago, it has killed 36 people out of more than 77,000 cases across 109 countries, according to a WHO count.

The outbreak outside of West Africa has primarily affected young men who have sex with men.

But since peaking in July, the number of people infected with the disease that causes fever, muscular aches and large boil-like skin lesions, has consistently fallen, particularly in Europe and North America, the hardest hit areas in the early stages of the global outbreak.

The number of new global cases fell by 41 percent in the seven days up to Monday compared to the previous week, the WHO said.

But WHO's emergency committee stressed that there were a number of lingering causes for concern.

They listed ongoing transmission in some regions, continuing preparedness and response inequity within and between countries, and the potential for greater health impacts if the virus begins spreading more among more vulnerable populations.

They also pointed to the continuing risk of stigma and discrimination, weak health systems in some developing countries leading to under-reporting and the lack of equitable access to diagnostics, antivirals and vaccines.

© 2022 AFP

‘Real’ Mama Coco honored on Mexico’s Day of the Dead


By AFP
PublishedNovember 1, 2022

Tourists pose for a picture at the home of Maria Salud Ramirez, believed by her family to be the inspiration for the animated movie character "Mama Coco" - Copyright AFP Marcos Pin

Jean Luis Arce

Tourists making a pilgrimage to a modest Mexican home during Day of the Dead festivities leave with no doubt: Mama Coco, the character of the Oscar-winning animated movie, used to live there.

“It looks a lot like her! When you look at the nose in the drawing and hers, the shape of the face and the hair, or the wheelchair, it’s too much of a coincidence,” said Spanish tourist Paula Colmenero, 52.

The sweet old woman in “Coco,” winner of the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature in 2017, was a fictional character created by Pixar Animation Studios.

But her good-natured smile, squinting eyes and braided white hair were also notable features of Maria Salud Ramirez, who died on October 16 aged 109.

Mama Salud, as she was known locally, is remembered as being an independent and talkative woman who regularly visited the town square in Santa Fe de la Laguna, home to members of the Purepecha Indigenous group.

There she bought fresh fish and sat soaking up the atmosphere, said Patricia Perez, 38, one of her granddaughters.

One afternoon, residents of the lakeside town in Michoacan state went to tell Perez that visitors were taking pictures of her grandmother.

More than a year later came the premiere of “Coco,” inspired by Mexico’s Day of the Dead festival, which centers around the belief that the souls of the dead return on the night of November 1-2.

Like the tourists, Perez is certain: “It was based on her, on her image,” she said.

Pixar has always denied that Mama Coco was based on anyone in real life and said that it was a product of its creators’ imagination.

– ‘Always happy’ –

Although Perez said she no longer wants to “get involved in that controversy,” the movie has transformed the Ramirez family’s life.

Mama Salud’s home became a place of pilgrimage for tourists who come to pay tribute to her, and perhaps buy souvenirs such as T-shirts, cups, piggy banks, key rings and magnets.

Colmenero, visiting with her husband and two daughters, welcomed the family’s efforts to earn some money from Mama Salud’s fame since “it is very clear that they have copied her.”

As in the film’s final sequence, this year Mama Salud is only present in the photographs placed by the family on her wheelchair and the altar that they have prepared to receive her spirit on the Day of the Dead.

Adorned with marigolds and candles, the family will lay out her favorite dinner — fish, beans, tortillas and a Pepsi to drink.

Allowing visitors to continue to visit her home after her death is what Mama Salud would have wanted, said Perez.

“She always wanted to receive people. She was always happy. That’s why we decided to keep the doors open,” she said.

It made the long journey worth it for 36-year-old South Korean tourist Taehyun Kim, who said “Coco” was one of his favorite movies.

“I quit my job, and my wife (did too), and came here to see Mama Coco,” he said.

For Mexicans, the world-famous grandmother is a source of national pride.

“Thank you Mama Coco for representing our culture with dignity,” wrote one visitor.

Fleeing Jihadist Violence, Niger Pupils Return to School

November 01, 2022 
Agence France-Presse

Pupils attend a lesson in a school created near a site for displaced people on the outskirts of Ouallam, Niger, on Oct. 26, 2022. In Niger, 817 schools totaling 72,421 students have closed because of jihadist attacks in their region the past five years.

OUALLAM, NIGER —

With blue schoolbags bouncing off their backs, hundreds of schoolchildren hurtle down small sand dunes eager to attend class again.

But these boys and girls are survivors of suffering and trauma that few children of their age could conceive.

Their new school is in the town of Ouallam in southwestern Niger, a region that for five years has been plagued by attacks unleashed by groups linked with al-Qaida and the Islamic State group.

The pupils come from 18 villages near Mali whose inhabitants fled to the relative safety of Ouallam in 2021 after jihadist killings that also forced the closure of schools.

A map of Niger and surrounding countries, with Niger's Tillaberi region highlighted.

The U.N. children's agency UNICEF says 817 schools with 72,421 pupils — including 34,464 girls — have closed in Niger, mostly in the Tillaberi, the border region where Ouallam is located.

In Ouallam alone, around 100 schools have had to shut their doors.
The chronic insecurity has prompted authorities to create dedicated educational centers where displaced children can resume their schooling, Mahamadou Illo Abarchi, an education official in Ouallam, told AFP.

Some 17,000 pupils have already re-entered the school system and another 55,300 are set to follow suit, enrolling in around 20 centers for displaced children across southwestern Niger, the government says.

'Killed by the bandits'

In Ouallam, almost 1,600 schoolchildren — some of whom had not attended class for three years—are registered with three centers built near a site for displaced people.

The sites offer free canteens, a vital resource for families who have escaped violence in a nation that, by the U.N.'s human development index, is the poorest in the world.

Lessons take place in shelters or classrooms equipped with tables and benches provided by NGOs. But in others, the pupils must learn on the floor.

Fatima and Aissa, two young girls from Ngaba, a settlement near Mali, expressed their delight at returning to school as they clutched their slate boards.

But the euphoria of returning to school cannot wipe out the painful memories.

"My uncle was a village chief, he was killed by the bandits in front of our eyes," said Mariama, who also lived in Ngaba. "There was a lot of blood."

A teacher and her pupils play in a yard at a school created near a site for displaced people on the outskirts of Ouallam, Niger, on Oct. 26, 2022.

Nassirou, Malick, Hasane, Abdou and their parents fled their village of Adabdab on foot after a series of jihadist attacks, the last of which on October 22 claimed the lives of 11 civilians.

"It was the bandits who chased us away, they killed many men," Nassirou said quietly in the playground.

Moussa, who hails from a hamlet in the same area, said: "I'm not afraid anymore, I no longer hide when I hear the sound of motorcycles" often used by jihadists to attack villages.

'Encouraging results'

When they first arrived at the new centers, many children showed "signs of distress and trauma, others were very aggressive," said education official Morou Chaibou.

He spoke of how some pupils recounted harrowing memories — including seeing their parents being shot.

Adamou Dari, the regional director of the centers, said they also offered the children psychological and social support to give them some stability after their traumatic experience.

"Now they concentrate in class and the results are encouraging," said a teacher as she played in the courtyard with some of her pupils.

Absenteeism is minor but a source of worry, Dari said, explaining that some pupils played truant to work in the town and help feed their families.

A teacher teaches a lesson in a school created to help children reintegrate into the education system in a region that has seen years of jihadist attacks and displacement.

Harlem Desir of the International Rescue Committee, who recently visited the site for displaced people in Ouallam, said impoverished families often put their children to work or marry their daughters at a young age.

Chaibou warned that neglected children could become prime recruitment targets for the very jihadist groups whose depredations have left their families in such difficulties.

In 2021, Amnesty International warned that boys aged between 15 and 17 were filling the ranks of armed groups, especially the al-Qaeda-affiliated GSIM, in the Torodi region near Burkina Faso — with the blessing of their parents.

#HALTDEEPSEAMINING

Hunt for deep sea minerals draws scrutiny amid green push

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) — High demand for metals ranging from copper to cobalt is pushing the mining industry to explore the world’s deepest oceans, a troubling development for scientists who warn that extracting minerals from critical ecosystems that help regulate climate could cause irreparable damage.




The issue will be in spotlight this week as dozens of scientists, lawyers and government officials gather in Jamaica to debate deep sea mining as part of a two-week conference organized by the International Seabed Authority, an independent body created by a United Nations treaty.

The organization is the global custodian for deep ocean waters that don’t fall within any country’s jurisdiction. It has issued 31 exploration licenses so far, and many worry the world’s first license to go the next step and mine international waters could soon be approved with no regulations currently in place.

Experts say mining could spark a rush to collect minerals that take millions of years to form and unleash noise, light and smothering dust storms deep in the Earth’s oceans.

“It’s one of the most pristine parts of our planet. There’s a lot that stands to be lost,” said Diva Amon, a marine biologist, National Geographic explorer and a scientific adviser to the Benioff Ocean Initiative at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

The first exploration license was issued in the early 2000s, with most of the the current exploratory activity is concentrated in the Clarion-Clipperton Fracture Zone, which covers 1.7 million square miles (4.5 million square kilometers) between Hawaii and Mexico. At least 17 of 31 licenses have been issued for this zone, with exploration occurring at depths ranging from 13,000 to 19,000 feet (4,000 to 6,000 meters).

The push for deep sea mining has grown to the point that the authority is now meeting three times a year instead of two, with a key decision expected as early as July 2023.

Mining companies argue that harvesting minerals from the sea bed instead of land is cheaper and has less of an impact, avoiding a “host of environmental and social issues,” according to UK Seabed Resources, a subsidiary Lockheed Martin Corp. to explore the Clarion-Clipperton zone under two contracts.

“We will not have collapsed tailings dams, destruction of cultural sites, clearing of rainforest, child artisanal miners, to name a few recent ones,” UK Seabed Resources said in a statement, referring to some of the impacts from mining on land.

The International Seabed Authority issues licenses to state-owned businesses and countries that subscribe to the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea and agree to sponsor private companies that seek to explore international waters for copper, nickel, cobalt, iron, manganese and other minerals. Notably, the U.S. does not subscribe to the law.

The International Energy Agency has estimated a sixfold increase in demand for minerals by 2050 given that electric vehicles and renewable generation are so dependent on them, according to a Fitch Ratings report issued in early October.

“Emissions intensity of cobalt, aluminum and nickel mining and processing is high, so skyrocketing demand may result in rising net carbon footprints,” it stated.

Nauru, a tiny island northeast of Australia, is leading the push to allow for actual mining, arguing that it’s at high risk of climate change and seeks to financially benefit from the mining of metals sought in part for green technology like electric car batteries.


The push has worried countries ranging from Germany to Costa Rica that are seeking to strengthen proposed regulations in the next two weeks.

“We are still very concerned about the consequences,” said Elza Moreira Marcelino de Castro, Brazil’s representative at the conference that began Monday.

French President Emmanuel Macron said earlier this year that he supports a ban on deep sea mining, while on Wednesday, Germany, which has two exploration contracts, announced it would not sponsor such mining until further notice.

Several major companies have pledged not to use metals extracted from the deep sea and nations including New Zealand, Fiji and Samoa have called for a moratorium until more is known about its potential impact, a move cheered by scientists and legal experts.

“You can’t regulate what you don’t understand,” said Duncan Currie, an international and environmental lawyer and legal adviser to the Deep Sea Conservation Coalition, a Netherlands-based alliance of environmental groups.

Less than 1% of the world’s deep ocean waters have been explored, an endeavor that experts say is expensive, technical and time-consuming.

It’s known that the ocean stores more carbon than the Earth’s atmosphere, plants and soil, and scientists are still finding new species during rare exploration trips, with sample studies taking months or even years, Amon said. Among the discoveries is a ghost octopus nicknamed “Casper.”

“We do not understand what lives there, how they live there, the global function that this ecosystem plays, and what we stand to lose by irreversibly impacting it,” she said, adding that life in the deep sea is incredibly slow, with minerals growing one to 10 millimeters every million years. “That means that it is highly vulnerable to disturbance and is extremely slow to recover.”

The Deep Ocean Stewardship Initiative, a global network, said some experts believe it could take anywhere from six to more than 20 years to collect enough data needed to protect the marine environment from deep sea mining.

Other concerns over deep sea mining include how revenue would be distributed and how companies seeking sponsorship would be reviewed and their activities regulated.

Pradeep Singh, a fellow at the Institute for Advance Sustainability Studies in Potsdam, Germany, said there are growing concerns over potential “sponsorships of convenience” in which private companies might shop for a country based on its tax exemptions, potential lax environmental laws and other factors.

“Quite a number of states are starting to raise an eyebrow about these relationships happening behind the scenes,” he said.

Singh also noted that he and others are concerned that the International Seabed Authority would earn a portion of revenues if actual mining were to start given that the agency awards licenses: “It’s a big conflict of interest.”

The authority did not return a message seeking comment.

Michael Lodge, secretary general of the International Seabed Authority, said during his opening remarks at the conference that the agency wants to ensure protection of the marine environment as member countries work on draft regulations.

During a meeting earlier this year, he noted that the authority widened a protected area to 1.97 million square kilometers in a vast region for which a majority of exploration licenses have been awarded.

Environmental management plans for other areas under exploration are still being developed.

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Associated Press climate and environmental coverage receives support from several private foundations. See more about AP’s climate initiative here. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

Dánica Coto, The Associated Press