SHOULD HAVE SENT A WOMAN
UN envoy meets with Afghan higher-ed chief over ban on women





Sat, January 7, 2023 

THE TALIBAN ARE A SECTARIAN CULT

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — A top U.N. envoy met with the Taliban-led Afghan government’s higher education minister Saturday to discuss the ban on women attending universities. Markus Potzel is the first international official to meet with him since the ban was introduced last month.

Taliban authorities on Dec. 20 ordered public and private universities to close for women immediately until further notice. It triggered widespread international condemnation, including from Muslim-majority countries such as Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey.

Higher Education Minister Nida Mohammad Nadim has defended the ban, saying it is necessary to prevent the mixing of genders in universities and because he believes some subjects violate Islamic principles.

That ban was followed days later by a ban on Afghan women working for national and international non-governmental groups, another decision that caused global condemnation and the suspension of work by major aid agencies.

The U.N. mission in Afghanistan said that Potzel called for the urgent lifting of these bans in his meeting with Nadim, saying the country is entering a new period of crisis. “Taliban bans on female education & work for aid agencies will harm all Afghans,” the mission said.

Nadim told Potzel the ministry was working for the development and improvement of Afghans, with the protection of Islamic and national values, according to information shared by ministry spokesman Ziaullah Hashmi.

He said opponents were criticizing the implementation of Islamic affairs, using education as an argument to achieve their “evil goals.”

“We need to make sure there is no place for them to criticize and, at the same time, fulfill the wishes of Afghans who have made sacrifices for Islamic rule and the implementation of Sharia rules in the country,” Nadim told Potzel at the meeting.

He also said Afghanistan's rulers will not accept anyone’s demands in the form of pressure against Islamic principles.

Potzel thanked Nadim for his time, saying the higher education of any country has a direct impact on the economic situation of that country, according to the ministry spokesman.

The envoy promised to cooperate in the development of Afghanistan’s higher education and shared his plan for female education with Nadim.

Potzel has also met with Economy Minister Qari Din Mohammed Hanif, who issued the NGO ban; Deputy Prime Minister Abdul Salam Hanafi; Interior Minister Sirajuddin Haqqani and former President Hamid Karzai in recent days to discuss the crackdowns on women and girls.

The discussions come ahead of a closed-door meeting of the U.N. Security Council on Jan. 13 about Afghanistan.

Nadim, a former provincial governor, police chief and military commander, was appointed minister in October by the supreme Taliban leader and previously pledged to stamp out secular schooling. He opposes female education, saying it is against Islamic and Afghan values.

Flight PS752: Families of victims met with harassment from Iran

Nadine Yousif & Bernd Debusmann Jr - BBC News, Toronto
Sat, January 7, 2023

Remembering the victims of Flight 752

Three years after the downing of Ukraine International Airlines Flight 752 in Tehran, families and friends of those who died are still pushing for accountability. But they have been greeted with multiple hurdles along the way, including threats to their safety.

Reza Akbari is one of many Iranian-Canadians who lost a loved one on 8 January 2020, when Flight 752, destined for Kyiv, Ukraine, was shot down by two anti-aircraft missiles after it took off in Tehran.

All 176 were killed.

As the former president of the Iranian Heritage Society in the city of Edmonton, where 13 of the victims lived, Mr Akbari has pushed for Iran to be held accountable for the deaths.

But ahead of one planned demonstration in October, Mr Akbari felt fearful for his safety.

He had been receiving frightening and suspicious phone calls from strangers. In one instance, he believed he was being followed by two men when he was out walking in a deserted part of town.

While the men only asked him for directions, he took it as a sign that he was being watched by people close to the Iranian government.

"Was it a coincidence? I don't think so," he added. "I thought that was a sign that they could come whenever. That they have eyes on me and have people all over."

Mr Akbari has reported this incident and others to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, and he is not the only one.

Several Iranian dissidents have spoken out in recent months about being harassed and intimidated on Canadian soil, saying they have been monitored and followed at protests or have had their social media or email addresses hacked.

Others, like Kaveh Shahrooz, a Toronto-based human right lawyer who sits on a legal advisory committee for families of Flight 752 victims, say their loved ones in Iran have been visited by agents in the country as a result of them speaking out abroad.

Canada's spy agency - the Canadian Security Intelligence Service - confirmed to the BBC in a statement that they are aware that Canadians, especially those in diaspora communities, are being monitored and intimidated by "hostile state actors, including the Islamic Republic of Iran".

"The tactics and tools used for such purposes include cyber espionage and threats designed to silence those who speak out publicly against them," CSIS spokesperson Eric Balsam said, adding that the agency is investigating these incidents.

Iran has been accused of harassing dissidents in other countries abroad, including the US and the UK. Last November, Met Police guarded the offices of Iran International, an independent Farsi-language news channel in the the UK, after British intelligence intercepted discussions of planning actual attacks against dissident journalists. The regime has also harassed BBC Persia journalists in the UK, prompting BBC lawyers to file a complaint to the UN.

Armed Met Police guard Iranian journalists facing death threats

In 2021, the FBI said it was looking for a man alleged to have hired private investigators to spy on people speaking out against the Iranian regime in all three countries.

Iran has no formal relations with Canada, and has not commented publicly on the CSIS probe. The BBC has reached out to Iran's foreign ministry for comment.

Hamed Esmaeilion, who lost his wife, Parisa Eghbalian, and their nine-year-old daughter Reera on Flight 752, said he has been the subject of harassment and attacks on social media since he began advocating for his family and other victims three years ago.

He said he believes the intimidation tactics from the Iranian government are part of "a propaganda machine against anyone who is standing in front of them."

Hamed Esmaeilion speaking at a rally in Berlin in solidarity with 

women and protesters in Iran after the death of Mahsa Amini

Despite these threats, Mr Esmaeilion and others have continued to push for a coordinated international effort to have Iran answer for what happened.

They have also lent their support to Iranians who have taken to the streets by the thousands, calling for freedom and justice, following the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini last September after she was detained by Iran's morality police.

Iran: A really simple guide to the protests

"People are recognising more and more that all these crimes are connected," Mr Shahrooz said. "It didn't start with Mahsa Amini, or even the plane. These crimes go back 43 years with the birth of the Islamic Republic."

Of those who perished on the flight, 138 had ties to Canada, including 55 citizens and 30 permanent residents. The dead included 29 children, 53 university students, four newlywed couples, and eight entire families.

Iran's Civil Aviation Organisation has blamed the downing of the plane, which occurred amid heightened tensions in the region following the US killing of top Iranian General Qasem Soleimani in Baghdad, on "human error".

But in a 2021 report, Canada said Iran's government was "fully responsible" for the incident, though there was no evidence to suggest it was premeditated.

In the three years since the tragedy, the victims' families have explored multiple avenues to get answers from Iran, including taking the unusual step last year of filing a case in the International Criminal Court, which does not typically hear from civilians.

In its filing, the families argued that the downing of the plane was a war crime and part of systematic attacks on civilians amounting to a crime against humanity, Mr Shahrooz said. Their case, however, has yet to be heard.

A separate effort to have the International Civil Aviation Organisation probe the incident reached a significant milestone in late December, after the governments of the UK, Canada, Ukraine and Sweden announced they had jointly requested that Iran submit to binding arbitration, arguing the missiles that downed the flight were launched "unlawfully and intentionally".

The Iranian government now has six months to respond, a spokesperson for Canada's foreign affairs ministry told the BBC. If it fails to do so, Canada and the coalition countries will move to litigate the issue before the International Court of Justice.

The move is a big step forward for the victims' families, who say the fight for accountability has consumed their daily lives in the last three years.

"I used to like to travel, I used to go golfing, but I don't enjoy it anymore," said Kourosh Doustshenas, a Winnipeg man who lost his fiancé, Forough Khadem, on Flight 752. "What I do now is I want to make sure: could I write another letter to somebody? Did I forget something?"

"On a personal level, I need closure, and the only way I can have closure in my life is if I know the truth."

Protesters clash with police at COVID antigen kit maker factory in China

Sun, January 8, 2023 

SHANGHAI (Reuters) - Protesters clashed with police in central China during a demonstration on Saturday by hundreds of people at a factory producing COVID-19 antigen kits, several videos posted to social media showed.

Online users said the protest was over wages and the layoff of several workers by the manufacturer, Zybio, in the central municipality of Chongqing.

Reuters was unable to obtain any immediate comment from Zybio, but verified, via geolocation, that some of videos were filmed at the company's factory in Chongqing.

One video showed people throwing traffic cones, boxes and stools at police carrying riot shields. Another video, posted on social media platforms such as Twitter and Douyin, showed dozens of protesters chanting "return our money".

A person who answered a phone call at Zybio's headquarters declined to comment on Sunday. Emails to the company were not immediately answered.

Protests are not rare in China, which has over the years seen people demonstrate over issues such as financial scams or labour disputes.

But authorities have been on higher alert after a series of protests late last year, including worker unrest at Apple supplier Foxconn's massive iPhone factory in central China, as well as widespread protests in Chinese cities and top universities against COVID restrictions.

(Reporting by Brenda Goh; Editing by Simon Cameron-Moore)

BANANA REPUBLIC

W.Va. journalist let go after reporting on abuse allegations


This undated photo shows former West Virginia Public Broadcasting reporter Amelia Ferrell Knisely. Knisely was let go from her job at WVPB on Dec. 20, 2022, after she wrote about the alleged abuse of people with disabilities at the West Virginia Department of Health and Human Services. 

(Amelia Ferrell Knisely via AP) 

LEAH WILLINGHAM
Sat, January 7, 2023

CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) — A West Virginia journalist lost her job last month after she reported about alleged abuse of people with disabilities within the state agency that runs West Virginia's foster care and psychiatric facilities.

Amelia Ferrell Knisely, a reporter at West Virginia Public Broadcasting, said she was told to stop reporting on the Department of Health and Human Resources after leaders of the embattled agency “threatened to discredit” the publicly funded television and radio network. She later learned her part-time position was being eliminated.

In a statement, Knisely said her news director told her the order came from WVPB Executive Director Butch Antolini, former communications director for Republican Gov. Jim Justice. Antolini has served as executive director since 2021, when his predecessor was ousted after Justice overhauled the agency’s governing board.

Justice has tried unsuccessfully to eliminate state funding for WVPB in the past and was accused of appointing partisan operatives to the board. WVPB receives around $4 million a year in state funding.

Antolini declined to comment, but other officials denied any effort to influence coverage. West Virginia Educational Broadcasting Authority chairman William H. File III said Antolini told the board “he was not coerced or pressured by anyone."

File said in a statement that Knisely was never fired and remains on the WVPB payroll, though she said her door key and email were deactivated.

Knisely’s departure comes during a tumultuous time for West Virginia media. Days before she left WVPB, three reporters for the Pulitzer Prize-winning Charleston Gazette-Mail said they were fired after publicly criticizing an editorial decision by their company president Doug Skaff, who is minority leader in the state House of Delegates. Skaff approved and led a video interview with Don Blankenship, a coal company executive convicted of safety violations connected to one of the worst coal mining disasters in recent U.S. history.

The departures leave a diminished capitol press corps to cover the upcoming legislative session, which begins Jan. 11.

Knisely’s stories detailed alleged mistreatment of people with disabilities under state care. The department cares for some of the most vulnerable residents in one of the poorest U.S. states.

After Knisely’s departure from WVPB was first reported by The Parkersburg News and Sentinel last week, both Republican Senate President Craig Blair and Democratic Party Chair Mike Pushkin called the circumstances around her departure “disturbing.”

Pushkin said Knisely’s coverage of “the glaring issues at DHHR” was “detailed, in depth, and most importantly true.”

“There’s a very clear difference between not liking what the media reports and actively working to silence them,” Blair wrote on Twitter Dec. 29.

Knisely was hired as a part-time reporter at WVPB in September. In November, she was copied on an email from then-DHHR Secretary Bill Crouch alleging inaccuracies in a story and asking for a “complete retraction.”

That never happened, but in early December, Knisely said she was told by WVPB news director Eric Douglas that she could no longer cover DHHR because of threats by state officials to discredit WVPB.

A week later, amid mounting criticism, Crouch announced he was resigning.

Douglas confirmed to The Associated Press that he was instructed to tell Knisely she would no longer be reporting on DHHR, and that Antolini directed him to do so.

As for threats from DHHR officials about discrediting WVPB, he said: “I’d rather not comment on that.”

On Dec. 15, Knisely filed a human resources complaint about interference with her reporting.

Things came to a head later that same day over Knisely's press credentials for the 2023 legislative session, according to emails obtained by the AP and first reported by The Parkersburg News and Sentinel.

Douglas initially informed legislative staffers that Knisely would “serve a vital role" in WVPB's 2023 legislative coverage. But then the station's chief operating officer left him off an email saying she wouldn't need credentials after all.

That troubled Senate spokesperson Jacque Bland, who emailed Douglas to ask about it.

“It feels kind of gross and shady to me that someone else would dip in and say that one of your reporters won’t have any assignments related to the session,” she wrote.

She added: “I definitely wanted you to be aware that Butch and Pals were trying to stick their fingers in the pie.”

Responding the next day, Douglas said he had been pulled into Antolini’s office and told “things had changed with Amelia.” He said he didn’t appreciate WVPB leadership going behind his back, “but for now it is out of my hands.”

“And you’re right, it does feel gross and shady,” he wrote.

Knisely said she was informed Dec. 20 that part-time positions were being eliminated. Her email and key card were deactivated around that time.

This week, Knisely announced on Twitter she was hired by the Beckley-based newspaper The Register-Herald to report on West Virginia's upcoming legislative session. Her coverage will include developments with the state Department of Health and Human Resources, she said.

Seattle schools sue tech giants over social media harm


This combination of 2017-2022 photos shows the logos of Facebook, YouTube, TikTok and Snapchat on mobile devices. On Friday, Jan. 6, 2023, Seattle Public Schools filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court, suing the tech giants behind TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube and Snapchat, seeking to hold them accountable for the mental health crisis among youth. 

GENE JOHNSON
Sat, January 7, 2023 

SEATTLE (AP) — The public school district in Seattle has filed a novel lawsuit against the tech giants behind TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube and Snapchat, seeking to hold them accountable for the mental health crisis among youth.

Seattle Public Schools filed the lawsuit Friday in U.S. District Court. The 91-page complaint says the social media companies have created a public nuisance by targeting their products to children.

It blames them for worsening mental health and behavioral disorders including anxiety, depression, disordered eating and cyberbullying; making it more difficult to educate students; and forcing schools to take steps such as hiring additional mental health professionals, developing lesson plans about the effects of social media, and providing additional training to teachers.

“Defendants have successfully exploited the vulnerable brains of youth, hooking tens of millions of students across the country into positive feedback loops of excessive use and abuse of Defendants’ social media platforms,” the complaint said. “Worse, the content Defendants curate and direct to youth is too often harmful and exploitive ....”

Meta, Google, Snap and TikTok did not immediately respond to requests for comment Saturday.

While federal law — Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act — helps protect online companies from liability arising from what third-party users post on their platforms, the lawsuit argues that provision does not protect the tech giants' behavior in this case.

“Plaintiff is not alleging Defendants are liable for what third-parties have said on Defendants’ platforms but, rather, for Defendants’ own conduct,” the lawsuit said. “Defendants affirmatively recommend and promote harmful content to youth, such as pro-anorexia and eating disorder content."

The lawsuit says that from 2009 to 2019, there was on average a 30% increase in the number of Seattle Public Schools students who reported feeling “so sad or hopeless almost every day for two weeks or more in a row" that they stopped doing some typical activities.

The school district is asking the court to order the companies to stop creating the public nuisance, to award damages, and to pay for prevention education and treatment for excessive and problematic use of social media.

While hundreds of families are pursuing lawsuits against the companies over harms they allege their children have suffered from social media, it's not clear if any other school districts have filed a complaint like Seattle's.

Internal studies revealed by Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen in 2021 showed that the company knew that Instagram negatively affected teenagers by harming their body image and making eating disorders and thoughts of suicide worse. She alleged that the platform prioritized profits over safety and hid its own research from investors and the public.

Teslas of the sea? CES showcases electric hydrofoil boats





People look at a boat with a Mercury Avator electric outboard boat motor at the Brunswick booth during the CES tech show Friday, Jan. 6, 2023, in Las Vegas.

 (AP Photo/John Locher)


MATT O'BRIEN
Fri, January 6, 2023 

Flying cars and self-driving vehicles always get attention at the CES gadget show in Las Vegas, but this year electric recreational boats are making bigger waves.

Swedish company Candela on Thursday unveiled a 28-foot (8.5-meter) electric-powered hydrofoil speedboat that can cruise for over two hours at 20 knots, or about 23 mph. California startup Navier tried to outdo its Scandinavian rival by bringing an electric hydrofoil that's a little bit longer, though Candela is further along in getting its products to customers.

Even the recreational motorboat conglomerate Brunswick Corporation tried to make a splash in Nevada this week by showing off its latest electric outboard motor — an emerging segment of its mostly gas-powered fleet.

WHY ELECTRIC?

A chief reason is environmental, as well as to save on rising fuel costs. But electric-powered boats — particularly with the sleek foiling designs that lift the hull above the water's surface at higher speeds — can also offer a smoother and quieter ride.

“You can have a wine glass and it does not spill,” Navier CEO Sampriti Bhattacharyya told The Associated Press last month. “And it’s quiet, extremely quiet. You can have a conversation, unlike on a gas boat.”

WHEN CAN YOU GET ONE?

Candela CEO Gustav Hasselskog said his company has already sold and manufactured 150 of its brand-new C-8 model. The Stockholm-based startup has been scaling up its workforce from 60 employees a year ago to about 400 later this year as it prepares to ramp up production.

But with a roughly $400,000 price tag, neither the C-8 nor Navier's N30 is aiming to replace the aluminum boat used to fish on the lake. They've been described as Teslas of the sea, with hopes that what starts off as a luxury vehicle could eventually help transform the marine industry.

“They tend to be entrepreneurs,” Hasselskog said of Candela's first customers. “They tend to be tech enthusiasts, if you like, with an optimistic view about the future and the ability of technology to solve all kinds of societal challenges.”

Navier's investment backers include Google co-founder Sergey Brin, which means he's probably getting one, too.

ARE BOATERS READY FOR THIS?

Probably not. These early electric boat models are expensive, heavy and could instill more serious “range anxiety” than what drivers have felt about electric cars, said Truist Securities analyst Michael Swartz, who follows the leisure boat industry.

“How safe is it for me to go out in the middle of the week with no one around, miles from shore, in an electric outboard engine?” Swartz said.

Swartz said they might make more sense to use electric motors — such as a new CES offering from Brunswick-owned Mercury Marine — to power a fleet of small rental boats, perhaps at the widely-used boating clubs also run by Brunswick.

“You’re not anywhere near the type of electric boat where you can go 50 miles offshore and go fishing for a couple of hours and come back,” Swartz said. “There’s no technology that can enable you to replicate that experience outside of an internal combustion engine.”

BRING ON THE WATER TAXIS?

Both Candela and Navier are planning for a secondary market of electric ferries that could compete with the gas-powered vehicles that now carry commuters around populated regions such as the Stockholm archipelago or along San Francisco Bay.

Hasselskog said the same technology powering Candela's new leisure boat will also be used to power a 30-passenger catamaran prototype that could operate in Sweden by summer.

For a city like Stockholm, which has already electrified most of its public ground transportation, its dozens of large ferry boats are an outlier in producing carbon emissions.

“They need something like 220 of these (electric) vessels to replace the current fleet,” Hasselskog said. And instead of running on fixed schedules with empty seats, the smaller electric vehicles might be able to be summoned on demand such as how Uber or Lyft work on land.

AUTOMATIC DOCKING

Many of the companies developing electric boat propulsion also have teams working on making these vehicles more autonomous. But since most recreational boaters like piloting their own boats — and most ferry passengers likely prefer a human captain at the helm — the self-driving innovation is focused on what happens at the marina.

“There's an intimidation factor with boating and a lot of the intimidation factor you hear from consumers is with docking,” said Swartz, the Truist analyst. “So if that can be made seamless and automated, it’s a huge deal.”

Germany backs Norwegian plan to capture carbon from cement


 German Economy Minister Habeck addresses the media at a joint statement in Berlin

Fri, January 6, 2023 

BREVIK, Norway (Reuters) - Germany's economy minister Robert Habeck threw his weight behind a Norwegian project to capture carbon emissions and re-use them being carried out by multinational HeidelbergMaterials.

Habeck's visit to the Norcem cement plant in Brevik, Norway, represents a shift in German policy back towards efforts to deal with planet-warming emissions by capturing them and making use (CCSU) of them in industrial processes.

Projects have repeatedly stalled on issues of cost and environmental opposition as campaigners have been concerned carbon capture and storage can serve to prolong the use of fossil fuels.

The mood has changed in Germany as the problem of climate change has become more urgent and the focus has shifted to dealing with the emissions that are hardest to avoid at the same time as accelerating the use of renewable energy.

As cement-making inevitably emits carbon, its capture is necessary to mitigate pollution, and the Norwegian plant is meant to serve as a global blueprint, eventually capturing 400,000 tonnes of CO2 - half its emissions - per year.

Norway is providing 85% of the 400 million euro ($424.08 million) cost for Heidelberg subsidiary Norcem to set up a carbon capture facility that should allow storage of carbon dioxide under the seabed near the Brevik site in about two years' time.

"CCUS is the key technology to decarbonise our product and eventually our sector," HeidelbergMaterials chief executive Dominik von Achten said in a statement.

Globally, HeidelbergMaterials is investing 1.5 billion euros in CCUS technology up to 2030.

The cement manufacturer last year rebranded itself and adapted its former name, HeidelbergCement, to reflect a broader strategic focus on sustainability and digital solutions.

Germany aims to cut 65% of carbon dioxide emissions by 2030 compared with 1990 and to become carbon-neutral by 2045.

During Habeck's visit, Norwegian state-controlled oil firm Equinor and German utility RWE said separately they planned to develop a supply chain for low-carbon hydrogen.

($1 = 0.9496 euros)($1 = 0.9432 euros)

(Reporting by Markus Wacket, additional reporting by Ilona Wissenbach, writing by Vera Eckert, editing by Barbara Lewis)

Now able to sell abortion pill, U.S. pharmacies weigh if they should

Fri, January 6, 2023 
By Ahmed Aboulenein, Gabriella Borter and Michael Erman

Jan 6 (Reuters) - Pharmacies across the United States are weighing whether to sell mifepristone, a pill used in medication abortions, following the Food and Drug Administration's announcement earlier this week that they can now do so.

What they decide is primarily based on where they are located given that almost half the states ban or restrict abortion after the Supreme Court overturned its landmark Roe v Wade ruling, though some pharmacists told Reuters the local culture and attitudes or their own personal beliefs on abortion is what guides them.

The FDA rule will make medication abortion, which accounts for more than half of U.S. abortions, more accessible in states where abortion remains legal, but its impact on pharmacies in the states that have banned abortion remains to be seen.

Bill Patel, who has owned Care Rite Pharmacy in Marianna, Florida, for five years, said he would not seek out certification to dispense mifepristone at his pharmacy because he is personally opposed to abortion. The pharmacy is located near Florida's borders with Georgia and Alabama, where abortion is severely restricted.

He said he would only do it if asked by the health department. "I just oppose it to be honest with you," he said. "I'm against abortion."

Florida currently bans abortion after 15 weeks and has several other restrictions.

National pharmacy chain giants Walgreens Boot Alliance Inc and CVS Health Corp have said they plan to offer mifepristone in states where it is allowed. Other national and regional chains including Southeastern Grocers Inc, which owns Winn-Dixie stores, said they are still considering if they will offer it and where.

A spokesperson for GenBioPro, one of two companies that make mifepristone in the United States, said the drugmaker has already started to receive applications for certification but did not provide further details.

Michelle Vargas, owner of independent Lamar Family Pharmacy in Lamar, South Carolina, said she is not considering dispensing it.

"We're in a very small rural area. We're not near an abortion clinic or in a larger city where that happens more," she said. "That's just not something we see here."

Legal questions are swirling around the prospects of a drug with FDA approval being made illegal under state law in some parts of the country.

With the legal issue unsettled, pharmacies in states restricting abortion are likely to face legal risks and could lose their licenses if they decide to sell mifepristone in violation of state laws, said American Pharmacist Association interim CEO Ilisa Bernstein, who worked at the FDA for 30 years.

Other factors, such as safety for pharmacies and pharmacists, are also at play, said Bernstein.

Steve Moore, pharmacist and owner of Condo Pharmacy in Plattsburgh, New York, a state where abortion is legal, plans to dispense the drug.

"As far as my role as a pharmacist, I feel it's to help people safely and effectively use the medications," said Moore. "I'm not in the role of limiting access to medication."

"We've had patients give us a hard time for dispensing the morning after pill or birth control. That's certainly your prerogative. But if that's a concern, then we're not the pharmacy for you, because we're certainly not going to stop doing that," he said.

(Reporting by Ahmed Aboulenein and Gabriella Borter in Washington, Michael Erman in New York; Editing by Caroline Humer and Lisa Shumaker)

L.A. lets rain flow into the Pacific Ocean, wasting a vital resource. Can we do better?

Hayley Smith
Fri, January 6, 2023 

High surf brought spectators to Manhattan Beach on Friday.

 (Carolyn Cole/Los Angeles Times)

The Los Angeles River roared to life this week as a series of powerful storms moved through the Southland. In Long Beach, 3 feet of water shut down the 710 Freeway in both directions, while flooding in the San Fernando Valley forced the closure of the Sepulveda Basin.

It was by all accounts a washout, but despite heaps of water pouring into the area, drought-weary Los Angeles won't be able to save even half of it. The region's system of engineered waterways is designed to whisk L.A.'s stormwater out to sea — a strategy intended to reduce flooding that nonetheless sacrifices countless precious gallons.

Voters in 2018 approved Measure W, which is aimed at improving L.A.'s aging stormwater capture system. Officials are making progress, but experts say there's a long way to go. Of an estimated 5 billion to 10 billion gallons pouring into the Los Angeles Basin from current storms, only about 20% will be captured by the county.


"In a region that imports 60% of our water, it's just a huge untapped potential for a local water supply," said Bruce Reznik, executive director of L.A. Waterkeeper. "We passed the Safe Clean Water Program to get us there, but we're just not there yet. It's going to take us some years."\\

Many years, in fact. County officials have said it will take three to five decades to build its stormwater capture system to full capacity, with the ultimate goal of capturing 300,000 acre-feet, or roughly 98 billion gallons, of water annually.

Part of the challenge is that the current system was built about 100 years ago, in an era when Angelenos were more concerned about saving lives and property from flooding than they were about drought. Their solution was to lay millions of barrels of concrete to get rid of that water faster — channelizing the L.A. River, Ballona Creek and nearly every other waterway in the area.

Though a few regional watersheds, such as the Upper San Gabriel River, have good soils and systems for capturing stormwater, they are few and far between, with the vast majority of water that comes to the region "on a superhighway to get out," said Reznik.

"Water is the most precious resource we have, something that we cannot live without, and yet we do everything we can, when it comes to rain, to get rid of it as soon as possible," he said.

Los Angeles County Department of Public Works spokesman Kerjon Lee said Measure W is working, however. Since its approval in 2018, the agency has awarded $400 million to more than 100 regional infrastructure projects, such as the Rory M. Shaw Wetlands Park Project to convert a 46-acre landfill into a wetlands park that can collect stormwater runoff.

But he also said much of the rain is ending up in the Pacific, with L.A. River outflows measuring about 28,500 cubic feet per second Thursday.

"The conditions were ripe for capturing more, but when it comes all at once — which is kind of how we get our water here — we've got to move that water away from city streets and away from properties to save life and property," Lee said. "We have that dual mission: flood protection and supporting local water supply."

City officials said similarly that stormwater capture capability is improving, including about 20 projects from the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power in the last decade. Updates to the Tujunga Spreading Grounds facility in the San Fernando Valley, for example, doubled its ability to capture stormwater from 8,000 acre-feet per year to 16,000.



But managing the influx of water in a drought is a delicate dance, according to Marouane Temimi, an associate professor in the Department of Civil, Environmental, and Ocean Engineering at the Stevens Institute of Technology.

During normal rain events, green infrastructure projects such as parks and gardens can help capture and store more water. But during extreme events, such as the atmospheric rivers hitting California this week, larger infrastructure investments are needed.

"Each city has to balance between the major and the minor infrastructure projects to control runoff from extreme events, as well as frequent events, to cover the whole spectrum of rainfall, because throughout the years, we receive different rainfall events with different magnitudes," he said.

Rain can also bring pollution as the stormwaters sweep up debris, dirt, litter and even chemicals from roadways. While managing water quality is important, Temimi said it falls second to managing quantity during major flood events. At least three people were killed by floodwaters in Northern California this week.

The problem is not unique to Los Angeles. California Natural Resources Secretary Wade Crowfoot said the whole state is dealing with aging infrastructure that need improvement.

"In order to be resilient to floods and drought, which are kind of two sides of the same coin of extreme weather, we need to be able to adapt our infrastructure to the new normal," he said. "And that means significantly expanding water recycling, capturing stormwater, modernizing conveyance and recharging groundwater basins, and so we're in a race."

Crowfoot called Measure W a "world-leading policy," that can also help reduce pollution from reaching oceans and bays.

"We are missing an opportunity to actually take that water that's falling in greater L.A. and actually putting it into the groundwater basins for future use," he said. "L.A., as a result of Measure W passing four years ago, has more resources than almost any other place in the country to do that. But the implementation is very much a work in progress."

There are other hurdles, said Anne Lynch, integrated water management lead with engineering and consulting firm GHD. She noted that while droughts and floods are "not mutually exclusive," it can be hard to garner public and political will for storm projects in dry times.

The state's last big funding bill allotted far more to sectors such as transportation than to water, she said, which "tells you how, as a society, we view water — it's out of sight, out of mind until there's a catastrophe."

Water managers also have to work around the existing environment — including the hundred-year-old system designed for a different climate — which can create challenges for planning new projects.

"Not only are we dealing with the built environment but this ever increasing flow that's coming into the system," she said. "So we're like, behind the eight ball."

This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.

Nigerian schools: Flogged for speaking my mother tongue


Cecilia Macaulay - BBC News
Sat, January 7, 2023 


Nigeria says it wants primary school teachers to conduct lessons in local languages instead of English, which is currently used. But how practical is that in a country where more than 600 different tongues are spoken?

Kareem Abiodun Habeebullah, whose mother tongue is Yoruba, was just a secondary school student when he was whipped in class for not speaking in English.

"When I was growing up, I was struggling to speak English," he tells the BBC. "There was a particular class," he says, recalling the incident in 2010. The teacher called him up to answer a question, and he was stumped.

"I know the answer but I can only respond with my mother language," he remembers saying.

The teacher replied "no way", came to where he stood, and then the beating began. Corporal punishment is still common in some Nigerian schools, although moves have been made to eradicate it.

"She gave me one stroke of [the] cane," and sternly reminded Mr Habeebullah that he was not allowed to speak Yoruba in class, he says.

His was not an isolated incident he says, and other students at his school received harsh reprimands for daring to speak in Yoruba instead of English.

More than 60 years after independence from Britain, English remains Nigeria's official language, and is used in public settings such as schools, universities, government and many work places.

But the political tide appears to be turning. In November, Education Minister Adamu Adamu announced the National Language Policy which stipulates that the first six years of primary education should be taught in the children's mother tongue.

He said the changes were necessary because pupils learn better when they are taught in "their own mother tongue."

Currently, primary school children are taught in English, with teachers in certain communities mixing local languages with English for ease of comprehension.

However, it is unclear how the new policy will be rolled out because - in a country where government estimates say 625 different languages are spoken, and with people moving around the country - many Nigerian children live in areas where their mother tongue is not the dominant local language.

Teaching in the mother tongue was in fact first put forward as a national policy in the 1970s, but because of difficulties rolling it out in such a linguistically diverse country, it was never put into effect, as the government wishes to do now.

The policy is already facing stiff opposition. Despite his own experience, Mr Habeebullah, who is now a school teacher, does not think teaching in local languages is a good idea.

"If you were to take a look at Nigeria as a country, we have more than 500 languages, which will make it very hard" to implement.

He questions how classes could be taught properly in a local language when it may contain students who speak different tongues at home. In his own class in Sabongidda-Ora, in the southern Edo State, five different languages are spoken, he says - Igbo, Yoruba, Hausa, Ora and Esan.

Although he is supposed to teach in English, there are times when he has to explain things in Pidgin English, so all the pupils can understand.

"There's no point in teaching them something they cannot decipher, it would be very wrong."

However, "I can't be teaching students in their local language" he insists, because he simply does not know how to speak all the various tongues spoken by his students.

Furthermore, if they don't speak English in primary school, they will find it difficult later on, he adds.
'Too little too late'

For many middle-class Nigerians, especially in the south, English is now their mother tongue and some may not speak any local languages. This is partly a result of marriages between members of different ethnic groups, and people moving to cities, where English is the lingua franca.

Tayo Adeyemo, 46, from Lagos State agrees that teaching children in their local language at primary school is impractical.

Lagos' local language is Yoruba, but as it is the country's commercial hub, people who speak other languages have also moved there and still speak their mother tongue.

"I don't think it's a very good idea," the father of a nine-year-old primary school student tells the BBC.

"For many years now English has been used. I used English in my primary school, many, many years ago. So for them to bring such a policy now, I don't see it as something that would work."

Despite English and Pidgin being the lingua franca in the ethnically diverse city of Lagos, education ministry spokesperson Ben Goong confirmed to the BBC that Yoruba would be the language of instruction in the metropolis.

At first glance the new policy sounds positive because the government "is trying to bring back the culture" of local languages, Mr Adeyemo says.

But his children speak English at home so he doesn't think his youngest son would even understand classes taught in Yoruba: "There's this increasing trend of people speaking more of English. It's the lingua franca anyway," he says.

It "just seems easier" to speak English at home because that is the language the children are taught in at school, he says.

Although he would like his son to speak Yoruba, he thinks "it's too little, too late" now.

"Unfortunately, you are unable to let them understand both languages at the same time."
'Failing the children'

However for the many Nigerian children who don't speak English at home, being taught in a language they don't necessarily understand very well from an early age puts them at a disadvantage at school.

Senior education specialist at the World Bank, Dr Olatunde Adekola, tells the BBC the current teaching setup is "failing the children".

Some parents who speak their local language at home complain that their children are "not learning fast" enough in schools, says Dr Adekola, who is from Nigeria. He blames this on the language barrier - namely, teaching in English.

When the language spoken at home is completely different to that taught in schools, it creates confusion and a "disconnect" he says.

It is not necessarily the role of the school to teach primary school children how to speak English, but to boost their literacy by teaching them how to read and write in their first language - whether that be Yoruba, Hausa, Igbo, Pidgin or another Nigerian language, he says.

"If any school is going to be meaningful in Nigeria" it must "start from the language the children speak to their parents, irrespective of where your parents come from".

Dr Adekola adds that the key to whether the new way of learning succeeds is how it is put into practice.

Another huge stumbling block is that many current teachers simply cannot read and write at a high enough level in a local language to teach it to students, Dr Adekola warns.

"If you go to university now, how many teachers are reading bachelor's in education, or diploma in education in languages and how to teach children in their languages?" he asks.

"So, you need to first equip the teacher to know about the language so they will be well-equipped on how to teach the children."

For years children in Nigeria have been taught in English and there are fears the new policy push may not be workable

The education minister, Mr Adamu, admitted at the time of the announcement that it would be a challenge to make the changes. He said it would "require a lot of work to develop materials to teach and get the teachers" who have the skills in local languages.

He said that the language used in each school should be the tongue spoken in whichever local community the school is located.

"We have 625 languages at the last count and the objective of this policy is to promote, and enhance the cultivation and use of all Nigerian languages," he added.

The policy will not be limited to teaching in just Nigeria's three major local languages - Yoruba, Hausa and Igbo - but once it is "fully operational" there will also be teaching in the hundreds of other tongues spoken across the country.

The government says the children will also have the chance to learn a second Nigerian language as well as receive teaching in a foreign language such as English, French or Arabic at a "certain stage".

However, it is not entirely clear when the policy will be put in action.

As for Mr Adeyemo, he admits that he wishes his children were fluent in their local language, despite speaking to them in English at home. But he is clear in his reasoning behind this choice.

"English, being the lingua franca, would always have an edge".

Additional reporting by Olivia Ndubuisi in Lagos