Elon Musk makes his dog the new CEO of Twitter


2023-02-14

Shafaq News / Elon Musk, CEO of Twitter, Tesla, and SpaceX, has handed over his title at Twitter to his own dog Floki, with Musk announcing "he's great with numbers".

The CEO of the world's second-largest social media platform, Twitter, has decided to hand over his title as CEO to his dog.

That, of course, is SpaceX and Tesla CEO Elon Musk, who took to his personal Twitter account on February 15 to humorously announce that Floki, his Shiba Inu dog, is the new amazing CEO of Twitter. Musk posted an image of Floki at his desk, which shows a piece of paper with the Twitter logo, a black spot for a signature, Floki's name, and title "chief executive officer" (CEO). Musk replied to his own image, writing, "so much better than that other guy!" and "He is perfect for the job!".

The humorous posting continued from Musk with the Twitter CEO snapping another image of Floki wearing glasses, writing, "He's great with numbers!". This post was followed by another shortly after, with Musk snapping a close-up of Floki to show off his "style". Obviously, Musk hasn't officially made his dog CEO of the world's second-largest social media platform, the Twitter CEO is just having a bit of fun with his platform as everyone else does.

(TweakTown)

BOTH ARE FINANCIAL LOSERS
Twitter opens its advertising platform to cannabis companies

The company is loosening its rules as it faces an advertiser exodus.

REUTERS/Carlos Barria

Karissa Bell|@karissabe|

February 15, 2023

Twitter is loosening its advertising policies to allow cannabis companies to promote their brands on the service. The changes makes Twitter the first major social media platform to welcome cannabis ads within the United States.

“Going forward, Twitter is allowing advertisers to promote brand preference and informational cannabis-related content for CBD, THC, and cannabis-related products and services,” the company announced in a blog post.

While the change will allow companies that sell cannabis products to advertise their businesses, there will still be some restrictions on what can appear in the advertisements. As Axios points out, the ads can’t directly “promote or offer the sale of cannabis” with the exception of certain CBD products. There are also age and location-related restrictions that limit who can be targeted with cannabis-related ads.

The change is the latest way that Twitter has shaken up its rules under Elon Musk’s leadership in order to allow content that was once barred. The policy update also comes at a time when many advertisers have either fled the platform or significantly reduced how much they’re spending. By opening up to cannabis companies, which until now have had extremely limited options to reach people on social media platforms, Twitter has the opportunity to bring in a fresh set of advertisers.

In its announcement, Twitter suggested that cannabis companies could reach a large audience on the platform, noting that cannabis-related conversation “is larger than the conversation around topics such as pets, cooking, and golf, as well as food and beverage categories including fast food, coffee, and liquor.”

Outage-ous: Twitter OKs cannabis ads, then goes up in smoke


What happened to not getting high on your own supply?

Brandon Vigliarolo
Thu 16 Feb 2023 // 

Twitter needs to make money, and the US cannabis industry is booming, making its decision to become the first major social media platform to allow cannabis advertising in the US the perfect hybrid.

In an update to its drugs and drug paraphernalia policy page published yesterday, Twitter said it would permit approved cannabis and CBD advertisers to target users in the US – with a hefty set of restrictions, of course.

Facebook, Instagram and TikTok all continue to maintain a general ban on cannabis advertisements, while Google allows very limited advertisement of non-intoxicating CBD products.

Over on Twitter, anyone licensed to sell cannabis products can target the jurisdiction where they're licensed to operate, provided they don't do much in the ad.

"Advertisers may not promote or offer the sale of Cannabis," Twitter said, and can't target users under the age of 21, sensibly, since none of the US states where recreational cannabis is legal allow such use under that age.

Advertisers can't "use characters, sportspersons, celebrities or images/icons appealing to minors," can't make claims of efficacy or health benefits or "false/misleading" claims, and can't show anyone using cannabis or show anyone under its effects.

In short, you can tell folks you're the weed man, but you can't tell folks you've got their weed, man.
Another attempt at growing some green

Elon Musk, Twitter's new owner and awkwardly public cannabis connoisseur/meme maker, has been trying a lot of different methods to make Twitter profitable. Musk said that's been challenging, but he was recently quoted as saying Twitter was edging closer.

Ad spending, which was one of the cornerstones of Twitter's business models in the pre-Musk days, plummeted when the platform transformed in October, and it's unclear if the cash has come back.

Cannabis would be a pretty sure money making bet in the states where it's legal in the US – a number that grows each election cycle. Recent research forecast the legal cannabis market in the US was on course for a compound annual growth rate of 25.4 percent between 2023 and 2030 – and it's already worth $16.7 billion.

That's a lot of weed, a lot of people who want to consume it, and a huge advertising market to be cornered. Twitter will just need to be careful to prevent the introduction of cannabis from making its advertisement quality worse than it already has been of late – and the cannabis industry, legal or not, is home to a lot of fraud.
Wait, what were we doing?

Speaking of weird headspaces, Twitter was reportedly down again yesterday, with more than 9,000 people reporting trouble using the microblogging service, according to Downdetector.

Turning to Twitter for answers probably won't do much good, as the company has stopped responding to press inquiries and Musk allegedly fired that team early in his tenure at the company's helm. 

SpaceX draws line at Ukraine's 'offensive' Starlink use

Musk says he ain't going anywhere as Twitter CEO until at least late 2023

The Twitpocalypse may have begun, as datacenter migration reportedly founders

Musk's view count antics are perfect cover for Twitter's paid API failure

Additionally, Reuters pointed out, Twitter's network status page didn't show any outages.

This isn't the first Twitter outage since Musk took the helm and fired some of the engineers responsible for keeping it functioning – last week a server migration glitch caused twitterati to be without the ability to post for around 90 minutes.

As we noted then, Twitter's status page didn't show any issues during that outage either, and it displays the same message today as it did yesterday, and on February 9th during the bad migration: "No incidents in the last 180 days." ®

The International Conspiracy in Abdullah Öcalan's words

Abdullah Öcalan writes widely in 'The PKK and the Kurdish Question in the 21st Century' about his decision to come to Europe and about the international conspiracy which led to his abduction in Kenya on 15 February 1999.

ANF
NEWS DESK
Wednesday, 15 Feb 2023, 

Abdullah Öcalan writes widely in The PKK and the Kurdish Question in the 21st Century about his decision to come to Europe and about the international conspiracy which led to his abduction in Kenya on 15 February 1999.

Writing about his decision to come to Europe, Öcalan said: "My intention was to find a democratic platform for the Kurdish question. Had I found support for this, it would also have been possible to push Turkey in this direction. However, Europe seemed to be disinterested in a solution to the Kurdish problem. Had I been allowed to become politically active in Europe, it would have been the end of the war. Unfortunately, this option was not compatible with the strategy of the West."

As to the background of the international conspiracy, Öcalan writes:

"[...] Since I have been imprisoned on Imrali I have been trying to work for a lasting peace in Anatolia and Mesopotamia. This is even more difficult than waging war. Peace based on the acceptance of different cultural identities will help to advance a renaissance of the region and further democratic progress in Turkey. Eventually, every war ends with peace. If we prove unable to end this war, we are doomed to be used for the purposes of our enemies. My efforts for peace received a wide variety of responses. Most of this was, however, opposition from various and even contrarian political circles. Some have not yet understood the relevance of the peace process for Turkey. The Kurdish issue has produced the longest and most severe crisis in the history of the republic. Without a just peace the crisis will continue.

[…]

My imprisonment also means that the republic and the people have been reborn. Their second birth had taken place through violence and war, like some kind of catharsis. The battle against the oligarchic republic was long and violent. It will be followed by a new era when we will establish a new secular and democratic republic.

The present time requires all of us to restructure and restart the whole of social life: the state, economy, politics, justice, the arts, even ethics. They have been rocked and are looking for a way out of this crisis. My imprisonment somehow serves as a catalyst. At the moment, peace - or how to win it - seems to be on everybody’s agenda.

I stand for the conscious will of the Kurdish people for freedom. This will has been expressed by war for a long time – now its message is peace.

The war was defined not by what it was meant to achieve but by what its enemies were: feudalism and the oligarchic republic. Peace has positive goals: reform of the republic, democratization, secularism.

We can completely abandon separatism and violence in the present system if the Kurds are no longer excluded from a process in which they have participated together with the Turks in the course of history: the formation of a state and a nation to which both Kurds and Turks contributed alike. A republic, however, which is based on the denial of Kurdish demands for freedom, leads to separatism and violence. If the republic opens to the self-determination of its peoples within the boundaries of the republic, we might have a peaceful future together.

However, the present crisis is stabilized and kept going by external and internal corruption, criminals who profit enormously from war. The war has cost many billions of dollars and 40,000 lives. Taking on the Kurdish problem and finding a solution are overdue.

The February plot is also of some significance with a view to human rights and human rights conventions. My abduction and extradition violated these rights and conventions. It is mostly the European governments and the USA that are responsible for this breach, rather than the Turkish government. Their colonial understanding of foreign policy and the way they proceeded in my case have produced the present situation. Hence, my appeal to the European Court was meant not only simply to accuse Turkey of unlawful practices. Rather, I also wanted the unlawful and ethically wrong practices of the EU and the USA, which had been directed against me and against the will of the Kurds for freedom, to be put on trial. They had worked together assiduously in three European capitals. They all had made their contributions until a bunch of corrupt head-hunters in Africa sold themselves to a capitalist intrigue and consigned me to a Turkish airplane.

It had begun in Athens. They treated me like a slave whom they could order around at will. They hoped for concessions on Cyprus and the Aegean issue. They betrayed our friendship and shamelessly disregarded the Human Rights Convention. My situation, however, did not only concern me as an individual. Millions of Kurds who felt very close to me were betrayed just as badly.

Nor was Israel right to make me a victim of their strategic considerations. They wanted to include Turkey in the balance of power of the Near East.

I will be ready to help with the clarification of the political and legal dimension of this power play at any time.

The second station was Moscow. I was neither surprised nor angry. Nonetheless, Russia was a signatory state of the European Council and the European Convention on Human Rights. They should not have ignored my application for asylum. And they should not have expelled me despite a decision to the contrary in the Duma. However, these are matters to be brought before the European Court.

The third contribution was provided almost before the eyes of the Holy Father in the eternal city of Rome.

While I just wanted to talk about some fundamental civilizational realities, I was in fact surrounded by police for 66 days and basically held under house arrest. I had gone there to speak for the right and freedom of one of the oldest peoples in history who were not allowed to enjoy their human rights. Europe did not respect the claim of the Kurdish people for their human rights. Instead, they took part in my abduction. It is now up to the European Court to find out how this situation came about.

My abduction from Kenya was accomplished with the agreement of the EU and the USA. Greece and Kenya had to do the dirty work and deliver me from the Greek embassy to Turkey. Again, the EU had found a way not to get directly involved in my case. They enlisted the help of some corrupt Kenyan police officers.

I think it has become clear, and former President Clinton has confirmed it, that the Greek secret service and the CIA did not participate in the ploy out of love of the Turks. I am sure that their strategic objective was to have me killed by the Turks, and that’s probably true for the British too. However, I did not express any hatred towards the Turks and the Turkish general staff acted very considerately, so the situation did not escalate. Such an escalation might have cost tens of thousands of lives. Nonetheless, this plot is exemplary historically in that it attempted to pit Kurds against Turks without leaving them room for a solution of the conflict.

Why did Israel participate? Traditionally, Israel had good relations with the Ira- qi Kurds. When I appeared on the scene, and in particular when we relocated our headquarters to the Middle East, I was an independent actor who disrupted their strategic balance. This made me dangerous. Furthermore, the Israeli right favored an alliance with Turkey to offset the political weight of the Arabs. It was also the Israeli lobby in Russia which had accomplished my expulsion with the help of the then Russian prime minister Primakov. I remember that Ariel Sharon had also gone to Moscow at that time. The USA, with their pro-Israel lobby strong while Clinton was weakened by the Lewinsky affair, put Italy under pressure. With the help of Mossad I became persona non grata in Europe. So I travelled from place to place until eventually there was nowhere else for me to go and I was sent as a prisoner to Turkey."

Source: Abdullah Öcalan: The PKK and the Kurdish Question in the 21st Century

HPG reports ongoing Turkish attacks on guerrilla areas

The Turkish army continues to attack guerrilla areas in southern Kurdistan despite the ceasefire declared by the Kurdish side due to the earthquake.

ANF
BEHDINAN
Saturday, 18 Feb 2023, 14:28

According to the Press Centre of the People's Defence Forces (HPG), the Turkish army continued its attacks on the guerrilla-held Medya Defense Zones in southern Kurdistan (northern Iraq) on Friday. The attacks were concentrated against the areas of Çemço and Sida in the Sheladize sub-district near the town of Amadiya. According to the HPG, at least 54 artillery and tank attacks were carried out during the course of the day. In addition, unconventional bombs were used twice.

The guerrillas responded with heavy weapons to the continued Turkish attacks on their positions in Sida. In Çemço, a sniper unit carried out a defensive attack and one Turkish soldier was killed.

Turkey's attacks on guerrillas continue despite a ceasefire announced by the Kurdistan Communities Union (KCK). The decision was taken after the devastating earthquake disaster in the Turkish-Syrian border area. The Kurdish guerrillas, which include the HPG and the YJA Star (Free Women's Troops), are implementing the call for a cessation of all hostilities and are in a defensive position.

SYRIAN KURDISTAN

18 villages west of Kobanê face thirst as earthquake damaged water treatment plant

18 villages to the west of Kobanê faced thirst because their groundwater became unusable after the severe earthquake in North Kurdistan.

ANF
KOBANÊ
Saturday, 18 Feb 2023,

The earthquake that struck North Kurdistan, Turkey, Syria and Northern and Eastern Syria, damaged schools, buildings, water lines and sewers.

One of the regions affected by the earthquake is the Euphrates region. 13 schools and drinking water treatment tanks were damaged in Kobanê alone. The capacity of the treatment plant located in the west of the city is 480 cubic meters and 50,000 residents from 18 villages drink its water.

In the examination carried out by the Autonomous Administration, it was determined that water could not be supplied to 18 villages after the damage caused by the earthquake. The facility, which had been damaged after it was targeted by ISIS mercenaries with rockets and artillery in 2014, now needs to be repaired because of the damage suffered in the earthquake.

Co-chair of the Euphrates Region Water Directorate, Mesud Bozi, told ANHA: "If we do not take measures quickly, the 50,000 residents of the 18 villages taking water from the station will face a very serious problem."

Bozi continued: "The facility is very old and needs to be repaired as soon as possible. The residents are in urgent need of water. We are now delivering water to these villages by tankers. But it appears clear that a new facility needs to be built to provide uninterrupted water for the region."

Bozi said; "Not just the rural areas in the west of the city were affected, but some water networks in the Kobanê canton were also damaged and are being repaired with our limited resources."

OP-ED
America’s Exceptionalism in Mass-Shooting

Sufian Siddique
FEBRUARY 16, 2023

A gunman killed three students and critically injured five others on Monday night at Michigan State University’s main campus, before he was found dead hours later, apparently from a self-inflicted gunshot. Investigators had no information about the motive and the university was not aware of any threats made to the campus before the bloodshed.

Amid an unrelenting surge of gun massacres, many have wondered why the United States- the world’s leading country in mass shootings over the last century, is more prone to mass shootings than any other country. Gun violence, though, is prevalent in many parts of the world, for instance in most parts of Latin America. But in America, no form of violence is seen as more uniquely American than public mass shootings by “lone-wolf” gunmen. According to Gun Violence Archive, 39 mass shootings have already taken place across the country in just the first three weeks of 2023. Last year the country witnessed around 647 cases of mass shooting with the consequence of more than 44,000 death tolls due to gun violence overall.

Like its political establishment, American public discourse has long firmly been divided over what causes this epidemic. The critics of this national sickness focus their fire on the second amendment of the American constitution and the nefarious political influence of the National Rifles Association (NRF). But here comes down to the question: will a mere constitutional amendment and the neutralization of special interest groups like the NRF lead to the solution to the endemic prevalence of lone-wolf mass shootings? The answer is: not likely, as the problem is deeply rooted in America’s culture itself: the culture of rugged individualism built on its deep-seated historical myth.

NEW ZEALAND
Cyclone Gabrielle: Severity of damage 'not been seen in a generation' - PM Chris Hipkins 

AND AN EARTHQUAKE TOO BOOT

Chris Hipkins and Kieran McAnulty. Photo: RNZ

At least 2500 people have been displaced by Cyclone Gabrielle this week, according to the latest estimates, Emergency Management Minister Kieran McAnulty said on Tuesday afternoon.

Around 1000 of those are in the Far North and another 1000 in Hawke's Bay. The rest are mostly from Auckland, with some also in Bay of Plenty and Waikato.

But little is known about the situation in the east, with communications minimal and access hampered due to continued high winds and rain.

Wairoa is of particular concern, with the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) "working very hard" to find out what is happening in the northern Hawke's Bay region.

Photo: Supplied / Hamish Simpson

Prime Minister Chris Hipkins, speaking to media with McAnulty, said the Telecommunications Emergency Forum "has been activated and is working closely with NEMA and local Civil Defence organisations".

"The first priority... remains the restoration of regional cellphone signals. High winds and ongoing poor weather is hampering progress in that area."

There has also been a fibre cut affecting Taupō, Hastings and Napier and other areas.
Comparisons to Cyclone Bola

Hipkins called Cyclone Gabrielle the most significant weather event in New Zealand so far this century.

"The severity and the breadth of damage we are seeing has not been seen in a generation."

Asked how it compared to 1988's destructive Cyclone Bola, Hipkins said he "wasn't around in this kind of role" then so could not immediately compare the two. Officials were still building a picture of the impact of the cyclone, he said.

"In the last 24 hours or so, Fire and Emergency New Zealand have 1842 incidents related to Cyclone Gabrielle in their system… Two-hundred defence force personnel have so far been deployed and there are more on standby."

Transpower had announced a national grid emergency, following the loss of power to the Hawke's Bay and Gisborne, with potential for extended periods of outages, Hipkins said.

"This is a very significant event for the electricity network and the companies have not seen this level of damage since Cyclone Bola…

"The situation is changing rapidly and the lines companies are expecting more customers to be affected. They are working to restore power as quickly as possible... but restoration in some parts may have to wait until weather conditions improve."

Photo: Supplied/ Ray Worters

Many supermarkets in Northland have been affected and closed. People were asked to only buy what they needed, Hipkins said, urging people to avoid non-essential travel. If it was unavoidable, people should let friends and family know where they were going, he added.

"A high number of roads have been affected by surface flooding and by slips."

The latest available information is on the Waka Kotahi website, which remained the best source of information for anyone having to travel, Hipkins said.

"On behalf of all New Zealanders I want to extend all of our gratitude to our emergency responders. They are putting in the hard yards and their lives are on the line in the service of their communities.

"To the families of the volunteer firefighters who responded to events in Muriwai last night and to the wider Fire and Emergency New Zealand family, our thoughts and hopes are with all of you."

"To the men and women of the Defence Force, the linemen and women, the communication companies, the supermarkets, the transport companies getting goods to where they are needed, the roading crews that are making that all possible, thank you to you also."
Danger remains

The good news is the weather is expected to ease overnight, Hipkins said. But that did not mean the danger would ease as quickly.

"People should still expect some bad weather overnight, particularly on the East Coast… as we know from experience over the last few weeks, even if the rainfall eases off a bit, more rainfall can compound on top of the rainfall that we've already seen.

"So when it comes to slips and so on, we could still see more of that even as the weather starts to ease. We're still in for a bumpy time ahead."

The prime minister declined to put a figure on what the recovery might cost, but said insurance companies would cover a "significant portion".

"People will pick numbers out of thin air and they may be right or they may be wrong. It's really too early to put an exact number on it."

Photo: Supplied/ Leonard Powell

He said it could impact already fast-rising food prices, and would not rule out seeking international assistance.

Some farmers' land has been damaged not just by the flooding, but forestry waste known as 'slash'.

Hipkins said something would definitely need to be done to lessen the risk of slash destruction in the future.
Climate change's contribution

As for climate change's impact on the sheer scale of the storm, Hipkins rejected a suggestion that his actions since taking over as prime minister have weakened New Zealand's efforts towards reducing emissions.

As a part of his policy reset, Hipkins canned a planned biofuels mandate and extended subsidies for fuel, a major contributor to warming.

"There is significant debate about whether the biofuels mandate was the right way of reducing our emissions from transport, when there are the other alternatives and other things that we can look at," he explained.

"In terms of extending the fuel subsidies, we have to acknowledge that actually, there are people still having to get in their cars every day to drive to work, and we need to support them through what is a very, very difficult time at the moment. That does not in any way - I don't believe - undermine our commitment to tackling the causes of climate change."

He said Gabrielle's impact will have "underscored" the need to keep reducing emissions.

"It is real, it is having an impact and we have a responsibility to do something about it."

UK

Tories will fight election on ‘trans debate and culture wars’, deputy chair Lee Anderson claims
Feb 15
Written by Sophie Perry


The MP says the Tories will need to use “culture wars” and “the trans debate” to win voters over. (PinkNews/Getty)

The Conservatives should include a “mix of culture wars and trans debate” at the heart of its next election campaign, Lee Anderson, the party’s new deputy chairman, has said.

Tory MP Lee Anderson was promoted last week as part of a reshuffle of Rishi Sunak’s Cabinet.

The former Labour councillor – nicknamed “30p Lee” for comments he made about food poverty and making budget meals – defected to the Conservatives in 2018 and has become well-known in Westminster for his outspoken views.

Speaking with The New Culture Form prior to his promotion, the Ashfield MP said the party relied on Brexit and Jeremy Corbyn to win votes in 2019 but does not hold those cards for the next general election.

Lee Anderson said the Tories need to rely on “culture wars” to win votes 

(PinkNews/YouTube)

“The big thing in terms of 2019, there were three things that won us the election. It was nothing to do with me. It was Brexit, it was Boris, it was Corbyn and it was as simple as that.

“Those three things together were a great campaign, great ingredients,” he said.

In order to cling to power at the next election, which is expected to take place in 2024, the MP, who won his Nottinghamshire seat with a majority of 5,733 in 2019, believes the party will “probably” rely on a “mix of culture wars and trans debate”.

During the interview, which is available on YouTube, Anderson went on to discuss a wide range of topics, including Black Lives Matter protests, “illegal” immigration, “brainwashing” in schools and universities, and the benefits system.

Anderson told interviewer Peter Whittle that the “number one” issue for voters is immigration and the number of small boats reaching the UK coastline.

He described asylum seekers arriving on boats as “not genuine” and claimed they should have sought asylum elsewhere.

He said: “When we voted for Brexit, we promised to control our borders but it’s got worse. That’s what winds people up and that’s what fills my inbox every day.”

The MP has a long history of controversial remarks. 

(PinkNews/YouTube)

Anderson has previously made controversial remarks about LGBTQ+ issues.

Shortly after Eddie Izzard announced she would seek the Labour nomination in Sheffield, Anderson ranted on TalkTV that he would “not follow [her] into the toilets”.

Months later, he emerged as one of the Conservative Party’s most vocal critics of Scotland’s efforts to reform the Gender Recognition Act (GRA).

Speaking to GB News, he accused Scotland’s first minister, Nicola Sturgeon, of using “dirty tricks” to advance the cause for independence, seemingly insinuating that gender-recognition reform was nothing more than a political ploy.

Hundreds call out New York Times for ‘biased coverage’ of trans people in open letter

The newspaper said it has received the message from GLAAD and welcomes their feedback while defending its “journalistic mission.”

By Alessia Passafiume

Staff Reporter
Wed., Feb. 15, 2023

More than 100 journalists, writers, public figures and LGBTQ organizations signed an open letter addressed to the New York Times on Wednesday to raise concerns about what they’re calling “inaccurate, harmful trans coverage” in the newspaper.

While the Times has “long been the standard for excellence in journalism,” its coverage of transgender people over the past year has been “irresponsible,” reads the letter released by GLAAD — an LGBT media advocacy organization — and signed by the likes of Hannah Gadsby, Judd Apatow, Jameela Jamil, Gabrielle Union, Transgender Law Center and the Transgender Legal Defense & Education Fund.

The open letter isn’t in response to any one story, but rather what they’re calling a pattern of anti-trans coverage, the accompanying press release referencing a list of Times articles they say miss the mark and put trans people in harm’s way and further stigmatize the community.




“The Times has repeatedly platformed cisgender (non-transgender) people spreading inaccurate and harmful misinformation about transgender people and issues,” the open letter reads. “This is damaging to the paper’s credibility. And it is damaging to all LGBTQ people, especially our youth, who say debates about trans equality negatively impact their mental health, which is a contributing factor to the high suicide rates for LGBTQ youth.”

“We won’t stand for the Times platforming lies, bias, fringe theories, and dangerous inaccuracies.”

A separate yet similar letter — which has since amassed thousands of signatures from the public, Times contributors and other journalists — is addressed directly to the Times’s associate managing editor for standards.

“We’ve had enough,” GLAAD tweeted Wednesday morning with photos of a billboard van highlighting their message. “Today we are outside of the Times building to send a clear message.”



Among their demands are for the newspaper to “stop printing irresponsible information” about trans people, to meet with trans community leaders and to hire trans writers and editors.

In an emailed statement to the Star, New York Times spokesperson Charlie Stadtlander said the organization has received the letter and welcomes their feedback. Stadtlander did not say whether the Times will meet their demands when asked.

“We understand how GLAAD sees our coverage. But at the same time, we recognize that GLAAD’s advocacy mission and The Times’s journalistic mission are different,” Stadtlander wrote. “As a news organization, we pursue independent reporting on transgender issues that include profiling groundbreakers in the movement, challenges and prejudice faced by the community, and how society is grappling with debates about care.”

“The very news stories criticized by GLAAD in their letter reported deeply and empathetically on issues of care and well-being for trans teens and adults. Our journalism strives to explore, interrogate and reflect the experiences, ideas and debates in society — to help readers understand them. Our reporting did exactly that and we’re proud of it.”

GLAAD said they have not heard from the Times directly, but saw their response in the media.


Alessia Passafiume is a GTA-area based staff reporter for the Star’s Express Desk. Reach her via email: apassafiume@thestar.ca

Limiting warming below 1.8°C critical to prevent irreversible loss of ice sheets, rapid sea level rise: Study

Reaching net zero carbon emissions before 2060 is critical to avoid this catastrophe

By Rohini Krishnamurthy
Published: Wednesday 15 February 2023
Over the past century, the global mean sea level has increased by about 20 centimetres. Representative photo: iStock.

UN-mandated Paris Agreement’s target of limiting global temperature rise to 2 degrees celsius is probably insufficient to prevent an accelerated sea level rise over the next century, a new study warned.

If the global temperature rise is not kept below 1.8°C, the world could witness an “irreversible loss” of west Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets and a rapid sea level rise, the study published in Nature Communications highlighted.

Also read: Receding cryosphere: What latest WMO report warns us about

Greenland and the Antarctica ice sheet will each likely contribute about 60-70 centimetres to the global mean sea level rise over the next 130 years under a high emission scenario, the findings showed.

Reaching net zero carbon emissions before 2060 is critical to avoid this catastrophe.

“The west Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets play a crucial role in future sea level rise,” Axel Timmermann, co-author of the study and director of the IBS Center for Climate Physics, told Down To Earth.

Missing the 2060 goal could cause the ice sheet to disintegrate and melt at an accelerated pace, he explained. The average global temperature has increased by slightly more than 1°C since 1880, according to the United States National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

Watch video: Highest glacier on Mt Everest is rapidly melting

Over the past century, the global mean sea level has increased by about 20 centimetres. This could be partly attributed to the thermal expansion of seawater (increase in volume due to warming oceans), glacier and ice-sheet melt and changes in groundwater storage.

The latest climate model projections presented in the sixth assessment report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change have differing views on how quickly the major ice sheets will respond to global warming, according to the study.

The team highlighted that melting ice sheets, likely the largest contributor to sea level change, are the hardest to predict as the physics governing their behaviour is complicated.

Computer models do not consider the fact that ice sheet melting has an impact on ocean processes. This, in turn, can interact with the ice sheet and the atmosphere, Jun Young Park, a graduate student and one of the study’s authors, said.

Read more: What’s going on with the Greenland ice sheet?

“The response of ice sheets to future climate change depends on the atmosphere and ocean warming and these factors are partly determined by what the ice sheets do,” Timmermann explained.

Capturing the two-way coupling between the different components has been challenging, he added.

So, researchers from the Republic of Korea, the US and Australia used a model that captures the interactions between ice sheets, icebergs, the ocean and the atmosphere in both hemispheres.

Their simulations showed that ice sheets’ contributions to sea level may continue to speed up even if global surface temperatures increase at a reduced rate after 2100.

By 2150, global sea level rise is estimated to rise by roughly 1.4, 0.5 and 0.2 metres under high, mid and low-emission scenarios, respectively.

The increase could be avoided under a low greenhouse gas emission scenario, with temperatures staying below 1.5 °C.

“According to our simulations, limiting 21-century global surface temperature rise to 2 °C above the pre-industrial level would be insufficient to slow the global sea level rise rate over the next 130 years,” the researchers wrote in their study.

A 2022 study warned that changing water circulation linked to climate change is probably destabilising the east Antarctic ice sheet, which is about the size of the US. The findings also underscored the need to keep global temperature rise to 1.5°C.

UN chief says rising seas a ‘death sentence’ for some countries

UN secretary general warns that low-lying communities and entire countries could disappear under rising sea levels.

A mother and daughter wade through water caused by rising sea levels and land subsidence north of Jakarta, Indonesia in 2020 

[Willy Kurniawan/Reuters]

Published On 15 Feb 2023

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has warned of the threat posed by rising sea levels to hundreds of millions of people living in low-lying coastal areas and small island states as new data reveals seas have risen rapidly since 1900.

In a stark address to the first UN Security Council debate on the implications of rising sea levels for international peace and security, Guterres said countries such as Bangladesh, China, India and the Netherlands were threatened as were big cities such as Bangkok, Buenos Aires, Jakarta, Lagos, London, Los Angeles, Mumbai, Maputo, New York and Shanghai.

“The danger is especially acute for nearly 900 million people who live in coastal zones at low elevations — that’s one out of 10 people on Earth,” he told the council on Tuesday.

Climate change is heating the planet and melting glaciers and ice sheets which, according to NASA, has resulted in Antarctica shedding some 150 billion tonnes of ice mass each year on average, Guterres said. Greenland’s ice cap is shrinking even faster and losing 270 billion tonnes per year.

“The global ocean has warmed faster over the past century than at any time in the past 11,000 years,” the UN chief said.

“Our world is hurtling past the 1.5-degree warming limit that a liveable future requires and, with present policies, is careening towards 2.8 degrees – a death sentence for vulnerable countries,” he said.

Developing countries, in particular, must have the resources to adapt to a rapidly changing world and that means ensuring the $100bn climate finance commitment to developing countries is delivered, Guterres said.

The UN chief offered examples of the effect of a warming planet and rising sea levels on communities and countries stretching from the Pacific to the Himalayan river basins.

Ice melting in the Himalayas has already worsened flooding in Pakistan, he said. But as the Himalayan glaciers recede in the coming decades, the mighty Indus, Ganges and Brahmaputra rivers will shrink. Hundreds of millions of people living in the river basins of the Himalayas will suffer the effects of both rising sea levels and the intrusion of saltwater, Guterres said.

“We see similar threats in the Mekong Delta and beyond. The consequences of all of this are unthinkable. Low-lying communities and entire countries could disappear forever,” he said.

“We would witness a mass exodus of entire populations on a biblical scale.”

With rising sea levels creating new arenas for conflict as competition for freshwater sources and land intensifies, the secretary general said the climate crisis needs to be addressed at its root cause: reducing emissions to limit warming. Understanding the link between insecurity and a changed climate also requires developing early-warning systems for natural disasters, and legal and human rights provisions are also needed, particularly to address the displacement of people and loss of territories.

“People’s human rights do not disappear because their homes do,” Guterres said.

The meeting of the Security Council heard speakers from some 75 countries all voicing concern about the effect of rising sea waters, the Associated Press reported.

Speaking on behalf of the Alliance of Small Island States, Samoa’s UN ambassador Fatumanava-o-Upolu III Pa’olelei Luteru said alliance members were among the lowest to emit the greenhouse gases that had caused global warming and climate change.

“Yet, we face some of the most severe consequences of rising sea levels,” Lutero said, according to AP.

“To expect small island states to shoulder the burden of sea level rise, without assistance from the international community will be the pinnacle of inequities,” he said.

Ambassador Amatlain Kabua of the Marshall Islands said many of the tools to address climate change and rising seas were already known.

“What is needed most is the political will to start the job, supported by a UN special representative” to spur global action, she said.


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SOURCE: AL JAZEERA