It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
Friday, May 05, 2023
Canadian Health minister accused of meddling in work of drug price review board
Social Sharing
Facebook
Twitter
Email
Reddit
LinkedIn
A former board member tells MPs Jean-Yves Duclos has set
Matthew Herder answers questions before a Commons committee about claims that Health Minister Jean-Yves Duclos interfered with his former board's work on lowering drug costs. (Parliament of Canada )
Health Minister Jean-Yves Duclos' request to suspend consultations on guidelines that would lower the price of pharmaceutical drugs has made it harder for the Patented Medicine Prices Review Board to do its work, a former board member told MPs Tuesday.
Matthew Herder — who resigned from the board in February, citing a lack of government support for needed reforms — told a parliamentary committee that Duclos' interference in the board's work has set a dangerous precedent.
"Industry now knows that it can bypass the [Patented Medicine Prices Review Board] when it isn't satisfied with the board's policy direction and get the minister to do its bidding," Herder said.
In 2016, the federal government announced that it would protect Canadians from excessive drug prices by launching consultations on proposed amendments to regulations. The Patented Medicine Prices Review Board (PMPRB) was tasked with consulting industry and other stakeholders and coming up with guidelines.
In November, Duclos sent a letter to the acting chair of the PMPRB asking the board to suspend consultations on the policy reforms just weeks before new drug price guidelines were supposed to come into play.
Herder and former PMPRB executive director Douglas Clark told MPs Tuesday that Duclos interfered with the independence of the board by halting consultations on new guidelines.
Duclos denied the allegations during his testimony last Thursday. He said that he asked the PMPRB to suspend consultations because he had not been included in conversations about the new drug price guidelines and that more consultations were needed with the provinces.
"I had never received an invitation by the board, through its chair, to meet members of the board," he said.
Request vs. demand
Clark told MPs that the board had seven briefings at the official level. He also said that he made multiple attempts to reach the minister but was ignored.
"I made … five attempts to reach out to the minister's office to obtain a briefing with the minister," he said.
While Duclos said that the letter was only a suggestion, Herder said it felt more like a demand.
"The letter was a request as it was worded but it happened … in a context where there were multiple attempts to reach his office and the answer back was silence ... that's why it came across more of demand than a request," he said Tuesday.
Clark told the committee the government expected that everyone "was going to have a good time and get along." He said that was not possible when PMPRB was working on guidelines that would decrease industry profits.
"PMPRB is the David to the Goliath of transnational trillion-dollar industries." Clark said. "If the expectation is that we are required to operationalize a policy that will remove $10 billion or $3 billion out of industry profits in a way that has the blessing of that industry, it's a recipe for futility,"
Canadians are paying high costs for drugs
Canada has the third highest pharmaceutical drug prices in the world, after the United States and Switzerland.
Emma Cloney, a nurse from Winnipeg, said she was diagnosed with lipedema, a connective tissue disorder which creates painful fat build-up, in the summer of 2021.
Emma Cloney sits at home with several medications for lipedema in front of her. (Tyson Koschik/CBC)
Cloney said Manitoba Health and Seniors Care initially approved funding for her treatments but cut her off after her third surgery. She said the province stopped her funding without prior notice.
"Without warning or medical advice, they made a policy decision to renege coverage," she told CBC News.
One medication alone costs her almost $500 per month and her medical expenses for the past year — including an international trip for surgery — amounted to over $55,000.
"Nobody should have to decide, will I buy groceries? Or will I take my medications? Which medications do I do without?" she said. "And I think for those of us living on fixed incomes, it's especially upsetting and it causes a lot of anxiety."
Cloney said she feels a deep sense of frustration when she sees little being done to make medication more affordable.
"There is so much chatter and bureaucracy around giving access to health care to people that there is a total lack of action."
Herder said the board has to be independent to make decisions without outside interference.
"We have to remain the master of our guideline. Certainly, there can be no interference," he said.
US Lawmakers Introduce Bill to Make Iran Sanctions Permanent by Andrew Bernard A gas flare on an oil production platform in the Soroush oilfields is seen alongside an Iranian flag in Iran
. Photo: Reuters / Raheb Homavandi / File.
A bipartisan group of Congressional representatives led by Reps. Michelle Steel (R-CA), Michael McCaul (R-TX), and Susie Lee (D-NV) on Monday introduced a bill to make the provisions of the Iran Sanctions Act of 1996 permanent.
That bill, which is set to expire in 2026, authorizes the President to sanction the Iranian energy sector in an effort to prevent the Islamic Republic from acquiring funds that could be used to support terrorism or a nuclear weapons program. Formally titled the Solidify Iran Sanctions Act, the new bill would strike the sunset provisions of the 1996 act.
“The Iran Sanctions Act is one of the most important tools in US law to compel Iran to abandon its dangerous and destabilizing behavior,” McCaul said in a statement. “This bill takes the long overdue step of striking the arbitrary sunset from the law, so that sanctions will only be lifted if Iran stops its threatening behavior. Iran can’t run out the clock on U.S. law.”
Despite sanctions on oil exports that were reintroduced when former-President Donald Trump withdrew from the Iran nuclear deal, Iran’s oil ministry on Tuesday reported that Iranian oil production had risen to 3 million barrels per day.
Joseph Borgen, a Jewish Long Island resident whom five men assaulted and pepper-sprayed in a May 2021 antisemitic attack that...
Iran has faced an economic crisis in recent months, and its statistical agency has for the past two months refused to publish inflation data that it has otherwise consistently published each month for decades. The most recent figure published in late February showed that inflation stood at more than 47% year-on-year.
Rep. Steel, one of the co-sponsors of the bill, noted that Iran nonetheless continues its brutal crackdown on dissent.
“Iran has made clear it has no interest in participating in the international community or working towards peace. Iran brutalizes its own people, most recently conducting chemical attacks on thousands of schoolgirls,” said Steel. “The rogue state continues to make threats against democracy and actively sponsors terrorism around the world. Through this bipartisan, bicameral legislation, we can prevent Iran from possessing nuclear weapons and further jeopardizing global peace.”
Iran’s economic crisis has coincided with months of unprecedented displays of public protest and outrage following the death of Mahsa Amini in regime custody, however those protests have quieted recently in the face of a bloody crackdown by Iranian regime forces that has left nearly 500 people dead and more than 100 facing execution.
The US has responded with 11 rounds of sanctions on Iranian officials, and has cited the protests and the Islamic Republic’s crackdown as one of the reasons why a return to the Iran nuclear deal is “not on the agenda.”
In February, the IAEA detected 84% enriched uranium at Iran’s Fordow Fuel Enrichment Plant – just shy of the 90% enrichment required for the weapons-grade uranium used in nuclear weapons.
Sarah Stern, President of the Endowment for Middle East Truth (EMET), on Tuesday highlighted the necessity of the bill in light of the upcoming sunset of certain provisions of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action – the 2015 Iran nuclear deal.
“This bill comes at exactly the right time, and is particularly important now, as Iran is galloping towards nuclear breakout, as Iran has created a pincer grasp of terrorist proxies surrounding the state of Israel, and as some of the provisions of the JCPOA have already sunsetted, and as others are about to sunset,” she said. “This coming October 2023, an entire array of bans will be lifted, including, among other things, a ban on Iran’s research, development and production of Iranian ballistic missiles, a ban on the unfettered access of the IAEA into suspicious Iranian nuclear sites, and a ban on the import and export of drones and other missile technology.”
Simultaneously introduced in the Senate by Senators Tim Scott (R-SC), Maggie Hassan (D-NH), Bill Hagerty (R- TN), and Jacky Rosen (D-NV), the bill needs to proceed to a vote in both chambers before it can be signed into law by President Biden.
U$A
As Rail Profits Soar, Blocked Train Crossings Endanger Kids and Communities
When trains block a crossing for hours on end, kids risk their lives to get to school.
One child helps another cross over a parked freight train blocking their route to school.JAMIE KELTER DAVIS FOR PROPUBLICA
Jeremiah Johnson couldn’t convince his mother to let him wear a suit, so he insisted on wearing his striped tie and matching pocket square. It was picture day and the third grader wanted to get to school on time. But as he and his mom walked from their Hammond, Indiana, home on a cold, rainy fall morning, they confronted an obstacle they’d come to dread:
A sprawling train, parked in their path.
Lamira Samson, Jeremiah’s mother, faced a choice she said she has to make several times a week. They could walk around the train, perhaps a mile out of the way; she could keep her 8-year-old son home, as she sometimes does; or they could try to climb over the train, risking severe injury or death, to reach Hess Elementary School four blocks away.
She listened for the hum of an engine. Hearing none, she hurried to help Jeremiah climb a ladder onto the flat platform of a train car. Once up herself, she helped him scramble down the other side.
ProPublica and InvestigateTV witnessed dozens of students do the same in Hammond, climbing over, squeezing between and crawling under train cars with “Frozen” and “Space Jam” backpacks. An eighth grade girl waited 10 minutes before she made her move, nervously scrutinizing the gap between two cars. She’d seen plenty of trains start without warning. “I don’t want to get crushed,” she said.
Jeremiah Johnson (age 8) climbs up a small ladder on the side of a parked freight train on November 16, 2022, in Hammond, Indiana.JAMIE KELTER DAVIS FOR PROPUBLICAJAMIE KELTER DAVIS FOR PROPUBLICAJeremiah Johnson and his mother, Lamira Samson, climb over a parked freight train on their way to school.JAMIE KELTER DAVIS FOR PROPUBLICA
Recent spectacular derailments have focused attention on train safety and whether the nation’s powerful rail companies are doing enough to protect the public — and whether federal regulators are doing enough to make them, especially as the companies build longer and longer trains.
But communities like Hammond routinely face a different set of risks foisted on them by those same train companies, which have long acted with impunity. Every day across America, their trains park in the middle of neighborhoods and major intersections, waiting to enter congested rail yards or for one crew to switch with another. They block crossings, sometimes for hours or days, disrupting life and endangering lives.
News accounts chronicle horror stories: Ambulances can’t reach patients before they die or get them to the hospital in time. Fire trucks can’t get through and house fires blazeout of control. Pedestrians trying to cut through trains have been disfigured, dismembered and killed; when one train abruptly began moving, an Iowa woman was dragged underneath until it stripped almost all of the skin from the back of her body; a Pennsylvania teenager lost her leg hopping between rail cars as she rushed home to get ready for prom.
In Hammond, the hulking trains of Norfolk Southern regularly force parents, kids and caretakers into an exhausting gamble: How much should they risk to get to school?
The trains, which can stretch across five or six intersections at a time in this working-class suburb of 77,000, prevent students and teachers from getting to school in the morning. Teachers must watch multiple classrooms while their colleagues wait at crossings; kids sit on school buses as they meander the streets of an entirely different city to be dropped off a half-hour late. Brandi Odom, a seventh grade teacher, estimates that at least half her class is delayed by trains multiple times a week.
The adults entrusted with their safety — parents and teachers, police and fire officials, the mayor — say they are well aware of the pressures on students’ minds when they face a blocked crossing on foot. They know some are hungry and don’t want to miss breakfast; the vast majority in this 86% Black and Latino district qualify for free or reduced-price meals at school. And they know that many of their parents commute to work an hour away to Chicago, trusting older brothers or sisters to pick up or drop off their siblings.
“I feel awful about it,” said Scott E. Miller, the superintendent. His district has asked Norfolk Southern for its schedule so that the schools can plan for blockages and students can adjust their routines. The company has disregarded the requests, school officials said.
Mayor Thomas McDermott Jr. said that his experience with the rails has been similar, and that company officials have reminded him the rails “were here first,” running through Hammond before it was even a city. “To them, I am nobody,” he said. “They don’t pay attention to me. They don’t respect me. They don’t care about the city of Hammond. They just do what they want.”
In written responses to questions, a spokesperson for Norfolk Southern said children climbing through their trains concerns the company.
“It is never safe for members of the public to try to cross the cars,” spokesperson Connor Spielmaker said. “We understand that a stopped train is frustrating, but trains can move at any time and with little warning — especially if you are far from the locomotive where the warning bell is sounded when a train starts.”
He said trains routinely sit in Hammond for a number of reasons: That section of track is between two busy train intersections that must remain open; Norfolk Southern can’t easily move a train backward or forward, because that would cut off the paths for other trains, which could belong to other companies. And Hammond is a suburb of Chicago, which is the busiest train hub in the nation, creating congestion up and down the network.
He said Norfolk Southern is working to identify an area where trains can stage further down its line and to have less impact on the community. The company will also review its procedures to see whether its trains can give louder warnings before they start moving. (ProPublica reporters witnessed trains in Hammond start moving without warning.) Spielmaker said that train schedules vary so much that giving Hammond one might not be helpful. He said that the company is in “constant communication” with local officials, and that representatives will discuss any proposed fixes with Hammond.
Rail companies around the country could better coordinate their schedules, parking trains far from schools that are in session. They could also build shorter trains that fit into railyards so their tail ends don’t block towns’ crossings. Hammond essentially serves as a parking lot for Norfolk Southern’s trains, creating a problem so pressing that Indiana plans to spend $14 million — about $10 million of which is coming from federal grants — to build an overpass for cars. The bridge won’t help many students, who would need to walk at least a mile out of their way just to reach it. Norfolk Southern, the multibillion-dollar corporation causing the problem, is contributing just $500,000 of the bridge’s cost, despite the city asking for more.
Norfolk Southern did not respond directly to questions about whether it should chip in more to the upcoming project, but the company said it contributes to many safety projects and maintains more than 1,600 grade crossings in Indiana alone. Read the company’s full response here.
A coupler connects the freight cars of a train parked in Hammond.JAMIE KELTER DAVIS FOR PROPUBLICA
On three separate occasions during the fall and winter, reporters witnessed Norfolk Southern trains blocking intersections leading to an elementary, a middle and a high school for four, six and seven hours. ProPublica and InvestigateTV showed footage of kids making the crossing, including an elementary student crawling under a train, to representatives of Norfolk Southern, lawmakers and Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg, whose remit includes rail safety.
He was shocked.
“Nobody,” Buttigieg said, “can look at a video with a child having to climb over or under a railroad car to get to school and think that everything is OK.”
The video also stunned state officials who had long known about the problem. “That takes my breath away,” said Indiana state Rep. Carolyn Jackson, who represents the Hammond area and has filed a bill attempting to address blocked crossings every session for the past five years. None has ever gotten a hearing. “I hope that they will do something about it and we won’t have to wait until a parent has to bury their child.”
The blocked crossing problem is perennial, especially in cities like Hammond that are near large train yards. But in the era of precision scheduled railroading, a management philosophy that leans heavily on running longer trains, residents, first responders, rail workers and government leaders told ProPublica it is getting worse as trains stretch farther across more intersections and crossings. “The length of the long trains is 100% the cause of what’s going on across the country right now,” said Randy Fannon, a national vice president of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen. “No engineer wants to block a crossing.”
The Federal Railroad Administration, the agency that regulates rail safety, started a public database in late 2019 for complaints about blocked crossings and fielded more than 28,000 reports of stopped trains last year alone. Among them were thousands of dispatches from 44 states about pedestrians, including kids, crossing trains. Someone in North Charleston, South Carolina, summarized the situation in three letters: “Wtf.”
A rail administration spokesperson said the agency shares the data monthly with companies. “When railroads fail to act quickly,” and if a crossing is reported as blocked three days in a calendar month, officials will contact a company to determine the cause and try to work out solutions, Warren Flatau said. “We are receiving various levels of cooperation … and welcome more consistent engagement.” Read more about what the agency says it is doing here.
Buttigieg said that this spring or summer, he expects to announce the first grants in a new U.S. Department of Transportation program designed to help alleviate blocked crossings. The federal government is putting $3 billion into the program over five years.
Two children on their way to school help each other over a parked train.JAMIE KELTER DAVIS FOR PROPUBLICA
State lawmakers have tried to curb blocked crossings by restricting the lengths of trains. Since 2019, in Arkansas, Iowa, Kansas, Georgia, Nebraska, Virginia, Washington, Arizona and other states, lawmakers have proposed maximum lengths of 1.4 to about 1.6 miles. (There is no limit now, and trains have been known to stretch for 2 or more miles.) Every proposal has died before becoming law.
Opponents, including the nation’s largest railroad companies, claim that the efforts are driven by unions to create jobs and that the measures would violate interstate commerce laws. As ProPublica has reported, train length has been essential to creating record profits for rail companies in recent years.
The industry has also sued to block more modest measures. In Hammond, for instance, police used to be able to write tickets for about $150 every time they saw a train stalled at a crossing for more than five minutes. Instead of paying the individual citations, Hammond officials told ProPublica, Norfolk Southern would bundle them and negotiate a lower payment.
“We weren’t getting anything,” McDermott, the mayor, said, “but it made our residents feel good.” An Indiana court took the industry’s side — as many courts in other states have done — ruling that only the federal government held power over the rails. “We can’t even write tickets anymore,” the mayor said. “It was more of an illusion, and we can’t even play the illusion anymore.”
He said the blockages have forced Hammond to keep more firefighters and stations than would normally be needed for a city its size. “I have to have a firehouse fully staffed on both sides of the rail line so that we can respond in a timely manner to an emergency, which is very expensive,” McDermott said.
The problem has become so endemic in Hammond that getting “trained,” or stalled at crossings, has become a verb.
Police officers are delayed several times a day, said Hammond Police Department spokesperson Lt. Steve Kellogg. Last October, an officer couldn’t get backup as he confronted a man who was holding a knife, bleeding and not responding to commands. The officer pulled his weapon and the man ultimately cooperated, but someone could have died, Kellogg said. Hammond’s powerlessness over the rails is frustrating, he added. “They’re all controlled by the feds, and they do whatever the hell they want to do.”
Spielmaker, the Norfolk Southern spokesperson, said: “We work with first responders on a daily basis to assist however we can. For example, there was a situation in Georgia where a train was stopped on a crossing due to a broken down train ahead. The train could not be moved, so we worked with the first responders to make sure the train was safe for them to maneuver through with it in place.”
In his 24 years fighting fires in Hammond, Mike Hull, president of a local union, said not once has he seen railroads do that for first responders. “They’ve never come back and said, ‘We’re going to move this train for you,’” he said.
State and local officials grew hopeful on March 20 when the U.S. Supreme Court invited the federal government to comment on a petition from Ohio seeking the authority to regulate how long a train can block a crossing. The high court will likely hear the case if the solicitor general recommends it, said Tom Goldstein, publisher of SCOTUSblog, which is widely seen as an authority on the court. Nineteen other states have signaled their support for a Supreme Court case. Goldstein expects the solicitor general to respond in November or early December. A favorable court opinion could allow other states to finally enforce their laws on blocked crossings.
In the meantime, Buttigieg believes federal lawmakers must intervene to give the Federal Railroad Administration the power to compel rail companies to keep crossings clear. This time of intense public interest in railroads has opened a window for action, Buttigieg said, but it is fleeting. “Any moment that the public attention starts to fade, the railroads are then once again in a position to assert themselves in Washington and to ignore some of the phone calls they are getting in the communities,” he said.
Buttigieg said his staff is ready to participate in a federal hearing in which it can tell lawmakers what new authorities they would need to regulate blocked crossings.
U.S. Rep. Sylvia Garcia, D-Texas, said she is eager for new law. A fire chief in her district, which covers parts of the Houston area, told her the department has had to detour 3,200 times since 2019 because of blocked crossings. She and other congressional Democrats introduced the Don’t Block Our Communities Act in early March, but it has not yet gained bipartisan traction. The proposed law would prohibit rail companies from blocking crossings for more than 10 minutes and would allow the rail administration to fine companies for repeated violations.
Like the other officials, Garcia said she was aghast, but not surprised, about the situation in Hammond. “That is outrageous, look at the little bitty baby,” she said while watching a video of a young girl crawling under a train car. “That’s what I mean about making sure we do more to protect the safety of our children. That happens too in Houston.”
In Hammond, a public meeting is scheduled for Wednesday at 5:30 p.m. at Scott Middle School to discuss the overpass project. Among those who hope to voice their concerns about the blocked crossings are rail workers themselves who worry about the kids. “It’s just a matter of time until there is a catastrophic incident,” said Kenny Edwards, the Indiana legislative director for the nation’s largest rail union.
Efrain Valdez, president of the parent teacher association, said he hopes officials can adjust plans to help students who need to walk to school. “To see our children in danger like that, that’s just downright crazy,” he said. “I’m just appalled and heartbroken that [the railroad] would think that’s OK. That their money means more to them than a child’s life.”
Until there’s a better solution, the ritual continues. Some parents act as de facto crossing guards, standing beside trains to help their children and others cross. Others ask their kids to call them before and after they make the climb, while warning them about the worst that can happen.
Rudy Costello tells his daughter, who is in high school, to be careful, because if the train moves she “could slip and then there goes your leg and your foot. Or you get pulled under the train and there goes you all together.” He added: “That’s been my biggest fear, her foot slipping off. … But what can you do? Because those trains are always stopping over there, for hours.”
Akicia Henderson said she has tried to avoid making the dangerous climb with her 10-year-old daughter. “I called a Lyft,” she said. “The Lyft driver actually canceled on me twice because he couldn’t get around the train.”
So she walks toward the tracks, picturing all that can go wrong — a jacket snags, a backpack tangles, the wheels begin to turn. She prays that this will be one of the days their path isn’t blocked and that she doesn’t hear the sound she has most come to fear, a horn in the distance.
“It’s like, ‘Oh my God, the train is coming.’”
Akicia Henderson and her daughter, Sarai WashingtonJAMIE KELTER DAVIS FOR PROPUBLICA
Last Known Female Yangtze Giant Softshell Turtle Dies
The turtle who died was discovered in Vietnam’s Dong Mo Lake in 2021.
The last known female Yangtze giant softshell turtle has died. She was found at Hoan Kiem Lake in Hanoi, Vietnam, April 23, Conservationist Forrest Galante announced in a video on social media.
“I am still in just such belief that yesterday, we literally witnessed the loss of one of the planet’s true gigantic species, the Yangtze giant softshell turtle,” Galante wrote on Facebook. “It’s just devastating. Humans must learn from this and try to do better as docents of our planet.”
This is an Asian giant softshell turtle, the same family, Trionychidae as the Yangtze giant softshell. It is also critically endangered. Photo by evenfh/Shutterstock
Galante worked with the turtle in 2020, participating in an eDNA analysis of the turtle with the Asian Turtle Program, which confirmed her gender.
There are just two known Yangtze giant softshell turtles left. Both are living in a zoo in China. Galante noted that the male has a broken penis and is unable to reproduce, garnering this species functionally extinct.
The turtle who died was discovered in Vietnam’s Dong Mo Lake in 2021. Prior to her discovery, a female named China Girl, at the Suzhou Zoo in China was the last known female. She died in 2019.
Yangtze Giant Softshell Turtle Information
The Yangtze giant softshell turtle, also known as the Hoan Kiem turtle or Swinhoe’s softshell turtle, is native to China and Vietnam. There are only two known living individuals, both living in captivity. The species is now functionally extinct, unless a female in the wild is located and successfully bred. It can grow to six feet in length and weigh upward of 500 lbs. Yangtze giant softshell turtles are critically endangered. The population of this species has dropped drastically due to hunting, habitat loss, and change in environments for rice production. There is the potential that this species may be found in larger more isolated lakes.
Rare reptile of mythical lore — the last female of her species — dies in Vietnam
Anonymous/ASSOCIATED PRESS
Brendan Rascius Tue, May 2, 2023
An extremely rare reptile, considered sacred by many, died recently in Vietnam, bringing its species to the edge of extinction.
The deceased creature was a Yangtze giant softshell turtle, distinguished by its large size and pig-like snout, according to VN Express, an online news outlet.
The 200-pound turtle died in a Hanoi lake of unknown causes, according to the outlet.
Tim McCormack, director of the Asian Turtle Program for Indo-Myanmar Conservation, told TIME that scientists believe the creature was the last known female of its species.
“I am truly heartbroken,” Forrest Galante, a biologist and television personality, wrote on Facebook, adding that the creature’s death leaves “only two known males remaining — one in Suzhou Zoo in China and another in Hanoi’s Xuân Khanh Lake.”
The endangered reptile holds a mythical status in Vietnam because it features in a legend similar to that of England’s King Arthur, according to the International Society for the History and Bibliography of Herpetology.
The turtle is said to have delivered a magical sword to a king, which allowed him to repel invaders. Once the enemies were defeated, according to the legend, the turtle reappeared in a Hanoi lake and retrieved the weapon before vanishing beneath the surface.
The turtle is even worshiped by some, and when one of the last remaining individuals died in 2016, its remains were embalmed and put on display, according to Scientific American.
The species, which is only native to parts of China and Vietnam, began declining in the 1980s as a result of habitat loss and consumption, according to a study published in 2021 in the journal Oryx.
While there are now only officially two surviving members of the species, it’s possible more exist undetected in the wild. There have been over a dozen potential sightings of previously unknown turtles in recent years, according to the study.
An Extremely Rare, Revered Reptile Is on the Brink of Extinction After Last Female Dies A female Giant Yangtze Softshell Turtle, which died in 2023, in Hanoi in 2008. Courtesy of Tim McCormack—Asian Turtle Program
A dark oblong creature drifted from the depths of Hanoi’s 1,400-hectare Đồng Mô Lake and began to float, motionless, on the surface last weekend. Local residents and conservationists locked eyes on the gloomy sight, sharing fears about what this might mean for the future of a revered species in Vietnam.
On Monday, state media reports suggested it was not only a Giant Yangtze Softshell Turtle (Rafetus swinhoei), but it was likely the last known female of the species, leaving only two known males remaining—one in Suzhou Zoo in China and another in Hanoi’s Xuân Khanh Lake.
Speaking to TIME on Friday, Tim McCormack, director of the Asian Turtle Program for Indo-Myanmar Conservation, confirmed that the creature was almost certainly the last known female Rafetus swinhoei: “It is the same individual that we’ve been monitoring in recent years. It’s a real blow,” he said, noting that local authorities will soon complete a genetic test of the carcass to verify its identity. “It was a large female that obviously has great reproductive capacity. She could have potentially laid a hundred eggs or more a year.”
News reports suggest that the reptile, which is 156 centimeters long and weighs 93 kilograms, could have died days before it was spotted by locals. The cause of death remains unknown, as local authorities are yet to carry out a full autopsy.
The discovery of the female in January 2021 had raised hopes that the species could be saved from extinction. The reptile, also known as the Hoàn Kiếm turtle, has been driven to the brink of disappearance by rising levels of pollution as well as decades of hunting for its meat and eggs.
Previously, there was another female Giant Yangtze Softshell Turtle in Suzhou Zoo in China, but it died amid breeding efforts in 2018. For many years, staff tried unsuccessfully to get the pair of turtles at the zoo to reproduce naturally.
A female Giant Yangtze Softshell Turtle, which died during an insemination operation in 2019, surfaces for sunshine at the Suzhou Zoo in east China's Jiangsu province, Nov. 05, 2014. FeatureChina/AP
“The whole time, in 20 years I’ve been working with the species, we’ve never seen any eggs,” McCormack added. “There has been an artificial nesting beach built in Đồng Mô Lake for almost 10 years now, which has had no nesting. So one of the questions has been whether this was a lone animal or whether there are other animals in Đồng Mô.”
According to the Asian Turtle Program, there may be another Rafetus swinhoei living in Đồng Mô Lake, which gives conservationists reason to not give up on the species yet. But to date, scientists have only managed to catch and identify the one female.
“We’re also working at Xuân Khanh Lake in Hanoi, where environmental DNA has confirmed there is a male Rafetus,” McCormack said, adding that there is a need to capture and identify the reptile. A revered creature
The Hoàn Kiếm turtle is of great spiritual importance in Vietnam. In the 15th century, according to Vietnamese mythology, a turtle in Hoàn Kiếm Lake gifted a sword to emperor Lê Lợi, which he used to vanquish occupying Chinese forces.
Khoi Pham, the editor of arts and culture magazine Saigoneer, tells TIME: “The fact that Rafetus swinhoei’s natural habitat overlaps with the story’s location elevates the species’ cultural significance in the eyes of Vietnamese. It’s like we have a tangible connection to history right in our backyard, and seeing the turtle alive and kicking makes the legends seem more real and our past victories more validated.”
Sightings of Rafetus swinhoei have proved a rare occurrence in recent years. One YouTube video recorded in March 2011 shows a crowd thronging one side of Hanoi’s Hoàn Kiếm Lake. A palpable sense of awe spreads among the gathering as they stare expectantly at the grimy water, hoping to catch a glimpse of the famed Cụ Rùa, the honorific given to the last Giant Yangtze Softshell Turtle in Hoàn Kiếm Lake. Slowly, tentatively, the huge beast emerged, viciously shredding a dead cat in its jaws before sinking back down into the murky depths. The crowd was utterly jubilant, shrieking in delight.
When Cụ Rùa died in January 2016, Hanoians mourned its passing. Some also saw its death as a bad omen for the ruling Communist Party, which was about to kick off its five-yearly National Congress.
The embalmed body of the legendary Giant Yangtze Softshell Turtle Cu Rua is exhibited in the Ngoc Son temple in Hanoi, March 21, 2019. Until his death in January 2016, the turtle was worshipped as the last descendant of the mythical turtle god Kim Quy. Bennett Murray—dpa/picture alliance/Getty Images
“Turtles have long been revered in Vietnamese culture as a symbol of longevity, wisdom, and stability. The creatures appear as decorative motifs in temples and monuments, and as mythological figures in many folk legends,” added Khoi. “It’s a shame that, for a country that respects turtle deities so much, we have been doing such a poor job of protecting their real-life counterparts.” Its polluted habitat
Rafetus swinhoei were once abundant in the rivers and lakes of northern Vietnam, yet growing levels of pollution have gravely degraded their natural habitat. Practically all of Hanoi’s lakes are heavily contaminated due to a deadly combination of industrial and residential wastewater, dumped trash, and invasive algae. AND THE TOXIC CHEMICALS FROM THE VIET NAM WAR DROPPED BY AMERICANS
“In general, a healthy environment leads to healthy individuals. Đồng Mô Lake is a large water body, so therefore is less likely to be polluted compared to smaller bodies,” said McCormack. “The one in central Hanoi, Hoàn Kiếm Lake, was very polluted.”
Although the loss of the female Rafetus swinhoei in Đồng Mô Lake has shocked and saddened conservationists, some hope remains.
“I do think there’s more out there,” McCormack said. “I do think there’s still hope for the species, but the loss of a large female is very sad.”
“There are tissue samples being preserved from the Hoàn Kiếm turtle,” he added. “That’s potential for the future, but ideally we should be protecting what we’ve got now.”
For Somali journalists, insecurity is just part of the problem
WEDNESDAY MAY 03 2023 Somali journalists during a conference in Mogadishu. The globe marked the World Press Freedom Day on May 3 with rallying calls to stop gagging the media.
Summary
Somalia has no media council, meaning journalists can’t have self-regulation like in Kenya.
In the region, media practitioners have expressed concerns on governments clamping down on media freedoms.
Somalia has been the worst country in the Horn of Africa to work in as a journalist.
The globe marked the World Press Freedom Day on Wednesday with rallying calls to stop gagging the media. In the East African region, Somali practitioners repeated an old song: calling for an end to impunity now blamed for hurting press freedom there, even more than the danger of Al-Shabaab militants.
Somalia, of course, has been the worst country in the Horn of Africa to work in as a journalist. For the last 15 years, at least 80 journalists have been killed. And it has often been blamed on Al-Shabaab.
But press lobbies there say the trend has also included government officials abusing their powers to frustrate a free press.
Omar Farouk Osman and his colleague Nima Hassan Abdi lead a local lobby known as the National Union of Somali Journalists (Nusoj). This week, they were in Nairobi to mark the World Press Freedom Day at a conference facilitated by the Australian High Commission. Their work used to be that of looking over your shoulder. Now they have to fight with online trolls too. Social media
“I have seen the practise of journalism change over time in my country. When I started, there was a huge challenge of security but now, we face even more difficulties from the social media platforms,” he told NTV in an interview on Wednesday on the side-lines of the conference co-organised by the Kenya Union of Journalists.
Not that Somalia’s challenge with the trolls or fake news is unique. It is in Kenya too, and in other African countries.
In fact, social media has huge potential and presents a likable target for mainstream journalists across Africa and not only in the region. Tiktok, Instagram, Twitter and Facebook have become major platforms for mainstream media to churn out their content to targeted audiences, according to one recent study by the Media Council of Kenya.
It has its challenges everywhere. In Somalia, it is competition, and a threat.
“Both broadcast and print media are challenged by social media back home,” Omar said.
“I know some radio stations which have now completely forgotten about updating their [news] websites. That is gone. What is happening now in Somalia is media houses, radio stations [are] using social media, to their own advantage.
“People don’t see how we can address this, because it’s easier for journalists to update social media accounts so that they feed the public even before they reach the newsroom,” stated Omar, the Secretary-General of Nusoj. Laws
He believes mainstream media must adapt. But there is another problem: For Somali journalists, where the law starts and ends is never clear. And whether a law is archaic is also not clear. A weak judiciary means courts are not as strong as in Kenya to strike down clauses of law deemed unconstitutional.
So, government officials use that to protect themselves from negative coverage, either by threatening journalists or refusing to provide information. Somalia has no information law yet.
“Journalists are arrested in Somalia, but there is something that has become infamous: a journalist is convicted before even being charged. And what is being used is a penal code of Somalia which is very old, it was enacted into law in 1972,” said Omar.
Somalia has no media council too, meaning journalists can’t have self-regulation like in Kenya. The welfare is left to unions like Omar’s. Even his is limited, with just 1,200 registered practitioners working in its various regions. Female journalists
It is worse for female journalists in the country. Within the nine major television networks, the Somali journalists union says that the number of women in leadership in those newsrooms is negligible. Female journalists are also facing discriminatory practises, and abuses while on duty, and not much has been achieved to challenge the status quo. The death of Somali-Canadian Hodhan Ali in a terror attack in Kismayu together with her husband is seen as the ultimate price many journalists inside Somalia have to pay in their line of work, and according to union officials, many more deaths have been reported in the years before and after that attack.
“We are telling our government, break the cycle of impunity of crimes committed against journalists, because these crimes are not happening by accident. They are cries that are organised and pre-meditated and exclusively choreographed to attack journalists.
“We are saying that the office of the special prosecutor should look at crimes against journalists. That office should be empowered to conduct its duty independently and bring the perpetrators before the law,” noted Omar. Clamping down on media
In the region, media practitioners have expressed concerns on governments clamping down on media freedoms like access to information and also banning live broadcasts in certain circumstances.
“In the 2022 election period. Journalists were threatened and termed as having taken sides and we saw recently journalists being beaten and attacked in a political demonstration. This reverses the gains Kenya has made since the dark era,” said Roselyne Oballa, a former member of the Media Council of Kenya and political editor at the Nation Media Group.
Churchill Otieno the chairperson of the East African Editors Guild agrees and believes that without a free press, audiences who are owed the truth will continue to suffer.
“This is worrying because there will be a huge gap between the younger generation of journalists and the old folk who have left and this will impact largely on institutional memory,” said Oballa.
For Osman and his colleague, the future is bright for journalism in Somalia.
Canada's Ontario to invest $25.5M to combat hate against religious, minority groups
Ontario implements Anti-Hate Security and Prevention Grant to ensure community spaces remain safe
Firdevs Bulut Kartal
|05.05.2023 -
AA
TORONTO
The government of Ontario province in Canada announced on Friday that it will be investing $25.5 million over two years to address the increasing number of hate incidents against minority and religious groups.
The Anti-Hate Security and Prevention Grant will help faith-based and cultural organizations enhance or implement measures to ensure community spaces remain safe and secure, the government said in a statement.
“No Ontarian should live in fear that they will be targeted because of their background, who they love, or how they worship,” said Michael Ford, Minister of Citizenship and Multiculturalism.
“Building on our other investments to combat hate, the new Anti-Hate Security and Prevention Grant will help build stronger, safer and more inclusive communities and ensure everyone has a safe environment to practice their faith and express their culture and beliefs,” he said.
The grant will provide up to $10,000 to help religious groups, Indigenous communities and cultural communities protect and secure their facilities from hate-motivated incidents, graffiti, vandalism or other damage, the statement said.
The grant can be used for building upgrades, enhancing locks, installing cameras, training staff, completing security assessments, introducing safer cybersecurity measures, hiring short-term professional security personnel and repairs.
Ontario has allocated $40 million through the Ontario Grant to Support Anti-Hate Security Measures for Faith-Based and Cultural Organizations since 2021.
In a statement, the National Council of Canadian Muslims welcomed the government's announcement, saying: "The $25.5 million increase in funding is a necessary step towards helping a large number of cultural and faith based organizations across the province to beef up their facilities' security against possibly hateful actors and crimes
Belarus sentences activist after forcing his plane down over fake Hamas bomb threat
Roman Protasevich gets eight years in prison for efforts to coordinate 2020 protests against authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko
3 May 2023, Belarusian activist Roman Protasevich takes part in a briefing for journalists and diplomats organized by the Foreign Affairs Ministry of Belarus in Minsk, June 14, 2021. (STRINGER/AFP)
A Belarusian activist who was arrested in 2021 after his Ryanair flight from Greece to Lithuania was forced to land in Belarus has been sentenced to eight years in prison, state media reported on Wednesday.
“The Minsk regional court has sentenced Roman Protasevich to eight years in a prison colony,” Belarusian news agency Belta said.
Prosecutors had asked for a 10-year sentence for Protasevich, the former editor of an opposition Telegram account.
He has been accused of helping coordinate mass protests against President Alexander Lukashenko’s regime in 2020.
The Moscow-allied country, ruled by Lukashenko since 1994, has cracked down on anyone linked to the protests, which were the biggest in Belarusian history.
Protasevich was arrested after his Ryanair flight from Greece to Lithuania was intercepted by a Belarusian fighter jet and forced to land in Minsk. The Ryanair plane carrying opposition figure Roman Protasevich, lands at the international airport outside Vilnius, Lithuania, May 23, 2021. (AP Photo/Mindaugas Kulbis)
Belarus transport officials later claimed the country had received a bomb threat claiming to be from the Hamas terror group that threatened to blow up the plane unless Israel halted military operations in Gaza. The claim was regarded as dubious as Hamas and Israel had ceased fighting two days earlier.
“He’s been the regime’s hostage since the Ryanair hijacking,” opposition figure Svetlana Tikhanovskaya said after the verdict.
“The Belarus regime again shows its disregard for justice by sentencing three journalists in a fake trial on PressFreedomDay,” she said on Twitter.
Two other key figures behind the Nexta Telegram channel, Stepan Putilo and Yan Rudnik were sentenced in absentia to 20 years and 19 years in prison respectively.
The charges included making public calls to insurrection, organizing of terrorist attacks, offending the president, and spreading false information about Belarus.
After his arrest, which caused international shock, Protasevich is believed to have been coerced by authorities into issuing apologetic statements on state television.
Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko speaks at his residence, the Independence Palace, in the capital Minsk, on July 21, 2022. (Alexander NEMENOV/AFP)
As his trial opened in February, he said he was “fully guilty,” in a video published by state news agency Belta.
Franak Viacorka, a close adviser to Tikhanovskaya, tweeted that “when he was kidnapped, (Protasevich) chose to collaborate with the KGB… it did not help to avoid imprisonment.”
He has been under house arrest since June 2021.
Nexta, a popular channel on YouTube and Telegram, had played an active role in the 2020 protests, which erupted after Lukashenko was accused of rigging an election.
The platform was banned and declared a “terrorist organization.”
According to Belarus’s independent Viasna rights group, there are now 1,500 political prisoners in the country.
The Minsk regime, reclusive for years, has become even more isolated after brutally suppressing the protests and allowing Russia to use Belarusian territory to launch its Ukraine offensive.
