Sunday, May 21, 2023

FIRST THE RIGHT WAS ANTI-SJW
NOW IT IS ANTI-WOKE

Ford Motors commercial accused of destroying '120 years of American history in one minute'


Story by Lynn Chaya • May 19,2023


Ford Motors has become the latest target for conservatives after an old commercial showing a rainbow-wrapped Raptor went viral.

Like many corporations’ marketing strategies, the automobile manufacturer hopped on the inclusion bandwagon and aired the ad during Pride Month last June.

The video resurfaced after TikTok user Brian Michael posted it on May 16 with a text overlay claiming the company had “destroyed 120 years of American history in 1 minute.”


Conservative political commentator Dave Rubin, with a YouTube following of over 1.94 million subscribers, expressed his discontent with “the obsession to market everything” towards the LGBTQ+ community.

“Why would you be marketing towards a very niche audience?” he asked.


“What gay person is walking in when you want to buy a car… ‘Well which one of these trucks is gayer? Do you have this in rainbow?’ None of it makes any sense,” he continued.


Over the last few weeks, the controversy surrounding “woke ads” have caused an uproar on social media.

Six weeks ago, transgender activist Dylan Mulvaney received backlash for a social media post about cans of Bud Light beer that were personally sent to her.
Miller Lite draws calls for boycott over 'woke' advert: 'Did nobody learn from Bud Light?'
Gun maker goes into damage control after Twitter manager supports feminist Miller Lite ad

Two Republican senators went so far as to ask the U.S. federal government to investigate the ad. Senators Ted Cruz of Texas and Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee presented a letter from the Senate’s commerce committee urging Anheuser Busch CEO Brendan Whitworth to “sever its relationship” with Mulvaney, “publicly apologize”, and force her to delete “any Anheuser-Busch content” on her social media platforms, or submit to an investigation from a trade association, the Independent reported.

Following that controversy, Miller Lite released an ad apologizing for decades of sexist imagery in beer commercials. It features comedian and actor Ilana Glazer explaining to viewers that “women were among the very first to brew beer, ever. From Mesopotamia to the Middles Ages to Colonial America, women were the ones doing the brewing.”

The ad drew criticism from conservative personalities on social media.

“Miller Lite saw the Bud Light disaster and decided they needed their own woke beer ad,” said radio host Clay Travis.

Graham Allen, the host of the Dear America podcast, added: “Did NOBODY learn from Bud Light’s COSTLY mistake? Miller Lite just dropped this WOKE advertisement!!!”

Gun maker goes into damage control after Twitter manager supports feminist Miller Lite ad
Story by National Post Staff • Thursday, May 18, 2023

An image from the Miller Lite ad, featuring Ilana Glazer.
© Provided by National Post

A German gun maker has become the latest well-armed combatant in America’s culture wars, after the company’s Twitter feed came out in favour of a Miller Lite ad that has U.S. conservatives riled.

In early March, Miller unveiled the ad, which featured comedian and actor Ilana Glazer explaining to viewers that “women were among the very first to brew beer, ever.” She adds: “Centuries later, how did the industry pay homage to the founding mothers of beer? They put us in bikinis.”

The ad drew criticism from conservatives, many of whom had already been protesting a Bud Light ad featuring transgender activist Dylan Mulvaney. Miller was accused of following Bud’s lead, although its ad had actually debuted first.

Then gun manufacturer Heckler & Koch joined the fray, tweeting: “Wow – woke? Allow me to translate: objectifying women was never a good marketing strategy. In the firearms industry, that was a prominent strategy up until recently. Many industries have done that (including beer corps). As an actual woman typing this, I’ll use more words for you to comprehend: using bunnies to sell products is trash marketing. Supporting women by not doing that is good.”

Several additional tweets – all since deleted – added further praise for Miller’s ad, with a few caveats.

One said: “ Now to address the rest, non-bikini parts, of the ad: seems like they should have given sources for the info they’re throwing out. And, for them to isolate a huge part of their target consumer base makes no sense. Annnd, their virtue signaling ad doesn’t even make me want to drink their beer. [woman shrugging emoji] But, at least they used actual women for it (presumably).”
After the tweets were taken down, the company then posted another that said: “The Road Forward.” It showed a road sign that read: “HK does not engage in identity politics. A policy was violated. Changes were made.” No further explanation was given.

In an odd postscript, right-wing U.S. website Revolver News then revealed that the marketing manager behind the tweets had at one point been a bikini model. It also suggested that “major corporations had better fire their female-dominated marketing teams, stat, if they want to stop stepping on woke landmines.”

Miller Lite becomes the latest beer to draw calls for boycott over 'woke' advert: 'Did nobody learn from Bud Light’s mistake?'

Story by Chris Knight • Tuesday, May 16,2023


Miller Lite and Bud Light have both drawn calls for boycotts by consumers

Miller Lite is facing a brewing backlash over an advertisement that apologizes for decades of sexist imagery in beer commercials, and offers reparations of a sort.

The 90-second spot features comedian and actor Ilana Glazer explaining to viewers that “women were among the very first to brew beer, ever. From Mesopotamia to the Middles Ages to Colonial America, women were the ones doing the brewing.”

She adds: “Centuries later, how did the industry pay homage to the founding mothers of beer? They put us in bikinis.”

Glazer then goes on to explain Miller’s “Bad S#!T to Good $#!T” campaign, which involves turning old advertising material into compost, feeding that to worms, using the resulting fertilizer to grow hops, and donating those crops to women brewers.

But the message has angered many on social media who are now calling for a boycott of the Molson Coors product. This barely six weeks after a similar furor erupted over a TikTok post by transgender activist Dylan Mulvaney, who had received free samples of Bud Light beer.

That boycott hurt sales of the rival Anheuser-Busch brand among U.S. conservatives, although Business Insider magazine subsequently reported that global sales for the company had dropped by only one per cent during that time, and that the company’s stock had risen after it reported strong quarterly earnings.

The Miller Lite ad has been pilloried by the likes of radio host Clay Travis, who tweeted: “Miller Lite saw the Bud Light disaster and decided they needed their own woke beer ad.” Graham Allen, host of the Dear America podcast, added: “Did NOBODY learn from Bud Light’s COSTLY mistake? Miller Lite just dropped this WOKE advertisement!!!” And conservative commentator Rogan O’Handley chimed in with: “Miller Lite apparently wants the Bud Light boycott treatment too. Well they can have it.”


Others have pointed out that the advertisement is humorous; that women make up half the population of potential customers; and that, far from following in Bud Lite’s sudsy footsteps, the Miller campaign was 

“Many in the beer industry (Miller Lite included) alienated the very people who helped create it,” the company said in a March 7 press release. “How? By dividing women as consumers, objectifying them in their ads, and frankly, putting a lot of bad $#!T out there.”

Last year, Miller Lite launched a line of Mary Lisle cans, in celebration of the first female brewer in American history, who inherited her late father’s brewhouse in Philadelphia in 1734.

It was a far cry from 2003, when Miller released its “Catfight” commercial, featuring two women wrestling in mud and tearing off each other’s clothes over whether Miller Lite “tasted great” or was “less filling.”

That ad also drew criticism (over email rather than Twitter), with image consultant Laura Ries remarking: “It’s explicit. It’s degrading. It has no real message, except all men are idiots and all they think about are girls mud wrestling.”


'Woke mind virus' has turned San Francisco into a zombie town, Elon Musk says

Story by Chris Knight • Wednesday, May 17, 2023

A hazy San Francisco skyline as a result of wildfires is seen from Dolores Park in San Francisco, California on September 9, 2020.

The City by the Bay is being overrun by zombies, according to Elon Musk, who treated a strange agreement to recent comments by comedian Dave Chappelle.

In a recent standup performance at the Masonic in San Francisco, Chappelle said the city had become “Half Glee, half zombie movie,” as he told the crowd about seeing someone defecating in front of a restaurant in the city’s Tenderloin neighbourhood as he was walking in. He concluded: “Y’all [N-word]s need a Batman!”

The comments struck a chord with the billionaire Telsa/SpaceX chief, who tweeted: “Rightly so. The disaster that is downtown SF, once beautiful [sic] and throving, now a derelict zombie apocalypse, is due to the work mind virus.”

The term “woke mind virus” is one that Musk has been using since late 2021, about the same time that author and longtime San Franciscan Michael Shellenberger published San Fransicko: Why Progressives Ruin Cities, a book that attributed the city’s woes to progressive policies that, he said, went from tolerating crime and homelessness to enabling them.

Despite his repeated use of the phrase, the precise meaning of “woke mind virus” has been difficult to pin down. Musk told Bill Maher during an interview on HBO: “I think we need to be very cautious about anything that is anti-meritocratic, and anything that … results in the suppression of free speech. Those are two aspects of the woke mind virus that I think are very dangerous.”

Musk’s unhappiness with San Francisco is nothing new. In April he tweeted that one could “literally film a Walking Dead episode unedited in downtown SF,” adding: “This is where San Francisco politics leads and Twitter was exporting this self-destructive mind virus to the world … Evil in guise of good.”


And earlier this month, in the wake of Nordstrom announcing the closure of two stores near Union Square, he remarked: “So many stores shuttered in downtown SF. Feels post-apocalyptic.”

This is also not the first time Musk and Chappelle have been on the same page — or stage. In December, during a performance at Chase Center, he invited the tech billionaire to join him, asking the crowd to “make some noise for the richest man in the world.”

They did, with many booing lustily, so loudly and for so long that much of their ensuing conversation was drowned out by the noise. And Chappelle was not particularly kind, remarking: “His whole business model is f— Earth, I’m leaving anyway,” while asking Musk if he could have the first comedy club on Mars.


Musk’s comments have not endeared him to city leaders either, with San Francisco District Attorney Brooke Jenkins calling his tweets “reckless and irresponsible” in the wake of the killing of Cash App founder Bob Lee in the city’s Rincon Hill neighbourhood.

'Woke policies' will make NASA lose the space race to China: Republican senators

Story by Lynn Chaya • Thursday, May 18, 2023

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) speaks during a business hearing of the Senate Judiciary Committee on Capitol Hill May 11, 2023 in Washington, DC.

Two U.S. Republican senators challenged NASA’s 2024 budget request during a hearing on Wednesday, accusing the space agency of standing behind President Joe Biden’s liberal initiatives.

While Democrat and Republican senators both confronted NASA administrator Bill Nelson on an array of issues pertaining to the 2024 US$27.2 billion budget proposal, conservative senators Ted Cruz and Eric Schmitt focused on two points: initiatives to combat climate change and investments in diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI).

Cruz, a Ranking Member of the Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee, and Schmitt, Ranking Member of its Space and Science Subcommittee, claimed the space organization has veered away from its nonpartisan roots and has become overly politicized by aligning with Biden policies.

NASA Mars rover loses its pet rock, and other developments on the Red Planet

“If NASA is seen as partisan, that is very bad for space and space exploration,” Cruz said during the hearing.

Related video: The new space race: China vs US over lunar landing (WION)  View on Watch

 

 
“So I hope NASA will continue its tradition of staying out of those battles.”

By implementing policies concerning the disclosure of greenhouse gas emissions and a US$22 million investment in diversity, equity and inclusion, Cruz claimed the funding “has little to do with winning what you have called a space race between the free world and China,” Space Policy Online quoted.


Schmitt chimed in by voicing his disagreement with the administration’s “obsession with misguided woke policies related to climate change and diversity, equity and inclusion.”

“China has no interest in out-DEIing us and they’re not intimidated at all by this divisive radical policy that’s found its way into this budget,” he said.

Nelson did not offer comprehensive answers to the Senators’ questions, though he assured the committee that NASA will remain “not only bipartisan, but non-partisan.”
Saudi Arabia's surge of diplomacy brings Syria's Assad, Ukraine's Zelenskyy to Arab summit

Story by The Canadian Press • Friday May 19,2023


JEDDAH, Saudi Arabia (AP) — Saudi Arabia hosted an Arab League summit on Friday in which Syrian President Bashar Assad was welcomed back after a 12-year suspension and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy made a surprise visit to rally support against Russia.

Russian airstrikes have have left a swath of destruction across both countries, but in Syria they came at Assad's invitation and helped him cling to power through years of grinding civil war. Several other Arab states have maintained warm ties with Moscow while remaining largely neutral on the Ukraine war.

The odd pairing of the two leaders in the same forum is the result of a recent flurry of diplomacy by Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who is pursuing regional rapprochement with the same vigor he previously brought to the oil-rich kingdom's confrontation with its archrival Iran.

In recent months, Saudi Arabia has restored diplomatic ties with Iran, is ending the kingdom’s yearslong war against Iran-backed rebels in Yemen and led the push for Syria’s return to the Arab League.

The Saudi crown prince welcomed both Assad and Zelenskyy, expressing support for “whatever helps in reducing the crisis between Russia and Ukraine." He added that the kingdom, which brokered a prisoner exchange last year, “is ready to exert efforts for mediation between Russia and Ukraine."

Addressing the summit in English, Zelenskyy appeared to invoke the Arab world's own troubled history of invasion and occupation, saying their nations would understand that Ukraine "will never submit to any foreigners or colonizers. That's why we fight.”

He took a swipe at Iran for supplying attack drones to Russia and spoke about the suffering of ethnic Muslim Tatars living under Russian occupation in Crimea. He also accused some in the hall of “turning a blind eye” to Russia's violations, without naming them.

The visit comes amid a whirlwind of international travel by the Ukrainian leader, but until now he has mostly visited allied countries.

Saudi Arabia pledged $400 million in aid to Ukraine earlier this year and has voted in favor of U.N. resolutions calling on Russia to end its invasion and refrain from annexing Ukrainian territory. But it has resisted U.S. pressure to increase oil production in order to squeeze Russia's revenues.

Leaders from the 22-member league, who were meeting in the Red Sea city of Jeddah, were also expected to focus on Sudan. The East African country's top generals — both of whom have been backed by Saudi Arabia and other Arab states — have been battling each other across the country for over a month, killing hundreds and sparking an exodus from the capital, Khartoum, and elsewhere.

Gen. Abdel-Fattah Burhan, leader of the armed forces, and Gen. Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo of the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, agreed to a pact in Jeddah last week that promised safe passage for civilians fleeing the fighting and protection for aid groups. Saudi Arabia and the United States have meanwhile been leading international efforts to broker a lasting truce.

The fighting has killed over 600 people and caused tens of thousands to flee their homes.

The Arab League is also expected to reiterate its perennial support for the Palestinians at a time of soaring Mideast tensions.

In recent years, Assad's forces have recaptured much of Syria's territory from insurgents with crucial help from Russia — which intervened militarily on his behalf beginning in 2015 — and Iran. Saudi Arabia had been a leading sponsor of the opposition at the height of the war but pulled back as the insurgents were eventually cornered in a small pocket of northwestern Syria.

“Saudi Arabia’s push to bring Syria back into the fold is part of a broader shift in the kingdom’s approach to regional politics,” says Torbjorn Soltvedt, a leading Mideast analyst at the risk intelligence company Verisk Maplecroft.

“The previously adventurist foreign policy defined by the Yemen intervention and efforts to confront Iran are now being abandoned in favor of a more cautious approach,” he said.

Assad’s first official meeting on Friday was with his Tunisian counterpart, Kais Saied, who is waging his own crackdown on dissent in the birthplace of the Arab Spring protests that swept he region in 2011.

“We stand together against the movement of darkness,” Assad said, apparently referring to extremist groups that came to dominate the Syrian opposition as his country's civil war ground on, and which drew a large number of recruits from Tunisia.

The Saudi crown prince later welcomed each leader to the summit, including a smiling Assad wearing a dark blue suit. The two shook hands and kissed cheeks before the Syrian leader walked into the hall.

There are some Arab holdouts to Damascus' rehabilitation, including gas-rich Qatar, which still supports Syria's opposition. Qatar has said it won't stand in the way of the Arab consensus on readmitting Syria but would also not normalize bilateral relations without a political solution to the conflict.

Western countries, which still view Assad as a pariah over his forces’ aerial bombardment and gas attacks against civilians during the 12-year civil war, have criticized his return to the Arab fold and vowed to maintain crippling sanctions.

That will likely continue to hamper any reconstruction. Years of heavy fighting involving Assad's forces, the opposition and jihadi groups like the Islamic State group left entire villages and neighborhoods in ruins.

American lawmakers advanced bipartisan legislation this week that would bar any U.S. federal agency from recognizing or carrying out normal relations with Syria’s government as long as it’s led by Assad, who came to power in 2000, following the death of his father.

The legislation would also plug holes in existing U.S. sanctions targeting Assad and mandate Washington create a formal strategy to counter efforts by countrSaudi Arabia's surge of diplomacy brings Syria's Assad, Ukraine's Zelenskyy to Arab summit
Story by The Canadian Press • Yesterday 7:10 a.m.

Saudi Arabia's surge of diplomacy brings Syria's Assad, Ukraine's Zelenskyy to Arab summit
Saudi Arabia's surge of diplomacy brings Syria's Assad, Ukraine's Zelenskyy to Arab summit
© Provided by The Canadian Press
JEDDAH, Saudi Arabia (AP) — Saudi Arabia hosted an Arab League summit on Friday in which Syrian President Bashar Assad was welcomed back after a 12-year suspension and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy made a surprise visit to rally support against Russia.

Russian airstrikes have have left a swath of destruction across both countries, but in Syria they came at Assad's invitation and helped him cling to power through years of grinding civil war. Several other Arab states have maintained warm ties with Moscow while remaining largely neutral on the Ukraine war.

The odd pairing of the two leaders in the same forum is the result of a recent flurry of diplomacy by Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who is pursuing regional rapprochement with the same vigor he previously brought to the oil-rich kingdom's confrontation with its archrival Iran.

In recent months, Saudi Arabia has restored diplomatic ties with Iran, is ending the kingdom’s yearslong war against Iran-backed rebels in Yemen and led the push for Syria’s return to the Arab League.

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The Saudi crown prince welcomed both Assad and Zelenskyy, expressing support for “whatever helps in reducing the crisis between Russia and Ukraine." He added that the kingdom, which brokered a prisoner exchange last year, “is ready to exert efforts for mediation between Russia and Ukraine."

Addressing the summit in English, Zelenskyy appeared to invoke the Arab world's own troubled history of invasion and occupation, saying their nations would understand that Ukraine "will never submit to any foreigners or colonizers. That's why we fight.”

He took a swipe at Iran for supplying attack drones to Russia and spoke about the suffering of ethnic Muslim Tatars living under Russian occupation in Crimea. He also accused some in the hall of “turning a blind eye” to Russia's violations, without naming them.

The visit comes amid a whirlwind of international travel by the Ukrainian leader, but until now he has mostly visited allied countries.

Saudi Arabia pledged $400 million in aid to Ukraine earlier this year and has voted in favor of U.N. resolutions calling on Russia to end its invasion and refrain from annexing Ukrainian territory. But it has resisted U.S. pressure to increase oil production in order to squeeze Russia's revenues.

Leaders from the 22-member league, who were meeting in the Red Sea city of Jeddah, were also expected to focus on Sudan. The East African country's top generals — both of whom have been backed by Saudi Arabia and other Arab states — have been battling each other across the country for over a month, killing hundreds and sparking an exodus from the capital, Khartoum, and elsewhere.

Gen. Abdel-Fattah Burhan, leader of the armed forces, and Gen. Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo of the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, agreed to a pact in Jeddah last week that promised safe passage for civilians fleeing the fighting and protection for aid groups. Saudi Arabia and the United States have meanwhile been leading international efforts to broker a lasting truce.

The fighting has killed over 600 people and caused tens of thousands to flee their homes.

Related video: Arab states are trying to 'lure' Syria's Assad away from Iran, analyst says (CNBC)
The Arab League is also expected to reiterate its perennial support for the Palestinians at a time of soaring Mideast tensions.

In recent years, Assad's forces have recaptured much of Syria's territory from insurgents with crucial help from Russia — which intervened militarily on his behalf beginning in 2015 — and Iran. Saudi Arabia had been a leading sponsor of the opposition at the height of the war but pulled back as the insurgents were eventually cornered in a small pocket of northwestern Syria.

“Saudi Arabia’s push to bring Syria back into the fold is part of a broader shift in the kingdom’s approach to regional politics,” says Torbjorn Soltvedt, a leading Mideast analyst at the risk intelligence company Verisk Maplecroft.

“The previously adventurist foreign policy defined by the Yemen intervention and efforts to confront Iran are now being abandoned in favor of a more cautious approach,” he said.

Assad’s first official meeting on Friday was with his Tunisian counterpart, Kais Saied, who is waging his own crackdown on dissent in the birthplace of the Arab Spring protests that swept he region in 2011.

“We stand together against the movement of darkness,” Assad said, apparently referring to extremist groups that came to dominate the Syrian opposition as his country's civil war ground on, and which drew a large number of recruits from Tunisia.

The Saudi crown prince later welcomed each leader to the summit, including a smiling Assad wearing a dark blue suit. The two shook hands and kissed cheeks before the Syrian leader walked into the hall.

There are some Arab holdouts to Damascus' rehabilitation, including gas-rich Qatar, which still supports Syria's opposition. Qatar has said it won't stand in the way of the Arab consensus on readmitting Syria but would also not normalize bilateral relations without a political solution to the conflict.

Western countries, which still view Assad as a pariah over his forces’ aerial bombardment and gas attacks against civilians during the 12-year civil war, have criticized his return to the Arab fold and vowed to maintain crippling sanctions.

That will likely continue to hamper any reconstruction. Years of heavy fighting involving Assad's forces, the opposition and jihadi groups like the Islamic State group left entire villages and neighborhoods in ruins.

American lawmakers advanced bipartisan legislation this week that would bar any U.S. federal agency from recognizing or carrying out normal relations with Syria’s government as long as it’s led by Assad, who came to power in 2000, following the death of his father.

The legislation would also plug holes in existing U.S. sanctions targeting Assad and mandate Washington create a formal strategy to counter efforts by countries that do normalize relations with his government.

The White House National Security Council said in a statement Friday that the administration opposes the legislation. It fears the additional measures “would make it unduly difficult to provide humanitarian assistance to the Syrian people – who are suffering because of the actions of the Assad regime.”

The administration remains committed to a U.N. Security Council resolution adopted in 2015 that endorsed a roadmap to peace drafted three years earlier. But several rounds of talks held over the years between Assad's government and the opposition went nowhere, and he has had little incentive to compromise with the beleaguered insurgents since Russia entered the war on his side eight years ago.

Arab leaders appear to be focused on more modest goals, like enlisting Assad's help in countering militant groups and drug traffickers.

___

Associated Press writers Ellen Knickmeyer, Matthew Lee and Aamer Madhani in Washington contributed to this report.

Bassem Mroue, The Associated Pressies that do normalize relations with his government.

The White House National Security Council said in a statement Friday that the administration opposes the legislation. It fears the additional measures “would make it unduly difficult to provide humanitarian assistance to the Syrian people – who are suffering because of the actions of the Assad regime.”

The administration remains committed to a U.N. Security Council resolution adopted in 2015 that endorsed a roadmap to peace drafted three years earlier. But several rounds of talks held over the years between Assad's government and the opposition went nowhere, and he has had little incentive to compromise with the beleaguered insurgents since Russia entered the war on his side eight years ago.

Arab leaders appear to be focused on more modest goals, like enlisting Assad's help in countering militant groups and drug traffickers.

___

Associated Press writers Ellen Knickmeyer, Matthew Lee and Aamer Madhani in Washington contributed to this report.

Bassem Mroue, The Associated Press
Former world leaders urge G7 to get nuclear arms control back on track

Story by Patrick Wintour Diplomatic editor • 
 The Guardian
Wednesday, May 17,2923

Photograph: Richard A Brooks/AFP/Getty Images

Aglobal array of former world leaders and defence ministers, nuclear experts and diplomats have called on the leaders of G7 countries at their meeting in Hiroshima, Japan, not to let progress on nuclear arms control continue to be the victim of growing geopolitical conflict, including the conflict between the west and Russia over Ukraine.

The Japanese prime minister, Fumio Kishida, who is from Hiroshima, chose the G7 venue to lend seriousness to his personal call to world leaders to at least agree a roadmap to resume nuclear arms control talks.

In February, Russia pulled out of the 2010 New Start treaty, a pact that sets limits on the deployed strategic nuclear arsenals of the world’s two largest nuclear powers, although Moscow said it would nevertheless abide by the limits for the moment.

Kishida intends to take world leaders arriving this week for the summit to the harrowing Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum, where they will see graphic depictions of the US attack in 1945.

An open letter signed by six former heads of state, 20 cabinet-level ministers and experts from 50 different countries including China, Russia and the US lends momentum to Kishida’s G7 theme by saying the world needs more nuclear arms control, not less.

The letter says: “United States-Russia strategic stability talks are in limbo and the New Start treaty, which has played an indispensable role in ensuring reciprocal security, is now in question.

“As the only existing nuclear arms control agreement between the United States and Russia, the world’s two largest nuclear-armed countries, the treaty’s collapse or expiration without a replacement would threaten a destabilising arms race.”

Worsening big-power competition is making nuclear war more likely, the leaders warn, and “failure to agree on a new nuclear arms control framework to replace New Start before it expires in February 2026 would also make it moredifficult to bring China, France and the United Kingdom into multilateral arms control, as all three are not ready to consider limits on their nuclear arsenals until the United States and Russia bring down their nuclear stockpiles”.

Related: Hiroshima survivors urge G7 leaders to unite against atomic weapons

The letter was organised by the European Leadership Network and Asia-Pacific Leadership Network and signed by former world leaders, including Ernesto Zedillo, the former president of Mexico, Helen Clark, the former prime minister of New Zealand and Ingvar Carlsson, the former prime minister of Sweden.

In Russia, the signatories include Alexei Arbatov, the director of the International Security Center at the Institute of World Economy and International Relations; Pavel Palazhchenko, the head of the international centre at the Gorbachev Foundation, and Sergey Rogov, who until March last year, was a member of the scientific council of the national security council and a former adviser to the Duma international affairs committee.

One of the most prominent signatories in China is Prof Chen Dongxiao, the president of Shanghai Institutes for International Studies. China has been clear in warning Russia not to use nuclear weapons in the Ukraine conflict, a threat that has repeatedly been made by Moscow, including by transferring nuclear weapons to Belarus.

UK signatories include the former head of MI6 John Scarlett, the former foreign secretaries Malcolm Rifkind and David Owen, as well as the former defence secretaries Des Browne and Tom King.

The 256 signatories acknowledge they all have different views about geopolitical competition but say “we all agree that it is long past time to start prioritising nuclear arms control and taking unilateral, bilateral and multilateral actions”.

The letter urges Russia and the US to compartmentalise nuclear arms control and isolate it from other disputes by confirming that they will not exceed the New Start limits on deployed nuclear forces, which thus far have not been violated, as well as agreeing to remove the obstacles to full implementation of their New Start obligations.

It also calls for the resumption of the work of the Bilateral Consultative Commission, the body that agrees details of US and Russian inspections of each others’ military sites under the terms of the New Start treaty. The body has not met for nearly two years.





Hiroshima survivor to Putin: 'You don't know the reality of a nuclear weapon'

ABC News
Hiroshima survivors ensuring their history is not forgotten
Duration 5:24   View on Watch

Nearly eight decades after surviving the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, Japan, 85-year-old Keiko Ogura had this message for Russian President Vladimir Putin: "You don't know what is a nuclear weapon, the reality of a nuclear weapon. So come here and see."

Ogura spoke to ABC News' Britt Clennett ahead of the arrivals of President Joe Biden and other leaders in Hiroshima for the annual summit of G7 leaders, held this year in the Japanese city amid new nuclear threats from countries like Russia, North Korea and Iran.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy planned to join the world leaders this weekend for the summit. His presence in Hiroshima is particularly significant amid Putin's recent decision to move tactical nuclear weapons to Belarus, which neighbors Ukraine.

Putin last year suggested he could use the weapons in Russia's invasion of Ukraine but subsequently denied he would.

"Threats by Russia of nuclear weapon use, let alone any use of nuclear weapons by Russia, in the context of its aggression against Ukraine are inadmissible," Biden and the other G7 leaders said Friday in a joint statement, calling for "a world without nuclear weapons."

Ogura was 8 years old when the U.S. dropped an atomic bomb on the city on Aug. 6, 1945, but she says she can still vividly remember the events of that day.

"First there was a bright flash, and then soon after that, I couldn't stand. Because soon after that, there was a strong blast — I mean wind, like a typhoon or tornado. And then I was beaten to the street and became unconscious, because of the blast," Ogura said. When she opened her eyes, everything was dark; gradually she could see that her neighborhood was engulfed in flames, she said.


Keiko Ogura, 85, is shown during an interview with ABC News' Britt Clennett in Hiroshima, Japan.
© ABC News

Ogura met with G7 leaders on Friday during their visit to the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum, according to Japan's foreign ministry. Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida gave the G7 leaders a private tour of the museum.

According to Japan's Kyodo News, Kishida later told reporters: "We felt the reality of the atomic bombing and shared a sobering moment that will be etched in our hearts. It was historic from the viewpoint of showing our resolve for a world free of nuclear weapons."MORE: Biden tells G-7 leaders he supports joint training for Ukrainians on F-16s

The bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki prompted Japan's surrender to the Allies, precipitating the end of World War II. In Japanese, survivors of the bombings are known as "hibakusha."

During her interview with ABC News, Ogura said this would be her message to Biden: "I say, you have the power and we need a leader…Underneath this land you're standing there were so many dead souls and so and so, please feel, and please imagine."

The Hiroshima bombing killed an estimated 140,000 people.MORE: A Look Back at the Destruction in Hiroshima

"Black rain, rain contaminated with radiation, dark color, charcoal colored rain fell onto my blouse," Ogura said.

"Their [the people coming towards her] skin was hanging down from the tip of their finger, and they're coming like a ghost or a zombie or something…coming to my area, and they started to die," Ogura said.

"When I recall those days, I can't help but want to cry," Ogura continued.

After the G7 leaders toured the museum, they walked to the continuously lit "flame of peace" at the surrounding memorial park, laid wreaths and participated in a tree-planting ceremony. In the background was the Genbaku Dome, the only structure that remained standing in the area where the bomb was dropped.


The Hiroshima Peace Memorial, or Genbaku Dome, was the only structure left standing in the area where the first atomic bomb exploded on August 6, 1945.© ABC News

Biden was the second sitting American president to visit the memorial site. No U.S. president has apologized for the bombing. The White House said that Biden didn't plan to do so, either. Biden didn't make any public remarks during his visit to the memorial and museum.

Ogura added, "I know the fear, the reality when the nuclear weapon was used, and I can't stand this evil existing, the nuclear weapon, even a single weapon existing in this world, on this planet…We need to think about the future generation."

ABC News' Karson Yiu, Anthony Trotter, Gamay Palacios and Ben Gittleson contributed to this report.
Vigilante fears as Texas Republicans push for special unit to detain migrants

Story by Erum Salam • The Guardian
May 19, 2023

Photograph: Julio Cesar Chavez/Reuters

Anew Texas bill could soon establish a taskforce using civilians that would have the authority to “arrest, apprehend or detain persons crossing the Texas-Mexico border unlawfully”, raising concerns around state-sponsored vigilantism.

House Bill 20, authored by Republican state representative Matt Schaefer, seeks to create a new “border protection unit” that would deter migrants from unlawfully entering Texas using non-deadly force. It could include civilians with prior military experience among its members – such as national guards or former border patrol agents – who would be granted some immunity from prosecution for actions they carried out as members of the force.

Related: Eight-year-old girl dies after being detained by border patrol in Texas

The HB20 bill itself was killed last week in the Texas legislature but then quickly resurrected as HB7 – a slightly different amendment to existing immigration legislation. The proposed unit was renamed the “Texas border force” and put under the command of the Texas ranger division.

With a Republican majority in both the state house and senate, the fresh bill seems likely to pass.

Bernardo Cruz, an attorney for the Texas chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), told the Guardian: “It’s really an unlawful action or exercise by the state government. We are really afraid it’s going to lead to more racial profiling of current migrants, and also that it affects everyone who lives across the border and the states.”

Although immigration law and enforcement on the US border is under federal jurisdiction, border states like Texas argue they have the right to protect themselves if the federal government fails to do so, as per the “invasion” clause of the US constitution.

Such a drastic move by a state to enforce federal immigration law is likely to end up in court.

Schaefer, one of the Texas legislature’s most conservative members, said in a statement: “Enough is enough. If [Joe] Biden won’t defend this country, we will.”

Related video: Food delivery fills gaps of US-Mexico border wall (India Today)
Duration 0:35  View on Watch

The news of the bill comes shortly after the expiration of Title 42, the pandemic-era policy that gave US officials authority to turn away migrants who came to the US-Mexico border claiming asylum in order to prevent the spread of Covid-19.

Immigration and civil rights activists have condemned the legislation and said its potential passage was “disheartening”. These critics of the bill, such as the non-profit Human Rights Watch, say it will embolden state-sponsored vigilantism.

Testifying in front of the Texas house state affairs committee in April, Bob Libal of Human Rights Watch said the border protection unit would lead to the “codification and expansion of a border policing, court and jailing system that has to date resulted in injuries, deaths, racial discrimination, abusive detention conditions, and a chilling effect on freedoms of association and expression.”

The unit would be overseen by the Texas public safety department and would controversially give its officers broad authority to make arrests, build border barriers and search vehicles they deem suspicious.

Rochelle Garza, president of the Texas Civil Rights Project, told the Dallas Morning News that she was “appalled by this dangerous and unconstitutional proposal designed to violate federal law at the expense of the border community I call home”.

She added: “Not only does this bill mobilize a new military force under the governor, it also allows the head of the force to deputize almost anyone to enforce federal immigration law, including vigilante groups that have targeted Texas border communities.”

The ACLU’s Cruz said the unit would be an extension of Operation Lone Star, another state effort to secure the US border with Mexico, launched by the rightwing Republican governor, Greg Abbott, in March 2021.

Operation Lone Star is a joint operation between the public safety department and the Texas national guard. It was established during an increase of migrants at the state’s border for which Abbott issued a disaster declaration.

“Texas does not have the authority to enforce immigration law,” Cruz said. “There’s clear both federal law and supreme court precedent that establishes that the appropriate entity to enforce immigration laws in this country are federal law enforcement agencies.”

Like Operation Lone Star, Cruz said the new border protection unit would lead to racial profiling.

In a federal complaint filed in July last year, the Texas ACLU, along with the Texas Civil Rights Project, alleged state troopers excessively pull over Latinos as part of Operation Lone Star. The complaint also said at least 30 people were killed in state police car chases connected to Texas’s expansive border security operation.

“We really afraid it’s going to lead to more racial profiling of migrants and also that it affects everyone who lives across the border and the states. There’s nothing in the language it just narrows it to specific area of Texas. So this really is an extremely broad attempt by the state of Texas, to really just militarize communities.

“And that, of course, impacts everyone’s day-to-day life in a negative way.”
Activist moms spy on each other in culture wars over schooling









Story by Elle Reeve • CNN
 Friday, May 18, 2023

Who are Moms for Liberty? A look into the conservative group
CNN  Duration 7:29  View on Watch

Members of the conservative parental rights group Moms for Liberty are known for making impassioned and sometimes spicy speeches to school boards to complain that teachers are supposedly indoctrinating students. This can include mothers, often in the group’s trademark tee, standing at a lectern reading sex scenes from books they deem inappropriate to have near their children.

Supporters post videos of these speeches, some of which have gone viral. And the group has claimed success, pointing to growing membership nationwide as well as policies and elections going their way. But because Moms for Liberty is working on such a local level, opponents have found plenty of opportunities to take action.

“I just got back from forcibly re-closeting myself for 90 minutes to infiltrate a Moms for Liberty meeting. … I got so much juice!” a TikTok user who goes by Morgan Howls said in a video. The video is one of many on social media made by parents who say they’ve “infiltrated” the group and give details of its strategy to others who do not support its politics.

When CNN traveled to Colorado earlier this month to observe a lunch meeting held by the El Paso County chapter of Moms for Liberty, chapter chair Darcy Schoening cautioned that some opponents might show up. It had happened before. Schoening knew there were liberal parents lurking in her chapter’s private Facebook group, because her group had some moles in the liberals’ Facebook group.

“We all know what’s going on. I don’t even know why we keep stuff private,” she said about the clandestine monitoring. She even said she welcomed some of the intended attacks on her group, showing screenshots of opponents messaging about what to tweet in protest.

“What they don’t realize is that they’re doing half the work for us,” Schoening said. “Because the more and more they post… You get those parents that are sitting out there saying, ‘Oh, this doesn’t sound so crazy. I want to go be a part of this.’”


Darcy Schoening says her Colorado Springs chapter of Moms 4 Liberty has about 250 people in it. - CNN

There were no confrontations at the Moms for Liberty meeting held in a Mexican restaurant in Colorado Springs. There was some provocative talk about purported sexual content in library books – Schoening claimed a book about “how do two men pleasure each other” was available to first graders. (She did not name the book or say what school it was supposedly found in.) But the attendees spent more time on how to wield their power.

Activists helped to get conservative majorities elected to several school boards in El Paso County in 2021. At issue then were Covid mandates and teaching about racial injustice, two issues that spurred the creation of Moms for Liberty by two mothers in Florida earlier that same year.

The El Paso County chapter’s latest push was to get Colorado Springs’s District 11 school board to adopt a policy banning teachers from asking kids about their pronouns – whether they preferred “he,” “she,” or “they” – which Schoening described as “grooming.” But the proposal sparked a big backlash, and after protests in March, the board tabled it.

One man at the lunch said some school boards were “afraid to act” on issues like pronouns and bathroom access for trans kids because of the demands of “the loudest minority,” referring to progressives.

“It’s a very loud minority,” another attendee said. “It’s very loud. It’s very intimidating,” a third agreed.

But that was not a justifiable reason, the first speaker said. “The fact of the matter is, when we come out and we campaign for them, and we put them in an office. … We’re their stakeholders, and they’re beholden to us.”

As CNN filmed the meeting, a woman sitting in the back passed the crew a handwritten note: “We have the other side of this story. This is a hate group.” This time, the opponents were being covert, not overt.

The note-passer was Carolyn Bedingfield, who said a like-minded person was coming to the restaurant who had “more info.” In the parking lot, Emily Vonachen was waiting in her car. Vonachen said Colorado Springs had changed a lot in the two years she’d lived there. She’d been researching every conservative power player in the area and how they were all connected. She agreed to an interview, and then called several people from Neighbors for Education, a group set up after the conservatives’ school board wins in 2021.

The dispute between the two groups was clear, and they took it seriously. The Neighbors for Education crowd thought Moms for Liberty was operating in a different reality.

Schoening of Moms for Liberty explained why she viewed asking a child what pronouns they preferred was “indoctrinating” them into questioning their gender.

“If you ask my children, who are 7 and 8, ‘What are your pronouns?’ They don’t even know what that is,” she said. “When you ask that, you’re planting the seed in their minds, that they maybe should identify as another gender or that identifying as another gender is hip or cool – ‘Hey, my teacher’s asking me, so maybe this is what I should do.’”

Naomi Lopez, one of the people gathered by Neighbors for Education, called that “ridiculous.” Lopez is a speech pathologist who works in a District 11 school. She’s also the mom of a trans kid.

“That’s not happening,” she said of Schoening’s scenario. “We’re not going around saying, ‘OK, you know, I want you to think about it, what gender are you?’” When teachers meet new students, they ask how they want to be addressed, she said – a kid named Josiah might want to go by Joe. A kid could say they wanted to use a particular pronoun, and the teacher would respect that.



Naomi Lopez flatly rejected many of the assertions made by Moms for Liberty. - CNN

Schoening made a series of claims that are not true, but are common amid a backlash to advocacy for trans rights.

For example, Schoening raised the idea that a tomboy – a girl who wore flannel and sneakers – would be told by a teacher, “You know, it might be time to gender transition. Let’s go talk to the school therapist. Let’s go talk to a physician. Let’s do this.” Schoening said she did not know any tomboys who’d actually transitioned after social pressure. But, she said, “Imagine the kids that aren’t strong enough to go talk to their parents and say, ‘My teacher is trying to gender transition me.’ We’re speaking for those kids. And those parents who aren’t made aware.”

Further, Schoening claimed 8-year-old boys could get surgery to remove their penises, and that she feared her state would pass a law saying if parents refused to have their boys’ penises surgically removed, the state would take them away. She thought this issue would eventually go to the US Supreme Court.

Medical guidelines do not call for gender affirming surgery on young children, and many health care providers do not offer it to patients under 18. Children diagnosed with gender dysphoria go through many years of care. In some instances, they can receive puberty-blocking hormones at the onset of puberty. These drugs are FDA-approved to treat children who start puberty at a very young age, but are not approved for gender dysphoria.

CNN asked Schoening if she was saying she believed there was some kind of high-level coordinated effort to make more children trans and gay. “There is,” she said. Who would be directing it? “Teachers’ unions, and our president, and a lot of funding sources,” she said. Why would they do that? “Because it breaks down the family unit,” she said. And why would they want that? “So that conservative values are broken down, and that we can slowly erode away at constitutional rights,” she said.

There is no evidence of a coordinated plot to make kids trans.

CNN asked Lopez what she thought of Schoening’s claims. Lopez flatly rejected the idea that teachers would encourage little kids to get surgery. “No, that’s ridiculous. The hell? No,” Lopez said.

CNN asked Lopez if there was a plan by President Biden and teacher unions to make more kids gay and trans to break down the traditional family. She began to get exasperated. “That’s ridiculous,” she said. “Attacking a whole sector of society who happen to be our children in order to push whatever agenda you have is dangerous, irresponsible, hateful, egregious – should I go on? No.”

And Lopez said there was no evidence that her child’s classmates cared.

“My child thinks it’s ludicrous, that it’s such a big deal, because to them, it’s just normal. To their friends, they don’t care how my child identifies, they love them for who they are.”

Another person in the Neighbors for Education group, Tiana Clark, said the controversy was a waste of time and resources. Clark is a parent and substitute teacher in that district. After one parent complained about five books, the school district had to form a committee to determine whether each book could stay in the school library. Clark sat on a committee.

“Of the five books, three of them had never been checked out. Two of them were only checked out once,” Clark said. All five books remained in the library, but the effort cost more than $20,000, she said, and asked, “What could that $20,000 have been spent on?”
DEMILITARIZE, DISARM, DEFUND 
Want to know how Hamilton police used its $279K armoured rescue vehicle? It'll cost you over $5K

Story by Bobby Hristova • CBC
Thursday, May 18, 2023

Hamilton Police Services (HPS) has had a 15,000 pound "armoured rescue vehicle" at its disposal for 10 years.

It first hit the streets in June 2013, police said at the time, to evacuate people from extreme situations, protect officers from gunfire, help in off-road situations and move obstacles.

The truck, which cost taxpayers $279,180 and stoked debate about if it was really needed at that cost, has also been used at community events.

But despite using the custom-built vehicle for almost a decade — and being asked about its use in the past — HPS says it has never created a system to track how often the vehicle was deployed, used, where it was used and why.


CBC Hamilton filed a freedom of information request for those details, along with maintenance costs since 2012.



Hamilton police says it has spent $60,490 to maintain the vehicle.© Andrew Collins/CBC

The HPS freedom of information unit said, based on its interim estimate, the vehicle has made at least 1,000 trips, but doesn't have an exact number.

And among those trips, it's unclear how many times the truck was actually used. It's also unclear how many times the truck was used in extreme situations versus training, community events or at the gas station for a fill up.

HPS said it would take 10,000 minutes of work and cost $5,060 to get details on those 1,000 trips — and the service added the true cost of the request could be much higher given the vehicle has probably been deployed over 1,000 times.

CBC Hamilton is appealing the interim decision by HPS through Ontario's privacy commissioner.

Policing advocates and researchers say the response from Hamilton police raises questions.

"This is all an excuse," John Sewell, a member of the Toronto Police Accountability Coalition and a former mayor of Toronto, said. "Surely they know how often that vehicle has left the garage."

The HPS freedom of information unit said the service didn't track the data because it never had such a request before.

Back in 2014, CBC Hamilton asked about how many times the truck was used in 2013, but was told HPS didn't have the numbers ready.

Glenn De Caire, the police chief back at the time, declined to answer any questions about it on Wednesday.

HPS didn't provide an interview and spokesperson Jackie Penman didn't directly answer questions about why the data hasn't been tracked.

Penman said the truck is "regularly deployed" and last year, police put roughly 2,000 kilometres on the vehicle.

It's unclear exactly what the 2,000 kilometres entails, but Penman notes it includes training.

She also said HPS has spent $60,490 on parts and labour on the vehicle, including an engine replacement.

Kevin Walby, an associate professor of criminal justice at the University of Winnipeg, said he thinks HPS would likely have a "simple log" with info on the truck and it shouldn't cost thousands of dollars to get the information.

"Every bullet … is numbered, tracked," he said. "I find it pretty hard to believe deployment of this vehicle would not be."

Walby said if they haven't made a log of the truck's movement "the only other answer is it's a complete waste of taxpayer dollars and it was just a toy they bought for which there is no use."

But Walby thinks that isn't the case because he thinks there is a log of the truck.

"If they want us to believe this is the last stack of paper in Canadian policing, I think that tells us something about what Hamilton police think about journalists and the public," he said.



Pat Mandy is chair of the police board.© Samantha Craggs/CBC

Pat Mandy, HPS board chair, said Thursday morning she hasn't heard anything controversial about the truck.

"I'm not quite sure why it's coming forward right now … there's lots of special vehicles," she said.

Mandy said there are "millions of things we can ask about" and said if there were concerns about the vehicle, the board would ask HPS.

"I understand it's very useful for the safety of public and officers," she said.

The truck was made by Terradyne Armoured Vehicles, a company based out of Newmarket, Ont.

HPS previously used a refurbished 1969 Brinks truck.

Hamilton police aren't the only ones with a truck like this. Police in Toronto, London, Peel, Durham, Ottawa and other Canadian cities all have armoured vehicles.

Terradyne's website includes the following specs about the truck HPS has:
6.7 L V8 turbo diesel. 300 HP, 660 lb-ft of torque
6-speed automatic
4x4 shift on the fly. 4.88 ratio limited slip differential
40 gallons
Tires on the vehicle are rated for speeds of 110 km/h
15,000 pounds
REACTIONARY ANTI DRUG MORALITY
Poilievre-backed motion calls for an end to safe drug policies and more cash for treatment

Story by Peter Zimonjic • 
Thursday, May 18, 2023

Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre introduced a motion to the House of Commons Thursday calling on the Liberal government to halt all programs providing non-toxic drugs to those suffering with addictions and redirect funding to treatment services.

"Crime and chaos, drugs and disorder rage in our streets. Nowhere is this worse than in the opioid overdose crisis that has expanded so dramatically in the last several years," Poilievre told the House of Commons on Thursday morning.

The Conservative leader said Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, backed by "tax-funded" activists, big pharma and others, is wrong to argue that providing addicted persons "powerful heroin-like drugs that are uncontaminated" will steer them away from street drugs.

"We're told that giving out and decriminalizing hard drugs would reduce drug overdoses," Poilievre told the House. "These so-called experts are typically pie in the sky theorists with no experience getting people off drugs or they're members of the misery industry; those paid activists and public health bureaucrats whose jobs depend on the crisis continuing."

The Conservative leader said that government-funded drugs were being sold by the addicted and the proceeds are being used to buy fentanyl laced opioids that lead to overdose deaths.

Poilievre's motion says that between 2016 and 2022 almost 35,000 people died from complications related to opioid overdoses in Canada, a number backed up by the federal government.

He called on members of the House to vote in favour of asking the Liberal government "to immediately reverse its deadly policies and redirect all funds from taxpayer-funded, hard drug programs to addiction, treatment and recovery programs."

Toxic supply a factor of 4 of 5 overdose deaths


Poilievre told the House that because these deaths had taken place since Trudeau came to office, the prime minister could not dismiss them as an inherited problem, but had to accept this was a problem of his own making.

According to the federal government's Health Infobase, where the 35,000 number can be found, the toxic supply of contaminated street drugs is "a major driver" of the opioid crisis.

"A total of 5,360 apparent opioid overdose deaths occurred from January to September of 2022. This is approximately 20 deaths per day. It is a 173 per cent increase from 2016, the first full calendar year [Trudeau] was in office," Poilievre said.

Health Infobase reports that of the 5,360 deaths, 81 per cent involved the street drug fentanyl, a substance not present in government-supplied drugs given to people with addictions.


Minister of Mental Health and Addictions Carolyn Bennett says doctors should be more willing to prescribe pharmaceutical-grade alternatives to street drugs, because they save lives.
© Eric Baradat/AFP/Getty Images

Related video: Poilievre doubles down on commitment to further restrict bail (The Canadian Press)  Duration 2:04  View on Watch

Health Infobase also says that 78 per cent of the opioid overdose deaths from January to September last year came from a non-pharmaceutical supply; something the safer supply strategy is trying to eliminate.

Those numbers reflect similar conclusions in April from the BC Coroners Service, which said that there have been 11,807 overdose deaths in British Columbia between April 2016 and the first three months of 2023.

"Unregulated drug toxicity continues to be the leading cause of unnatural death in British Columbia, accounting for more deaths than homicides, suicides, motor vehicle incidents, drownings and fire-related deaths combined," The B.C. Coroners Service said in April.

"There continues to be no evidence that prescribed safe supply is contributing to illicit drug deaths."

The rising rate of opioid deaths in Canada

In 2016 opioid overdose deaths in Canada happened at a rate of 7.8 per 100,000, but by 2021 that number had risen to 20.9 per 100,000 Canadians. From January to September 2022, the rate fell slightly to 19 deaths per 100,000.

The three provinces that had the most deaths were B.C., Alberta and Ontario. In B.C., the death rate in 2016 was 16.6 per 100,000, rising to a rate of 44.8 by 2021. In Alberta there were 14.3 opioid overdose deaths per 100,000 in 2016 compared to 36.5 in 2021, while In Ontario the rate went from 6.2 per 100,000 in 2016 to 16.6 per 100,000 in 2021.

All of those provinces, however, saw a decline in their opioid overdose death rates from 2021 to the first nine months of 2022 according to Health Infobase. Alberta's rate fell from 36.5 to 32.4, B.C.'s rate fell from 44.8 to 42.9 while Ontario's rate fell from 19.3 in 2021 to 16.4 in 2022.

Poilievre said the upward trend of opioid deaths in Canada is proof that more money needs to be directed away from providing pharmaceutical grade drugs to the addicted and given instead to treatment programs.

Addictions minister says safe supply save lives

Carolyn Bennett, the minister of mental health and addictions, told the House during the debate over the motion that the safe supply of pharmaceutical drugs saves lives, especially in cases where people are too weak to suffer through the shock of withdrawal.

"It seems that this party wants to take us back to the failed ideology of the Harper-era of drug policy," Bennett said in the debate.

"This fight against evidence-based programs that are actually saving lives just has to stop," she said.

"People are dying but not for the reasons they're giving."

Bennett said the driving force behind the overdose deaths is the toxic drug supply accessed by people with addictions.

"By implementing safer drug supply initiatives we can save lives and provide individuals with the opportunity to break free from the cycles of addiction," she said.

The NDP's Gord Johns said Poilievre should be less focused on the supply of pharmaceutical grade drugs by the government and more focused on the toxic supply of illegal drugs flooding the streets.

"It's not a safe supply that's killing people, its fentanyl," he said.

A vote on the motion is expected to take place before the end of the month.

Saturday, May 20, 2023

Family says man killed by US strike in Syria was father of ten out grazing sheep

Story by Eyad Kourdi • CNN
Yesterday 

A drone strike carried out by the US military this month in northwest Syria killed a 56-year-old father of ten out grazing his sheep, his relatives have told CNN, hours after US Central Command said a civilian may have been killed in the operation.

The strike, carried out on May 3 in northwest Syria, targeted a senior al-Qaeda leader, Central Command said in a tweet announcing the operation that day.

The combatant command, which oversees operations in the Middle East and the surrounding region, said it would provide more information “as operational details become available.”

Officials boasted about the success of the operation, confident that the strike had achieved its mission, even though it was difficult to positively identify the target of the strike, since the US has no military footprint in northwest Syria, an area still recovering from the effects of a devastating earthquake.

There were no reports of any other casualties of the drone strike.

In the two weeks that have passed since the operation, Central Command has not released any more information about the intended target.

CENTCOM “has been made aware of allegations that the strike may have resulted in a civilian casualty” and is investigating to see where the strike “may have unintentionally resulted in harm to civilians,” Central Command spokesperson Michael Lawhorn said in a statement.

The Washington Post first reported that the US military is investigating whether a civilian was killed in the strike.

Killed alongside his sheep

Relatives of a man who was killed in a lone strike on the same day in the same area have since come forward with their version of events, saying he was a family man with no links to militancy.

Loutfi Hassan Mesto was herding his sheep in the village of Qurqaniya in Idlib province the morning of Wednesday, May 3 when his brother said he heard blasts and rushed to the site.

“When we went over the mountain, we saw Loutfi dead with six of his sheep,” his older brother Mohammad Mesto told CNN on Friday.


Minutes after receiving the location on their local emergency number, the Syrian Civil Defense, also known as the White Helmets, said they arrived at the location.

“The team noticed only one crater caused by the missile, which was next to the man’s body,” the Syrian Civil Defense said in a statement to CNN on Friday, also confirming that the man had been grazing his sheep.

“When the team arrived, his wife, neighbors, and other people were at the location,” the group added.

A video provided to CNN by the Syrian Civil Defense showed the moments the team arrived on site.

A woman could be heard crying as a young man hugged the man’s body lying motionless on the ground.

Three men pulled the young man away as another covered the body on the ground with a piece of cloth.

“He is a martyr, God willing,” an unknown voice said in the video.

The Syrian Civil Defense then transferred the body to a local medical facility.

Loutfi, who had 10 children, including a five-year-old, never left his village during the Syrian uprisings and did not support any political faction, his brother said.

“No Free Syrian Army (FSA), no Syrian regime, no ISIS, no al-Qaeda, no Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), no nothing, he is just a civilian who is trying to make a living,” his brother added, reeling of a list of various factions within Syria’s brutal civil war.

Mohamed Sajee, a distant relative living in Qurqaniya, also told CNN that Loutfi was never known to be in favor or against the Syrian regime.

“It’s impossible that he was with al-Qaeda, he doesn’t even have a beard,” he said.

The issue of civilian casualties is a sensitive one for the Pentagon, and especially Central Command, following a drone strike in the closing days of the withdrawal from Afghanistan that killed 10 civilians, including seven children.

The military had initially claimed that it had targeted and killed an ISIS-K operative, pointing to secondary explosives as proof that the target was storing explosive material.

But the explanation eventually fell apart, and the military acknowledged that the operation was a terrible mistake.

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin ultimately decided no one would be punished over the botched operation, even as he instructed Central Command and Special Operations Command to improve policies and procedures to prevent civilian harm more effectively.

Austin committed to adjusting Defense Department policies to better protect civilians, even establishing a civilian protection center of excellence, saying at the time that “leaders in this department should be held to account for high standards of conduct and leadership.”