SWEDISH COURT ALLOWED IT
Sweden opens hate crime investigation into Quran burning

Turkish Embassy appeals to authorities to prevent such attacks

29/06/2023 Thursday
AA


An investigation over hate speech was launched in Sweden on Wednesday against the Iraqi-origin attacker who burned a copy of the Quran in front of a mosque in the Södermalm district of Stockholm.

Meanwhile, the Turkish Embassy in Stockholm appealed to Swedish authorities for prevention of such attacks.

Anadolu correspondent said that the attacker of Iraqi origin, who tore up a few pages of the copy of Quran in which he had put bacon in and burned them, and who claimed that he aimed to "criticize Islam" and introduced himself as a "secular atheist" on social media, had previously praised the far-right Islamophobe Rasmus Paludan, who carried out the act of burning the holy book, and that he saw Islam as a threat to Swedish values.

After the attack, the Swedish police launched a hate speech investigation against the Islamophobe.

As in previous similar actions, the Turkish Embassy in Stockholm took the necessary steps before the Swedish authorities to prevent the attack.

In this context, the Embassy contacted the embassies of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) members Azerbaijan, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Morocco, Indonesia, Malaysia, Bangladesh and Palestine in Stockholm and sent a joint message to prevent the incident, conveying a message to Ambassador Jan Knutsson, State Secretary of the Swedish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, National Police chief Anders Thornberg, parliament speaker Andreas Norlen and to the Prime Minister's Chief Foreign and Security Adviser, Henrik Landerholm.

Previous applications regarding the burning of the Quran in front of the Stockholm Embassies of Türkiye and Iraq were rejected by the Swedish police, but this decision was annulled by the court.

The Swedish police did not reject the activist's application today.

RIP

'Everything I needed to know about sex, I learned from Sue': Fans mourn 'true Canadian icon', educator and broadcaster Sue Johanson

For many Canadians, the trailblazing educator was the only sex education source they were exposed to

Christine Jean-Baptiste
·Contributing Reporter
Thu, June 29, 2023 

Sue Johanson, famous for her show Sex With Sue, shares a laugh with Governor General Adrienne Clarkson after being invested into the Order of Canada at a ceremony in Ottawa Thursday May 31, 2001. TV sex educator Johanson has died at age 93. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Tom Hanson (The Canadian Press)

This morning, it was announced that Sue Johanson, Canada's beloved sex educator and broadcaster, died at 93.

It was confirmed that the Canadian trailblazer passed away last night surrounded by her loved ones in a long-term care home in Thornhill, Ontario.

Johanson was best known for hosting Sunday Night Sex Show as a live call-in radio program in 1984, which then became a tv show from 1996 to 2005, where she discussed unfiltered sex advice concerning topics like STIs, consent, anal, oral and solo sex. She then hosted the U.S. spinoff, Talk Sex With Sue Johanson from 2002 to 2008.

Since the mid-1900s, Johanson pioneered g safe spaces for "sex talk" and made taboo topics accessible.

Online, fans mourn the sex activist, remembering her show as their first introduction to sexuality. For many, Johanson filled the gaps that sex-ed courses couldn't.

"She was funny and frank. She helped a lot of kids when their bodies were freaking out. A true educator. RIP Sue Johanson," one fan tweeted.

"Rest in peace to an absolute Canadian icon. She was the only sex education many of us ever got," another tweeted.

"Rest in peace, Sue Johanson. Everything I needed to know about sex, I learned from Sue. She was frank, confident & compassionate. She taught us all to be informed about our bodies, never ashamed or fearful, and to always always be one's own best advocate. Respect & gratitude," tweeted actor Jean Yoon.

"I was able to see her live in first year uni," one fan remembered. "She taught generations of us to reduce stigma around sexually related things through proper education, especially when many schools systems refused to do so."

"My Catholic school upbringing left a lot to be desired when it came to sex ed. "Canada'a Naughty Grandma" Sue Johanson filled the gaps and made sure a kid like me wasn't left behind. She was basically the Mr. Dress-Up for curious Canadian teens," another tweeted.

In 2001, she received an Order of Canada for her sex education advocacy.

"Listening without judgement and candid in her responses, she helps Canadians to improve their understanding of sexuality and their ability to make wise health choices," the honour statement reads.

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HERMAPHRODITISM

'Every Body' documentary: From a childhood of secrecy to inspiring intersex activism

"This is a topic where you're starting with a societal baseline knowledge that's like close to zero," Oscar-nominated filmmaker Julie Cohen said

Elisabetta Bianchini
Fri, June 30, 2023 

It's estimated that about 1.7 per cent of the world's population is born with some intersex traits, but in a society full of gender reveal parties and blue or pink-themed baby showers, most people can't accurately provide a definition of what intersex means, many often only exposed to "sensationalized" depictions of intersex people.

"This is a topic where you're starting with a societal baseline knowledge that's like close to zero," Julie Cohen, director of the documentary Every Body, told Yahoo Canada.

Every Body (in theatres Friday) starts filling that gap in knowledge. As defined in the film, intersex is "any variation in a person’s sex traits with which they’re either born or they develop naturally during puberty," but much of the documentary is centred around intersex activists Alicia Roth Weigel, a political consultant, Ph.D. student Sean Saifa Wall, and actor and screenwriter River Gallo.

"We live in a society that’s so binary and so for me as an intersex person, where do I fit? Where do I belong?" Wall says in the documentary.

Cohen's work on Every Body started with looking through the NBC archives while working on a separate job for NBC News Studios. What initially grabbed her attention was the story of Canadian David Reimer.

In the 1960s Reimer's parents were advised by psychologist Dr. John Money that their son could grow up as a girl, after a circumcision injury, with surgery and if Reimer's parents never told him the truth. But as Reimer got older, he did want to live his life as a man and famously spoke about what happened to him on "Dateline," before he died by suicide in 2004.

Money's work was documented as being successful, studied by medical students and continued to be a knowledge base for paediatric surgery, even after his work on gender identity was debunked.

NEW YORK, NEW YORK - JUNE 11: Guest, Shana Knizhnik, River Gallo, Alicia Roth Weigel, Sean Safia Wall and guests attend the premiere of "Every Body" during 2023 Tribeca Festival at Village East Cinema on June 11, 2023 in New York City. 

(Photo by John Lamparski/Getty Images for Tribeca Festival)

'One of the most interesting activist movements'

Looking at present day, Cohen highlighted that what really moved the dial for her to make Every Body was understanding the current scope of the intersex rights movement.

“This is just one of the most interesting activist movements with a whole range of educational, medical and political things that they're fighting for, that they're fighting for really vigorously, really strategically, and with a lot of dynamism,” Cohen said. “And yet, just not getting enough attention.”

For Roth Weigel, she was actually set to be featured in a different documentary years before Every Body, but she didn't have the same confidence and trust that she had with Cohen.

“The process had just ended up feeling really icky and kind of exploitive and unfortunately, those feelings are not new when it comes to media representation of the intersex movement," Roth Weigel said. "We kind of have to share a lot more about our bodies and our personal histories than most other human beings ever have to.”

“But with Julie, from the very first conversation it felt very much like she was in it to showcase what we were doing, not to try to force some narrative onto us and really wanted to lift up our own narratives. I also really liked that it was not just going to be about me, that she wanted to include multiple stories to really show the breadth and diversity of our movement. And lastly, I mean it's Julie Cohen, and she's made incredible films when it comes to gender equity and political activism. So if this was going to be the first big break for our movement, in terms of real representation on the big screen like this, she just definitely felt like the best person to entrust that to.”

Intersex activists Sean Saifa Wall, Alicia Roth Weigel and River Gallo from EVERY BODY, a Focus Features release

 (FOCUS FEATURES)

'We have the surgeries as kids and then we're kind of left high and dry'

Roth Weigel, Wall and Gallo all underwent unnecessary surgery as children to have their external genitals be "consistent" with the gender they were being assigned at birth, describing the "voyeurism" and feeling like a "specimen" in front of medical professionals. They also open up about the trauma and harm caused by physicians' advice that being an intersex person shouldn't be spoken about.

Roth Weigel lives in Texas and has been a patient and on the advisory board of Texas Health Action, which has Kind Clinics providing sexual health and wellness for the LGBTQIA+ community. With Roth Weigel, Wall and Gallo now adults in their 30s and 40s, Roth Weigel explained that there is still a large gap in competent health care for intersex individuals, specifically adults who underwent these surgeries as children.

“I need to take hormones because of interventions that happened to me when I was younger, but I was always treated as if I was trans and was trying to achieve some sort of gender presentation,” Roth Weigel said. “For me, what we found out through my process of being a patient at Kind Clinic, was that I actually have early stage osteoporosis, given that I received huge health inequity and never really had doctors that were able to meet my needs.”

“There basically is no competent health care for intersex adults. … We have the surgeries as kids and then we're kind of left high and dry.”

Roth Weigel highlighted that she was among intersex activists who just launched an intersex health care offering, which will be open to new patients later this summer. But trying to pull information from the expertise of similar clinics, Roth Weigel stressed that there weren't any clinics to refer to.

“There are individual doctors in certain cities, there might be an intersex competent endocrinologist here and an intersex competent gynaecologist there, but in creating this health offering, [we] interviewed intersex Texans all across the state and found that one of them was quite literally flying to Japan to receive care,” Roth Weigel said.

"It's kind of the wild west out here. ... We're two per cent of the population and to think that there just aren't doctors that can meet our needs and treat our bodies is pretty wild."

Intersex activists Sean Saifa Wall, River Gallo and Alicia Roth Weigel from EVERY BODY, a Focus Features release.

(FOCUS FEATURES)

'We actually are joyful as our full selves. That's the whole point of this.'

Both Roth Weigel and Cohen hope that Every Body can act as a first step for people to understand the intersex community.

"We were trying to educate people to a certain extent, but there's so much that we don't get into," Cohen stressed. "The people in our film don't represent the full intersex community in terms of physical variations, we're just trying to give you a sense of what some experiences have been like."

"I kind of hope people come away feeling both really blown away by hearing what some of their fellow human beings have been through and what cool people they have emerged to be, and then just wanting to immediately run and Googling [on] their phones, ... to start learning more about about intersex people."

While Every Body is certainly informative and oftentimes sobering, there's a lot of joy and personality, and an uplifting feeling about the activist movement, and Roth Weigel, Wall and Gallo specifically. The film even ends with these three individuals and the Every Boy crew dancing around and bowing.

“I'm just a big believer that documentaries should feel like movies, not like some take your medicine, educational, ... I'm going to make my viewers suffer through the whole thing,” Cohen said. “Even telling serious stories about things that are problematic and societal things that need to change like that, it can still be a pleasure to watch.”

“I really want every documentary I work on to feel like it could be a date movie and I think this one absolutely fits in that lane. … That’s largely because of who stars in the film, not that there aren't heavy moments to it, but there's also a lot of humour there.”

“From an intersex activist perspective, if you're only seeing chopped up children mutilated on hospital tables, it's probably not going to inspire you to come out and join that community,” Roth Weigel added.

“So I really liked that Julie really focused on the intersex alliance, all the majorly awesome work that we're doing, but also showing that we actually are joyful as our full selves. That's the whole point of this.”

For any individuals wanting to be public about being intersex, but hesitant to do so, she stressed that "there is a huge community that is out here to embrace you."

"We basically have this amazing online community where, I know most of the out intersex activists everywhere from Zimbabwe to Russia, as soon as someone comes out, we kind of immediately embrace our people," Roth Weigel said.

"You probably don't know another intersex person in your town or your city, but you can find us online and through that, you never know, you might actually find some other intersex people in your town or your city. So it seems scary but for me, it's the best decision I've ever made. I feel free, and it's not going to be an easy process, but I can pretty much guarantee that it will be worthwhile."

Some organizations and resources that support the intersex community include:

Canadian Centre for Gender and Sexual Diversity / @CCGSD_CCDGS


Egale Canada / @egalecanada


InterACT / @interact_adv


The Intersex Justice Project / @intersexjusticeproject


The Interface Project / @interfaceproj


Intersex Campaign for Equality / @intersex_nepal


Beautiful You MRKH Foundation / @beautifulyoumrkh


Club Intersex / @clubintersex


FedUp Fighting Eating Disorders / @fedupcollective


Gender Spectrum / @gender_spectrum


Turner Syndrome Society of the US / @turnersyndromesocietyus

CTHULHU STUDIES

Rare deep-sea octopus nursery discovered off Costa Rica

NADINE EL-BAWAB
Fri, June 30, 2023

A deep-sea octopus nursery, just the third known to exist, has been discovered off the coast of Costa Rica, according to the Schmidt Ocean Institute.

Scientists were able to see an active octopus nursery and witness babies hatching while exploring deep-sea seamounts -- underwater mountains that facilitate biodiversity in the deep sea, the scientists said.

The team of 18 international scientists found the nursery at a low-temperature hydrothermal vent about 9,000 feet below the surface of the ocean. They believe the octopus is potentially a new species of Muusoctopus, a group of small- to medium-sized deep-sea octopus without an ink sac, the Schmidt Ocean Institute said in a statement.

PHOTO: Footage released by the Schmidt Ocean Institute shows the deep-sea discovery in an area previously thought to be 'inhospitable' to young octopuses. (Schmidt Ocean Institute via Storyful)

Scientists used an underwater robot, ROV SuBastian, to observe the seamounts and baby octopuses.

"The discovery of a new active octopus nursery over 2,800 meters beneath the sea surface in Costa Rican waters proves there is still so much to learn about our Ocean," said Schmidt Ocean Institute Executive Director Jyotika Virmani.

PHOTO: Footage released by the Schmidt Ocean Institute shows the deep-sea discovery in an area previously thought to be 'inhospitable' to young octopuses. (Schmidt Ocean Institute via Storyful)

PHOTO: Footage released by the Schmidt Ocean Institute shows the deep-sea discovery in an area previously thought to be 'inhospitable' to young octopuses. (Schmidt Ocean Institute via Storyful)

The scientists made the discovery while on a 19-day expedition studying the biodiversity of unprotected seamounts off the coast of Costa Rica, according to the Schmidt Ocean Institute.

Witnessing the species hatch disproved the idea that the area is inhospitable for developing octopuses, according to the Schmidt Ocean Institute.

PHOTO: Footage released by the Schmidt Ocean Institute shows the deep-sea discovery in an area previously thought to be 'inhospitable' to young octopuses. (Schmidt Ocean Institute via Storyful)

The site where scientists witnessed the hatching was discovered in 2013, and was the first time scientists witnessed female octopus gathered together to brood their eggs. But at the time, scientists did not see developing embryos leading them to believe the Dorado Outcrop might not support octopus growth, according to the Schmidt Ocean Institute.

"The deep-sea off Costa Rica rides the edge of human imagination, with spectacular footage collected by ROV SuBastian of tripod fish, octopus hatchlings, and coral gardens. We look forward to continuing to help the world witness and study the wonders of our incredible Ocean," Virmani said.

Rare deep-sea octopus nursery discovered off Costa Rica originally appeared on abcnews.go.com

Scientists might have discovered a new octopus species near Costa Rica 

CBC News 

A team of scientists is getting closer to a series of deep-sea vents off the coast of Costa Rica. These underwater volcanoes have the scientific community buzzing, particularly over why octopuses are flourishing here.

 

UN Calls on Israeli occupation to Halt Settlement Expansion in West Bank

T.Sh | DOP - 29 June, 2023

The United Nations Secretary-General, Antonio Guterres, has urged the Israeli occupation on Wednesday, June 29, 2023, to immediately stop settlement expansion in the occupied West Bank.

In a statement issued on Wednesday, Guterres expressed concern over the construction of over 5,500 Israeli settlement units in Area C of the West Bank.

Guterres emphasized that these settlements constitute a clear violation of international law and relevant United Nations resolutions.

He called for a complete cessation of all settlement activities in the occupied Palestinian territory and urged the Israeli occupation to fulfill its legal obligations in this regard.

The UN Secretary-General stressed that “Israel’s ongoing settlement expansion in the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, fuels violence significantly and increases the risk of confrontation.”

He further warned that these actions undermine the Palestinian people’s right to self-determination and hinder the possibility of establishing a sovereign Palestinian state based on the pre-1967 borders.

Guterres appealed for an immediate reversal of the settlement expansion policy, emphasizing that it undermines the prospects for a two-state solution and a just, lasting, and comprehensive peace in the region.

Climate change keeps making wildfires and smoke worse. Scientists call it the 'new abnormal'

A jogger runs along McCovey Cove outside Oracle Park in San Francisco, under darkened skies from wildfire smoke on Sept. 9, 2020. As Earth's climate continues to change from heat-trapping gases spewed into the air, ever fewer people are out of reach from the billowing and deadly fingers of wildfire smoke, scientists say. 

(AP Photo/Tony Avelar, File)

The Statue of Liberty, covered in a haze-filled sky, is photographed from the Staten Island Ferry, June 7, 2023, in New York. As smoky as the summer has been so far, scientists say it will likely be worse in future years because of climate change. (AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura, File)
2/10

BY SETH BORENSTEIN and MELINA WALLING
Sat, July 1, 2023

It was a smell that invoked a memory. Both for Emily Kuchlbauer in North Carolina and Ryan Bomba in Chicago. It was smoke from wildfires, the odor of an increasingly hot and occasionally on-fire world.

Kuchlbauer had flashbacks to the surprise of soot coating her car three years ago when she was a recent college graduate in San Diego. Bomba had deja vu from San Francisco, where the air was so thick with smoke people had to mask up. They figured they left wildfire worries behind in California, but a Canada that's burning from sea to warming sea brought one of the more visceral effects of climate change home to places that once seemed immune.

“It’s been very apocalyptic feeling, because in California the dialogue is like, ‘Oh, it’s normal. This is just what happens on the West Coast,’ but it’s very much not normal here,” Kuchlbauer said.

As Earth's climate continues to change from heat-trapping gases spewed into the air, ever fewer people are out of reach from the billowing and deadly fingers of wildfire smoke, scientists say. Already wildfires are consuming three times more of the United States and Canada each year than in the 1980s and studies predict fire and smoke to worsen.

While many people exposed to bad air may be asking themselves if this is a “new normal,” several scientists told The Associated Press they specifically reject any such idea because the phrase makes it sound like the world has changed to a new and steady pattern of extreme events.

“Is this a new normal? No, it’s a new abnormal,” University of Pennsylvania climate scientist Michael Mann said. “It continues to get worse. If we continue to warm the planet, we don’t settle into some new state. It’s an ever-moving baseline of worse and worse.”

It's so bad that perhaps the term “wildfire” also needs to be rethought, suggested Woodwell Climate Research Center senior scientist Jennifer Francis.

“We can’t really call them wildfires anymore,” Francis said. “To some extent they’re just not, they’re not wild. They’re not natural anymore. We are just making them more likely. We’re making them more intense.”

Several scientists told the AP that the problem of smoke and wildfires will progressively worsen until the world significantly reduces greenhouse gas emissions, which has not happened despite years of international negotiations and lofty goals.

Fires in North America are generally getting worse, burning more land. Even before July, traditionally the busiest fire month for the country, Canada has set a record for most area burned with 31,432 square miles (81,409 square kilometers), which is nearly 15% higher than the old record.

“A year like this could happen with or without climate change, but warming temperatures just made it a lot more probable,” said A. Park Williams, a UCLA bioclimatologist who studies fire and water. “We're seeing, especially across the West, big increases in smoke exposure and reduction in air quality that are attributable to increase in fire activity."

Numerous studies have linked climate change to increases in North American fires because global warming is increasing extreme weather, especially drought and mostly in the West.

As the atmosphere dries, it sucks moisture out of plants, creating more fuel that burns easier, faster and with greater intensity. Then you add more lightning strikes from more storms, some of which are dry lightning strikes, said Canadian fire scientist Mike Flannigan at Thompson Rivers University in British Columbia. Fire seasons are getting longer, starting earlier and lasting later because of warmer weather, he said.

“We have to learn to live with fire and smoke, that’s the new reality,” Flannigan said.

Ronak Bhatia, who moved from California to Illinois for college in 2018 and now lives in Chicago, said at first it seemed like a joke: wildfire smoke following him and his friends from the West Coast. But if it continues, it will no longer be as funny.

“It makes you think about climate change and also how it essentially could affect, you know, anywhere,” Bhatia said. “It’s not just the California problem or Australia problem. It’s kind of an everywhere problem.”

Wildfires in the U.S. on average now burn about 12,000 square miles (31,000 square kilometers) yearly, about the size of Maryland. From 1983 to 1987, when the National Interagency Fire Center started keeping statistics, only about 3,300 square miles (8,546 square kilometers) burned annually.

During the past five years, including a record low 2020, Canada has averaged 12,279 square miles (31,803 square kilometers) burned, which is three and a half times larger than the 1983 to 1987 average.

The type of fires seen this year in western Canada are in amounts scientists and computer models predicted for the 2030s and 2040s. And eastern Canada, where it rains more often, wasn't supposed to see occasional fire years like this until the mid 21st century, Flannigan said.

If the Canadian east is burning, that means eventually, and probably sooner than researchers thought, eastern U.S. states will also, Flannigan said. He and Williams pointed to devastating fires in Gatlinburg, Tennessee, that killed 14 people in 2016 during a brief drought in the East.

America burned much more in the past, but that's because people didn't try to stop fires and they were less of a threat. The West used to have larger and regular fires until the mid-19th century, with more land settlement and then the U.S. government trying to douse every fire after the great 1910 Yellowstone fire, Williams said.

Since about the 1950s, America pretty much got wildfires down to a minimum, but that hasn't been the case since about 2000.

“We thought we had it under control, but we don't,” Williams said. “The climate changed so much that we lost control of it.”

The warmer the Arctic gets and the more snow and ice melt there — the Arctic is warming three times faster than the rest of Earth — the differences in the summer between Arctic and mid-latitudes get smaller. That allows the jet stream of air high above the ground to meander and get stuck, prolonging bouts of bad weather, Mann and Francis said. Other scientists say they are waiting for more evidence on the impact of bouts of stuck weather.

A new study published on June 23 links a stuck weather pattern to reduced North American snow cover in the spring.

For people exposed to nasty air from wildfire smoke, increasing threats to health are part of the new reality.

Wildfires expose about 44 million people per year worldwide to unhealthy air, causing about 677,000 deaths annually with almost 39% of them children, according to a 2021 study out of the United Kingdom.

One study that looked at a dozen years of wildfire smoke exposure in Washington state showed a 1% all-ages increase in the odds of non-traumatic death the same day as the smoke hit the area and 2% for the day after. Risk of respiratory deaths jumped 14% and even more, 35%, for adults ages 45 to 64.

Based on peer-reviewed studies, the Health Effects Institute estimated that smoke’s chief pollutant caused 4 million deaths worldwide and nearly 48,000 deaths in the U.S. in 2019.

The tiny particles making up a main pollutant of wildfire smoke, called PM2.5, are just the right size to embed deep in the lungs and absorb into the blood. But while their size has garnered attention, their composition also matters, said Kris Ebi, a University of Washington climate and health scientist.

“There is emerging evidence that the toxicity of wildfire smoke PM2.5 is more toxic than what comes out of tailpipes,” Ebi said.

A cascade of health effects may become a growing problem in the wake of wildfires, including downwind from the source, said Ed Avol, professor emeritus at the Keck School of Medicine at University of Southern California.

Beyond irritated eyes and scratchy throats, breathing in wildfire smoke also can create long-term issues all over the body. Avol said those include respiratory effects including asthma and COPD, as well as impacts on heart, brain and kidney function.

“In the longer term, climate change and unfortunately wildfire smoke is not going away because we really haven’t done that much quick enough to make a difference,” Avol said, adding that while people can take steps like masking up or using air filters to try to protect themselves, we are ultimately “behind the curve here in terms of responding to it.”

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Borenstein reported from Washington and Walling from Chicago.

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Follow AP’s climate and environment coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/climate-and-environment

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Follow Seth Borenstein and Melina Walling on Twitter at @borenbears and @MelinaWalling.

___

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

Study says wildfire smoke exposure may be linked to tumours — should you worry?

A doctor says the study measured overall exposure that was "extremely low compared to what is being seen in Canada and the U.S."

Aya Al-Hakim
Wed, June 28, 2023 

(Photo by Zou Zheng/Xinhua via Getty Images)

This article is for informational purposes only and is not a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Contact a qualified medical professional before engaging in any physical activity, or making any changes to your diet, medication or lifestyle.

Amid Canada’s worst wildfire season on record, an Australian study is shedding light on the long-term impacts of wildfire smoke.

The study, led by researchers at Monash University in Australia and published in the Journal of Hazardous Materials, states that prolonged exposure to wildfire smoke can lead to a 0.5 per cent increase in one's risk of dying from a tumour.

It also found that long-term exposure to wildfire smoke is associated with a 0.4 per cent higher risk of “all-cause mortality” which is a term that refers to a death as a result of any disease, complication or exposure.

More Canadians rejecting electric vehicles: J.D. Power

"Consumers in Canada are still not sold on the idea of automotive electrification"

Jeff Lagerquist
Thu, June 29, 2023 

Electric vehicles and other zero-emission registrations in Canada slipped in the first quarter of 2023 from a record high at the end of last year, according to S&P Global.

More Canadian car buyers are rejecting electric vehicles, with nearly two-thirds saying they're unlikely to consider one for their next purchase. Meanwhile, a growing number of Americans say their next ride may be battery-powered.

Those are among the findings of J.D. Power Canada's second Electric Vehicle Consideration study, released on Thursday. The market research firm collected nearly 5,000 responses from consumers in April and May.

According to J.D. Power, 66 per cent of automobile shoppers in Canada say they're either "very unlikely" or "somewhat unlikely" to consider an electric vehicle for their next purchase. That's up from 53 per cent last year.

In the U.S., J.D. Power points to a "widening consideration gap" with Canada. The number of American participants who said they would consider an electric vehicle climbed to 61 per cent this year, versus 59 per cent in 2022.

"Consumers in Canada are still not sold on the idea of automotive electrification," J.D. Ney, director of the automotive practice at J.D. Power Canada, stated in a news release.

"Growing concerns about affordability and infrastructure, both from charging and electrical grid perspectives, have caused a significant decline in the number of consumers who see themselves in the market for an EV anytime soon."
Factors hindering EV adoption

Driving distance per charge was the most common concern cited by respondents (63 per cent), followed by purchase price (59 per cent), and lack of available charging stations (55 per cent).

Zero-emission vehicle registrations in Canada slipped in the first quarter of 2023 from a record high at the end of last year, according to S&P Global. The data showed combined market share of battery electric vehicles and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles in Q1 was 9.1 per cent, down from 10.2 per cent in Q4.

Analysts warn high interest rates and inflation could slow electric vehicle sales further. That challenges Ottawa's mandate for at least 20 per cent of new vehicles sold by 2026 to be zero emission, rising to 60 per cent by 2030, and 100 per cent by 2035.

"Against this backdrop, it is going to take significant investment and close collaboration between manufacturers and lawmakers to address issues of overall affordability, capability and infrastructure before Canada can reach its national and provincial EV sales targets," Ney stated.

Earlier this month, Volkswagen Group Canada's president and CEO Pierre Boutin told Yahoo Finance Canada that he sees electric vehicle affordability improving. But he also noted that won't happen overnight. In May, a General Motors (GM) executive called Canada's largest province a "laggard" in EV adoption, due in part to the Ontario government's elimination of a tax credit for EV purchases.

Despite more electrified options arriving in dealer showrooms, most (55 per cent) of vehicle shoppers have never been in an EV, according to J.D. Power. Among those who have rented, borrowed, or test driven one, 43 per cent say they are likely to consider an EV.

J.D. Power found potential buyers in British Columbia and Quebec were the keenest potential EV buyers, at 46 per cent and 39 per cent, respectively, with the lowest interest in Atlantic Canada (26 per cent) and the Prairie provinces (22 per cent). Those figures broadly align with EV registration trends in Canada.


Jeff Lagerquist is a senior reporter at Yahoo Finance Canada. Follow him on Twitter @jefflagerquist.

 

VA announces new investments, grants to end veterans homelessness

BRAD DRESS

Updated June 29, 2023 

The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) on Thursday announced major new investments to tackle the homelessness crisis among veterans as it pushes toward an ambitious goal of housing at least 38,000 veterans this year.

The Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) will soon provide $3.1 billion through its Continuum of Care (COC) program to address overall homelessness across all demographics, with part of the funding trickling down to the VA for use at its local medical centers.

U.S. officials say the new funding commitment is a historic single-year investment in the COC program, which works on the community level with nonprofits and local governments to address homelessness.

The VA on Thursday also announced more than $11 million in grants to public and nonprofit organizations for a new program focused on legal assistance for veterans facing eviction, child support cases and other legal problems.

VA Secretary Denis McDonough said the “justice system involvement for our veterans is strongly and directly correlated with homelessness.”

“So our ability to help those veterans who are struggling with justice system involvement will directly impact our ability to end veteran homelessness,” he told reporters during a Wednesday briefing. “In fact, legal support can be the difference between coming home homeless in the first instance, or having a safe, stable house.”

Another $58 million in grant funding will help veterans reintegrate into the labor force, part of an existing program seeking to more closely address the root causes of homelessness, according to the VA.

The VA housed more than 40,000 veterans last year, surpassing goals the department set for 2022. The latest tally of how many veterans are homeless across America also dropped by 11 percentage points in 2022 compared to 2020.

Still, the overall homelessness crisis, exacerbated by soaring inequality and an extreme shortage of affordable housing, reached record highs in 2022 and has been rising significantly since 2017, according to the National Alliance to End Homelessness.

Homelessness also continues to impact veterans more than the average American. Around 33,136 veterans were counted as homeless in 2022.

President Biden is working on a plan to reduce overall homelessness by about 25 percent by 2025. His proposed fiscal 2024 budget includes more than $10 billion to address overall homelessness, about a 6 percent increase from the last fiscal budget.

In his State of the Union address in February, Biden also pledged to curtail veteran suicide rates and help keep a roof over their heads.

“Let’s do more to keep this nation’s one fully sacred obligation: to equip those we send into harm’s way and care for them and their families when they come home,” Biden told Congress.

Biden is pursuing a strategy to first place those experiencing homelessness in housing and then give them the support structure to maintain shelter.

The investments announced Thursday expand on that effort, including a new “boot camp” initiative, which involves employing a network of supportive services to more quickly transition those experiencing homelessness to permanent housing.

The housing first strategy, which provides housing first and recommends treatment but doesn’t require it, has been the subject of intense debate.

Some poverty-fighting organizations support it, while other experts say the U.S. approach has largely failed to alleviate the crisis.

Neera Tanden, a domestic policy adviser for Biden, said that taken together, the grant funding announced Thursday will allow veterans to “learn occupational skills, participate in registered apprenticeships or on-the-job training, be placed in jobs and receive supportive services.”

Tanden said the administration was “making incredible strides” in the effort to end homelessness even as it continued to face challenges.

“Everyone should have a roof over their head,” she said on Wednesday, adding that the new investments “mark an important next step in our urgent collective efforts to address veteran homelessness.”

Germany To Restrict Influence of China’s Confucius Institute

2023/06/29•

dpa/picture alliance via Getty 

Deutsche Welle

What you need to know

Germany's education minister has called for “clear limits” to be imposed on the Confucius Institute, which promotes Chinese language and culture.

The German government wants to limit the influence of China’s Confucius Institute in the country, Education Minister Bettina Stark-Watzinger told German newspaper Handelsblatt in an interview published on Thursday.

There are currently 19 Confucius Institutes in Germany, according to government data, most of which are attached to universities where they offer language courses as well as talks on Chinese culture and history.

The minister from the neoliberal Free Democratic Party (FDP) called for “clear limits” on China’s “direct influence” on science and teaching.

Intelligence agency warns of threat to academic freedom

Germany’s Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV) categorized the Chinese institute as a tool for political influence in its annual report this year.

“China’s activities and forms of cooperation threaten to undermine academic freedom in the field of education and research,” the BfV said.

The FDP has previously stated its opposition to the presence of Confucius Institutes in Germany and even called for an end to their partnership in the Bundestag.

“More universities should now be critically questioning their connections to the Confucius Institute and live up to their responsibilities," Stark-Watzinger told Handelsblatt.

Universities oppose ‘blanket ban’

Germany’s interior ministry is also skeptical about cooperation with the Confucius Institute which it sees “extremely critically from a security point of view.”

A spokesperson from the ministry told Handelsblatt that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) uses the institute to depict an “impeccable image” of China as part of the party’s influence strategy.

“At least part of the CCP’s influence on the Confucius Institute comes from the fact that it gets a not insubstantial part of its funding from the Chinese state,” the spokesperson said.

Roderich Kiesewetter, from the center-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and a member of the Bundestag’s intelligence committee, told Handelsblatt the institute was paving the way for espionage and intimidation of Chinese nationals living abroad.

There have been confirmed attempts by the Confucius Institute to exert influence in Hannover and Duisburg-Essen, and universities in Frankfurt, Hamburg, Düsseldorf and Trier have already ended their partnerships, the newspaper reported.

But Walter Rosenthal, the president of the German Rectors’ Conference — an association of universities and higher education institutions — told Handelsblatt that a “blanket ban on cooperation” with the institute would not make sense.

ab/dj (AFP, Reuters)


READ NEXT: With Confucius Institutes Shuttering Across US, Can Taiwanese Teachers Fill the Gap?

TNL Editor: Bryan Chou (@thenewslensintl)

UK

Iraqi Kurdish journalist facing deportation fears being killed if sent home

Ghazi Ghareeb Zorab told MEE he faces retribution over his reporting in Iraq's Kurdistan region if he is removed from UK

Ghazi Ghareeb Zorab attends a demonstration against Kurdish Prime Minister Masrour Barzani outside Chatham House in London in April 2022 (Twitter)

By Alex MacDonald
Published date: 29 June 2023 

An Iraqi Kurdish journalist has said he fears being killed in his home country if he is deported from the UK on Saturday as planned.

On Monday, Ghazi Ghareeb Zorab went to the Dallas Court Reporting Centre in Salford, Manchester, where he was making a regular visit as is required of him while his asylum claim is processed.

He was then detained and told he would be deported to Jordan on 1 July, and from there onto neighbouring Iraq.

Zorab spoke to Middle East Eye on a Nokia phone from Brook House immigration removal centre in London, after his smartphone was taken off him by security officials, and said he was in a "terrible situation", terrified of being returned to northern Iraq.

"I would be persecuted, I would be killed, I would be imprisoned. Killing, kidnapping, any kind of punishment," he said.

As a reporter for numerous Kurdish and English-language publications, including Ekurd and the Word newspaper, he had incurred the wrath of the ruling Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) in Iraq's northern region and came to the UK for safety in 2019, after receiving numerous death threats.

"I would be persecuted, I would be killed, I would be imprisoned'

- Ghazi Ghareeb Zorab

After an initial application for asylum was rejected in 2020, he appealed the decision through the courts, and was in the process of organising documents for the appeal when he was detained.

Though he made a fresh claim for asylum on Tuesday, while his solicitor has applied for immigration bail to have him released from detention, the uncertainty is taking a terrible toll.

"There is a flight booked for 1 July to remove me. I’m receiving treatment at the moment for health issues. In this condition, it makes me worried about the next steps, what will happen," he said.

"This is a terrible situation, it should not be like this - journalists should be treated like journalists, not like somebody to be removed."

Dangers in Kurdistan

Although Iraq's semi-autonomous Kurdistan region has cultivated a reputation for relative openness and stability compared to its southern region, there are still substantial threats to journalists, campaigners and politicians who are critical of the ruling establishment, especially the dominant Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK).

The International Federation of Journalists recorded at least 73 cases of media and rights violations in Iraqi Kurdistan in 2022 and said arbitrary arrests and attacks by security forces were a regular occurrence. Iraq as a whole is ranked 167 out of 180 countries for media freedom by Reporters Without Borders, with reporters facing a constant threat of violence, kidnapping and imprisonment.

'Journalists are killed in the KRG, journalists are kidnapped in the KRG'

- Ghazi Ghareeb Zorab

"Journalists are killed in the KRG, journalists are kidnapped in the KRG, they are imprisoned because of what they say against the government and what they say against the KDP and PUK," said Zorab.

He said he had been outspoken about the “brutality of the Kurdish political parties" both in Iraq and internationally. He had used a visa to travel to the UK for a conference where he had criticised the state of human rights in his homeland in 2019.

Upon returning to the Kurdistan region, he received multiple death threats and so quickly returned on that same visa to the UK, where he has remained ever since.

In the UK he has taken part in numerous campaigns for the rights of political prisoners in Iraqi Kurdistan and justice for murdered journalists like Sardasht Osman, who was found shot dead in Mosul in 2010 after reportedly receiving threats to stop writing damaging reports about KRG officials.

In 2022, Zorab was part of a protest outside the Chatham House think tank in London where KRG Prime Minister Masrour Barzani was giving a speech.

He had found the ability to speak out in the UK refreshing.

"[In the KRG] you can’t do this, you can’t be critical of the political parties, speak in public," he explained.

But his current ordeal has, unsurprisingly, soured that mood.

"I was feeling well until the time this happened. This detention is not…there is no good reason to behave like that against a journalist."
'Not so severe'

The UK government's track record on refugees has come under severe criticism in recent years. The ruling Conservative Party has attempted to implement legislation forcibly removing refugees arriving by "illegal" means such as crossing the English Channel in small boats from France, a policy denounced as "obscene" by rights groups.

This is combined with a backlog of asylum claims that has led to asylum seekers being placed on what have been branded "floating prisons" off the coast of the UK.

A letter leaked to the Guardian last month suggested that 20,000 Iranian and Iraq asylum applicants were to have their claims fast-tracked in an attempt by Prime Minister Rishi Sunak to clear up the backlog of 92,601 asylum cases submitted before June 2022.

Poland-Belarus: Iraqi Kurdish refugees reject offer to return to hardship at home

Read More »

More than 51,661 Iraqis have applied for asylum in the UK since the 2003 invasion that overthrew longtime ruler Saddam Hussein. Of those, more than 6,000 arrived in 2022.

However, the majority of asylum claims by Iraqis have been refused, with only a fifth being granted some form of leave to remain in the country and one tenth given refugee status.

Despite repeated warnings from rights groups about routine torture, attacks by armed groups and state repression, the government's official humanitarian situation report on Iraq states that "in general, the humanitarian situation in Iraq is not so severe that there are substantial grounds for believing that there is a real risk that conditions amount to torture or inhuman or degrading treatment" and that there are "parts of the country where it will be reasonable for a person to relocate".

In the past three years, thousands of Kurds have left the Middle East, comprising the largest single ethnic group during the 2021 migrant "crisis" that developed on the borders of Europe.

Kurdish migrants - primarily from Iraq - ended up congregating in huge numbers on the Poland-Belarus borders, enduring freezing conditions after travel agencies in Iraqi Kurdistan began offering package deals to Belarus.

The UK's National Union of Journalists (NUJ) in a statement expressed "grave concern" over Zorab's deportation.

"If returned to Iraq, the NUJ believes the UK government will be facilitating the persecution of Zorab and putting his life at risk, and urges the Home Office to urgently reconsider this case in light of the safety risks posed to him because of his work as a journalist," said the statement.