THE WAR OVER THERE COMES HOME

  

Riot act read in Edmonton after anti-Eritrea clashes in Edmonton

The political tensions of northeastern Africa spilled over at several locations in Edmonton Saturday, prompting the riot act being read and tactical teams responding in order to break up fights at a cultural gathering, soccer tournament and musical event. Slav Kornik explains what happened

 

 EPS respond to a riot at event promoting world peace

Edmonton Journal Aug 19, 2023 Soccer for peace event cancelled, two groups clash on field, Edmonton tactical unit responds. 

UCP IS THE PC PARTY OF THE PAST
'A failure of due diligence': Alberta premier says Dynalife lab deal should have raised flags

Story by Lisa Johnson •1d

Alberta Premier Danielle Smith speaks at a news conference in McDougall Centre in Calgary on Aug. 14, 2023.© Provided by Edmonton Journal

Alberta Premier Danielle Smith says while she wasn’t responsible for a 25-year UCP deal to deliver medical lab services cut short after just over a year, it should have raised red flags from the start.

Appearing on her Saturday radio call-in show for the first time since the government announced it will take over lab services from Dynalife, Smith was asked if the province had failed to properly vet the agreement to expand the private lab testing company’s contracted services into Calgary and the southern region.

“There was a failure of due diligence somewhere and we have to figure out what went wrong in the contracting process,” said Smith.

Dynalife had already been providing lab services in northern and central Alberta, including Edmonton. Health Minister Adriana LaGrange announced Friday all Dynalife’s equipment, staff and facilities in the province will be nationalized and transferred to Alberta Precision Laboratories (APL), which is part of Alberta Health Services (AHS), by the end of this year.

“We had every reason to believe that Dynalife would be able to expand their services because they were already performing very well,” said Smith.

Public health care advocates have long argued private delivery can hurt public services, but Smith said the lesson to be learned is that having “a single source of any contract in government” is problematic, and that having only a single bid from Dynalife to do the work was an early warning sign.

“If you only have one bidder, that could be a sign that there’s something not quite economic about it,” she said.

“I didn’t make the decision,” she said, reiterating that the government was forced to take action Friday. It came after months of long wait times for things like blood tests, and a scramble by APL to cover new appointments.

“Dynalife has made the determination that they want to exit this market, and so we came to a mutual agreement that APL will take that over … for now,” said Smith.

Related

Alberta government to de-privatize Dynalife's lab testing amid long wait times

NDP calls on UCP to publish performance metrics in Dynalife contract

How much the contract reversal will cost taxpayers has yet to be disclosed.

A July 29, 2022, document available on the government’s public procurement website gives notice to all contracted providers that AHS and APL had entered into a 25-year agreement with Dynalife, beginning a transition on Dec. 5, 2022, but it does not disclose financial details.

Last year, the UCP promised the deal would save taxpayers between $18 million and $36 million.

“Why did (Dynalife) think they could make it work and be able to save money and then when it turned out, when they were actually operating it, those savings just disappeared?” asked Smith, who admitted sunk capital costs will come back to haunt taxpayers.

“We have to buy back some of the assets that we ended up transferring over to Dynalife. That’s going to cost money, and they’ve done some investments in capital and machinery. That’s going to cost money,” said Smith.

The move to expand private delivery is something the Opposition NDP has called a “reckless experiment in privatization” that illustrates the UCP’s incompetence on the health file.

On Friday, David Shepherd, the NDP’s health critic for primary and rural care, reiterated in a social media thread calls for a full accounting of the impact of the deal.

“We need answers,” he wrote.

While on Friday LaGrange argued centralizing all lab services under one APL umbrella will stabilize the system and provide “more oversight” and faster access for patients, Smith on Saturday reiterated her belief that AHS needs to be restructured.

“We’re already in the process of looking at AHS and seeing how problematic it’s been to concentrate everything into a single health super board and we’re working on decentralization,” said Smith.

lijohnson@postmedia.com

twitter.com/reportrix

Renewables companies hit brakes on Alberta projects after govt delays approvals

UCP CUTS NOSE TO SPITE FACE

SECOND PROVINCE AFTER ONTARIO 

FOR RENEWABLES

Rod Nickel
Mon, August 21, 2023

A wind farm generates electricity near bales of hay in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains


By Rod Nickel

WINNIPEG, Manitoba (Reuters) - Alberta's seven-month pause on approving new renewable power projects in the Canadian province has caused four major international companies at various development stages to stop work on their plans, an industry official said.

Alberta's surprise move this month has also prompted some domestic companies to consider whether to refocus investment on other provinces and the U.S.

Wind and solar energy producers have criticized Premier Danielle Smith for creating business uncertainty and jeopardizing billions in potential investments.

Alberta, the country's main oil and gas producing province, paused approvals on Aug. 3 of new renewable electricity generation projects over one megawatt until Feb. 29, chilling investment in the fast-growing industry. The pause is necessary to address concerns about renewables' reliability and land use, said a spokesperson for Alberta's utilities minister.

The move has increased tensions between Smith and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's Liberal government, which is drafting regulations to force provinces to eliminate greenhouse gas emissions from their grids on a net basis by 2035.

One of the international companies that has paused its work had applied to build a renewable power project in the province, said Jorden Dye, acting director of the Business Renewables Centre, a Calgary-based organization that matches renewable developers and buyers.

A second company has paused design work on its first Alberta project, Dye added.

A third company delayed plans to secure Calgary office space, while a fourth was making preliminary inquiries about investing in Alberta before deciding to wait, he added.

"Those investment decisions ... are not going to move forward until the government clears this up," Dye said.

He said he could not name the companies because plans are confidential.

THE ALBERTA WAY

Alberta has led the country in building renewable capacity and is on track to eliminating combustion of coal for power next year, six years ahead of plan.

Along with domestic firms, foreign companies like Berkshire Hathaway's BHE Canada, EDF Renewables and Enel Green Power generate renewable power in Alberta. Companies have invested nearly C$5 billion ($3.7 billion) since 2019, according to the Pembina Institute.

The pause directly affects 15 projects in the approvals queue, the government spokesperson said. But Pembina said the freeze puts at risk a total of 91 projects at early development stages.

Calgary-based BluEarth Renewables is reviewing the 400 megawatts' worth of early-stage wind and solar projects it was considering for the province, although it has no projects currently in Alberta's approval queue, said CEO Grant Arnold.

"Without certainty as to what the outcome of this pause will be, we will prioritize investment into other jurisdictions," Arnold said. BluEarth also operates in three other provinces and the U.S.

Alberta Utilities Commission is deliberating whether to stop receiving applications during the pause period, rather than just halting approvals, a move that would suggest it may freeze development even longer, Dye said.

"You could see a scenario where an investor says, 'Alberta is now a risky place to invest so I need a higher return to justify the political risk,'" said Dan Balaban, CEO of Greengate Power, which built Canada's biggest solar farm in southern Alberta with fund manager Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners, producing power for Amazon.com.

"We need to get back to the Alberta way, which is very pro-business."

($1 = 1.3550 Canadian dollars)

(Reporting by Rod Nickel in Winnipeg, Manitoba; additional reporting by Steve Scherer in Ottawa; Editing by Denny Thomas and Marguerita Choy)

Peregrine falcon chicks hatched in Edmonton now learning to hunt prey in the wild

CBC
Sun, August 20, 2023

The peregrine falcon family, two parents and three fledglings, at the Cabrini Centre nesting box before the young ones got their flying feathers. (Submitted by Janice Hurlburt - image credit)

Three peregrine falcon chicks who have been residing on top of a hospital building in west Edmonton have spread their wings.

Two of the fledglings, a male and a female, had to be rescued and are currently at a site overlooking the Pembina River where they will learn how to hunt prey.

The fledglings were hatched at a nesting site on top of the Cabrini Centre, a building on the Misericordia Hospital grounds near West Edmonton Mall.

They were taken to the Pembina River location, known as a hacking site, earlier this month. That's where they are taking their early flights in nature, surrounded by trees and water.

"It's much safer for them and it also imprints them out in the rural area as opposed to the city so that they're going to migrate south for the winter," said Janice Hurlburt, a volunteer for Falcon Watch, a group dedicated to monitoring nesting peregrine falcons in the Edmonton region.

The third fledgling, a male, came out of the nest on July 29 and ended up falling nine metres down a boiler chimney which is part of the Misericordia emergency department construction, according to Hurlburt.

The male fledging wasn't seen for five days before he was rescued and checked by WildNorth animal shelter in Edmonton.

Janice Hurlburt holding a three week old Peregrine falcon chick. She has been volunteering for Falcon Watch for eight years.

Janice Hurlburt holding a three-week-old peregrine falcon chick. Hurlburt has been volunteering for Falcon Watch for eight years. (Submitted by Janice Hurlburt)

Since then, he has fledged — grown his flying feathers — and is now flying around with his parents.

"Right from the start I referred to that male as No. 1," said Hurlburt. "He just seemed more outgoing and stronger. He was the first one to fledge, he fledged pretty well and then now he's doing super well."

Last month, volunteers from Falcon Watch put up notices at the Misericordia, the Cabrini Centre, West Edmonton Mall and surrounding areas asking people who encounter the birds at ground level to not touch them and to call someone on the volunteer team.

The volunteers took shifts, sometimes lasting up to 12 hours, to watch the fledglings.

There are a number of nesting boxes under video surveillance in the Edmonton area, including the University of Alberta, the Bell Tower downtown, and the Shell Scotford site near Fort Saskatchewan.

On the left, the female fledgling after being rescued in the Cabrini parking lot. On the right, out at the hack site on the Pembina River.

On the left, the female fledgling after being rescued in the Cabrini Centre parking lot. On the right, the same bird at the hacking site on the Pembina River. (Submitted by Janice Hurlburt)

While the nesting box at the Cabrini Centre isn't video monitored, dedicated volunteers watch and rescue the birds.

"These birds really don't go any length of time at all without somebody knowing what's going on," said Dale Gienow, WildNorth's executive director.

Falcons are natural cliff-dwellers and do well on tall buildings in urban environments because they simulate the rock ledges. But urban locations can be dangerous for peregrine falcon chicks.

"They're inexperienced flyers and they can sometimes collide with buildings or get into trouble and end up in places that aren't really great," Gienow said.

Dale Gienow is the executive director of WildNorth rescue and rehabilitation center in Edmonton.

Dale Gienow is the executive director of WildNorth rescue and rehabilitation centre in Edmonton. (David Bajer/CBC)

In the 1970s, peregrine falcons were on the brink of extinction in most provinces because of pollution from DDT, an insecticide developed to protect crops and prevent the spread of disease.

Thanks to the likes of local volunteers and conservation groups, the peregrine population in Alberta has gone from one productive pair in 1970 to an estimated 80 pairs today, according to the Alberta Conservation Association.

For people who come across an injured peregrine falcon, the best route would be to contact a wildlife conservation group or a local veterinarian who then could take the bird to WildNorth, said Gienow.

"We would assess them and then we connect them with the folks from Alberta Environment and protected areas and get them back out into the wild where they belong."

Tropical moisture seeps into Canada, but little help for B.C. fires

Digital Writers
Sun, August 20, 2023 

Tropical moisture seeps into Canada, but little help for B.C. fires

Flash flood warnings cover tens of millions of people in the southwestern United States—including Los Angeles—as Tropical Storm Hilary leaves a historic mark on the region.

The storm’s prolific moisture will flow north into Canada through the week, fuelling rain chances from British Columbia to Quebec.

Unfortunately, the rain won’t be enough to stifle the fires raging throughout B.C., which have forced thousands to flee their homes and sent air quality plummeting to dangerous levels.

BCAQ

RELATED: Canada next in line for Hilary’s rains after historic U.S. impacts

Thick wildfire smoke hugging the surface throughout southern British Columbia won’t improve much heading into Monday.

Significant fires burning near Kelowna and Kamloops have contributed to atrocious air quality readings throughout the region, forcing residents to stay inside or wear quality masks to avoid harm from the air pollution. We'll see these hazardous conditions persist through Monday.

BCSmoke
Looking ahead at Hilary’s remnants

We’ve seen some clouds and rain push into Western Canada during the day Sunday as the far-reaching outflow from Tropical Storm Hilary vents over the region.

A strong jet stream swooping over the western half of North America is giving the storm a boost, helping extend its reach from Mexico to Alberta and beyond.

Heat Dome Hilary

The storm’s tropical moisture will continue flowing north long after the system itself falls apart over California on Monday. This plume of moisture aloft will meet with a disturbance over Western Canada by the middle of the week, bringing a chance for thunderstorms and steady rainfall to portions of central B.C. and Alberta.

BCPrecip

While some areas will see 20-40 mm of rain through the coming week, the bulk of the rain will miss communities where crews are struggling to get a leg up on out-of-control fires burning through B.C.’s Interior.

Stay tuned for the latest forecast update for Western Canada.
WATCH: The best time to prepare for a hurricane is well before one forms

Click here to view the video

Two large wildfires merge to form one huge blaze in Canada as thousands more evacuated

Stuti Mishra

The Independent
Mon, 21 August 2023 

Smoke from wildfires fills the air as motorists travel on a road on the side of a mountain, in Kelowna, British Columbia (AP)

Two large wildfires raging in western Canada have combined to form one huge blaze that destroyed houses and vast swathes of land, and prompted the evacuations of thousands in the area.

British Columbia declared a state of emergency and imposed a ban on non-essential travel to free up accommodations for evacuees and firefighters, as 35,000 people were ordered to evacuate over the weekend with hundreds of wildfires continuing to burn in the state.

Government officials urged residents in evacuation order zones to leave immediately to save their lives and prevent firefighters from dying trying to rescue them.


On Sunday, prime minister Justin Trudeau announced that his government has cleared the request of the provincial government to deploy the military to tackle fast-spreading infernos.

Mr Trudeau said in a tweet that the federal government will offer support from the Canadian military “to help with evacuations, staging” and other logistical tasks, in response to a request from the British Columbia government.

At least 400 fires continue to burn in the province as strong northern winds continued to fan the flames and hundreds of firefighters struggled to control them for weeks.

In some cities in British Columbia, smoke from the wildfires plunged the air quality index (AQI) to “hazardous” levels, showed IQAir, a real-time air-quality information platform.

At midnight (0400 GMT), Salmon Arm was recording the nation’s worst air quality index, with an AQI reading of 470. Among other cities, Kelowna College and Sicamous both had the AQI at 423.

West Kelowna fire chief Jason Brolund said he saw some hope after battling “epic” fires for the past four days as he said conditions have improved, helping firefighters to put “boots on the ground” and dump water on flames that threatened the town of 150,000.

“We are finally feeling like we are moving forward rather than moving backwards, and that’s a great feeling,” Mr Brolund told the Canadian Broadcasting Corp.

A map of the wildfires currently raging in British Columbia, Canada

 (The Independent/Datawrapper)

The Pacific coast province could get some rains this week from the moisture of tropical Storm Hilary, which made its historic arrival in California on Sunday, bringing some relief to the province which is in the grip of a severe drought.

Forest fires are not uncommon in Canada but this year, the country has seen its worst wildfire season on record, on the heels of record-shattering global temperatures driven by the climate crisis.

About 140,000 square km (54,054 square miles) of land, roughly the size of New York state, has been scorched nationwide, with smoky haze extending as far as the US East Coast.

Government officials project the fire season could stretch into autumn because of widespread drought-like conditions.

Additional reporting by agencies

Firefighters curb blazes threatening 2 cities in western Canada but are 'not out of the woods yet'

Evacuations have begun in the city of Yellowknife, located in the Canadian Northwest Territories. The fire had moved to within 9 miles from the city as of August 18, 2023. 

(AP Digital Embed)

DAVID SHARP, JIM MORRIS and MARTHA BELLISLE
Updated Sun, August 20, 2023

VANCOUVER, British Columbia (AP) — Firefighters kept wildfires at bay near the capital of Canada's Northwest Territories as well as a threatened city in British Columbia, though no one claimed victory as forecasters warned that drier and windier weather was coming.

For Saturday at least, the weather was milder, providing some help for fire teams battling to contain the flames of Canada's worst fire season on record that destroyed structures, fouled the air with thick smoke and prompted evacuation orders for tens of thousands of residents.

Officials said a huge wildfire again had been kept from advancing closer than 15 kilometers (9 miles) to Yellowknife, the capital of the Northwest Territories that was left virtually empty when nearly all of its 20,000 residents fled for safety.

“We’re by no means out of the woods yet,” Mike Westwick, wildfire information officer for the city, told The Associated Press. “We still have a serious situation. It’s not safe to return.”

To the south, in British Columbia, raging flames were also kept away from Kelowna, a city of some 150,000 people about 150 kilometers (90 miles) north of the United States border.

The Kelowna fire is among more than 380 blazes across the province, with 150 burning out of control. The blaze near Yellowknife is one of 237 wildfires burning in the Northwest Territories.

At a Saturday evening news conference, Shane Thompson, the minister of environment and climate change for the Northwest Territories, said the fires near Yellowknife had not grown very much in the past few days thanks to breaks in the weather.

“But I want to be clear, a little bit of rain doesn’t mean it’s safe to come back home,” he said. Others warned that incoming hot weather would make the battle more challenging.

Yellowknife Mayor Rebecca Alty encouraged residents to stay away to ensure their safety and help with firefighting efforts. She assured people that patrols were monitoring streets and homes to protect against looting.

The city has become a virtual ghost town since residents fled following an evacuation order issued Wednesday evening. Long caravans of cars choked the main highway and people lined up for emergency flights to escape the blaze. The last 39 hospital patients were flown out Friday night on a Canadian Forces plane, officials said.

On Saturday, officials said the escape route out of Yellowknife was safe, for the time being. About 2,600 people remained in town, including emergency teams, firefighters, utility workers and police officers, along with some residents who refused to leave.

Charlotte Morritt was among those who left Thursday, reaching that decision because of the unbearable smoke that she feared would be unhealthy for her 4-month-old son.

Morritt, a journalist with the Aboriginal Peoples Television Network, and her son took an evacuation flight some 1,500 kilometers (950 miles) west to safety in Whitehorse, Yukon, while her partner stayed behind to monitor their property and help create firebreaks and fight fires.

“We knew it was only a matter of time,” said Morritt, who had been following media updates and satellite images of the approaching wildfires.

Air tankers dropped water and fire retardant to keep the flames from Yellowknife. A 10-kilometer (6-mile) fire line was dug, and firefighters deployed 20 kilometers (12 miles) of hose and a plethora of pumps.

Canada has seen a record number of wildfires this year that have caused choking smoke in parts of the U.S. All told, there have been more than 5,700 fires, which have burned more than 137,000 square kilometers (53,000 square miles) from one end of Canada to the other, according to the Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Centre.

All of British Columbia was under a state of emergency Saturday. About 35,000 people had been ordered to evacuate wildfire zones across the province and an additional 30,000 people were under an evacuation alert, meaning they should be prepared to leave, Premier David Eby announced.

Eby told reporters Saturday that the situation was “grim” and warned that the “situation changes very quickly.”

He said he was restricting non-essential travel to fire-affected areas to free up accommodations such as hotels, motels and campgrounds for displaced residents and firefighters.

Ian Stewart and his wife made the “anxiety-producing” decision Friday to evacuate Kelowna with their 4-year-old border collie and drive 335 kilometers (210 miles) to the British Columbia town of Clearwater.

“The smoke was really oppressive and there were big chunks of ash falling everywhere,” he said Saturday. They packed a couple of suitcases, passports, laptop computers and dog food, and drove in bumper-to-bumper traffic to escape.

A shift in the wind carried smoke and haze from British Columbia into the Seattle area on Saturday, said Dustin Guy, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service. The Puget Sound region was just recovering from record heat, and air quality could reach unhealthy levels Saturday night through Monday, Guy said.

___

Sharp reported from Portland, Maine, and Bellisle reported from Seattle. Associated Press journalist Andrea Thomas in Chicago contributed to this report.

A front-row seat to devastation on the shores of Lake Okanagan

The Canadian Press
Sat, August 19, 2023 



KELOWNA — The eerie calm on the Kelowna waterfront Saturday morning was broken by the faint percussive chops of helicopter blades in the distance.

There were semblances of normality — people walking their dogs or cycling down the path along the lakefront.

But hanging over Okanagan Lake was a pall of putrid wildfire smoke, and the threat posed by fires on both sides of the lake.

Dale Simpson and Steve Smith were out walking their dogs near a marina, where dozens of boats and jet skis sat idle on the docks, the water mostly free of boats due to aerial firefighting craft needing a wide berth to do their work.

Simpson, along with hundreds of others, had gone up a hillside on Thursday night to watch the McDougall Creek wildfire across the lake when embers began blowing across the lake, sparking a spot fire nearby.

The crowd had a “front-row seat” to the devastation unfolding across the water.

“You saw fire going up hundreds of feet in the air,” he said. “The whole massive mountainside hillside was ablaze.”

But when the spot fire broke out, Simpson said, people had to flee their vantage point and get in their cars, causing a “big traffic jam getting out of there.”

Evacuee Claire Blaker came out to the Kelowna waterfront on Saturday morning, shading her eyes as she squinted through the smoke in hopes of seeing if her house was still standing.

She lives in West Kelowna and watched her neighbourhood burning on Friday night as house after house went “candling” up in flames.

She thought the part she lives in might still be OK, but she was “waiting for the smoke to lift.”

Waking up Saturday morning was “pretty tough,” she said, but she feels lucky that she had the time to pack up and get out of her home before things took a turn for the worse.

“People in Maui and Lahaina had no time,” she said, referencing victims of the deadly wildfire that devastated parts of Hawaii last week. “At least we did get that time, so I'm appreciative of that.”

For Dan Teahan, going for a walk on the waterfront gave him a bit of exercise. He was offering masks to people amid the smoke.

Teahan uses a walker and has chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, so he was slowing his usual pace to get some relief from the smoke.

He said he watched the fire on Thursday night. He pointed across the water, struggling to see the faint hillside through the haze.

“As far as you could see was a wall of flames on that hillside, and it was just candling,” he said. “It was like end of times, man. You know, the apocalypse is coming or something, right? It just kept going and going.”

Teahen said he has lived in Kelowna for more than 20 years and is currently worried about the city’s less fortunate rather than those at the Kelowna Yacht Club nearby.

“Those guys can take care of themselves,” he said. “They got plenty of dough.”

But Teahan said the city had been through fire crises before, and it brought out the best in people.

“The community spirit really shows in a crisis in this town. People really pull together,” he said. “There's a bunch of people here with really, really big hearts that step up to the plate when there's trouble like this.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Aug. 19, 2023.

Darryl Greer, The Canadian Press

   

Worms that secrete a dangerous paralyzing toxin spreading in Montreal

The Canadian Press
Sat, August 19, 2023



MONTREAL — An invasive worm species from Asia that secretes a dangerous, paralyzing toxin has been spotted in the Montreal area.

Lisa Osterland, a retired teacher, found some twenty hammerhead flatworms earlier this week while removing slugs that were eating flowers in her garden in Westmount, Que., a municipality on Montreal Island.

She didn’t recognize the invertebrate until she came across a CNN report a few days later indicating that hammerhead flatworms were spreading across the state of New York.

"The shape of the worm was the same as what I saw" in the garden, Osterland told The Canadian Press.

The retiree said she collected the worms at night, when they seemed to be most active, and then handed them over to a team of entomologists at the Université de Montréal. Among them was Étienne Normandin, who said the team received about 20 specimens from Osterland.

"There's a rule among biologists that when you find a specimen of an invasive species, you can multiply it by 100 to estimate the population," he said. "We're up to around forty specimens observed in recent years in Quebec, if not more. So we can estimate that the hammerhead flatworm population is in good health."

A few sightings of hammerhead flatworms have been recorded in Gatineau and Montreal in recent years, but this is the first time that so many individuals have been reported in Quebec.

Normandin described their proliferation as a cause for concern, not least because they secrete a paralyzing toxin, tetrodotoxin, "one of the most powerful molecules in the biological world" and "the same molecule produced by pufferfish."

"If a young child puts soil in his mouth and ingests a flatworm or two or more, there's a real risk of damage,” he warned. “If ingested, it's a toxin that will first attack the perioral region, i.e. the face, the tongue and everything in the esophagus."

"In such a case, the child needs to be hospitalized very quickly.”

Hammerhead flatworms are also a danger to birds, dogs and other animals that frequent gardens, as well as to soil biodiversity.

The invasive species has no local predator and preys on slugs, snails and millipedes, Normandin explained — species that, he said, "provide a very important service, which is the recycling of organic matter." The worm can therefore threaten ecological balance.

Its "negative impact on soil invertebrate communities" has already been observed in France, the entomologist noted.

"We're slowly seeing the long-term effects of this," he said. "We can expect similar damage to our soil fauna over the years."

The worm originated in Asia and was probably transported to North America on cargo ships carrying plants, Normandin said.

"Often it's found in well-off neighbourhoods," he said, citing Westmount as an example. "In these neighbourhoods, we often have a lot of landscaping, we have exotic species of plants that are beautiful" and imported from other countries.

The hammerhead flatworm was first observed in Montreal in 2018 by a member of the Université de Montréal entomology team, but Normandin theorized it may "already have been established in the neighbourhoods around Mount Royal," the large wooded hill in the heart of the city.

According to Environment and Climate Change Canada, invasive species can cost the global economy billions of dollars every year through negative impacts on forest productivity, agriculture and fisheries, as well as through measures to control their spread.

Such species represent an "emerging threat to northern Canadian ecosystems as climate warms and species intolerant of current northern climatic conditions expand their ranges," Environment and Climate Change Canada states on its website.

Traditionally, when an invasive species arrives from Asia, "the Quebec winter will kill it," Normandin said. But now, higher average temperatures due to climate change "(offer) a species like the hammerhead flatworm an extra chance to develop."

In an email exchange with The Canadian Press, Quebec’s Environment Department indicated that because, "at present, (it) is not tracking this species," its "potential to establish itself sustainably in Quebec and the impacts it could have have not been assessed."

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Aug. 19, 2023.

Stéphane Blais, The Canadian Press

GENDERFUCK

'He didn't want to be pinned down': Layton Williams will perform in a dress on Strictly Come Dancing


BANG Showbiz
Sun, 20 August 2023 

Layton Williams will perform in a dress on 'Strictly Come Dancing' credit:Bang Showbiz

Layton Williams will become the first male 'Strictly Come Dancing' contestant to dance in a dress.

The 28-year-old star is planning to break new ground on the hit BBC show and has asked to be partnered with a male professional when the programme launches next month.

A source told the Sunday Mirror newspaper: "Layton made it clear very early on that he didn't want to be pinned down to just wearing male costumes.

"He wanted his Strictly outfits to reflect different sides of his personality and everyone fully supports him on that. So he will have a chance to wear Strictly dresses, as well as the men's sharp suits, when he performs. There are some really exciting looks in there. Layton can't wait to get started."

The 'Bad Education' star feels that he can "go the distance" on the show after previous same-sex couples - including Nicola Adams and Katya Jones as well as Richie Anderson and Giovanni Pernice - were voted off in the early weeks.

An insider told the Daily Mirror newspaper: "This year, everyone is hoping for a same-sex couple who can go the distance.

"Layton is a phenomenal performer and the pros will probably queue up to work with him."

The West End star's participation on 'Strictly' is said to have "ruffled a few feathers" as he is "professionally trained" in dance and was cast in the stage version of ‘Billy Elliot’ at the age of 12.

A source told the MailOnline: “He is professionally trained and has extensive experience with learning difficult choreography, which many of the contestants, especially those from a sporting or political background, will at first find impossible.

"The show has been criticised in the past for recruiting contestants with a background in dance and this year will be no different as Layton is a star in his own right and known for being an impeccable dancer on stage."

LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment: Search results for METROSEXUAL 

Caster Semenya wins appeal over ‘discrimination’ at European Court of Human Rights


Tom Davidson and Jeremy Ullmann
Fri, 18 August 2023

Caster Semenya was discriminated against by the introduction of rules forcing her to lower her testosterone levels in order to continue competing, according to a judgment from the European Court of Human Rights.

The 32-year-old, a two-time 800 metres Olympic champion, was legally identified as female at birth but has a condition which means her body naturally produces higher levels of testosterone than women without the condition.

She has been unable to compete at her favoured distance since the introduction of limits on testosterone levels which would have forced her to use medication.

Previous legal challenges to the Court of Arbitration for Sport and the Swiss Federal Supreme Court were rejected, but the ECHR found her human rights had been violated.

A release issued by the court stated: “The Court found in particular that the applicant had not been afforded sufficient institutional and procedural safeguards in Switzerland to allow her to have her complaints examined effectively, especially since her complaints concerned substantiated and credible claims of discrimination as a result of her increased testosterone level caused by differences of sex development (DSD).”

The release on the judgement said the ECHR chamber was a majority decision, with four of the seven representatives finding that Semenya’s rights under Articles 13 and 14 of the European Convention on Human Rights had been violated.

The chamber judgement is not final and can be referred to a Grand Chamber of the court for further consideration if a request is made.

A statement from World Athletics read: “World Athletics notes the judgment of the deeply divided Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR).

“We remain of the view that the DSD regulations are a necessary, reasonable and proportionate means of protecting fair competition in the female category as the Court of Arbitration for Sport and Swiss Federal Tribunal both found, after a detailed and expert assessment of the evidence.

“The case was filed against the state of Switzerland, rather than World Athletics.

“We will liaise with the Swiss Government on the next steps and, given the strong dissenting views in the decision, we will be encouraging them to seek referral of the case to the ECHR Grand Chamber for a final and definitive decision.

“In the meantime, the current DSD regulations, approved by the World Athletics Council in March 2023, will remain in place.”

George Soros foundation’s retreat from Europe could ‘turn off the lights’ for human rights

Philip Oltermann in Berlin

THE GUARDIAN
Sat, 19 August 2023 



He survived the Nazi occupation of his native Hungary, made a fortune on Wall Street and became one of the most steadfast backers of democracy and human rights in the eastern bloc.

But human rights activists and independent media fear the legacy of billionaire philanthropist George Soros, 93, could be about to be undone in his homelands, as his donor network announced it will curb its activities across the EU from 2024.

Several beneficiaries of Soros’s Open Society Foundations (OSF), chaired since the start of this year by his son Alex, told the Observer they would struggle without its support amid an authoritarian rollback.


“When the Open Society Foundations left Budapest under severe political pressure in 2018, they said they would lose their physical presence but not their focus on the region,” said Márta Pardavi, co-chair of the Hungarian Helsinki Committee, a Budapest human rights NGO supported by the foundations.

But she added: “Has there really been such a positive shift in Europe over the last five years that that promise has become less relevant?”

In a July email to staff, the OSF management announced a “radical redesign to help us deliver more effectively on our mission”. “Ultimately, the new approved strategic direction provides for withdrawal and termination of large parts of our current work within the European Union, shifting our focus and allocation of resources to other parts of the world,” it said.

While 40% of the charity’s global staff will be laid off, cuts will be severest in Europe, with the 180 headcount at its Berlin headquarters cut by 80%. Staff remaining in the German capital will mainly administer the foundation’s funds in Switzerland.

Its Brussels offices will be downsized, while a branch in Barcelona will be closed by the end of the year. Of an erstwhile seven branches in the post-Soviet area only three remain in Kyrgyzstan, Ukraine and Moldova.

Soros emigrated to Britain in 1947 and later the US. As a hedge fund tycoon, he became known as “the man who broke the Bank of England” in 1992 after making $1bn betting against the pound.

In 1984, Soros started channelling his immense fortune into foundations that advanced the idea of the “open society”, with an initial focus on Hungary and other totalitarian societies in the Soviet sphere of influence.

Many European NGOs, thinktanks and research groups working on issues ranging from media freedom and migrants’ rights to state surveillance and digital regulation rely on the foundations, which spent $1.5bn on philanthropic causes in 2021.

As traditional European media outlets have struggled to live up to their role amid a drop in advertising revenue, OSF has stepped in to support independent news projects including the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP), London-based Bureau of Investigative Journalism and Forbidden Stories, an encrypted online platform that allows threatened journalists to securely upload their work and be continued by others.

Soros-backed funds swooped when independent media institutions were under threat from state-linked takeovers, buying an 11.2% share in the publisher of Gazeta Wyborcza after Poland’s governing PiS party launched legal proceedings against the centre-left newspaper and ordered state-owned companies to cancel their advertising. The Guardian too receives OSF funding on specific reporting projects.

But as the OSF influence has grown, so has their unwieldy bureaucratic structure. Under the leadership of Alex Soros, 37, elected to take over as chair from his father George last December, the foundations want to shift their focus to grants “organised around specific opportunities for impact”, a spokesperson said.

Alex Soros, who grew up and was educated in the US, said: “The Open Society Foundations is changing the way we work, but my family and OSF have long supported, and remain steadfastly committed to the European project.”

The foundations say they will continue support for European Roma communities. Even critical employees expressed confidence the foundations could commit more to longer-term projects, just fewer of them.

Yet while a profound change to the structure of the organisation has long been signalled by Soros senior, the decision to achieve this via drastically reducing its headcount seems to have only emerged has been a priority under its new board of directors. Once jokingly referred to by employees as Soros’s “reading group”, the board has been slimmed down to a tighter unit dominated by family members since the baton was passed to Soros junior.

In an interview with the Wall Street Journal, Alex Soros said that while he shared his father’s values, he was “more political”. Staffers and grantees said they have been left guessing what that means for the organisation.

Eyebrows have been raised at the Berkeley history PhD’s Instagram account, which shows him with the Pope, Bill Clinton, Kamala Harris or his “brother from another [mother]”, Edi Rama, Albania’s prime minister.

“I am ignoring it for the sake of my own sanity,” said a foundations official, who asked to remain anonymous. Another staffer invited comparisons to Succession’s Roman Roy.

While western European grantees, such as the Bureau of Investigative Journalism, are used to juggling donors on a project-by-project basis, organisations in eastern Europe have fewer options.

NGOs working in areas where human rights and technology overlap, such as digital surveillance, cannot rely on funding from governments that may have a conflict of interest.

“The OSF is one of the few bodies that hand out unrestricted core funding,” said one grantee, who asked to remain anonymous amid uncertainty over the foundation’s future strategy. “It’s what keeps the light on for human rights defenders in Europe.”

Berlin has been the hub of the foundations’ European operations after the 2018 closure of the Budapest branch under pressure from the government of strongman Viktor Orbán, once a recipient of Soros’s support.

Last week the Hungarian prime minister’s political director Balázs Orbán (no relation) posted a message on social network X, formerly known as Twitter, in which he called the Open Society Foundation “the Soros empire”. “We only truly believe that the occupying troops are leaving the continent when the last Soros soldier has left Europe and Hungary,” he said.

“If you invest in democracy, you can never expect it to yield quick returns,” Márta Pardavi said. “The need for democracy-building never really goes away. And I think George Soros knew that.”