LIFE AFTER ROE 

Louisiana’s Alarming Push to Criminalize Abortion Pills

By Andrea González-Ramírez, a senior writer for the Cut who covers systems of power.
UPDATED MAY 23, 2024

Photo: ALLISON DINNER/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock

Louisiana will soon become the first state in the nation to reclassify the two drugs used in medication abortions as “controlled dangerous substances,” a move that experts say could have far-reaching implications for pregnancy care. The Louisiana Senate approved the legislation, known as SB276, on Thursday and sent it to Republican governor Jeff Landry, who opposes abortion rights. He is expected to sign the measure into law, and it could go into effect as early as October. 

Even though the state has had a near-total abortion ban in place since the overturn of Roe v. Wade, and most patients can’t even access abortion pills unless they travel out of state or order them online, conservative lawmakers have  gone a step further in equating the drugs to opioids and depressants. The bill is just the latest push by anti-abortion advocates to curb the use of pills, which are used in more than two-thirds of abortions in the U.S. The Supreme Court is expected to rule next month on whether to reinstate certain restrictions on mifepristone.

During an hourlong Louisiana House debate on the measure on Tuesday, anti-abortion lawmakers claimed that the drugs are “harmful to an unborn child” and that the proposed restrictions wouldn’t prevent doctors from prescribing the pills in other clinical situations outside of abortion care. Opponents begged their colleagues to reconsider, pointing out that health providers in Louisiana have voiced their opposition to the bill. While mifepristone is approved by the FDA exclusively for abortion, misoprostol is a stomach ulcer medication that’s used off-label for a wide range of gynecological care beyond terminating a pregnancy, including inducing labor, managing a miscarriage and postpartum hemorrhaging, and softening the cervix before a biopsy,. “This does not prevent anyone from getting the drug, but it significantly delays care for plenty of people—probably for 99 percent of people who need it and who have nothing to do with wanting an abortion,” Democratic state representative Mandy Landry (no relation to the governor) said during the debate. Her motions to amend the measure and to send it back to committee for more discussion both failed on Tuesday.

Pregnancy care in Louisiana — which has the highest rate of maternal mortality in the nation — has already been disrupted because physicians are afraid of running afoul of the abortion ban, according to a recent report. The procedure is outlawed in nearly all cases with exceptions for when a pregnancy is “medically futile” or the life of the pregnant person is in danger. The law also does not exempt rape and incest cases, and lawmakers recently rejecting adding these exceptions for children under 17. Providers who are found in violation face up to 15 years in prison and $200,000 in fines. Researchers found that, to avoid the impression of violating the state’s ban, health providers are delaying care for ectopic pregnancies and miscarriages as well as performing C-sections rather than abortions — the standard of care — in cases when the pregnancy is not viable.

Mandry believes the bill will further intimidate health-care providers. “The ban’s exceptions are construed extremely narrowly, meaning doctors are afraid to even use them,” she tells the Cut. “Now, with this bill, providers are worried about being investigated just for writing a prescription. They are nervous about overprescribing misoprostol and looking like they are giving it out for abortions just like they’re nervous about doing abortions to save the life of the mother.”

SB276 was introduced by Republican state senator Thomas Pressly, whose sister was given misoprostol by her then-husband without her knowledge. According to Texas prosecutors, the man was attempting to induce an abortion without his wife’s consent. The child was born premature and has experienced developmental delays; earlier this year, he pleaded guilty to charges of injury to a child and assault of a pregnant person and was sentenced to 180 days in jail

The measure originally intended to establish the crime of “coerced criminal abortion,” creating penalties for someone who gives a pregnant person abortion pills without their consent. But after the bill unanimously passed the state senate, Pressly, working in partnership with the anti-abortion organization Louisiana Right to Life, included a last-minute amendment to add abortion pills to the state’s Uniform Controlled Dangerous Substances Law. Drugs that are considered controlled, dangerous substances include opioids, depressants, and medications that are highly addictive, like Xanax and Valium. Rescheduling mifepristone and misoprostol as Schedule IV drugs would require physicians to have a special license to prescribe the pills; to list their names, their patients’ names, and the pharmacy dispensing the medication in a state database; and to store the drugs in specific secure rooms.

“Louisiana has been ground zero for abortion for a really long time, and it’s not really surprising that this kind of stuff is gonna keep happening,” Representative Landry says. “This bill is sort of creating a pregnancy database because misoprostol is prescribed very regularly to induce labor. If you know anyone who has been induced, it’s highly likely they took that. It’s a bad situation.”

The bill carves out an exception for pregnant people who obtain the pills for their own consumption, but anyone who is not a health-care provider and is found in possession of abortion pills without intending to take them would be criminalized. Violators could face up to ten years in prison.

“Imagine you’re a person who’s 14 weeks pregnant and you’re starting to miscarry. Your physician says, ‘Well, I can prescribe you this medication, misoprostol, that will help you expel this miscarriage,’” says Kirsten Moore, director of the EMAA Project, which seeks to expand access to medication abortion. “Now you can’t, as a patient, ask your partner or your mother or friends to go get the prescription filled for misoprostol. Instead, you’re gonna have to jump through these extra hoops to show that you are in fact the person getting the medication.”

More than 240 doctors in Louisiana oppose the measure and wrote a letter to Pressly saying that reclassifying abortion pills will create “the false perception that these are dangerous drugs that require additional regulation.” The Louisiana Society of Addiction Medicine also submitted a letter in opposition to the bill, referring to it as “legislative overreach” and saying it “goes against the spirit of the drug scheduling system.”

There’s simply no scientific basis for reclassifying mifepristone and misoprostol as Schedule IV drugs, according to Moore. The pills have been on the market for more than two decades and have an excellent safety record (taking them is less risky than taking Viagra or Tylenol). “Drugs are put in that Schedule IV category because they are shown to be addictive and they can be diverted to nefarious purposes,” Moore says. “But neither mifepristone or misoprostol are addictive, period. Putting these pills under lock and key again is just the wrong solution for what we know to be a pretty isolated incident of bad behavior.”

SB276 will also add to the climate of fear facing abortion seekers in Louisiana, says Tyler Barbarin, director of grants and development at the Louisiana Abortion Fund. The group, which offers financial and practical support to patients seeking an abortion outside the state, already hears confusion and distress among callers who aren’t sure what they are legally allowed to do. “There’s the chilling effect every time a piece of legislation passes or even is threatened to pass. People are scared for their lives; they’re scared to be criminalized,” she says. “It’s not going to lend itself to people’s well-being. You can’t destroy people’s ability to care for one another and then expect them to still thrive.”

In a statement, Vice-President Kamala Harris condemned the legislation. “Absolutely unconscionable. The Louisiana House just passed a bill that would criminalize the possession of medication abortion, with penalties of up to several years of jail time,” she said.

“Let’s be clear: Donald Trump did this,” Harris said. Trump has bragged about being “able to kill” Roe and has said that it should be up to the states to determine abortion bans.

SB276 could also have an impact outside of Louisiana. Experts expect to see similar bills crop up across the country, as the anti-abortion movement is deeply invested in cutting access to medication abortion, which now makes up more than 60 percent of clinician-provided terminations in the U.S. A recent #WeCount survey also found that about 8,000 patients a month are obtaining abortion pills through telehealth in states with abortion bans. “It’s not an accident, and it won’t be an isolated incident, right?” Moore says of the Louisiana bill, pointing at the current Supreme Court mifepristone case. “If Louisiana does this, we can expect a number of other states to follow suit really quickly.”

This story has been updated.

 

Artificial intelligence help medical professionals

22 May 2024 

By Alimat Aliyeva

The "digital twin" technology, which helps doctors determine the optimal surgical process that is preferred in treatment, could potentially become a service that can be applied to the entire body in the near future, Azernews reports.

Natalia Trayanova, a professor of biomedical engineering at Johns Hopkins University, has conducted numerous experiments with a digital copy of the heart, which she created with her team. He said that the optimal surgical procedure, which should be preferred in treatment, can be determined without harming the patient. A three-dimensional model created by them using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) of an 80-year-old patient with cardiac arrhythmia accurately predicted the successful results of surgery.

According to the researchers, this technology, which is widely used to optimize products in industrial production processes, represents one of the difficulties in adapting it in the healthcare sector. These include technical problems in 3D cell modeling, privacy issues caused by portable medical technologies, and the erroneous identification of artificial intelligence in the development process. On the other hand, the goal is to develop technology supported by private and public investments to map the whole body and become a service offered to a wide audience.

According to a report by MarketsandMarkets, a research company engaged in investments in science and technology, in 2023, the use of digital twin technologies in medicine will be estimated at $1.6 billion worldwide, and over the next 10 years, the market volume will continue to grow and reach record levels. in 2028. It will reach a value of $21.1 billion.

 

Indonesia courts US tech titans as it pursues digital transformation

Billionaire Elon Musk and other high-profile CEOs have visited in the past month and met with the president.

Ami Afriatni
2024.05.22
Jakarta

Indonesian President Joko Widodo (right) meets with Apple CEO Tim Cook at the Merdeka Palace in Jakarta, in this handout picture taken and released on April 17, 2024, by Indonesia’s presidential palace.

 Handout/Presidential Palace/AFP

Indonesia is throwing its doors open to Silicon Valley, offering a digital gold rush for titans of the U.S. big-tech industry eager to tap into a burgeoning market of more than 270 million consumers. 

The sprawling archipelago nation is fast becoming a strategic battleground in Southeast Asia for dominance in big technology.

During the past month Apple CEO Tim Cook, Microsoft’s Satya Nadella, and SpaceX and Tesla boss Elon Musk have all jetted into Indonesia and met separately with President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo to discuss multibillion-dollar investments in manufacturing, artificial intelligence, cloud computing, and even Starlink, Musk’s satellite-based internet service.

The Indonesian government has made digitalization a top priority, launching initiatives to improve internet connectivity, promote e-commerce, and foster a thriving startup ecosystem. 

“Indonesia is currently undergoing an accelerated national digital transformation and opening up many investment potentials,” Jokowi said during his meeting with Musk on the sidelines of the World Water Forum in Bali on Monday.

“Hence, we value and actively promote the investment endeavors of companies like SpaceX, Tesla, Neuralink, and Boring in Indonesia,” the president said, referring to Musk’s various business ventures.

The flurry of activity comes as Indonesia, the largest Southeast Asian economy, seeks to position itself as a major player in the global tech landscape.

China has already made inroads through big-ticket investments in Indonesian heavy infrastructure, and Chinese tech giant Huawei also has a footprint here.

Tech billionaire Elon Musk (second from left) speaks next to Indonesian Health Minister Budi Gunadi Sadikin (left) during a ceremony held to inaugurate satellite unit Starlink, at a community health center in Denpasar, Indonesia, May 19, 2024. [Sonny Tumbelaka/AFP]

For U.S. tech companies, Indonesia represents a tantalizing opportunity to expand beyond saturated markets and tap into a region with immense growth potential. 

The country’s digital economy is projected to reach U.S. $124 billion by 2025, fueled by rising internet penetration, a growing middle class, and a booming e-commerce sector, according to a study by Google, Temasek, and Bain & Company.

In its ambitious bid to become a global hub for electric vehicle (EV) manufacturing, Indonesia has actively sought investment from Tesla. The country, rich in nickel ore reserves, aims to leverage this resource for EV battery production and, eventually, full-scale manufacturing of electric cars.

The country’s strategic location and abundant natural resources make it an attractive destination for investors eyeing the growing EV market, according to analysts.

Indonesia’s vision aligns with its ban on raw nickel exports, encouraging investors to refine nickel within Indonesian smelters, in which the Chinese have invested heavily, analysts say. By doing so, the nation hopes to boost manufacturing of batteries for electric cars and attract foreign investment in related sectors.

The plane transporting tech billionaire Elon Musk is seen during his arrival at Ngurah Rai International airport in Denpasar, Indonesia, May 19, 2024. [Sonny Tumbelaka/AFP]

Jokowi’s administration has been actively courting Musk and Tesla for years, though with little success. That included a May 2022 visit that Jokowi paid to Musk at the SpaceX launch site in Texas. 

Hours after Musk arrived in Bali over the weekend, he launched the Starlink service, aiming to improve internet connectivity in remote areas of the archipelago.

In Bali, Luhut Pandjaitan, Indonesia’s coordinating minister for maritime affairs and investment, said Musk would consider an offer to establish an EV battery plant in Indonesia.

Late last month, Microsoft’s Nadella announced an investment of $1.7 billion over the next four years to bolster Indonesia’s digital landscape, along with AI skills training opportunities for 840,000 people and support for the nation’s growing developer community.

That represents the single largest investment in Microsoft’s 29-year history of doing business in the country. 

“Together, these initiatives will help achieve the Indonesian government’s Golden Indonesia 2045 Vision, which aims to transform the nation into a global economic powerhouse,” Microsoft said in a blog post. 

Satya Nadella, executive chairman and CEO of Microsoft, leaves after attending a meeting with Indonesian President Joko Widodo at the Presidential Palace in Jakarta, April 30, 2024. [Willy Kurniawan/Reuters]

Earlier in April, Cook said Apple would “look at” manufacturing in Indonesia after he met Jokowi at the presidential palace in Jakarta.

By courting Western investment, Jakarta is diversifying its economic partnerships and reducing its reliance on China, which has poured billions of dollars into infrastructure projects, mining operations, and manufacturing, analysts say. 

‘Friends with everyone’

In recent years, Chinese firms have built roads, railways, and power plants across the archipelago, boosting connectivity and economic development thanks to Beijing’s Belt and Road Initiative. 

However, the Indonesian government has also emphasized the importance of diversifying Indonesia’s economic partners and attracting investment from other countries.

“Both China and the U.S. are welcome to invest, but they must commit to realizing their investments, not just using Indonesia as a market,” said Heru Sutadi, executive director of the Information and Communication Technology Institute in Jakarta.

“Indonesia is friends with everyone. It’s not interested in geopolitical games, including geoeconomic ones,” he told BenarNews. 

Amid a trade war between China and the United States, Southeast Asian countries like Indonesia and Malaysia have emerged as beneficiaries of the “China Plus One” strategy, in which companies diversify production outside China.

“This is an opportunity for Indonesia to question these companies about their investment plans,” Heru said. 

Chinese Premier Li Qiang (center) walks with Luhut Binsar Pandjaitan, Indonesia’s coordinating minister for Maritime and Investment Affairs, upon arriving for the 43rd ASEAN Summit at Soekarno-Hatta International Airport in Tangerang, near Jakarta, Sept. 5, 2023. [Antara Foto/Raisan Al Farisi/ via Reuters]

But the influx of investment from American technology firms also raises concerns about Indonesia’s readiness.

While the country boasts a young and tech-savvy population, its infrastructure remains underdeveloped and its regulatory framework for the digital economy is still evolving, analysts said.

Experts emphasize the need for Indonesia to invest heavily in education and skills training to ensure its workforce can compete in the global tech market. They are calling for greater regulatory clarity and consistency to attract and retain foreign investment.

“We haven’t attracted much investment due to the lack of a robust tech ecosystem, including infrastructure, regulations, and skilled labor,” said Tauhid Ahmad, a senior economist at the Institute for Development of Economics and Finance in Jakarta.

Tauhid pointed to Tesla’s decision to put off investment in Indonesia, citing the lack of a local supply chain for electric vehicle batteries as an example. 

He also said that U.S. companies tended to be more cautious than Chinese firms, focusing on the broader Southeast Asian market rather than solely on Indonesia.

Despite these challenges, Tauhid said, he was optimistic about Indonesia’s potential. 

“We have a stable GDP, a large population, and high consumption levels,” he said.

“To realize this potential, we need to invest in infrastructure and develop a skilled workforce.”

He suggested the government create a technology academy modeled after Apple’s to nurture local talent. 

“We need to do more than just train a few people at the Apple Academy,” he said. “We need a large pool of skilled workers ready to meet the demands of the tech industry.”

Suzie Sudarman, an international relations lecturer at the University of Indonesia, questioned the motivations behind the visits by the top U.S. executives.

“These individuals are not long-term investors,” Suzie told BenarNews. 

She pointed to Apple’s minimal presence in the country, having only invested $98.5 million to establish its Apple Develop Academy in three Indonesian cities. 

“If they were to invest, clarity is essential, assurances that their investments will yield returns.”

“Unfortunately, corruption permeates our governance,” she said. “Hence, our country has become a refuge for fly-by-night entrepreneurs.”

Private investment firms partner to potentially cash in following sweeping changes in college sports

Two private investment firms have created a platform to help athletic departments find funding with college sports on the verge of sweeping change that could have long-term financial implications

ByThe Associated Press

May 22, 2024,

TAMPA, Fla. -- With college sports on the verge of sweeping change that could have long-term financial implications, two private investment firms have created a platform to help athletic departments find funding.

RedBird Capital and Weatherford Capital announced Wednesday the creation of Collegiate Athletic Solutions, which is trying to cash in on a college sports landscape that’s facing significant upheaval.

The NCAA and its member schools are expected to vote on a proposed $2.77 billion settlement of an antitrust lawsuit this week, one that could leave schools with tighter budgets, or in some cases financial hardships, in the coming years.

CAS would be available to lend money and offer guidance to athletic departments in exchange for a share of future revenue.

“The paradigm shift we are seeing in the collegiate athletics ecosystem is similar to the ones we’ve seen with media distribution models, collective bargaining rights and premium hospitality,” said Gerry Cardinale, founder and managing partner of RedBird Capital in New York. “They’re all centered around the need to create long-term growth by bridging the gap between premium (intellectual property) and optimizing revenue streams.

“CAS addresses athletic departments’ need for near-term capital with additional operational expertise across strategies that can improve competitive positioning.”

Weatherford Capital is headquartered in Tampa, Florida, and run by brothers Will, Sam and Drew Weatherford. Drew Weatherford played football at Florida State and is a member of the school’s board of trustees.

FSU has been negotiating for more than a year with another investment firm, private equity giant Sixth Street, on a potential capital infusion for the Seminoles.

“We are in the late stages of the competitive divide between athletic departments and programs,” Weatherford said. “The impact of conference re-alignment, diverging media rights deals, and the advent of NIL and revenue sharing is creating a greater financial divide at both the university and conference level.

“History has proven that the universities that adeptly invest in their athletic departments consistently win and outpace peer institutions. Our mission at CAS is to offer athletic departments a unique capital solution to invest when and where they need it to compete at the highest level during this tenuous paradigm shift.”

UK dispatch: Joint Committee on Human Rights hears expert evidence on recent ECtHR climate change judgments

Elisabeth Driscoll | U. Bristol Law School, GB

MAY 22, 2024 01:48:29 PM

The UK Parliament’s Joint Committee on Human Rights heard expert evidence on recent European Court of Human Rights judgments surrounding climate change and its relevance to human rights on Wednesday. While the meeting particularly emphasised the effects these judgments will have on the UK, the experts also discussed the contents of climate-related judgments and their impacts on the rule of law. The committee cut off the public meeting due to time constraints, but further position papers are expected from the experts.

Particularly of note was the 2024 Veirein KlimaSeniorinnen Schweiz and Others v. Switzerland case, in which an association of senior Swiss women (Senior Women for Climate Protection Switzerland) took the Swiss government to the ECtHR as the climate crisis threatened their health. They applied on the basis that women’s right to life and health under Article 2 and Article 8 of the European Convention of Human Rights was violated by Switzerland’s inadequate climate policies and that after exhausting all national remedies, their case was rejected by the Swiss Federal Supreme Court on arbitrary grounds (against their right to fair trial under Article 6). The ECtHR found a violation of their Article 8 and Article 6 rights.

The expert witnesses who testified before the committee were: Lord Jonathan Sumption KC (a former Supreme Court Justice); Jessica Simor KC (a barrister from Matrix Chambers who represented the complainants in the Swiss case); and Nikki Reisch (Director of Climate and Energy and Program and Director of the Climate & Energy Program at the Center for International Environmental Law).

The participants were divided on multiple topics. Particularly of note for its rule of law implications was Lord Sumption and Nikki Reisch’s debate on the extent of rights protection within Article 8 of the European Convention of Human Rights. This explicitly protects the “Right to respect for private and family life, home and correspondence” and has been extended, as noted by the meeting chair, to include topics such as health (relevant to the Swiss case), biomedical data and homosexuality. Therefore, as was argued by Reisch, the court’s decision that this right was engaged in the Swiss case may be unsurprising. 

This was opposed by Lord Sumpton, who worried about the implications this would have on countries’ legislative power on climate change as this topic is politically sensitive, complex and controversial, with no definitive scientific consensus on timings and targets that would constitute sufficient state action. He was concerned about the overextension of the Article 8 right leading to unpredictability, citing the first requirement of the rule of law as law being ascertainable and not retrospective: “You can’t have moving goalposts and call it law.” As noted by Sumption, this is a common critique raised by the ECtHR about domestic legislation.

Reisch, however, found that this was nothing groundbreaking, as there have been previous cases applying Article 8 to protection against environmental law. She drew on the “effectiveness” principle that specifies that European human rights are not illusory, stressing that climate change is the most real, explicit, growing risk to human rights (including those specified in Article 8). Her clarification of what the full scale of potential Article 8 applications is likely to be was unfortunately cut off due to time constraints, but she essentially stated that it could be applied to anything that intrudes on a person’s well-being and autonomy.

The impacts the ECtHR judgment is likely to have on the UK were unclear, with Sumption seeing the decision as overreaching, with compromise being needed between the British state and the people to make such policies. In contrast, Reisch drew on recent UK High Court decisions to show that the UK has adhered more closely to their international obligations and has shown that they are willing to be held to account for them.

Hopefully, the position statements and explanatory notes from the witnesses will provide more clarity on this issue.

 

China is accelerating the forced urbanization of rural Tibetans, rights group says

The international rights organization cited a trove of Chinese internal reports contradicting official pronouncements that all Tibetans who have been forced to move, with their past homes destroyed on departure, did so voluntary.

FILE - Yaks graze around tents set up for herders to live in the during the summer grazing season on grasslands near Lhasa in western China's Tibet Autonomous Region, as seen during a rare government-led tour of the region for foreign journalists, Wednesday, June 2, 2021. An extensive report by Human Rights Watch says China is accelerating the forced urbanization of Tibetan villagers and herders, adding to state government and independent reports of efforts to assimilate them through control over their language and traditional Buddhist culture. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein, File)

May 22, 2024

By 

Associated Press

TAIPEI, Taiwan (AP) — China is accelerating the forced urbanization of Tibetan villagers and herders, Human Rights Watch said, in an extensive report that adds to state government and independent reports of efforts to assimilate rural Tibetans through control over their language and traditional Buddhist culture.

The international rights organization cited a trove of Chinese internal reports contradicting official pronouncements that all Tibetans who have been forced to move, with their past homes destroyed on departure, did so voluntary.

The relocations fit a pattern of often-violent demands that ethnic minorities adopt the state language of Mandarin and pledge their fealty to the ruling Communist Party in western and northern territories that include millions of people from Tibetan, Xinjiang Uyghur, Mongolian and other minority groups.

China claims Tibet has been part of its territory for centuries, although it only established firm control over the Himalayan region after the Communist Party swept to power during a civil war in 1949.

“These coercive tactics can be traced to pressure placed on local officials by higher-level authorities who routinely characterize the relocation program as a non-negotiable, politically critical policy coming straight from the national capital, Beijing, or from Lhasa, the regional capital,” HRW said in the report. “This leaves local officials no flexibility in implementation at the local level and requires them to obtain 100 percent agreement from affected villagers to relocate.”

The report said official statistics suggest that by the end of 2025, more than 930,000 rural Tibetans will have been relocated to urban centers where they are deprived of their traditional sources of income and have difficulty finding work. Lhasa and other large towns have drawn large numbers of migrants from China’s dominant Han ethnic group who dominant politics and the economy.

More than 3 million of the more than 4.5 million Tibetans in rural areas have been forced to build homes and give up their traditional nomadic lifestyles based on yak herding and agriculture, the report said. Along with the official Tibetan Autonomous Region, Tibetans make up communities in the neighboring provinces of Sichuan, Yunnan and Qinghai.

“These relocations of rural communities erode or cause major damage to Tibetan culture and ways of life, not least because most relocation programs in Tibet move former farmers and pastoralists to areas where they cannot practice their former livelihood and have no choice but to seek work as wage laborers in off-farm industries,” HRW said.

China has consistently defended its policies in Tibet as bringing stability and development to a strategically important border region. The region last had anti-government protests in 2008, leading to a massive military crackdown. Foreigners must apply for special permission to visit and journalists are largely barred, apart from those working for Chinese state media outlets.

China consistently says allegations of human rights abuses in Tibetan regions are groundless accusations intended to smear China’s image. Last August, Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin said human rights conditions in Tibet were “at their historical best.”

“The region has long enjoyed a booming economy, a harmonious and stable society, and effective protection and promotion of cultural heritage,” Wang said at the time. “The rights and freedoms of all ethnic groups, including the freedom of religious belief and the freedom to use and develop their ethnic groups of spoken and written languages are fully guaranteed.”

China, with its population of 1.4 billion people, claims to have eradicated extreme poverty, largely through moving isolated homes and tiny villages into larger communities with better access to transport, electricity, healthcare and education. Those claims have not been independently verified.

China’s economic growth has slowed considerably amid a population that is aging and a youth unemployment rate that has spiked, even as Chinese industries such as EV cars and mobile phones build their market shares overseas.

HRW recommended the U.N. Human Rights Council undertake an independent investigation into human rights violations committed by the Chinese government in Tibet and other areas.

 

Retired judge finds no reliable evidence against Quebec cardinal; purported victim declines to talk

The allegations were contained in an amended class-action lawsuit filed in Canadian court against 100 current and former church personnel of the archdiocese.

FILE - Pope Francis talks to archbishop of Quebec, Cardinal Gerald LaCroix, as they meet at the Santa Marta residence, at the Vatican, Jan. 30, 2017. A retired Canadian judge said Tuesday, May 21, 2024, that he couldn’t find any reliable evidence of sexual misconduct by the archbishop of Quebec, after the purported victim refused to be interviewed and the cardinal strongly denied the claim. (L'Osservatore Romano/Pool Photo via AP, File)

May 22, 2024

By 

Rob Gillies, Nicole Winfield

ROME (AP) — A retired Canadian judge said Tuesday he couldn’t find any reliable evidence of sexual misconduct by the archbishop of Quebec, after the purported victim refused to cooperate with his investigation and the cardinal strongly denied the claim.

Pope Francis had tasked André Denis, a retired judge of the Superior Court of Québec, to conduct a preliminary investigation for the Catholic Church into claims against Archbishop Gérald Lacroix that surfaced in January.

The allegations were contained in an amended class-action lawsuit filed in Canadian court against 100 current and former church personnel of the archdiocese

Denis’ investigation has no bearing on that lawsuit and concerns only the church’s handling of the allegations, since the Vatican has its own procedures to deal with misconduct claims against clergy. The Vatican said Tuesday that based on Denis’ report, it planned no canonical trial against Lacroix, 66.

Francis appointed Lacroix a cardinal in 2014, was welcomed by Lacroix during a 2022 visit to Quebec and last year made him a member of his Council of Cardinals, nine top prelates from around the globe who advise him on church matters.

Lacroix had removed himself from day-to-day work at the archdiocese in January, after the allegations were added onto the original 2022 class-action complaint against the archdiocese. The allegations against him date back to 1987 and 1988 and were made by a woman who was 17 at the time, according to the complaint.

Lacroix strongly denied the claims at the time of his auto-suspension and did so again when interviewed by Denis, the judge said.

“He affirmed with conviction that he never carried out the actions with which he was accused,” Denis said. “The elements gathered during the investigation make it implausible that the events associated with the cardinal occurred,” Denis told a news conference in Quebec City.

However, Denis also said the alleged victim refused to be interviewed by him to provide her side or to give him access to her court filing. He acknowledged his investigation as a result was incomplete. It is not unheard of for victims to refuse to cooperate with church investigations, especially while civil claims are proceedin

“I am unable to say whether or not the alleged act took place,” Denis said. “I’m even unable to identify a place, an event, a precise date or any other circumstance. The plaintiff’s refusal to co-operate in any way with my investigation has left me at a loss.”

He said if the purported victim does eventually want to collaborate, he would ask the Vatican to extend his mandate.

The same class-action lawsuit also accused Lacroix’s predecessor, Cardinal Marc Ouellet of misconduct, claims he strongly denied. Francis shelved a church trial against Ouellet in 2022 after a priest investigator determined there weren’t enough elements to bring forward a canonical trial.

In that case, the priest interviewed the alleged victim by Zoom.

While local dioceses often turn to lay experts to conduct preliminary investigations into abuse or sexual misconduct allegations, it is rare for the Vatican to entrust such an investigation to a non-priest.

In a statement, the archdiocese of Quebec said it welcomed the developments on the canonical investigation but said Lacroix had decided to continue to remain “on the sidelines” of the day-to-day work of the archdiocese until the civil litigation is resolved.

The statement “deplored” the delays in the lawsuit caused by the addition of new defendants and expressed its willingness to negotiate an out-of court settlement.

“On behalf of the Church, we wish to express our sensitivity to the suffering of survivors of sexual abuse and those who are seeking justice and reparation,” said Auxiliary Bishop Marc Pelchat, who has temporarily taken over day-to-day running of the archdiocese. “We are determined to contribute to a just settlement.”

___

Gillies contributed from Toronto.

A rare find in ancient Timorese mud may rewrite the history of human settlement in Australasia

Mike W. Morley, Flinders University; Ceri Shipton, UCL; Kasih Norman, Griffith University; Shimona Kealy, Australian National University, and Sue O'Connor, Australian National University
Wed, 22 May 2024 

View of the Lailea River from on top of the hill containing Laili rockshelter. Mike Morley


Humans arrived in Australia at least 65,000 years ago, according to archaeological evidence. These pioneers were part of an early wave of people travelling eastwards from Africa, through Eurasia, and ultimately into Australia and New Guinea.

But this was only one of many waves of migration in the story of the human colonisation of the globe. These waves were probably driven by climate change and the ability of groups to adapt to a wide range of environments.

In new research published in Nature Communications, we have found evidence that a large wave of migration reached the island of Timor not long after 50,000 years ago. Our work at Laili rock shelter suggests the people who first reached Australia some 65,000 years ago came via New Guinea, while Timor and other southern islands were only colonised by a later wave of settlers.

Archaeological trench in Laili rockshelter. Mike Morley
Potential routes to Australia


Timor has long been regarded as a potential stepping-stone island for the first human migration between mainland Southeast Asia and Australia and New Guinea. At the time of these ancient migrations, sea levels were lower, so many of what are now islands in Southeast Asia were joined to the mainland in a region known as Sunda, and Australia and New Guinea were joined together in a single continent known as Sahul.

The islands between Sunda to the west and Sahul to the east are known as Wallacaea. These islands have never been connected to each other or the mainland, owing to the deep channels that separate them. This has meant that even when sea levels were much lower than today they remained as islands.

Map showing ancient land masses of Sunda (in the west) and Sahul, with the Wallacean Islands in between that always remained islands even during lower sea levels. Modern landmasses are shaded green, ancient ones dark grey. Huxley’s and Lydekker’s lines represent boundaries between realms inhabited by different groups of animals. Shipton et al. (2021)More

The search for evidence of early migrations on Timor has been hampered by a lack of suitable sediments in caves and rock shelters.

However, we found a unique source of evidence at Laili rock shelter, overlooking the Laleia river in central-north Timor-Leste. Unlike other sites in the region, Laili preserved deep sediments dating between 59,000 and 54,000 years ago which contained no sign of human presence.

The dig at Laili rockshelter. Mike Morley

On top of these layers we found clear signs of human arrival, in the dirt occurring about 44,000 years ago. This provides clear evidence that while humans were initially absent from the site and the local landscape, they subsequently arrived in what must have been significant numbers.

From other research, we also know there is evidence of humans arriving at other sites in Timor-Leste and nearby Flores Island between 47,000 and 45,000 years ago. Taken together, all this evidence strongly supports the view that humans only arrived in this region around this time.
Evidence in the dirt

Our analysis of the sediment layers at Laili suggests humans arrived in a deliberate and large-scale colonisation effort, rather than ad-hoc settlement by a small population. This is clearly seen in the earliest traces of occupation, which include hearths, dense accumulations of stone artefacts, and the remains of a diet rich in fish and shellfish.

We used a technique called micromorphology to study the layers of sediment under the microscope.

We could see the sediment from before the time of occupation did not carry signs of human presence. But when humans moved in to the site, many traces of human occupation appeared abruptly, including compressed trampled layers caused by the passage of people on the shelter floor.
Island hopping to Sahul

Our findings may prompt a re-evaluation of the route and timing of the earliest human migration into Sahul. They also show movement to the islands was an ongoing process rather than a single event, with occupation of the southern islands occurring thousands of years after the initial settlement of Australia.

The intensity of the initial occupation we found at Laili suggests this migration may have been large enough to overwhelm previous migrations in the islands of Southeast Asia and Australasia.

The earlier dispersal waves, including the people using the ancient Madjebebe rock shelter in Australia, may have been small numbers of people coming from a different route further north via New Guinea. The later wave of dispersal through the Wallacean Islands may have formed a much more significant arrival of humans on Sahul.

The absence of human occupation on Timor before 50,000 years ago indicates that humans arrived on the island later than previously supposed. This supports the theory that humans first arrived in Australia via New Guinea rather than Timor.

This path is less direct, but it may be explained by the fact the southern islands including Timor have far fewer land-dwelling animals to eat. Early colonists would have needed the flexibility to live on fish and shellfish. So moving into these southern islands could have been more challenging than the northern islands which had more medium to large land animals.

This article is republished from The Conversation. It was written by: Mike W. Morley, Flinders University; Ceri Shipton, UCL; Kasih Norman, Griffith University; Shimona Kealy, Australian National University, and Sue O'Connor, Australian National University

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Mike W. Morley receives funding from the Australian Research Council (ARC).

Kasih Norman receives funding from the Leakey Foundation and Rock Art Australia.

Sue O'Connor receives funding from the Australian Research Council (ARC).

Ceri Shipton and Shimona Kealy do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

China's food security dream faces land, soil and water woes

Mei Mei Chu
Updated Thu, May 23, 2024 





By Mei Mei Chu

BEIJING (Reuters) - China, the world's biggest agriculture importer, has set targets to drastically reduce its reliance on overseas buying over the coming decade in line with its push for food security, but they will be exceedingly difficult to meet, experts say.

With limited land and water, China will have to sharply increase farming productivity through technology, including genetically modified crops, and expand area under cultivation to meet Beijing's 10-year projections.

The government envisions 92% self-sufficiency in staple grains and beans by 2033, up from 84% during 2021-2023, according to a document released in late April, on a path towards President Xi Jinping's goal to become an "agriculture power" by the middle of the century.

Cutting the country's imports would be a blow to producers from the U.S. to Brazil and Indonesia, who have expanded capacity to meet demand from China's 1.4 billion people, the world's largest market for soybeans, meat and grains.

Over the 10 years to 2033 the agriculture ministry projects a 75% plunge in corn imports to 6.8 million tons and a 60% drop for wheat to 4.85 million tons.

For soybeans, the biggest item on a farm import bill that totalled $234 billion last year, Beijing sees imports falling 21% to 78.7 million tons in a decade.

Those targets defy the trends of the past decade in which grains and oilseed imports have surged 87%.

"Forecasting a sharp reversal where in 10 years the country will be importing less than it does today seems questionable," said Darin Friedrichs, co-founder of Shanghai-based Sitonia Consulting.

China will struggle to meet its targets mainly due to a lack of land and water, five analysts and industry executives say.

In stark contrast to Beijing's projections, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) sees China's corn imports in 2033/34 roughly in line with current levels and wheat imports declining 20%. In the biggest divergence, USDA expects soybean imports to rise 39%.

The USDA also expects growth in demand for animal feed, a key user of soybeans and corn, to outpace domestic corn output expansion and spur imports of sorghum and barley.

NATIONAL SECURITY

Food security has long been a priority for China, which has a painful history of famine and must feed nearly 20% of the global population with less than 9% of its arable land and 6% of its water resources.

The urgency to cut dependence on imports grew after the country faced supply chain disruptions during the COVID pandemic and the Russia-Ukraine conflict.

A trade war with the U.S., its No.2 agriculture supplier after Brazil, and climate shocks such as heavy rains last year that damaged China's wheat harvest, have added to the challenge.

On June 1, China will implement a food security law that calls for absolute self-sufficiency in staple grains and requires local governments to include food security in their economic and development plans.

That will add to other efforts to bolster food production, including stepped up grains insurance cover for farmers to protect their income, announced this week.

Last month, Beijing launched a drive to raise grain output by at least 50 million tons by 2030, spotlighting upgraded farmland and investments in seed technology for higher crop yields and quality.

SOIL CHALLENGES

China increased production of corn, soybeans, potatoes and oilseeds last year after expanding planting on previously uncultivated land and encouraging farmers to switch from cash crops to staples.

However, even as the world's no. 2 corn producer harvested a record 288.84 million metric tons last year, imports surged to a near-record 27.1 million tons, driven by traders' preference for corn from overseas that is often higher quality and cheaper.

Production growth has hit a bottleneck due to insufficient arable land, small production scale and a lack of farmers and agriculture technology, state media reported.

China's arable land per capita is less than one-third the level in Brazil and one-sixth the level of the U.S., World Bank data from 2021 shows.

Degraded and polluted soil in a country where a significant share of land is either rocky mountains or desert leave it with little space for expansion.

The government, which has increasingly called for protection of its fertile black soil, is set to complete a four-year soil survey in 2025. The last survey, in 2014, found that 40% of its arable land was degraded from overuse of chemicals and heavy metal contamination.

To compensate, China is pouring millions of dollars into research of farming water-intensive crops such as rice in the deserts of Inner Mongolia and Xinjiang.

By turning sand into soil and breeding saline-tolerant crops, it aims to develop more farmland, a strategy industry executives say will take time and heavy investments in fertiliser, irrigation and biotechnology.

One obstacle is China's predominance of small farms, run by aging owners who may not be able to afford or operate machinery such as drone sprayers, more productive seeds and technology such as big data and AI.

Farms in China average 0.65 hectares, compared to 187 hectares in the U.S. and 60 hectares in Germany. China is gradually shifting towards a consolidation of its fragmented farms.

After decades of hesitation, it is slowly adopting genetically modified crops, this year approving the planting of corn and soybean varieties that are higher-yielding and insect-resistant, as well as gene-edited disease-resistant wheat in hopes of accelerating production growth.

China's soybean yields at 1.99 tons per hectare lag the 3.38 and 3.4 ton-yields in Brazil and the U.S., which have embraced genetically modified soybeans.

But analysts say the government's target for cutting soybean imports is unrealistic. At best, China could ease its dependence on soybean imports to 70% from more than 80% now, said Carl Pray, an agriculture professor at Rutgers University in the U.S.

Almost all of China's soybeans are high protein varieties to produce tofu, and to replace imports it would need to rapidly expand production of high-oil producing varieties for cooking oil, which he said would be hard, even with research.

"To produce enough soybeans to replace the Brazilian and U.S. imports, there is just not enough land," Pray said.

($1 = 7.2276 yuan)

(This story has been refiled to correct a typo in the chart)

(Reporting by Mei Mei Chu; Editing by Tony Munroe and Sonali Paul)