Greens in turmoil over handling of internal probe into executive director's past conduct

Ashley Burke 1 day ago

© Reuters/Stephane Mahe Former Green Party leader Elizabeth May. The party she led is being roiled by an internal conflict over harassment allegations against its executive director.

As it heads into its leadership contest, a struggle is playing out on the Green Party's federal council over whether the party's executive director Prateek Awasthi should resign over past behaviour and harassment complaints, CBC News has learned.

Multiple people on the party council tell CBC News the body is divided over whether Awasthi should continue in his current role. Party president Jean-Luc Cooke resigned, a council member quit the party entirely, two of Green leadership candidate Meryam Haddad's campaign staffers have quit and other grassroots members have threatened to leave the party over the dispute.

"I feel like there's a ticking bomb ... in the party," said Haddad. "Us, the party, the establishment trying to hide certain allegations ... The party's covering up all of this."

The party hired Awasthi in May. During his job interview, Awasthi disclosed his version of events that transpired at his previous workplace, Engineers Without Borders (EWB), but he did not tell the party that he'd personally faced harassment allegations at EWB, according to interim Green Party leader Jo-Ann Roberts.

Awasthi told the party he was part of EWB management's "efforts to disparage and ignore claims of sexual harassment and assault," according to an internal investigation report written by outgoing leader Elizabeth May and leaked to CBC News.

That report says Awasthi told the party he had ignored tweets about harassment based on legal advice and "in the spirit of loyalty without realizing that in doing so, I was unknowingly discrediting a survivor of sexual violence."

© CBC News Prateek Awasthi was hired as the executive director of the Green Party in May, 2020.

"I do not support what has happened," said former Green federal council member Lorraine Hewlett, who stepped down from the council, the human resources committee and the party altogether in response to the controversy.

"Part of my resignation was in protest against that. I do not want to be associated with the retention of this employee ... When it comes to the 'Me Too' movement, I wanted to come down on the right side of this issue."

Awasthi later told council he apologized to the complainant, took responsibility and resigned from EWB.

"I didn't know what I had done was wrong, but the moment I was called out, I stopped, I stepped back, did everything I could to correct my mistakes and took personal accountability for my actions (and inactions)," Awasthi wrote in a letter to the Greens' federal council on July 18.

"I feel disappointed in myself and others for not having adopted a survivor-centric approach from day one."

Awasthi said in his letter to the council that when he disclosed his "mistakes" at the EWB to the Green party officials vetting him, they "agreed that this experience would be an asset for the GPC if ever we deal with a similar situation in the future." He also said he offered to resign if the party thinks he's unfit for the job.

Roberts said she considers the matter a confidential human resources issue.

"The hiring committee looked into it and we determined that it did not disqualify Mr. Awasthi as a candidate," said Roberts.

The hiring committee did not share Awasthi's account of his experience at EWB with the party's council, however. According to May's report, it doesn't appear that anyone from the party tried to verify Awasthi's version of events.

"I do believe that this should have been brought to council, but I can tell you it was an oversight," said Roberts. "It wasn't intentional to hide this."

Two of the EWB complainants who spoke to CBC News accused Awasthi of harassment, saying he was aggressive in meetings, talked to employees in a demeaning tone and contributed to a toxic work environment.

According to internal emails viewed by CBC News, an internal EWB investigation found no evidence of harassment as of June 2019 and added the organization's human resources department concluded there was a workplace conflict in Awasthi's team.

A third former employee at EWB, Chelsey Rhodes, accused Awasthi of taking part in an effort to discredit her personal reputation and her work. Rhodes said she was a victim of harassment at EWB and that she broke her non-disclosure agreement to speak up about systemic harassment and cover-ups in the humanitarian aid, development and NGO sector. She said she launched an online project to gather stories from other alleged victims and tweeted several of her claims about Awasthi's workplace behaviour directly at May.

In a statement to CBC News, Awasthi said he's been "open" about his "brief role in the [EWB's] response to claims that it had failed to properly address a case of sexual harassment that occurred in 2011." He said that when he learned in 2019 that information he had was in dispute, he corrected the record and apologized.

"I have every confidence in the Green Party's internal processes," he said. "I will not comment further. Our focus is now on preparing the organization to welcome the new leader."

When CBC News reached out to EWB Canada for comment, the organization referred to an August 2019 public statement, in which it said it had conducted a full review with input from Rhodes, and two independent legal reviews confirmed its position that "EWB's duty of care was fulfilled through our mediated process."

The statement also said EWB has banned the use of non-disclosure agreements in personnel matters and established a "clear and accessible" complaints policy and procedure.

"However, we do acknowledge (Chelsey Rhodes') truth, and regret her negative experience with EWB," the statement said.
May's investigation

May launched her own internal investigation in July and spoke to former EWB employees. According to her internal report, May heard claims that Awasthi picked on a female EWB staffer, driving her to tears on occasion, and that there was one case of an inappropriate sexual suggestion at EWB.

"There was no reason to believe Awasthi was involved in sexual harassment or assault. Ever," said a confidential email from May on July 25 to the federal council.

"I do believe he bullied junior staff in the spring of 2019, but has amended his conduct and learned from his experience," she wrote. "We, as a party, are at a perilous moment. We are on the verge of a public lynching of an innocent human being."

May wrote in her report that the Greens needed to prepare for the media getting wind of the story.

"He has — as some could argue — done nothing that would damage us as an organization," she said. "Still, we know that there is a high degree of trauma around such incidents and the reputational risk may not be survivable. On this, I hope [the Green Party] gets expert advice."

May told CBC News her report was written months ago, was never "definitive" and a lot has changed since then. She said she was trying to help the federal council do its due diligence and not leap to any conclusions that would run "a risk of having a split within the party."

"Anything that was written in a confidential message months ago does not represent my current views," May said today. "We've done more investigation, we have to move toward consensus, and my view throughout has been that my own position was neutral."

The interim leader said May's report's findings were significant but should be subjected to an outside review.

"It does point to the need for us to have a third party investigate this further if we're going to take any other actions," said Roberts.
'Shocked and heartbroken'

The Greens' federal council privately voted in August to accept Awasthi's resignation, according to multiple council members. Party president Cooke — who supported keeping Awasthi in the job — resigned immediately afterward, tweeting that "an in-camera (closed doors) decision of council forced me into this decision.

"I offered to be reappointed if several members of council resign. I'll find other ways to help the world until then."

Roberts said that vote is in dispute now because it may conflict with a decision made at an earlier council meeting. She would not disclose the nature of that decision, calling it confidential.

May said proper notice of the vote wasn't given, the decision contradicted an earlier motion and more time was needed to try to come to a consensus.

Multiple council members who spoke to CBC News called it "deeply disturbing" that party executives did not respect that vote.

"I was very disturbed the democratic rules weren't being followed," said Hewlett. "The results of that voting process were ignored and not implemented."

The situation has also affected the Green leadership race. Haddad said she was encouraged by other Green members to send a letter supporting Awasthi and saying he had created a safe space in the party for individuals like herself — an immigrant lesbian born in Syria. Later, she said, she thought twice about the initial letter and sent a second one saying that the party should embrace a zero tolerance policy on workplace harassment.

Haddad said her campaign manager and press secretary — both of whom supported keeping Awasthi — quit her campaign over the controversy. She said the party's credibility as a champion of the marginalized is at stake.

"Green values are what we are representing on the outside. But what goes on inside, it's something hideous which is unacceptable," said Haddad. "Change must happen."

Green Party member Bonnie North told CBC News she was subjected to sexual harassment and sexual assault during her two decades in the Canadian Armed Forces. She calls the Greens vetting process one of "wild incompetence."

"I'm both shocked and heartbroken," said North, adding she and other members are threatening to leave the party over the controversy. "The Green Party of Canada is not the place for him to greenwash his reputation. If he needs redemption, then he should find redemption elsewhere."

May's local campaign manager in the last election, Michael Strumberger, recently stepped away from the Greens after six years. He said the party has a problem with top-down, opaque decision-making.

"There's no accountability," said Strumberger. "Members don't have a lot of visibility into the decisions that are made. More and more, our federal council, our governing board is operating in-camera and obviously not reporting what happens. So that's a pattern."

Awasthi's probationary period at work expires on Sunday — the day after the new leader will be announced.

Protesters march through Montreal, calling for 'Justice for Joyce'

MONTREAL — Crowds of protesters marched through downtown Montreal on Saturday, calling for justice for Joyce Echaquan, an Indigenous woman who was subjected to insults as she lay dying in hospital.

© Provided by The Canadian Press

Echaquan, an Atikamekw woman, filmed hospital staff insulting her and making degrading comments on Monday while she was in clear distress and pleading for help in a Joliette, Que., hospital.

Protesters called for the Quebec government to acknowledge the existence of systemic racism in the province and to take real action against the discrimination Indigenous people face.

Several speakers who addressed the crowd said the government has tools to act – the report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and the report of the Viens Commission, a provincial inquiry into the relationship between Indigenous people and certain Quebec public services – but hasn't put those into practice.

The protest came the same day that Public Security Minister Genevieve Guilbault announced that she has asked the coroner's office to conduct a public inquiry into Echaquan's death.

Echaquan's death took an emotional toll on some participants. Alisha Tukkiapik, the head of Quebec Solidaire's national indigenous committee, had tears in her eyes as she addressed the crowd.

"We are humans too, we have rights too," she said. "We often get called 'savages' but look at the people who are doing this."

Premier Francois Legualt has acknowledged that there is racism against Indigenous people in Quebec but has repeatedly maintained that systemic racism doesn't exist in the province.

But Ellen Gabriel, a prominent Mohawk activist present at the protest, said those comments are further evidence of systemic racism.

"(Legault is) ignorant of Quebec and Canada's colonial history and he should be held responsible as one of the people who continues to deny Indigenous people their dignity and human rights," Gabriel said.

Legualt's refusal to acknowledge systemic racism was also a sticking point for Picard, the Chief of the Assembly of First Nations Quebec-Labrador.

"I think the premier should wake up and look around," Picard said in an interview at the protest. "If we want to change things, we have to be able to name those things by name."

Picard was scheduled to meet Legualt on Friday morning but cancelled. He said the cancellation was because Legualt wouldn’t let him bring Atikamekw chiefs to the meeting — an allegation Legualt has denied.

However, Picard said he's willing to meet with Legualt in the future.

"There needs to be a political engagement. But we need to have the right conditions for it," he said.

The protest, which at times stretched for more than six city blocks, was the largest held in the city since it moved to Quebec's highest COVID-19 alert level.

Participants wore masks and organizers issued frequent reminders to maintain physical distancing.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 3, 2020.

— — —

This story was produced with the financial assistance of the Facebook and Canadian Press News Fellowship.

Jacob Serebrin, The Canadian Press

AN ESTABLISHMENT VIEW 

Macpherson: A tale of two terrorisms in Quebec in October 1970


Don Macpherson GLOBE & MAIL
©

 Provided by The Gazette Forty years to the day after the War Measures Act was invoked by Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, a monument to Quebecers incarcerated during that time was unveiled in Montreal, on Saturday October 16, 2010. Police arrested 497 people, of whom only 18 were ever convicted on any charge, Don Macpherson writes.

Monday is the anniversary of the kidnapping of the British trade commissioner in Montreal, James Cross, the start of the 1970 October Crisis. Earlier this year, however, there was another 50th anniversary that went overlooked, that of another historic event that puts the Crisis in perspective.

It’s the Quebec general election of April 29, 1970. Not only were separatists elected to the National Assembly for the first time, the pro-independence Parti Québécois received the second-largest share of the vote, establishing it as the real alternative to the federalist Liberals.

Violence is a great attention-getter, and in the 1960s, riots by indépendantistes and the sometimes-murderous bombs of the terrorist Front de libération du Québec had drawn attention to what was then the real oppression of French-speaking Quebecers.

By October of 1970, however, the progress of the democratic sovereignty movement, behind the leadership of René Lévesque, had eliminated any possible excuse for political violence.

That context is the most glaring omission from Les Rose , the one-sided, pro-FLQ documentary promoted by some indépendantiste politicians and media sympathizers as “history.”

The film spearheads this year’s inevitable revival of the sovereignist campaign for the political rehabilitation of the FLQ, or at least to use the undeniable wrongs committed by the federal government of the day to discredit federalism itself.

For it was not only the FLQ that acted as though the end justified the means. So did Pierre Trudeau, who was then prime minister, in dealing not only with politically motivated criminals, but with his non-violent, democratic nationalist opponents in Quebec.

And the terrorism emergency was not the only occasion on which Trudeau acted that way. Twelve years after the October Crisis, he had a new Constitution imposed on Quebec limiting its powers, over the objections of its democratically elected legislature.

In the Crisis, the great civil libertarian invoked the 1914 War Measures Act for the first time in peacetime. This unleashed police across Quebec, without warrants, to raid thousands of homes, often in the middle of the night with guns drawn. They arrested 497 people, sometimes abusing them and their families. Only 18 were eventually convicted on any charges.

Clearly, Trudeau lied that there was an “apprehended insurrection,” the only pretext for invoking the Act in peacetime; the RCMP told the government there was none. And the prime minister lied again, the journalist Peter C. Newman wrote afterward, when he personally planted a false news story of a “conspiracy” of his leading opponents in Quebec, including Lévesque, to seize power from the province’s federalist government.

Those were the means Trudeau used, but to what end? The most popular theory in Quebec, and the most plausible one, is related to that PQ breakthrough the previous April.

It’s that Trudeau wanted to take advantage of the FLQ’s terrorism to halt the rise of the democratic sovereignty movement by using force, in the form of the police, and falsehood to intimidate and discredit the sovereignists — another form of terrorism, one might say.

As the 50th anniversary of the Crisis approached, nationalists demanded an apology from the present Prime Minister Trudeau for his father’s violation of civil liberties.

(Let’s pause briefly to appreciate this sudden, selective concern for fundamental rights and freedoms on the part of defenders of Quebec’s anti-hijab Bill 21 .)

A wrong on one side does not cancel out one on the other. But the nationalists have caught Trudeau the Younger in a trap he set for himself.

Only recently, while denouncing the toppling of the Macdonald statue in Montreal, he conceded that all past prime ministers are open to criticism, including his father.

And literally Canada’s sorriest prime minister, Justin Trudeau has established a precedent by frequently apologizing for historic injustices.

This apology would be uncomfortable for him to make, and not only because it would hand a victory to political adversaries. But the Trudeau who now speaks for Canada can’t decently refuse to make it, and still pretend to stand for the respect of fundamental rights and freedoms.
Related
Truth and myth: Tracing the roots of the October Crisis

Macpherson: Remembering Paul Rose, while René Lévesque is forgotten

There Are Robot Servers At This New Calgary Restaurant & We're Officially Over Humans


Stephanie Hilash NARCITY

© claypotriceyyc | Instagram, claypotriceyyc | Instagram


Human servers are a thing of the past thanks to the Calgary robot servers at Clay Pot Rice.

This rice and noodle palace that just opened up at the end of September is now fully operational and when you visit, you may be surprised by who greets you.

Clay Pot Rice has done away with human servers and instead, they have literal robots to greet, seat, and serve you.

Editor's Choice: A Calgary Pizza Spot Just Ranked In Canada's Top 10 & They Have Pickle Pizza


4515 Macleod Trail S.W.


Clay Pot Rice

Images of these real-life WALL-E’s have been posted on social media and they’re adorable.

They even have a little screen as a face that shows facial expressions.

Officially opening on Friday, September 25, this traditional Chinese spot offers clay pot dishes that you can enjoy with rice or noodles.

They even have beer and bubble tea on the menu so what more could you need?

This is the perfect place if you’re looking for a meal but want to social distance from other humans.

Clay Pot Rice

Price: 💸💸

Cuisine: Chinese

Address: 4515 Macleod Trail S.W., Calgary, AB⠀⠀

Why You Need To Go: There's no other place in the city like this.

Menu

Trump’s Hollywood Walk of Fame Star Vandalized by Someone Dressed as the Hulk


Jordan Moreau VARIETY

© AP
President Donald Trump’s star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame was destroyed on Friday morning, reportedly by someone dressed as the Incredible Hulk.

The alleged green culprit used a pickaxe to vandalize Trump’s star some time early Friday morning, according to the Los Angeles Times. Police responded to the scene at 5:50 a.m. and have made no arrests so far. The destruction of Trump’s star came just a few hours after he announced that he and First Lady Melania Trump tested positive for coronavirus late Thursday night.

More than $3,000 worth of damage was sustained to the star, which classifies the crime as a felony. The Hollywood Chamber of Commerce will have to pay to replace the star, and repairs were already being done by Friday afternoon.

In a statement to Variety, the president of the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce urged people to voice their frustrations with their ballots.

“Any star which is vandalized or destroyed, no matter which honoree it belongs to, will be replaced by the Hollywood Historic Trust, a non-profit, non-partisan group. The Hollywood Walk of Fame is a historic landmark which celebrates the professional contributions of the inductees. The stars, once installed, are considered part of the historic fabric of the Walk,” said Rana Ghadban, president and CEO of the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce. “When people are angry with one of our honorees, we would hope that they would project their anger in more positive ways than to vandalize a California state landmark. Our democracy is based on respect for the law. People can make a real difference by voting and not destroying public property.”

Before Friday’s incident, Trump’s star was vandalized in 2016 and 2018. He received the honor in 2007 in the TV category for producing nationwide beauty pageants.

A source tells Variety that the vandal is not James Otis, who destroyed Trump’s star in 2016. A Twitter account, which appears to be run by Otis, echoes the same idea, saying Friday’s culprit is a copycat

This Is Why We Celebrate Halloween in the First Place
Marissa Laliberte, RD.com

© Photo: Poznyakov/Shutterstock

The spooky origins of Halloween

Modern Halloween is basically an excuse to dress up in outrageous costumes, load up on candy, and deck out the yard with spooky decorations. But long before Halloween became a family-centred day for tricks and treats (Ok, mostly treats), its origins verged more on the scary side.

Most people believe the roots of Halloween can be traced back about 2,000 years to the Celtic pagan “summer’s end” festival of Samhain, which landed on November 1. During that time, the Celts believed spirits would pass through the physical world and potentially ruin their crops. To protect their harvests, families would leave out food and drinks as offerings to the spirits, and people would often disguise themselves in white with blackened faces in hopes of blending in with the ghosts. (Check out these other creepy events that actually happened on Halloween.)

After the Romans conquered the Celts and started spreading Christianity, they likely figured flat-out banning pagan holidays like Samhain would lead to pushback, so scholars believe they instead combined those traditions with Catholic celebrations, in hopes of phasing them out. Around the 9th century, the Christian feast day for martyrs was moved from May 13 to the time of Samhain and was renamed Feast of All Saints. On October 31, the night before the festival, churches would hold a vigil for All Hallows Eve (“hallows” was another word for “saints”), which was later shortened to Halloween.

© Provided by Reader's Digest Canada
Horror Movies Inspired By Real Life

Eventually, the two celebrations became even more entwined. During the Christian All Souls Day, poor people would go “souling”: saying prayers for others’ deceased loved ones in exchange for pastries called soul cake that represented being saved from Purgatory—a church-friendly substitute for leaving food out for evil spirits. By the 1800s, the tradition was turned into a fun activity called guising, with children giving a performance of jokes, poetry readings, or music to earn rewards like fruit and money. (You can keep up the tradition with these corny jokes that are perfect for Halloween.) Irish immigrants eventually brought modernized versions of guising to North America, which morphed into trick-or-treating as we know it today. The days of hiding from real evil spirits might be long gone, but the fun of dressing up as ghosts lives on.

Now that you know the origins of Halloween, take a virtual tour of the most haunted places in Canada.

© Provided by Reader's Digest Canada

20 Pumpkin Carving Ideas

© Provided by Reader's Digest Canada
Can You Solve These Halloween Riddles?

The post This Is Why We Celebrate Halloween in the First Place appeared first on Reader's Digest.

Twitter bans posts wishing for Trump death. The Squad wonders where that policy was for them


By Donie O'Sullivan and Alaa Elassar, CNN

The four progressive Democratic congresswomen known as "The Squad" expressed surprise on Friday night when Twitter posted about its policy against wishing harm or death to someone in light of President Trump's Covid-19 diagnosis.

© AFP & Getty Images Democratic Reps. Rashida Tlaib, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ayanna Pressley and Ilhan Omar have all spoken out about the social media threats they receive and say Twitter isn't doing enough about it.

Democratic Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, Rashida Tlaib of Michigan, Ilhan Omar of Minnesota and Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts have all spoken out about the threats they receive on social media and say Twitter isn't doing enough about it.


Responding to media reporting Friday about people wishing death to the President, a verified account run by Twitter's spokespeople tweeted, "tweets that wish or hope for death, serious bodily harm or fatal disease against *anyone* are not allowed and will need to be removed."

"Seriously though, this is messed up. The death threats towards us should have been taking more seriously by [Twitter]," Rep. Rashida Tlaib tweeted in response.

Reps. Ocasio-Cortez, Omar and Pressley also tweeted suggesting Twitter had not taken threats made against them seriously.

Members of The Squad have often been victims of brutal social media attacks, including posts that have expressed wishes for their deaths.

A quick Twitter search of their names followed by "hang for treason" results in tweets from users calling for the deaths of the congresswomen.

"I hope you both hang for TREASON!" one user tweeted in reference to Tlaib and Omar.

"@IlhanMN you should be tried for treason and i hope they hang you," tweeted another.

The policy highlighted by Twitter's press shop on Friday is not a new one. But tweets that violate Twitter's rules are often missed or not removed by the company, as CNN regularly reports.

"At Twitter, it is our top priority to improve the health of the public conversation, and that includes ensuring the safety of people who use our service. Abuse and harassment have no place on Twitter," a Twitter spokesperson told CNN.

"Our policies -- which apply to everyone, everywhere -- are clear: We do not tolerate content that wishes, hopes or expresses a desire for death, serious bodily harm or fatal disease against an individual or group of people. If we identify accounts that violate these rules, we will take enforcement action."

Twitter said Friday that publicly wishing someone "death, serious bodily harm or fatal disease" does not result in an automatic permanent suspension from its platform. Users who repeatedly send tweets like this may eventually be permanently suspended, however.

US panel tackles race, poverty in virus vaccine priorities
A U.S. advisory panel made recommendations Friday for who should be first in line to get COVID-19 vaccine, including a plea for special efforts by states and cities to get the shots to low-income minority groups.

© Provided by The Canadian Press

As expected, the panel recommended health care workers and first responders get first priority when vaccine supplies are limited. The shots should be provided free to all, the panel said. And throughout the vaccine campaign, efforts also should focus on disadvantaged areas to remedy racial health disparities, according to the report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine.

“Everybody knows from the news how deadly this has been for minorities,” panel co-chair William Foege of Emory Rollins School of Public Health said Friday. “We said it’s racism that is the root cause of this problem.”

“This virus has no concept of colour but it has a very good concept of vulnerabilities,” he added.

The coronavirus outbreak has hit Black, Hispanic and Native Americans disproportionately in hospitalizations and deaths. Reasons are complex, but the disparities are thought to stem from minorities working in jobs on the front lines, having medical conditions associated with severe disease, higher rates of poverty and poor access to health care.

The report's authors saw their work as “one way to address these wrongs,” they wrote.

Federal health officials will have the final say on distributing the 300 million vaccine doses the government is buying under the Trump administration's Operation Warp Speed. In practice, state and local health departments ultimately will have control over where they set up vaccination clinics.

The National Academies document lays out successive waves of vaccine distribution as manufacturing ramps up:

—When supplies are scarce, the first doses should go to high-risk health care workers in hospitals, nursing homes and those providing home care. First responders also would be in this group.

—Next, older residents of nursing homes and other crowded facilities and people of all ages with health conditions that put them at significant danger. The report said it remains unclear which health conditions should be included. It lists cancer, chronic kidney disease and obesity among possibilities.

—In following waves, teachers, child care workers, workers in essential industries — specific job categories might vary by state, and people living in homeless shelters, group homes, prisons and other facilities.

—Once supplies increase, healthy children, young adults and everyone else.

Several vaccine candidates are in the final stages of human testing, but none has yet been approved. Initial supplies are expected to be limited. Many health experts predict a vaccine won’t be widely available to all Americans until mid-to-late next year.

The report suggests the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention could hold back 10% of the vaccine supply for “hot spots” identified through a tool called the Social Vulnerability Index, which is based on Census data that incorporates race, poverty, crowded housing and other factors.

State and local health officials could use the same tool. The index was developed by CDC to help identify communities that may need support in emergencies such as hurricanes.

But using race, even as part of a data-driven approach, invites court challenges and controversy, some experts warned.

“The country’s already divided,” said Gary Puckrein of the National Minority Quality Forum, a non-profit advocacy group. “Are we going to prioritize African Americans and Hispanics over whites to give them the vaccine because they have a higher risk?"

That may be appropriate, Puckrein said, “but it’s going to take a lot of advocacy, a lot of explaining. It’s not going to leap off the paper and happen.”

Using race to prioritize vaccines “could end up in the Supreme Court,” said Larry Gostin, a professor at Georgetown University who has advised Republican and Democratic administrations on public health issues.

“With a strong conservative majority, the Court might well strike down any racial preference,” Gostin said in an email. “Structural racism in the United States has resulted in far higher rates of disease and death among people of colour. We must find lawful ways to protect disadvantaged people against COVID-19.”

Local health departments may not really need a tool like the index, said Dr. Jeff Duchin, public health officer for Seattle and King County.

“Most local and state health departments know where their vulnerable communities live and where their black, Hispanic and indigenous populations live,” Duchin said. “It’s not going to be surprising to anyone where we will want to target and make vaccine available.”

In Chicago, Blacks make up 43% of the nearly 3,000 COVID-19 deaths, and about 29% of the city’s population. The city used its own data to conduct mobile testing in communities hardest hit by COVID-19.

What worked for testing could work for vaccines. Chicago is exploring whether neighbourhood parks, food pantries and community colleges could be vaccination sites, although storage at super-low temperatures — required by some of the vaccine candidates — might require more centralized distribution, said Dr. Candice Robinson, medical director of the Chicago Department of Public Health.

The National Academies' priorities will be considered by the CDC's Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices as it drafts its own recommendations. At the panel's Sept. 22 meeting, CDC staff presented side-by-side maps, showing how closely the Social Vulnerability Index mirrors COVID-19 cases and deaths.

State and local public health departments will have flexibility in how they implement the recommendations, said committee chairman Dr. Jose Romero, Arkansas’ health secretary. Minorities are overrepresented in health care and other essential industries, so prioritizing those groups — in theory — should increase access for Blacks and Hispanics.

What's most pressing now, he said, is the need to start explaining the independent checks in place to make sure vaccines are safe. Sharing vaccine safety data when it's available will boost confidence among groups hesitant to get the shots, he said.

“Among the Latino population in my state, I'm hearing terms like ‘experimentation.’ People say, ‘We don’t want to receive this until it’s shown safe in other populations,'" Romero said. “You can have the best vaccine in the world, but if people don’t have confidence in that vaccine, it will do no good. It will sit on the shelf.”

___

The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

Carla K. Johnson, The Associated Press

Revisiting India's forgotten battle of WWII: Kohima-Imphal, the Stalingrad of the East


In a cataclysmic year during which the whole world has been beset by Covid-19, gone almost unnoticed is the 75th anniversary of the end of the last great catastrophe to befall our planet -- WWII  

.

© Ranjan Pal

But even within the context of that extraordinary war, there are amazing battles that have been forgotten.

One such slice of history is the Battle for Kohima-Imphal, which was a decisive turning point in the war. It ended with the first major defeat suffered by Japanese forces in the Burma theater and thwarted their ambitious plans to invade India.

In fact, in 2013 it was voted by the National War Museum as Britain's greatest battle ahead of the more celebrated engagements of D-Day and Waterloo.

"The victory was of a profound significance because it demonstrated categorically to the Japanese that they were not invincible," said historian Robert Lyman at the museum, following the announcement. "This was to be very important in preparing the entire Japanese nation to accept defeat."

The two northeastern states of Manipur and Nagaland and their capitals of Kohima and Imphal formed the critical frontier for British India in their war against Japan on the Burmese front.

A key route ran from the British supply base at Dimapur through Kohima up on a ridge in the Naga Hills and down to Imphal in a small encircled plain in Manipur and from there into Burma, the country known today as Myanmar.

"Operation U-Go" was an audacious plan by the Japanese military command to capture this road by using three divisions to attack simultaneously south and north of Imphal and to directly take Kohima. Had it succeeded it would have given them the critical springboard they needed to launch an all-out attack on British India.

Today's visitors to Kohima will see no traces of that long-ago battle.

The urban sprawl of the town has covered up the hills over which it was fought.

But there is a World War II museum (entry Rs 50) located within the Naga Heritage Village about 10 kilometers south of town.

Displays include a diverse range of weaponry, tabletop models of battlefields, soldiers' uniforms and historic photographs from both warring armies, though little attention has been paid to organization or detail. 

© Ranjan Pal A view of the road to Myanmar from Imphal, India.

Even the interesting war documentary that plays in the background is spoiled through poor acoustics and badly positioned display cases, which obstruct the screen.

A visit to the Kohima War Cemetery, however, is not to be missed. Beautifully maintained by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, visitors will find the plots of British and Indian servicemen who lost their lives in the defense of Kohima, numbering 2,340 in all.

The British and Muslim soldiers are commemorated through simple elegant bronze plaques laid out in neat rows and terraces, while the names of their Hindu and Sikh compatriots who were cremated are inscribed on a separate memorial at the top of the cemetery.

© Ranjan Pal The Kohima War Cemetery is filled with the plots of British and Indian servicemen who lost their lives in the defense of Kohima, numbering 2,340 in all.

It is impossible not to be moved by the quiet beauty of the place and the heartrending messages on the gravestones from the families of the fallen heroes.

Remembering the battle

The Japanese attack caught the British by surprise as their High Command had not expected the enemy to move so swiftly and in such large numbers through the thick jungle and mountainous terrain.

They cut the Kohima-Imphal road and quickly surrounded the British garrison defending Kohima.

Over 16 crucial days beginning on April 4, 1944, the much smaller British Indian force of 2,500 men held off 15,000 Japanese troops who had laid siege to the Kohima ridge.

In some of the bitterest close-quarter fighting of WWII, the battle raged the length of the ridge with the Japanese gradually pushing back the British defensive perimeter on Garrison Hill inch by bloody inch.

At one point the opposing troops were so close that they were dug in on either side of the tennis court belonging to the District Commissioner's bungalow.

Notably, the cemetery was built over the exact site of the battle on Garrison Hill and you can still see the lines of the famous court where the opposing sides faced off.

© Ranjan Pal Garrison Hill, where a fierce battle raged, is home to the Kohima War Cemetery.

Raghu Karnad, author of "Farthest Field: An Indian Story of the Second World War," said of the battle: "The DC's tennis court served as the killing ground for a new sort of desperate and bloody match. If Kohima fell, all of eastern India might fall to the Japanese occupation -- if Kohima stood, it would begin the rollback of the great Japanese advance on the Asian mainland."

Relief came at the 11th hour with elements of the British 2nd Division breaking through the Japanese roadblocks to reach the beleaguered Kohima garrison on April 20.

Near the entrance of the cemetery is a memorial to the 2nd Division, which bears the poignant inscription: "When you go home tell them of us and say, 'for your tomorrow, we gave our today.'"

Over the next few weeks fighting raged on simultaneously in Kohima and Imphal. The battle, often referred to as the" Stalingrad of the East," drew to its bloody end with British forces gradually overwhelming the starving Japanese troops.

The Japanese commanders had underestimated the tenacity with which the enemy would defend their positions and also the overwhelming British air superiority which allowed them to continually replenish their forces with men and materials and to pound Japanese positions incessantly.

Broken in spirit and with no food and supplies, the remaining Japanese forces were chased out of Imphal and back down the Tiddim road into Burma, having tasted defeat for the first time in history.



The Japanese paid a huge price with their 85,000-strong 15th Army eventually counting 53,000 dead and missing, mostly due to starvation, disease and exhaustion. The British sustained 12,500 casualties at Imphal, while the fighting at Kohima cost them another 4,000 men.

And what of the Naga tribesmen on whose land this alien war for global domination was fought?

This was warfare unlike anything they had experienced before, with the devastating bombing and shelling of their villages causing immense loss of life, homes and livelihoods.

Those who were captured by the Japanese suffered conscripted labor, beatings and summary executions.

After the war, in the words of Easterine Kire -- Naga author of "Mari," the first insider story of the Japanese invasion -- "the new normal that awaited the Nagas was to shape their lives in a whole new direction, not necessarily of their own choosing."


Visiting the Imphal battlefields

Unlike the hills of Kohima, it is possible to see the battlefields where the titanic Imphal struggle played out, 140 kilometers south.

This is where the main thrust of the Japanese attack came with the 15th and 33rd Divisions of the 15th Army taking on the 4th Corps of the British 14th Army.

The fighting was extremely brutal and intense, raging in the hills surrounding the Imphal plain. The remoteness of the area and the rugged terrain have kept them relatively pristine and private groups now lead tours taking in the main battlefields, airfields, cemeteries and war memorials.

Hemant Katoch, a pioneer in WWII tourism in Manipur says of these tours: "Only when you see these places for yourself do you finally comprehend the enormity of what had happened here during WWII."

The most recent addition to the WWII tourism circuit is the Imphal Peace Museum, which was inaugurated in June 2019, the 75th anniversary of the Battle of Imphal.

Funded by two Japanese foundations, the museum is intended to be a symbol of peace and reconciliation and is located at the foot of Red Hill where the Japanese were finally routed.

To broaden its appeal, the museum focuses not just on the actual battle (depicted using a timeline, maps, artifacts and photographs) but also on the post-war transition in Manipur and present-day arts and cultural life.

For the many Japanese visitors who lost their ancestors in this epic battle and for whom there are no graves and cemeteries to visit, it offers a chance for closure, reminding us that in war there are no true victors, only losers.

UK ministers warned against leaked plans to put refugees on ‘prison ships’

Video: UK government proposals for asylum seekers leaked (France 24)

A plan to process refugees on decommissioned ferries risks being expensive, inadequate for its inhabitants, and likely to repeat the policy mistakes of the past, ministers are being warned.  

© Provided by The Guardian Photograph: Matt Cardy/Getty Images


Michael Savage Policy editor THE GUARDIAN 

A similar attempt to house prisoners in an offshore floating jail lasted less than a decade after conditions at the facility were criticised, Whitehall veterans said. They warned it proved difficult to keep supplied and too expensive to maintain in a suitable condition.

The warning comes after a series of leaks revealed the controversial ideas raised within Whitehall to discourage migrant crossings. The plans, said to be part of a blue-sky thinking exercise, included sending migrants to centres on remote islands in the south Atlantic, as well as proposals to build facilities in Moldova, Morocco and Papua New Guinea. Further ideas, now dismissed, included holding them on oil rigs, or deterring them from crossing the Channel with wave machines and blockades.

© Provided by The Guardian The home secretary, Priti Patel, plans to overhaul the UK’s asylum system which she sees as ‘fundamentally broken’. Photograph: Leon Neal/Getty Images

Insiders said that one plan still being pursued would see asylum seekers processed in decommissioned ferries off the UK coastline. However, experts made comparisons with HMP Weare, a floating prison moored in Portland harbour, which was opened as a temporary measure in 1997 and finally shut in 2006. Before closure, conditions on board were described as “oppressive and cramped” by the chief inspector of prisons. She said there was not enough room for exercise, concluding it was “literally and metaphorically a container”.

Sir David Normington, permanent secretary at the Home Office from 2005 to 2011, said there were similarities with the possible use of old ferries for processing migrants. “There was a prison ship moored off Portland in 2006 to help with the overcrowding in prisons. It was not very suitable, very difficult to provision. It was expensive. Those inside were kept in very cramped conditions. Staff didn’t like it. It could never be more than a very short-term solution.

“The idea of finding somewhere in the UK where they can go to be processed is not a silly idea – indeed it is already happening. But I don’t see why putting them on a ship off the coast helps you. While they’re on British territory, whether they’re on the sea or on the land, you have an obligation under domestic and international law to look after them and consider their claims lawfully and safely.”

Gallery: Refugees around the globe (Picture Services)




1/21 SLIDES © Masfiqur Sohan/NurPhoto/Getty Images



According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), a total population of concern of 70.4 million people have been reported as of June 30, 2018. In the first six months of the year, the body revealed that at least 5.2 million people were newly displaced. World Refugee Day is marked on June 20 every year to draw attention to the plight of millions of forcibly displaced men, women and children around the world.

Click through to look at 10 countries responsible for the most number of refugees and the top 10 countries in which they seek shelter. The list is drawn from United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) Mid-Year Trends 2018 data.

Normington also said that sending migrants overseas was a “non-starter” because it would be hard to secure agreement from the recipient territory, while it was legally difficult to move migrants. He added: “These are human beings. They must be properly and lawfully treated. They must be kept safe. Our national sense of decency and our international reputation should mean fulfilling our obligations under the UN conventions on refugees.”

The measures have caused alarm among some Whitehall figures. The current Home Office permanent secretary Matthew Rycroft has said “everything is on the table” for consideration, though it is understood most of the ideas to surface this week have already been discounted.

However, the leaks have not deterred ministers from tackling the issue of migrant crossings. Dominic Cummings, the prime minister’s senior adviser, is said to be frustrated with the repeated tactic of handing more resources to France each year to improve security at the border – a strategy that Downing Street believes has failed in the light of increasing numbers of crossings.  

© PA Wire/PA Images A group of people thought to be migrants are brought into Dover, Kent, by Border Force following a small boat incident in the Channel. (Photo by Gareth Fuller/PA Images via Getty Images)

The UK is dealing with record levels of arrivals across the Channel, with nearly 7,000 people landing in the UK by small boats this year. However, Sir Peter Ricketts, the UK’s former ambassador to France, said asylum seeker numbers remained low compared with other European countries and has urged ministers to continue working with France and others.

“I don’t think any of these schemes are going to be an effective deterrent against people who are already desperate, who have convinced themselves that getting to the UK is the solution to their problem,” he said. “The only way, I’m afraid, is to go on working with the French. This is all being done through traffickers who are making a large amount of money. I think we’ve got to go on working with the French and the Belgians, and others, to shut down these trafficking routes.”

However, Priti Patel, the home secretary, will tell the virtual Tory party conference on Sunday that she is determined to overhaul a system she believes is “fundamentally broken”. She will compare someone coming to the UK legally and claiming asylum, but getting stuck for months in the system, to someone who arrives on a small boat, having passed through numerous safe countries.

© 2020 Getty Images DOVER, ENGLAND - SEPTEMBER 22: A migrant family is taken into port after being intercepted by Border Force officials in the English Channel on September 22, 2020 in Dover, England. This summer has seen an increase in people making the journey in small crafts from France seeking asylum in U.K. (Photo by Luke Dray/Getty Images)

“A fair asylum system should provide safe haven to those fleeing persecution, oppression or tyranny,” she will say. “But ours doesn’t. Because our asylum system is fundamentally broken. And we have a responsibility to act.

“I will introduce a new system that is firm and fair. Fair and compassionate towards those who need our help. Fair by welcoming people through safe and legal routes. But firm because we will stop the abuse of the broken system. Firm because we will stop those who come here illegally making endless legal claims to remain. And firm because we will expedite the removal of those who have no claim for protection.”

Changing economy and climate hit Austria's Alpine pastures


AFP

With tender care, Sepp Rieser adorns the bulky heads of his reluctant cows with flower wreaths, adds some more fir twigs, and adjusts the large bells around their necks.

© JOE KLAMAR More than 25,000 cows have disappeared from Austria's western Tyrol state over the past decade, and with them the pastures they used to graze on

"I've been doing this since I was a little boy," Rieser says of the ancestral tradition in which cattle are decorated for their journey from the high Alpine Gramai pasture in Austria's western Tyrol state, where they graze all summer long, to the valley below where they'll spend the harsh winter months.

To Rieser, the festivities surrounding this journey to the village of Pertisau in the Karwendel mountains are as important as his birthday or Christmas.

Images of Jesus and the Virgin Mary feature in the adornments of his 90-strong herd, reflecting the region's strong Catholic heritage.

But it could soon be a relic of the past: Sweeping economic changes as well as climate change are taking their toll on the landscape and threatening the future of the tradition as well as its bovine stars

.

© JOE KLAMAR The small-scale farms that dominate Tyrol have become economically unviable, forcing thousands of farmers to pivot to more reliable sources of income

The small-scale farms that dominate Tyrol have become economically unviable, forcing thousands of farmers to pivot to more reliable sources of income.

As a result, more than 25,000 cows have disappeared over the past decade, and with them the pastures they used to graze on, according to figures from the agriculture ministry.

- The foundation of life -

Within the past two decades, around 1,250 pastures in Tyrol alone have been left to revert to nature, a development that is also affecting other regions of the Alps, from southeastern France through Switzerland, as well as parts of Italy, Germany and Slovenia.

In Tyrol, where hiking in the summer and skiing in the winter are the mainstays of the economy, the impact is particularly distinct, Rieser explains as he puts the finishing touches on his cow's halter, engraved with his name and three Edelweiss flowers.

© JOE KLAMAR More intense precipitation and sweltering heat waves are among the changes Sepp Rieser has noticed

Taking the cows to the pastures "is very important, firstly for the cows' fitness, their longevity and their health, and of course also to maintain the pastures and the entire landscape," Rieser tells AFP at an altitude of more than 1,260 metres (4,130 feet), where his herd spends the summer grazing on fragrant meadows

.

© JOE KLAMAR Cows decorated with bells and flowers rest after the annual ceremonial cattle drive, from Alpine summer pastures to the valley below where they'll spend the harsh winter months

Cows and mountain pastures, says Rieser, "are the foundation of our lives."

Without cows, pastures can quickly become overgrown with shrubs and forests, altering the landscape and making it impassible, according to Jasmin Duregger, a climate change expert at Greenpeace Austria.

Meanwhile slippery nard grass has already begun to take over many pastures, increasing the risk of avalanches, says Duregger.

"When pastures become overgrown with shrubs and trees, vital plants are lost as well as rare herbs and flowers," he adds.

- 'Summers are coming sooner' -

Climate change is only accelerating this effect.

Gottfried Brunner, who has tended Rieser's cows for 10 consecutive summers, has been noticing these changes.

"Summers are coming sooner," he says while the cattle are guided past an iridescent mountain lake.

The average annual temperature between 1981 and 2010 was 6.9 degrees Celsius (44.4 degrees Fahrenheit) in Austria, but since then, each year has been well above that level.

Last year, the figure rose to 8.5 degrees -- 1.6 degrees above the previous median.

"That means we have a prolonged period of vegetation during which more herbs, grass and shrubs can grow," which has increased the feed by as much as 20 percent, Duregger says.

"The cows simply can't keep up with grazing."

More intense precipitation and sweltering heat waves are among the changes Rieser has noticed.

"Climate change is something we can see today," he says sternly.

After treading down the steep mountainside for about one and a half hours, the cows finally arrive in Pertisau, cheered on by hundreds of excited spectators.

Having travelled three hours to join, Karin Polzl beams as the cows amble past.

For the festivities, Polzl has put on a T-shirt with a cow printed on it.

"I love these animals," she says, speaking to AFP about the collection of cow figurines at her house.

"I think it's very sad that this tradition, the cows and pastures are at risk," she says.

Like so many here, she hopes that they'll endure -- beyond her glass cabinet.

bg/deh/jsk/erc

WW3.0
Azerbaijan says Armenian forces shell second city in escalation of week-long conflic

Armenian, Azeri forces accuse each other of shelling far from Karaba

By Nailia Bagirova and Nvard Hovhannisyan

© Reuters/STRINGER A shop is seen on fire following recent shelling during a military conflict over the breakaway region of Nagorno-Karabakh in Stepanakert

BAKU/YEREVAN (Reuters) - Azerbaijan said on Sunday that Armenian forces had shelled its second city of Ganja in an escalation of the war in the South Caucasus that broke out one week ago.

Armenia denied that it had directed fire "of any kind" towards Azerbaijan, but the leader of Nagorno-Karabakh, an ethnic Armenian enclave inside Azerbaijan, said his forces had destroyed a military airbase in Ganja.

The escalation carries the risk of a full-scale war between the former Soviet republics of Azerbaijan and Armenia that could drag in other powers. Azerbaijan is supported by Turkey, while Armenia has a defence pact with Russia.

Fighting that broke out one week ago between Azeri and ethnic Armenian forces has intensified in the past two days and spread way beyond the breakaway Karabakh region.

"Delivering fire on the territory of Azerbaijan from the territory of Armenia is clearly provocative and expands the zone of hostilities," Azeri Defence Minister Zakir Hasanov said.

Ganja, with a population of 335,000, is about 100 km (60 miles) north of the Karabakh capital Stepanakert and 80 km from the Armenian city of Vardenis. Azerbaijan has previously accused Armenia of firing into its territory from Vardenis, and Yerevan has denied it.

Armenia says Azerbaijan has used the airport in Ganja as a base for its warplanes to carry out bombing raids on Nagorno-Karabakh.

Nagorno-Karabakh leader Arayik Harutyunyan said his forces would target Azeri cities.

"Permanent military units located in the large cities of Azerbaijan from now on become the targets of the defence army," he said.

HEAVY CASUALTIES

Casualties from the past week's fighting have run into the hundreds, although precise figures are impossible to obtain.

Armenia said the Karabakh cities of Stepanakert and Martakert were under attack by Azerbaijan's air force and from long-range missiles.

Each side accused the other of targeting civilians.

Ignoring appeals from Russia, the United States, France and the EU to call a ceasefire, the opposing sides have stepped up hostilities over the weekend, with an accompanying rise in aggressive rhetoric.

Armenia said on Saturday it would use "all necessary means" to protect ethnic Armenians from attack by Azerbaijan, and its prime minster compared the struggle with a 20th century war against Ottoman Turkey.

Azerbaijan said on Saturday its forces had captured a string of villages. Armenia acknowledged that ethnic Armenian fighters were under pressure in some places and said the situation on the ground was fluctuating.

The clashes are the worst since the 1990s, when some 30,000 people were killed. They have raised international concern about stability in the South Caucasus, where pipelines carry Azeri oil and gas to world markets.

(Reporting by Nvard Hovhannisyan and Nailia Bagirova; writing by Margarita Antidze and Mark Trevelyan; Editing by Angus MacSwan)

New Brunswick Medical Society warns of health-care gaps after Clinic 554 closes

Megan Yamoah and Karla Renic

New Brunswick's only clinic offering abortions outside of hospitals and family care practice Clinic 554 has closed its doors to most of its patients. The New Brunswick Medical Society now says this loss will create a gap in health-care services.

 Clinic 554 in Fredericton, N.B., is shown on Thursday, Oct. 17, 2019. The only medical clinic offering abortions in New Brunswick announced its impending closure last week, blaming a provincial policy that refuses to fund surgical abortions outside a hospital. Advocates say rural Canadians across the country face barriers accessing abortions but a small number of clinics and strained healthcare systems make the issue especially pronounced in Atlantic provinces. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Kevin Bissett

The clinic ended most care on Sept. 30, but some publicly-funded services are still offered to a few vulnerable patients with complex care.

"I am still seeing some people," said Clinic 554 owner Dr. Adrian Edgar.

While he hopes to expand his practice again, Edgar says New Brunswick's new Health Minister Dorothy Shephard has yet to return his calls.

Re-opening "would save the health-care system time, space, money," Edgar told Global News on Saturday.

Read more: Security removes tents from protesters during vigil for Clinic 554 at N.B. legislature

With the closure of Clinic 554, New Brunswickers lost more than just an abortion clinic.

"The province of New Brunswick has well over 35,000 orphan patients right now who are looking for family doctors and certainly the closure of Clinic 554 is going to add to that list," Dr. said Chris Goodyear, the new N.B. Medical Society president.

The practice also provided transgender health care and prided itself in being LGBTQ2I+ friendly.

But it constantly faced financial ruin due to lack of funding from the provincial government.

In New Brunswick, abortions are only offered in three locations: two hospitals in Moncton and one hospital in Bathurst, as previous N.B. governments have not repealed a regulation banning the funding of abortions outside of hospitals.

Higgs has also received criticism from the federal government on the Canada Health Act.

Ottawa had actually reduced the Canada Health Transfer to New Brunswick by $140,216, as a result of patient charges for abortion services provided outside of hospitals in 2017.

"I think it's very clear that there is an obstruction of health-care services in New Brunswick," Edgar said.

Goodyear says losing the clinic will create a gap in health-care services, and that the Medical Society is still advocating for preservation of the clinic.

"Certainly the closure of the clinic does not mean that our efforts are going to be halted, at all," said Goodyear.

"We would invite the Premier to sit down with the concerned doctors, the Medical Society and RHAs to have this discussion," he said.

Read more: 36 senators sign letter in support of Clinic 554

Earlier this week, 36 senators from across Canada released a statement in support of Clinic 554, and Edgar said two out-of-province physicians reached out to him with offers to come to the province and try to keep the clinic going.

The New Brunswick government maintains it is not in violation of the Canada Health Act by not funding the clinic.

Newly appointed Health Minister Shephard declined an on-camera interview.

U.S. oil refiners look to leapfrog Canadians in making renewable diesel


By Rod Nickel and Laura Sanicola REUTERS

© Reuters/PARKLAND BURNABY REFINERY Parkland Corp's refinery at Burnaby

BUILT IN 1939!!!!

WINNIPEG, Manitoba/NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. oil refineries are moving aggressively to produce renewable diesel, partly to cash in on Canada's greener fuel standard before Canadian refiners modify their own plants.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's government intends to present its Clean Fuel Standard this year, aiming to cut 30 million tonnes of emissions by 2030.

Renewable diesel, made by processing spent cooking oil, canola oil or animal fats, can be used in high concentrations or without blending in conventional diesel engines.

So far, Canadian companies have been slow in preparing to make the fuel, with only three projects publicly announced, said Ian Thomson, president of the Advanced Biofuels Canada industry group.At least five U.S. refiners have announced plans to produce renewable diesel or said they are considering it, including Phillips 66 and HollyFrontier Corp .

"This is Canada's to lose," Thomson said. "If Canada's refiners want to get left out of the game, they will dig their heels in and oppose the standard. Meanwhile, the Americans will build."

Renewable diesel is a niche market, making up just 0.5% of the 430-billion gallon per year global diesel market, according to investment bank Morgan Stanley.

Greenhouse gas emissions from renewable diesel and traditional biodiesel are typically 50% to 80% lower than conventional diesel.

U.S. states such as Colorado and Washington are moving toward such standards and along with Canada's fuel standard, a sufficient market is developing, said HollyFrontier executive Tom Creery, on the company's second-quarter earnings call.Suncor Energy Inc , Canada's second-biggest oil producer, has been considering a renewable diesel plant in Montreal, but the pandemic slowed its progress, said Chief Sustainability Officer Martha Hall Findlay.

Canadian refiners face longer regulatory delays than competitors in the United States, setting them at a disadvantage, she said.

"The timelines would force investment in facilities outside Canada because of the sheer fact that we can't build them that fast," Hall Findlay said. "That seems a little backward."

New supply could far overshoot demand if all announced projects are built, Morgan Stanley said.Parkland Fuel Corp is producing renewable diesel and renewable gasoline in its Burnaby, British Columbia refinery, and is considering expanding capacity, said Senior Vice-President Ryan Krogmeier.

"There's a tremendous opportunity for Canada to harness its natural resources," he said. "The market for renewable fuels is really taking off."

However, Canada's criteria for crops to be made into biofuels are too strict to be practical, said farmer Markus Haerle, a corn and soybean grower and chair of Grain Farmers of Ontario.

Federal officials have told the group that farms must meet strict requirements to qualify their crops, such as growing them at least 30 metres (98 ft) from waterways and on land that has not been significantly cleared of trees.

"We know farmers won't be able to be certified under those criteria," Haerle said.

The same standards will apply to imported fuels, said Samantha Bayard, spokeswoman for Canada's environment ministry.

(Reporting by Rod Nickel in Winnipeg, Manitoba and Laura Sanicola in New York; Editing by Marguerita Choy)

A militia-promoting father and son duo of fake news publishers and a Trump-connected social media consultant are linked to pages which promote the idea of an American civil war with material presented in a way that appears to be an effort to sidestep Facebook’s fact-checking system.

Comments on their Facebook pages and other materials obtained by the Guardian show that some rank and file Donald Trump supporters are enthusiastically receiving the message that they should prepare for violence against their perceived political enemies in November.

The network is comprised of websites owned and operated by Dino Porrazzo Sr and Dino Porrazzo Jr, whose company, AFF Media, is headquartered in Pinon Hills in California. The pair have been running rightwing websites since at latest 2013, according to DNS website records.

The Porrazzos now run a network of websites that enthusiastically promote Trump, and far right anti-government militias like the Three Percenters, and offer distorted versions of current events. One of their Facebook pages, “Prepare to Take America Back” (PTTAB) at the time of reporting had 794,876 followers. Analysis with social media metrics tool Crowdtangle shows that over the last three months PTTAB posts have been shared over 141,000 times, and on average 9,600 times a week.

© Photograph: Maranie R Staab/AFP/Getty Images A far right rally in Portland, Oregon on 26 September 2020.

At that time, the page’s header featured the logo of the Three Percenters, a decentralized group that the ADL calls a “wing of the militia movement”; a group of armed men in tactical gear; and a modified copy of the US presidential seal.

In general, the page promotes conspiracy theories and criminal allegations about Democratic party politicians, liberal celebrities and leftist protesters, some of which – like persistent claims that Hillary Clinton will be imminently arrested – overlap with aspects of the so-called “QAnon” conspiracy theory movement.

The page makes free use of political memes, but many posts link to a small cluster of rightwing websites designed to appear like news outlets. Increasingly, over the course of 2020, the page has been warning of a stolen election, and suggesting this will lead to civil war.

Repeatedly in September, the page linked to a story on the website Right Wing Tribune, headlined “Radical Left Prepares For ‘Mass Public Unrest,’ ‘Political Apocalypse’ And Possible Civil War Should Be Expected If Biden Loses [Opinion]”, with Facebook captions including “the left wants war”.

The story had a limited basis in fact, in that a number of progressive groups had met in early September to discuss the prospect of civil unrest and political violence after the election with a belief that the violence they were anticipating would be coming from Trump supporters and the far right.

Nevertheless, the Right Wing Tribune piece concluded with a conspiracy theory: “These groups are heavily focused on removing President Trump from office as well as different scenarios which all lead to a second revolution in which they control our nation as a “New America”.”

Similarly distorted stories warning of a “siege of the white house”, peppered the page throughout September and warnings of a post-election civil war were posted over the last year.

Last November, the page linked to a site called Flag and Cross, and a story which it described as an “excellent opinion piece”, entitled “Winning the New Civil War (OPINION)”.

The piece claimed on the basis of antifascist protests and comments by Democratic politicians that, “We have many strong indications that this is a hot war”.

The transparency page for PTTAB discloses that PTTAB is managed by Southern California-based AFF Media Inc, and that the Vici Media Group “partners with this page”.

According to California records, AFF Media was incorporated on Donald Trump’s inauguration day, 20 January 2017; in other documents, Dino Porrazzo Jr is listed as CEO and CFO, and Dino Porrazzo Sr as secretary. But the Guardian has discovered that the Porrazzos are further involved in running a dizzying array of interconnected sites and social media pages. The Annenberg Public Policy initiative lists two of their websites on its “Misinformation Directory” of “websites that have posted deceptive content”.

One of the listed sites is Right Wing Tribune. But all of the other sites linked to by the PTTAB Facebook page also appear to belong to AFF, with similar design, shared bylines and shared source code.


This is not some dark corner of the Internet, this is not a fringe thing, it’s mainstream Republicans.Becca Lewis, Stanford University

The Porrazzos have been previously reported as having links to the Three Percenters, a decentralized, national militia movement that the Southern Poverty Law Center categorizes as anti-government extremists.

Their online empire is large. Another Parazzo site, Flag and Cross is listed as the administrator of another Facebook page, United States Constitution, which has 1.2 million followers.

A Guardian review of that site’s content shows a similar pattern of linking to Porrazzo-connected websites, and warnings of civil war stretching back to the lead-up to the 2018 midterm elections.

Becca Lewis researches online extremism and disinformation at Stanford University. In a telephone conversation, she said that the page and the associated websites represented a sophisticated effort to skirt Facebook’s fact-checking efforts.

“It seems as though they are being very strategic in their messaging so as to not be shut down,” Lewis said, adding that viewing the ostentatious labeling of opinion as an effort to sidestep fact-checking is “absolutely a reasonable assumption”.

In June, Heated reported that climate change deniers were exploiting the same loophole to “make any climate disinformation ineligible for fact-checking by deeming it “opinion”. In August, NBC reported that Facebook had systematically relaxed its fact-checking rules for conservative outlets and personalities.

In a telephone conversation, Dino Porrazzo Jr asserted that PTTAB had had “zero fact-check violations”, characterizing his websites as “opinion websites based on fact”. Asked if they were fact-checked at all, Porrazzo said “no”, but added: “I don’t work at Facebook”. Asked if he thought that there really was a civil war coming, Porrazzo accused the Guardian of “writing a hit piece to get me thrown off Facebook”, and then ended the conversation.

Facebook Media did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The Porrazzos also have links to Republican officials.

The registered agent for the company is an elected official in California, Ensen Mason, who was elected as San Bernardino county auditor-controller in California as a nonpartisan candidate, but who is listed as a member of the San Bernardino Republican party.

In an email, however, Ensen Mason said that in relation to the Porrazzos, his accounting firm’s role “is strictly limited to accounting services and registered agent”.

The Vici Media Group, meanwhile, is run by Patrick Mauldin, who is a social media consultant for the Trump campaign and other Republican politicians, and his brother, Ryan.

The company was hired in 2016 by one-time Trump campaign manager and recently-resigned campaign consultant, Brad Parscale, to be part of the team that was widely credited with winning Trump the election. In June, Patrick Mauldin was identified as the creator of a fake Joe Biden site that was compared in New York Times reporting to “disinformation spread by Russian trolls”.

In an email, Ryan Mauldin disavowed the Porrazzos’ publishing output, writing, “Vici Media Group was engaged for a small, non-content-related project by the managers of the page.”

Mauldin added, “We have no input on the content published by the various sites or the comments made on that content. We are not working for the Trump campaign.”

Mauldin did not immediately respond to attempts to further clarify the nature of their work for the Porrazzos, and to clarify New York Times reporting as recent as June 2020 that said Patrick Mauldin was on a retainer for the Trump campaign, and considered a “rising star”.

Porrazzo refused to specify the nature of AFF’s relationship with Vici Media Group.

Meanwhile, the content of the Porrazzo pages does appear to trigger extreme responses among users. Hundreds of user comments on the page’s posts suggest the use of violence against perceived political enemies. On a 5 September post linking to a Right Wing Tribune article suggesting that Democrats will foment civil war if Biden loses, one user commented, “a short civil war with the democrats and those who support socialist policies will go a long way to help Make America Great Again”.

Another connects civil war to their belief that a Trump loss is impossible, writing “If [Biden] wins, it’ll be from fraud on an industrial scale, and the lesson that’ll have to be taught for that will necessarily be no less industrial.”

Many welcome the prospect of armed conflict – one writes “That’s fine with me open season on democrats!”. Another deployed accused murderer Kyle Rittenhouse as a positive example, writing “I think it will be more whining, crying, rioting, looting and a lot of Kyles protecting their cities, towns and neighborhoods.”

Asked to comment on the site’s apparent reach, and the nature of its community, Lewis, the extremism researcher, said: “This is not some dark corner of the internet, this is not a fringe thing, it’s mainstream Republicans that are stoking this.”

On links to the Trump campaign, she said that the distorted content and the violent user comments formed a kind of “feedback loop”, and that “Trump and his campaign staff have been masters at exploiting these feedback loops”.

On Tuesday night, meanwhile, following the Guardian’s outreach to the Porrazzos and Facebook that day, Dino Porrazzo announced on Twitter that he “HAD TO DELETE A FEW ARTICLES I WROTE TODAY BECAUSE THEY WERE DEMED FALSE BY BASEMENT DWELLING LIBERAL FACT CHECKERS”.

REACTIONARY

Why Erin O'Toole is accusing the Liberals of pushing 'social experiments' in a pandemic

Aaron Wherry CBC

© Getty Images Family members visit residents at a long-term care home in Pickering, Ont. The Conservatives are accusing the Liberals of dividing their focus away from the immediate effects of the pandemic towards

Delivering his first major speech in the House of Commons as leader of the Official Opposition this week, Erin O'Toole made this observation: "A time of crisis and uncertainty is not the time to conduct social experiments like those set out in the throne speech."

The Conservative leader did not specify which of the ideas in the throne speech he regarded as "social experiments." Reforms to employment insurance? A national child-care system? New standards for long-term care? Promoting the use of zero-emission vehicles? Implementing the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples?

O'Toole is, of course, not wrong when he says this is a time of great uncertainty. The interest among Canadians in actual grand social experiments is no doubt quite limited right now. Citizens surely would like to feel as stable and secure as possible — to be reassured and comforted by the actions of their leaders.

But what do stability and security look like now? And who can offer it? These are the key questions of the moment, and for the future.

There are a great many things worth worrying about right now. First and foremost is the pandemic — both the grave threat posed by the virus and the incredible economic and social damage it has caused. And those crises also have exposed significant weaknesses and points of vulnerability, from deep inequalities in society to the fragility of important supply chains.

There's also the threat of climate change and the transformation of the global economy that it makes necessary (or inevitable). And the horrifying implosion of American democracy. And the unrestrained audacity of China. And the destabilizing threat of Russia. These were things worth worrying about well before a global pandemic took hold.

O'Toole's Conservatives would add at least two other things to that list: "national unity" (specifically, the anxieties and unhappiness felt by many people in Alberta and Saskatchewan) and the federal debt.
Fear of a fiscal meltdown

Many economists would caution against worrying too much about the federal deficit right now, but Canadians might be conditioned to worry about government spending. A survey released this week by Canada 2020, a progressive think-tank in Ottawa, found that 74 per cent of respondents at least somewhat agreed with the statement that "after this pandemic is over, we will need leaders to be uncompromising to get Canada's finances in order." (The survey was conducted by Data Sciences, an analytics company founded by Tom Pitfield, a close friend and adviser to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. Gerald Butts, a former adviser to Trudeau, assisted in the design and analysis of the poll.)

Eighty-one per cent of respondents also agreed that "the COVID-19 pandemic isn't over [and] the government should keep its eye on the ball," while 62 per cent agreed with the statement: "I am still afraid that I will contract COVID-19." Just 48 per cent agreed that "the government should use this moment in time to introduce big changes to Canadian society by introducing new programs and services."

Eighty-eight per cent of respondents still agreed that there is a "need to implement extensive social programs to make sure that Canadians across the country are provided for." Based on that and other findings, Canada 2020's analysis concludes that Canadians "aren't sure what they want exactly."
A shift in messaging

Public concerns about the near-term threat of the pandemic could explain why Justin Trudeau's government changed its public messaging in the days leading up to the throne speech — to de-emphasize its vision for the long term and confirm its focus on the immediate crisis.

It also would explain why Conservatives are dedicating a lot of their energy right now to trying to blame the Trudeau government for any and all shortcomings in this country's response to the pandemic — and why O'Toole is warning about "social experiments."

The Conservative leader said it was "as though simply ensuring that Canadian families have good jobs is not prestigious enough for this prime minister." O'Toole attacked Trudeau's credibility and spoke about small businesses, the resource sector and China. He said little or nothing about child care, long-term care, new support for the unemployed or climate change (neither O'Toole's first speech as Conservative leader nor his first speech as leader of the opposition in the House contained the word "climate").

But those issues were prominent in a throne speech that promised a "stronger and more resilient Canada." "Do we come out of this stronger, or paper over the cracks that the crisis has exposed?" the government asked through Gov. Gen. Julie Payette last week.
How do we make ourselves feel safe now?

The Liberals argue that Canadians will feel more stable and secure if they have better access to child care, better care for the elderly and an improved EI system, and if the country is moving with some haste to reduce its emissions and transition to a low-carbon economy. For Liberals, these are foundational elements of a better future — changes that are, in many cases, already overdue.

O'Toole might still have more to say about such things. But if Conservatives don't want to match or support the Liberal plans, they can raise concerns about whether the government can afford it — or whether Trudeau can be trusted to deliver it.

Or they can try to speak to the anxiety that often results when change is discussed. In his remarks on Wednesday, O'Toole said that the vision presented in the throne speech was of "a Canada where the government decides what jobs people have and what cars they drive, a Canada where millions of Canadians are knowingly left behind and are told the country will be building back better without them."

Much of O'Toole's speech was dedicated to this idea that Trudeau's Liberals were leaving people behind. But that was also a stated preoccupation of the throne speech. "Do we move Canada forward, or let people be left behind?" the government asked.

In short, what ends up emerging from these uncertain times could be two very different visions of how to achieve stability and security.

But if there is a social experiment being conducted here, it is the pandemic itself — an inescapable and extended crisis that affects nearly every facet of modern life, sickening some, traumatizing others and weighing heavily on everyone.

The pandemic has been presented as a test of resilience and unity. But it's also a test of how well our leaders can provide reassurance — and of what people want.

MISOGYNIST 
Mitch McConnell ‘refusing to debate his election rival if there is a female moderator’

Madeline Roth,The Independent•September 29, 2020

Mitch McConnell's challenger in the US Senate race has accused him of refusing to participate in debates moderated by women. (AFP via Getty Images)

US Sen. Mitch McConnell and his challenger in the Kentucky Senate race, Amy McGrath, are sparring over upcoming debates.

It all started when Mr McConnell sent a press release from "Team Mitch" accusing his opponent of potentially backing out of a debate in October. But according to subsequent claims from Ms McGrath's campaign, the real issue is the senator’s refusal to participate in an event with a female moderator.

In a press release issued Monday, Ms McGrath's campaign alleged that "Amy is ready and willing to debate Mitch, but Mitch is afraid to take the stage unless he dictates every detail."

The release continues, "Sen. Mitch McConnell has not participated in a debate in Kentucky where the candidates took questions from a female moderator in nearly 25 years, and he continues to resist allowing women to host debates."

The campaign promised that Ms McGrath would participate in upcoming debates only when "the gender balance of the moderators is restored."