AUSTRALIA

Violet Coco is not alone: the climate activists facing jail

As protesters use more provocative tactics, state governments are responding with heavy-handed laws to stop them

Lee Coaldrake and Dianne Tucker have been charged with ‘disturbing the legislature’, a charge not used in Queensland for three decades. 

Photograph: David Kelly

Joe Hinchliffe, Sean Ruse and Michael McGowan

The Guardian

Fri 9 Dec 2022 

Lee Coaldrake was 18 when she joined protests in Brisbane against South Africa’s rugby tour of Australia in 1971.

She later became an anaesthetist, got married, had two daughters and then seven grandchildren – and didn’t participate in another demonstration for nearly 50 years.

But, this week, Coaldrake was one of six women and three men – aged between 53 and 81 – to be the first people charged for disrupting Queensland parliament for more than 30 years, harking back to an era when the sunshine state was led by the notoriously repressive premier Joh Bjelke-Petersen.


04:53Extracts from documentary calling out new laws to curb demonstrations – video

“It was really difficult telling my family,” the 69-year-old says from her home in the well-heeled suburb of Teneriffe on Thursday, moments before taking herself to the police station to be fingerprinted and photographed.

“My eldest daughter only found out yesterday that, in fact, I was facing criminal charges. I haven’t told my youngest daughter yet. My family gets anxious … it’s a very foreign area for us to be in.”

The Queensland arrests mark the latest flashpoint in a string of high-profile crackdowns on climate protesters across Australia.

‘It was really difficult telling my family’: Lee Coaldrake (right) with fellow climate protester Dianne Tucker. 

Photograph: David Kelly/The Guardian

As activists use increasingly provocative – and divisive – tactics in a bid to highlight the urgency of the climate crisis, state governments are beginning to respond with a suite of heavy-handed new laws aimed at curtailing the demonstrations.

In New South Wales, 32-year-old Deanna “Violet” Coco was last week handed a 15-month jail sentence after she blocked a lane of traffic on Sydney’s Harbour Bridge in April.

Coco was the first person to be jailed under controversial laws passed earlier this year that introduced a possible two-year prison sentence for people who block major roads, bridges or ports.

The laws have been widely condemned by a coalition of environmental groups, unions, civil liberties organisations and legal groups, but enjoy the support of both the Coalition government and Labor opposition.

This week the premier, Dominic Perrottet, said the sentence was “pleasing to see” while the Labor leader, Chris Minns, said he did not regret helping the government to pass the laws, pointing to the disruption caused by the demonstrations.

But Josh Pallas, the president of the NSW Council for Civil Liberties, says the sentence is “outrageous”.

“Peaceful protest should never result in jail time,” he says.

“It’s outrageous that the state wastes its resources seeking jail time and housing peaceful protesters in custody at the expense of taxpayers. Peaceful protest sometimes involves inconvenience to the public. But inconvenience is not a sufficient reason to prohibit it. It’s immoral and unjust.”

‘Could I really handle that?’

Following the introduction of the new laws, dozens of people were arrested in Sydney following high-profile demonstrations blocking roads in Sydney’s CBD in June.

Among those was 74-year-old retiree and grandmother Elizabeth Hartrick, who came to Sydney as part of the protest.

Hartrick tells the Guardian she had stayed back from the more dramatic actions during the protest, but was tracked down by police the next day.

“I hadn’t been told to leave the road, I wasn’t in that situation,” she says.

Violet Coco was handed a 15-month jail sentence over a climate protest 

on the Sydney Harbour Bridge. 

Photograph: Carly Earl/The Guardian

After her arrest she was held in custody for 30 hours, and then subjected to strict bail conditions – including non-association orders with other members of Extinction Rebellion – before her next court hearing in March.

“It feels very unsettling, I run through different scenarios. Would they take into account the fact that I’m a pensioner, that I’m elderly?” she says.

“How would I look after my flat? How do I look after my personal affairs, do I have to give someone power of attorney of bank accounts? I think, what the hell would I do? And then if I did go to prison, I think, ‘geez, could I really handle that?’ It’s just a really horrible kind of demoralising feeling.”

The arrests followed the establishment by NSW police of Strike Force Guard, which in June raided a property in Colo to “prevent, investigate and disrupt unauthorised protests”. It led to the arrests of seven people, including 27-year-old Tim Neville.

Neville was accused of being a leader of the group, and spent nearly four weeks in prison after being refused bail.

“I was charged with the crime of aiding and abetting the commission of a future crime,” he said at a protest following his arrest.

“In other words, I was charged with thinking about protesting, I was thinking about taking direct action.”

How does the 15-month jail term for environmental protester Violet Coco compare to other sentences?

NSW is not alone in cracking down on climate activists.

In Victoria, forestry activists will soon face up to $21,000 in fines and 12 months in prison for protesting near logging areas. Laws passed in Queensland in 2018 mean even those found possessing devices used in disruptive protests face two years in jail.

Dr Robyn Gulliver, an expert in protest movements at the University of Queensland, has been studying the causes and consequences of climate activism in Australia for the past decade. She says the laws have “a psychological effect”.

“We know this from other countries where authoritarian regimes, for example, have cracked down really heavily on protesters,” she says.

“And part of the rationale for that is that it makes everybody else scared. It sends a message to everybody else. It’s far too punitive.”

‘To be confronted with a criminal charge is a very stressful thing’: Dianne Tucker (right) and Lee Coaldrake. Photograph: David Kelly/The Guardian

On Wednesday a small group of people sitting in the public gallery in the Queensland parliament suddenly unfurled banners with slogans such as “end fossil fuels now” and chanted repeatedly “stop coal, stop gas” for a period of about three minutes. It was livestreamed to Facebook, before security stopped the protest.

Nine people have since been charged, and are accused of disturbing the legislature.

The following day, the premier, Annastacia Palaszczuk, told parliament that the protest left some of her colleagues feeling “very unsafe”, while the speaker, Curtis Pitt, flagged his intention to press charges, alleging the cameras used in the protest were smuggled in “by accomplices using disabled access facilities for a wheelchair” in what he described as a “particularly despicable act”.
I’ve led a life that’s been very conformist and been very careful not to break the law

A spokesperson for Pitt confirms it was the speaker who requested police lay charges, the first time anyone has faced prosecution for disturbing the legislative assembly in three decades.

Dianne Tucker was the first of the group to receive a call from a detective of the criminal investigation bureau.

“I’ve led a life that’s been very conformist and been very careful not to break the law,” says the 68-year-old grandmother, who is a semi-retired psychologist.

“So to be confronted with a criminal charge is a very stressful thing to go through.”

While her journey from law-abiding professional to radical activist has been a relatively sudden one, Tucker says she has long been troubled by the unfolding climate crisis – and is willing to act on those concerns.

“As the situation with the climate breakdown has become increasingly obvious, it’s created more and more of a sense of urgency for me,” Tucker says.

While the tactics used by climate activists divide opinions – even within the environmental movement – Chris Salisbury, a political historian at the University of Queensland, says the demonstrations are part of a long history of direct action born out of frustration.

“With climate change and climate action really pressing, and obviously on the forefront of mind for many people, I don’t think I would be going out on a limb to say, yes, I expect that yes, we could see more people call back upon that tradition,” he says.

Crabs have evolved five separate times—why do the same forms keep appearing in nature?

by Matthew Wills, The Conversation

Full size blue crab.

Charles Darwin believed evolution created "endless forms most beautiful." It's a nice sentiment but it doesn't explain why evolution keeps making crabs.

Scientists have long wondered whether there are limits to what evolution can do or if Darwin had the right idea. The truth may lie somewhere between the two.

While there doesn't seem to be a ceiling on the number of species that might evolve, there may be restraints on how many fundamental forms those species can evolve into. The evolution of crab-like creatures may be one of the best examples of this, since they have evolved not just once but at least five times.

Crabs belong to a group of crustaceans called decapods—literally "ten footed", since they have five pairs of walking legs. Some decapods, like lobsters and shrimp, have a thick, muscular abdomen, which is the bulk of the animal that we eat. With a quick flick of their abdomen lobsters can shoot off backwards and escape predators.

Crabs, by contrast, have a compressed abdomen, tucked away under a flattened but widened thorax and shell. This allows them to scuttle into rock crevices for protection. Evolution repeatedly hit upon this solution because it works well under similar sets of circumstances.

Five groups of "crabs"

The largest crab group are the Brachyura (true crabs) including the edible crab and Atlantic blue crab. They had an ancestor that was also crab shaped. Some species have evolved "backwards" and straightened out their abdomens again. The other large group are the Anomura (false crabs), with an ancestor that looked more like a lobster.

However, at least four groups of Anomura—sponge crabs, porcelain crabs, king crabs and the Australian hairy stone crab—have independently evolved into a crab-like form in much the same way as the true crabs. Like the true crabs, their compact bodies are more defensive, and can move sideways faster.

This means "crabs" aren't a real biological group. They are a collection of branches in the decapod tree that evolved to look the same.

But crabs aren't the exception.

Something similar happened in the evolution of birds from feathered dinosaurs. Feathers may have first evolved for insulation, to attract mates, for protecting eggs and possibly also as "nets" for catching prey. Millions of years later, feathers elongated and streamlined for flying.

Paleontologists disagree about the details, but all modern birds (Neoaves) evolved from ground-dwelling ancestors just after the mass extinction that wiped out the other dinosaurs. However, feathered wings and flight also evolved earlier in other groups of dinosaurs, including troodontids and dromaeosaurs. Some of these, like Microraptor, had four wings.

Re-running the tape of life

Unfortunately we can't run evolutionary experiments to see if the same things keep happening because that would take hundreds of millions of years. But the history of life has already done something similar to that for us, when closely related lineages evolve and diversify on different continents. In many cases, these ancestral lines repeatedly came up with the same or almost identical solutions to problems.

One of the best examples is our own group, the mammals.

There are two major groups of living mammals. The placentals (including us) and the marsupials (pouched mammals who give birth to tiny young). Both groups evolved from the same common ancestor over 100 million years ago, the marsupials largely in Australasia and the Americas and the placentals elsewhere.

This isolation led to two almost independent runs of the "experiment" to see what could be done with the mammal bodyplan. There are marsupial and placental versions of moles, mice, anteaters, gliders, and cats. There was even a marsupial wolf (the thylacine, extinct in 1936), whose skull and teeth match those of the placental wolf in astonishing detail.

It's not only body forms that evolve independently, but also organs and other structures. Humans have complex camera eyes with a lens, iris and retina. Squid, and octopuses, which are molluscs and more closely related to snails and clams, also evolved camera eyes with the same components.

Eyes more generally may have evolved independently up to 40 times in different groups of animals. Even box jellyfish, which don't have a brain, have eyes with lenses at the bases of their four tentacles.

The more we look, the more we find. Structures such as jaws, teeth, ears, fins, legs and wings all keep evolving independently across the animal tree of life.

More recently, scientists discovered convergence also happens at the molecular level. The opsin molecules in eyes that convert photons of light into chemical energy and enable humans to see have a tight resemblance to those in box jellyfish, and evolved that way in parallel. Even more bizarrely, animals as different as whales and bats have striking convergence in the genes that enable them to echolocate.

Are humans really unique?

Many of the things we like to think make humans special have been reinvented by evolution elsewhere. Corvids like crows and ravens have problem-solving intelligence and, along with owls, can use simple tools.

Whales and dolphins have complex social structures, and their big brains allowed them to develop language. Dolphins use tools like sponges to cover their noses while they forage across stony sea bottoms. Octopuses also use tools and learn from watching what happens to other octopuses.

If things keep evolving in similar ways here on Earth, there's a possibility they might also follow a related course if life has evolved elsewhere in the universe. It might mean extra-terrestrial beings look less alien and more familiar than we expect.

Provided by The Conversation 

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

How does a crustacean become a crab?

Kyoto protocol

Japan’s climate policy ‘failed to build on the legacy of Kyoto’

More than two decades on from the protocol, country shows enthusiasm for nuclear restarts over renewables

Onagawa nuclear power plant is set to begin generating electricity in 2024 for the first time in more than a decade. Photograph: Justin McCurry/The Guardian


Justin McCurry in Kyoto and Fiona Harvey

THE GUARDIAN

Sat 10 Dec 2022 

Apart from the distant buzz of a gardener’s strimmer, all is quiet at the Kyoto International Conference Center, its grey concrete walls matched by the sky on an afternoon in early December. Autumn leaves still cling to branches in the nearby forest, where groups of hikers plot their course in light trousers and T-shirts, as if to remind passersby of why Japan’s ancient capital became synonymous with the climate crisis.

The venue – best known for its appearance in the 1974 Robert Mitchum film The Yakuza – is deserted. Its doors are locked and signs dotting its lawns warn non-authorised personnel to keep out.

It is a far cry from the frantic activity of 25 years ago, when hundreds of journalists and campaigners, fuelled by coffee and takeaway bento boxes, awaited news of a breakthrough at Cop3 – the world’s first serious attempt to wean itself off fossil fuels.

On 11 December 1997, after negotiations that ran through the night, the Kyoto protocol was born, committing 160 parties – later 192 – to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 5.2% between 2008 and 2012.

The summit’s Japanese hosts hailed the agreement as a major breakthrough – the first time developed and developing countries had signed up to legally binding CO2 reduction targets.

“Cop3 was a good start, because it showed that the world had to change,” said Kenro Taura, executive director of Kiko Network, a Kyoto-based NGO. “Until then, most countries were determined to pursue economic growth based around the use of fossil fuels, but Kyoto convinced them that was not the right approach.”

The protocol was also an important step towards the Paris climate agreement. Derided by some as a failure because of the US refusal to ratify it, the agreement had some notable successes. It set out a global system of carbon trading, and in establishing many of the technical aspects of carbon accounting that are still in use, in modified forms, today.

The “top-down” system of setting countries’ emissions-cutting targets has since been abandoned in favour of “bottom-up” commitments known as nationally determined contributions, but the understanding that rich countries must take responsibility for their historic role in the climate crisis endures, and was one of the flashpoints at last month’s Cop27 UN climate summit in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt.

“The Kyoto protocol is regarded as an important milestone in climate action, as it was the first opportunity for countries to work together to reduce greenhouse gas emissions,” Japan’s environment ministry said.

“In response to the Kyoto protocol, Japan will drive emission reductions not only in Japan but also in developing countries where emissions have increased significantly, thus contributing to the global emission reductions.”

The anniversary of the protocol, which came into force in 2005 – minus the US – passed almost unnoticed in its host city this week. Yet the absence of fanfare is misleading. In the quarter of a century since the summit, Kyoto city has positioned itself at the forefront of efforts to address climate change, even if Japan’s government has been found wanting.

In 2019, Kyoto became the first Japanese city to announce a net zero target by 2050, and, in March 2021, the first to join the Powering Past Coal Alliance, an international campaign to move away from coal-fired power generation.

In the two decades after Cop3, Kyoto halved the amount of waste it generated and cut energy consumption by 31%, according to Sayoko Matsumoto, manager of the city’s Do You Kyoto?project – named in honour of former German chancellor Angela Merkel, who used those words during a visit to the city in 2007 as a way of asking people if they were taking action to save the planet.

Kyoto was one of four Japanese cities to be named to CDP’s A-List for 2022 in recognition of its “bold action” on climate change. On the 16th of every month, – the date in February 2005 when the protocol went into effect – outdoor lighting is dimmed or turned off, commuters are encouraged to swap their cars for public transport and diners eat in restaurants lit by candles and lamps.

“The city feels a responsibility to lead on climate change, and that’s part of the legacy of Cop3,” Matsumoto said. “A lot of people in Kyoto may be too young to remember the actual summit, but they are aware of the climate crisis and the need to cooperate to help Kyoto achieve its net zero target.”

Japan’s government, by contrast, has struggled to build on the Cop3 legacy. As of last year, renewables accounted for just over 20% of Japan’s energy generation – significantly lower than Germany (49% in the first half of 2022) and Britain (39%). Nuclear accounts for just under 7%, with coal, oil and liquefied natural gas dominating Japan’s energy generation with a 74% share.

Its role in financing major oil, gas and coal projects earned Japan – the world’s fifth-biggest emitter of greenhouses gases – a “fossil award” from the Climate Action Network at the Cop27 summit.

More than a decade after the Fukushima crisis forced Japan to close reactors and increase fossil fuel imports, the government is again turning to nuclear to help it achieve carbon neutrality by 2050, to the dismay of environmental campaigners who believe the focus should be on renewables.

“The Japanese government is using the ‘we will do it with nuclear’ mantra as a way of delaying real work on climate change,” said Aileen Smith, executive director of Green Action.

“Nuclear power is expensive,” Smith said, citing plans by Kansai Electric Power, which serves the region where Kyoto is located, to spend over ¥1tn (£5.9bn) over the next five years on climate change, with 70% of that investment earmarked for the nuclear sector. “It means money will be spent on a less effective, more expensive way of reducing CO2 emissions. And it won’t be that long-lasting, since the nuclear plants are old.”

There was little evidence of any desire to burnish Kyoto’s legacy among the Japanese delegation at Cop27. Japan played a low-key role during the two-week conference, supporting moves to reaffirm the global target of limiting greenhouse gas emissions to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels, but without taking a significant public stance on the issue.

The country’s prime minister, Fumio Kishida, did not attend the summit, putting him out of step with more than 100 world leaders who did.

Taura said Japan’s enthusiasm for nuclear restarts and cautious embrace of renewables showed that Japan had “learned nothing” from the Kyoto protocol or the triple meltdown in Fukushima.

“I think Europe has done more to take action that matches the spirit of the Kyoto protocol,” he said. “But Japan has consistently made the wrong choices. The decision to put increased nuclear power generation at the centre of its climate change policy is another setback to energy conservation and the promotion of renewable energy. Unfortunately, Japan has failed to build on the legacy of Kyoto.”

ABOLISH THE DEATH PENALTY

Two US men freed after 25 years as true crime podcast casts doubt on conviction

New evidence from Proof disputed prosecution’s case that Darrell Lee Clark and Cain Joshua Storey murdered with premeditation

Darrell Lee Clark, left, and Cain Joshua Storey. 

Photograph: Courtesy Georgia Innocence Project


Gloria Oladipo
@gaoladipo

Mon 12 Dec 2022

Two Georgia men were released from prison – and one of them was completely exonerated – after spending more than two decades behind bars, when a true crime podcast revealed new evidence that all but destroyed the case authorities had built against them.

Darrell Lee Clark and his co-defendant Cain Joshua Storey were released from custody last week, after spending more than 25 years imprisoned for the 1996 shooting death of 15-year-old Brian Bowling, a friend of the pair, according to a press release from the Georgia Innocence Project.

New evidence from the true-crime podcast Proof disputed the prosecution’s case that Clark and Storey had murdered Bowling with premeditation.

“You never think something like that is going to happen to you,” said Lee Clark, who thanked the Innocence Project and the podcast for helping secure his release.

“It’s been surreal to say the least,” Storey added. “I believe it’s going to be great. One step at a time.”

Bowling had died after being shot in the head on 18 October 1996.

Right before his death, Bowling had been on the phone with his girlfriend, telling her that he was playing Russian roulette with a gun.

The gun had been brought over by Storey, Bowling’s best friend. Storey had also been in the room with Bowling when the gun was fired.

Cain Joshua Storey with loved ones on his release day.

 Photograph: Courtesy Georgia Innocence Project

Police had initially charged Storey with manslaughter in connection to Bowling’s death, believing the shooting had been unintentional but still illegal. But at the urging of Bowling’s family, police began investigating his death as a murder, which implies much more serious charges.

To build their case, police interviewed a woman who lived near the Bowlings’ house. The woman had claimed that she heard Storey and Clark talk about having planned to murder Bowling during a party, months after the shooting had happened. The woman also said Storey and Clark wanted to kill Bowling because he knew too much about a theft the pair had committed.

Furthermore, police spoke with a person with hearing and speech impairments who was in a different part of the house during the shooting. The person claimed to see Clark running out of the Bowling’s home and through the back yard.

During the trial, prosecutors relied on the testimony of a coroner who said he had a “gut feeling” that the gunshot could not have been self-inflicted in the way it might happen if they were really playing Russian roulette. But the coroner was not a medical doctor, and an autopsy was never conducted on Bowling.

Storey and Clark were convicted of murder and conspiracy to commit murder in 1998. They were both sentenced to life in prison at the age of 17.

In 2021, podcasters Susan Simpson and Jacinda Davis of Proof began looking into Storey and Clark’s case. The two interviewed the key witnesses who prosecutors relied on to convict Storey and Clark.

They learned that police had actually coerced the woman to falsely state that she had heard Storey and Clark discussing any plans to murder Bowling after police had threatened to take her children away.

Darrell Lee Clark with loved ones on his release day. 

Photograph: Courtesy Georgia Innocence Project

The Proof podcasters also found out the police’s second witness had been misunderstood at the time of the trial and was speaking about an unrelated shooting he had witnessed in 1976. The person had actually never seen any boy outside the Bowling property during the shooting.

“It took us a long time to talk to both of those witnesses,” Davis said to CNN. “The podcast was happening in almost real time as an investigation. When we finally found and were able to talk to those two witnesses, it really solidified that both of these guys had been wrongly convicted.”

In September, Clark’s attorneys filed motions asserting that Clark’s conviction had been based on false evidence and coercion.

Clark was released from Floyd county jail after court officials agreed that his conviction should be completely vacated in light of the new evidence. That finding essentially found him innocent of having committed any crime.

Meanwhile, the murder-related charges on which Storey had been convicted were also dropped against him. But he had previously admitted to bringing Bowling the gun on the night that Bowling told his girlfriend he was playing Russian roulette.

So Storey struck a deal with prosecutors to plead guilty to involuntary manslaughter in exchange for a sentence of 10 years he had already served, setting up his immediate release.

RIP COMRADE
Poland’s only cosmonaut, Mirosław Hermaszewski, dies aged 81

Hermaszewski circled Earth in the Soyuz 30 spacecraft in 1978 as part of the Soviet Intercosmos programme

Gen Mirosław Hermaszewski (right) is welcomed after he returned from his space flight in 1978, landing in the Soyuz 30 spacecraft near Arkalyk in Kazakhstan. 

Photograph: Tadeusz Zagoździński/PAP/Alamy

AP in Warsaw

Mon 12 Dec 2022 

Alexei Leonov, the first man to walk in space

Poland’s only cosmonaut, Gen Mirosław Hermaszewski, who circled the Earth in a Soviet spacecraft in 1978, has died. He was 81.

The retired air force pilot’s death on Monday was announced via Twitter by his son-in-law, European Parliament member Ryszard Czarnecki. He later told Polish media outlets that Hermaszewski died at a hospital in Warsaw of complications from a surgery he had undergone in the morning.

“On behalf of the family, I’m confirming the very sad news about the death of Gen Mirosław Hermaszewski,” Czarnecki tweeted, calling him a “great pilot, good husband and father, and much beloved grandfather”.

Hermaszewski became a national hero thanks to his trip to space. For nine days in June and July 1978, he and Soviet cosmonaut Pyotr Klimuk circled the Earth in the Soyuz 30 spaceship that docked at the Salyut 6 orbital space station. They went around the globe 126 times.

Hermaszewski (right) with Soviet cosmonaut Pyotr Klimuk, with whom he orbited Earth 126 times. Photograph: Sovfoto/Universal Images Group/Shutterstock

In an 2018 interview with the Polish newspaper Rzeczpospolita, Hermaszewski said his biggest fear during the flight was that their spacecraft would be struck by a meteor. His and Klimuk’s senses were sharpened, catching even the smallest sound, he said.

Hermaszewski travelled into space as part of the Soviet Union’s Intercosmos programme, which offered an opportunity to explore space for countries within the then-Eastern bloc under Moscow’s domination or which had ties with the Soviets.

The first person to blast off as part of the programme was Vladimír Remek of then-Czechoslovakia, in March 1978. Hermaszewski followed, while Sigmund Jähn of then-East Germany was the third to fly that year. They had all trained at the Star City space flight preparation facility outside Moscow.

Among other countries that contributed cosmonauts were Hungary, Bulgaria, Cuba, Vietnam, Mongolia, Romania, Syria, Afghanistan and India. France later took part in the programme, sending Jean-Loup Chrétien in 1982.

LET'S RECAP

Fifa accused of failing to adhere to its own human rights commitments

Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch criticise Fifa

Fifa failed to create a fund for injured or killed migrant workers

The Fifa president, Gianni Infantino, at a legends event in Doha. 

Photograph: Paul Childs/Reuters


Paul MacInnes
@PaulMac

Mon 12 Dec 2022 

Fifa has been accused of failing to adhere to its own human rights commitments after it chose not to create a remedy fund for migrant workers injured or killed in Qatar.

An umbrella group comprising, among others, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch has spoken out as the World Cup enters its final stages in Doha. It says plans announced by Fifa’s president, Gianni Infantino, to create a legacy fund that “helps people most in need all across the world” falls short of Fifa’s obligations, and undercuts assurances made before the tournament.


Gianni Infantino lauds group stage of the Qatar World Cup as ‘best ever’

It has called on the game’s governing body to change direction and help victims by using some of the $7.5bn (£6.1bn) of revenue generated from taking the World Cup to Qatar to provide compensation.

“Fifa can still do the right thing by channelling the legacy fund towards workers and their families, supporting a genuinely independent workers’ centre and working with Qatar to ensure that every worker can access the compensation that they deserve,” said Steve Cockburn, Amnesty International’s head of economic and social justice.

“By changing course, Fifa could make a lasting difference to the lives of the true heroes behind this World Cup. Refusing to do so would be a terrible indictment on its commitment to workers’ rights.”

In 2017 Fifa published its first human rights policy after criticism over the decision to award Qatar the World Cup. At its heart was a commitment to protecting human rights and remedying failures when they occurred, in accordance with the United Nations’ Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights.

To date, however, Fifa has made no express promise to remedy workers hurt or killed during the years of construction leading to the World Cup. A Workers’ Support and Insurance Fund run by the Qatari government claims to have paid out $350m to workers, but public evidence suggests it has so far been used to reimburse workers who have had wages stolen. Fifa’s obligations exist above and beyond any government action.

NGOs and charities, like European Football Associations who hoped to extract some form of legacy commitment, had extensive meetings with Fifa before the tournament and received encouragement only to be blindsided by a series of vague commitments in Infantino’s bizarre speech that launched the tournament last month. Sources suggest there have been no further meetings since that date.

Nick McGeehan, the founding director of FairSquare, another member of the umbrella group, denounced Fifa’s actions. “Instead of ensuring protection of migrant workers who built and delivered the World Cup infrastructure in Qatar, Fifa has benefited from their exploitation and parroted Qatari authorities’ talking points, showing their complicity to all the misleading claims and deflections on abuses of migrant workers,” he said.

“Fifa has tuned out genuine demands for remedy for migrant workers, including from the football industry, and ignored evidence of widespread uncompensated abuses and the inadequacies of the current compensation systems in Qatar.”

Fifa has been approached for comment. It has previously said it would publish details of the finances of the legacy fund once the World Cup has finished “in keeping with previous tournaments”.

UK
Multiple infections could make us much sicker – strep A, RSV and flu are a dangerous mix

The pandemic has changed the seasonal pattern of infectious diseases, and risky, little-understood blends are the result

‘There have been a number of strep A deaths in the UK, 16 of them children.’ 

Photograph: Danny Lawson/PA

Daniela Ferreira
Mon 12 Dec 2022

Around this time last year, my young daughter caught chickenpox. I thought it was a standard case of a normal childhood illness – we’d manage it by trying to ease the itching and everything would be fine.

Instead, my daughter got worse. She developed a sore throat, then a body rash, and struggled to drink liquids. Again, I thought this was a normal progression of her infection and she would eventually get better. It was only after I started talking to my colleagues that I learned that group A strep cases had been reported among schools in the vicinity. I also found out that chickenpox could lead to increased vulnerability against strep A, particularly among children.



Why are children in the UK at risk of serious strep A infections? – podcast

My daughter was taken to the GP, diagnosed with group A strep, and prescribed antibiotics. She made a full recovery, as most people do. However, as we witness a resurgence of this disease, we know that in rare cases strep A can cause pneumonia and an invasive bacterial infection that can be fatal. There have been a number of deaths in the UK, 16 of them children.

The strep A situation does highlight what is not yet enough studied in scientific research – the relationship between infectious diseases, such as between chickenpox and strep A. We still don’t understand why contracting one disease can make us more vulnerable to get a second one, a not uncommon scenario. Respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) and influenza can have similar links to pneumococcal bacteria, which cause pneumonia. Having a cold caused by one of these viruses makes one more susceptible to pneumonia and generally much sicker. Even less is known about the potential impact of Covid-19 when it inevitably enters the mix, as we go into winter.

One thing is certain, though. Getting infected with bugs such as strep A, RSV, influenza and Covid-19 can weaken the immune system to the point that pneumonia can develop, either caused by these or other bugs. For example, studies have shown that the decline in pneumococcal pneumonia during the pandemic was not due to the disappearance of the pneumococcus that had continued to circulate in the communities, but to a complete decline in certain respiratory viruses. Pneumococcus was still present, without symptoms, in children’s noses – but without a co-infection it couldn’t progress to full-blown pneumonia.

There is an opportunity for scientific research to explore the relationship between respiratory viruses and pneumococcal bacteria, so we are not forced to treat them independently of each other and perhaps could better use the arsenal of vaccines already available, as well as the new ones coming soon. This would help policymakers plan the best defences against such infections and should be an integral part of efforts to build global resilience against future pandemics. Research of this kind is already being carried out at the University of Oxford and other institutions around the world.

Unpicking this relationship between different infections is vital, especially as, post-pandemic, we are seeing shifts in the seasonality of several diseases. The rising numbers of strep A cases is unusual for this time of the year because they typically occur in late spring or early summer, often after chickenpox infections. This is most likely the result of a large infection-naive population – people who have never encountered the infection before – that has developed as a result of us staying mostly indoors during the pandemic.

A shift in seasonality of certain diseases following the pandemic and a sharp increase in other respiratory viruses at this time of the year can also increase vulnerability to strep A. We saw something similar happen in the US and in the UK with RSV, when there was a surge in cases over the spring and autumn last year following the easing of social contact rules. We should typically expect RSV to start peaking over the winter instead.

Another effective way we can mitigate the impact of respiratory diseases is through vaccination. There are already vaccines available for pneumonia, influenza and Covid-19 for instance. Although there aren’t any for RSV or strep A, they are in development and could be an important weapon against such infections in the future. However, it is also possible to build up defences indirectly. A chickenpox vaccine obviously helps recipients develop immunity against the disease, but could also potentially help to stop such infections from progressing into something more serious, such as strep A. The same principle can be applied to influenza, pneumococcus and Covid-19 vaccines.

An already stretched NHS is doing all it can to combat strep A and other respiratory illnesses. Pharmacists are also reporting shortages in antibiotics needed to treat strep A. We should do what we can to help our health system be more resilient through these cold months while also calling for measures to help it weather such pressures in the future, including more backing for scientific research and investment in pandemic preparedness.

Daniela Ferreira is professor of mucosal infection and vaccinology at the University of Oxford and the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine

WHO chief ‘very concerned’ over COVID situation in China

WHO head Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus appeals for detailed information as China battles a surge of COVID cases.

Published On 21 Dec 2022

China could be struggling to keep a tally of COVID-19 infections as the country experiences a big spike in cases, a senior World Health Organization official has said, amid concerns about a lack of data from the country.

Official figures from China have become an unreliable guide as less testing is being done across the country following the recent easing of the strict “zero-COVID” policy.

“In China, what’s been reported is relatively low numbers of cases in ICUs, but anecdotally ICUs are filling up,” WHO’s emergencies director Mike Ryan said on Wednesday.

“I wouldn’t like to say that China is actively not telling us what’s going on. I think they’re behind the curve.”

WHO head Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus also said he was “very concerned” about the situation in China.

“WHO is very concerned over the evolving situation in China,” Tedros told a weekly news conference, appealing for detailed information on disease severity, hospital admissions and intensive care requirements.

Vaccines from Germany

The WHO said it was ready to work with China to improve the way the country collects data around critical factors such as hospitalisation and death.

China uses a narrow definition of COVID deaths and reported no new fatalities for Tuesday, even crossing one off of its overall tally since the pandemic began, now at 5,241 – a fraction of the tolls of many much less populous countries.

The National Health Commission said only deaths caused by pneumonia and respiratory failure in patients who had the virus are classified as COVID deaths.

Ryan noted that there had been a surge in vaccination rates in the country over the last weeks, adding that it remains to be seen whether enough vaccination can be done in the coming weeks to stave off the effect of an Omicron wave

.

Beds are seen in a fever clinic that was set up in a sports area as coronavirus disease outbreaks continue in Beijing [Thomas Peter/Reuters]

The WHO would encourage work to import vaccines, but also to find arrangements where vaccines can be produced in as many places as possible, Ryan said.

China has nine domestically developed COVID-19 vaccines approved for use, more than any other country, but they have not been updated to target the highly infectious Omicron variant.

Germany has sent its first batch of BioNTech COVID-19 vaccines to China to be administered initially to German expatriates, government spokesman Steffen Hebestreit said, the first foreign coronavirus vaccine to be delivered to the country.

“The Chinese government informed Germany today that for the time being German citizens in China may be given the BioNTech vaccines,” he said, adding that “around 20,000 Germans would benefit” from the shipment.

He said that Germany was negotiating to win access for “other so-called expatriates” from other countries.

“In return, Chinese citizens in Europe, in Germany, may receive the Chinese vaccine Sinovac, if they so choose,” Hebestreit said.

It was not immediately clear whether other shipments would follow from Berlin.

THE POST'S VIEW

Opinion

China’s new covid nightmare could become a global catastrophe

By the Editorial Board

December 20, 2022 

China’s “zero covid” policy was unsustainable and abruptly scrapped, but the absence of a coherent fallback strategy threatens a fresh set of nightmares for its population, its economy and the Communist Party leadership. A new crisis could shake the whole world. As the Wuhan outbreak demonstrated three years ago, what begins in China does not necessarily stay there.

President Xi Jinping’s government had imposed draconian requirements for lockdowns, tests and forced quarantines during most of the pandemic. But once lifted on Dec. 7, the measures were followed by little guidance from the top. China’s party-state usually declares that everything is under control. Now, it appears to be quite unsettled. A wave of omicron infections is sweeping Beijing and might soon hit the rest of China. It has triggered panic buying of food and cold remedies. A government known for its rigidity and certitude stopped reporting some daily infections data and deactivated the ubiquitous covid-19 tracking app, adding to the uncertainty. Instead of basking in newfound freedom to go out, many people are scared, hunkering down inside.

China has troubled days ahead. Among those 60 years and older, only about 69 percent have received booster shots, and the uptake is even less among those over 80 years old. They are extremely vulnerable to omicron, and reports from China have indicated that a surge of deaths has already started, with crematoriums working around the clock.

Mathematical models predict 1 million or more deaths early next year. China’s government has announced a plan to accelerate vaccination campaigns for the elderly, who have been hesitant to get the shots. For a long while, China has grossly underreported deaths due to covid and probably will continue to do so

One danger is that China’s outbreak will generate new variants that threaten the rest of the world. It is impossible to predict, but previous variants with a transmission edge have spread rather quickly. Millions of infections in China increase the chances of a new variant rising.

Mr. Xi’s motive for ditching the zero-covid policy was to kick-start a lagging economy, burdened by lockdowns and worker unrest. But the new approach might deal a roundhouse blow to the economy. It is causing widespread disruption to production and supply chains. Should China’s manufacturing slow, the world will feel the pain in the form of shortages and inflation.

China unwisely eschewed the effective mRNA vaccines for less-effective Chinese-made shots. The population has not been widely exposed to omicron, and thus lacks natural immunity. A potential lifeline is an aerosol vaccine developed by CanSino Biologics. It is being offered as a booster, in the form of an inhaled mist taken in through the mouth, after studies show it triggered an immune system response in people who had previously received two shots of a Chinese vaccine. The best strategy is pressing this vaccine and importing millions of mRNA shots, too.

Rare public protests that erupted in late November played a role in Mr. Xi’s decision to dump zero covid. Protesters’ wrath could easily return if the situation deteriorates and people lose more faith.

The Post’s View | About the Editorial Board

Editorials represent the views of The Post as an institution, as determined through debate among members of the Editorial Board, based in the Opinions section and separate from the newsroom.

Members of the Editorial Board and areas of focus: Opinion Editor David Shipley; Deputy Opinion Editor Karen Tumulty; Associate Opinion Editor Stephen Stromberg (national politics and policy, legal affairs, energy, the environment, health care); Associate Editor Jonathan Capehart (national politics); Lee Hockstader (immigration; issues affecting Virginia and Maryland); David E. Hoffman (global public health); James Hohmann (domestic policy and electoral politics, including the White House, Congress and governors); Charles Lane (foreign affairs, national security, international economics); Heather Long (economics); Associate Editor Ruth Marcus; and Molly Roberts (technology and society).

Waves recorded in B.C. after earthquake rocks California coast

Saanich Peninsula-based recordings key part of worldwide data

VICTORIA NEWS STAFF
Dec. 20, 2022

Earthquake damage is seen at the Humboldt Creamery building in Loleta, Calif., Tuesday, Dec. 20, 2022. A strong earthquake shook a rural stretch of northern California early Tuesday, jolting residents awake, cutting off power to 70,000 people, and damaging some buildings and a roadway, officials said. Two injuries were reported.

 (Ruth Schneider/The Times-Standard via AP)

A hearty shake south of the border serves as a good reminder – and information-gathering tool – for coastal B.C. residents, says one seismologist who works on the Saanich Peninsula.

John Cassidy, an earthquake seismologist with National Resources Canada, tweeted images showing shaking on Vancouver Island when a 6.4 magnitude earthquake struck California Tuesday (Dec. 20).

There was no shaking felt in B.C., nor a tsunami expected after the earthquake at 2:34 a.m. near Ferndale, about 345 kilometres northwest of San Francisco, just offshore and about 16 km deep.

RELATED: Magnitude 6.4 earthquake shakes parts of northern California

“It is a really active area,” Cassidy said, noting the region had a similar event, a 6.2, exactly a year ago.

The 2 a.m. quake in California was enough to frighten and cause damage to nearby communities.

Cassidy explained Greater Victoria residents get earthquakes that size off Vancouver Island, but 50 or 100 kilometres off shore – so we feel them but it’s not damaging or frightening.

But what they all are is informative.

Thousands of people reported feeling shaking, of varying degrees, across northern California, southern Oregon and even as far as Seattle. Closer to home, the seismometer in the Institute of Ocean Sciences building in North Saanich recorded the Island’s waves. The sensitive instruments are designed to detect tiny earthquakes that happen every day that no one even feels.

To study earthquakes you need data from different locations, with accurate times and accurate recordings, Cassidy said.

“There is a lot that can be learned from recordings, not just from very close to the earthquake, but 800 to 900 km from the earthquake,” he said.

“One of the things you want to learn is the fault it occurred on, how much it moved, how it moved. Looking at data from all sides and distances you can pin down what happened.”

READ ALSO: Vancouver Island slides west, tremors could signal tectonic shifting

It also serves as a timely reminder the west coast of North America is a very active earthquake zone.

“It’s a good reminder to check the earthquake kits and update the plan and know what to do when shaking begins,” Cassidy said. “Some of the world’s largest earthquakes have occurred here. But it’s been a long time and it’s easy to forget.”

Black Press Media has prepared an emergency guide to help residents be ready. To learn more, click here.

California town grapples with toll of quake on homes, water

By Adam Beam And Amy Taxin

The Associated Press
Wed., Dec. 21, 2022

RIO DELL, Calif. (AP) — Outside the Dollar General, the store manager ticked off the items she had to share with families trying to jumpstart their lives after an earthquake jolted them from their beds and cut off the town’s water and power.

“Batteries or candles?” a worker asked a woman toting a toddler on her hip, and handed the child a plastic candy cane filled with sweets.

Just days before Christmas in Rio Dell, the former lumber town grappled with the aftermath of early Tuesday’s magnitude 6.4 earthquake that injured at least 17 people, shook homes off foundations, damaged water systems and left tens of thousands without electricity, some for more than a day.

By Wednesday afternoon, power was restored to the homes of tens of thousands of residents, and Christmas lights wrapped around trees on the community’s main street came back on. Still, about 2,500 people remained without electricity and most of the town’s 3,500 residents lacked safe drinking water, according to Pacific Gas & Electric and local officials.


Small communities that bore the brunt of a strong earthquake on the coast of far Northern California remain without power and under boil-water advisories. (Dec. 21) (AP video: Adam Beam)

Twenty-six homes were deemed unsafe, leaving an estimated 65 people displaced, most of whom were expected to be staying with family and friends, said Rio Dell City Manager Kyle Knopp. Another 37 homes were damaged, and even those that suffered no physical cracks required intense cleanup inside, where the floors are cluttered by knocked down shelves and broken dishware.

Along this stretch of Northern California’s coast, earthquakes are common, and people talk about them much like the weather. But the one that shook people from their homes was different to many who found themselves tossed violently from their beds and stumbling around in the dark of night in search of safety.

When his house began to shake, Chad Sovereign ran into his 10-year-old son Jaxon’s room, grabbed him, and dove under a door frame. The brick chimney collapsed, pulling the wall with it and leaving a gaping hole in their home.

“It felt like the end of the world,” Sovereign said. “I was telling him I love him. I didn’t say goodbye to him, (but) in my head I was. I was just telling him, ‘I love you, I love you, I love you,’ over and over.”

Sovereign said the family lost water and power after the quake, but luckily they could remain in their home. They filled up their bathtub with whatever water was left before the shutoff and used it to flush the toilets.

The quake was centered in nearby Ferndale, about 210 miles (345 kilometers) northwest of San Francisco and near the Pacific coast. The area is known for its redwood forests, scenic mountains and the three-county Emerald Triangle’s legendary marijuana crop — as well as the Mendocino Triple Junction, a geologic region where three tectonic plates meet.

On Wednesday, the community fire station was turned into a drive-thru hub. Residents pulled up their cars and had water loaded into their trunks, while a local food truck handed out tacos and burritos courtesy of World Central Kitchen. Other volunteers propped up folding tables and gave out apples, peaches, bagels and canned food.

What was once a bustling lumber town with shops in the 1970s is today a small, humble community made up of retirees, commuters and renters. When a nearby mill went bankrupt and a major thoroughfare moved, Rio Dell became a shadow of its former self, residents said. But it remains a place where people know each other and when reeling from disaster they can go to City Hall and seek advice on who can replace their broken windows — and get it, too.

Outside Dollar General, store manager Cassondra Stoner said she was told she could distribute water, batteries and candles but to hold off on other items until they could be inspected — something she couldn’t always do.

“I couldn’t help myself, and I gave somebody one ibuprofen and some baby diapers because I am not going to let a kid go without diapers,” she said.

The Dollar General is the main grocery in Rio Dell, replacing an Old West-themed mini golf course. There’s also a hardware store and a pizza place in a town used to quakes knocking things off shelves and causing damage to business inventory, locals said, but rarely so much to people’s homes and spirits.

“If you complain about one less than a 4-point-something or other, you’re a weenie,” said Sharon Wolff, editor of the Rio Dell Times local news website. ”We see news reports that this place had a 3.6, and it’s like, ‘Oh, please.’ ”

Nearby Ferndale, which draws tourists to its picturesque Victorian Village, also lost power and a key bridge to the community was shut down, but shopkeepers hoped to bounce back quickly once the lights came back on, said Marc Daniels, owner of Mind’s Eye Manufactory and Coffee Lounge.

“We know how bad it could have been,” said Daniels, whose shop occupies a two-story Victorian. “We feel like we sort of dodged a bullet this time.”

About 17 people were reported as suffering injuries. Two people died — an 83-year-old and a 72-year-old — because they couldn’t get timely care for medical emergencies during or just after the quake.

More than half of the 72,000 Humboldt County customers who lost electricity when the quake struck had power restored by evening that day. But some went without it — and water — throughout the night. Boil water advisories were issued for Rio Dell and parts of Fortuna because of damaged water systems. In Rio Dell, portable toilets were set up downtown.

Celia Magdaleno, 67, said she hauled a container of water from her neighbor’s swimming pool back to her home in order to flush the toilet. She said she took rainwater she had captured in a barrel outside and heated it so her husband could bathe before his dialysis appointment.

Having access to water “means a lot,” she said. “It’s a very big blessing for me.”

Nathan Scheinman, 24, said he hunkered down under four blankets but could barely sleep through the cold with the shock of the quake repeating in his mind. He lost gas, water and power, and had to drive to find a usable bathroom. Right now, Scheinman said rather than thinking about the holiday, he is trying to help people who come into the hardware store where he works with whatever he can in their time of need.

“I think in the Christmas spirit I want to be there for people the best way I can,“ he said.

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Taxin reported from Orange County, Calif. Associated Press writer John Antczak in Los Angeles and photographer Godofredo Vásquez in Rio Dell contributed.