US art museum to only buy works by women in 2020, as it starts to address gender imbalance in its collection

Like most museums, the Baltimore Museum of Art has hardly any works by women. It will buy only women’s art for a year, and showcase the works it has already

Critics say a lot more needs doing, and director agrees it’s only a small step, but hopes Baltimore’s example reverberates through the art museum world

Agence France-Presse 10 Feb, 20



An exhibit at the Baltimore Museum of Art in Baltimore, Maryland, the US. The museum will buy only works by women for a year as a step to addressing a huge gender imbalance in the artists its collection represents. Photo: AFP via Getty Images

An American museum has come up with a way to boost women’s participation in the arts: this year it will only acquire works by females.
The Baltimore Museum of Art (BMA), in the state of Maryland, is best known for housing the largest public collection of
Matisse works anywhere in the world. Late last year it attracted major press attention with word that in 2020 it would only purchase works by women, drawing both praise and scepticism.


“I think it’s a radical and timely decision in 2020, to take the bull by the horns and do this,” says the museum’s director, Christopher Bedford.


This year marks the 100th anniversary of the adoption of the 19th Amendment to the US constitution, which gave women the right to vote. It also gave the museum pause to do some soul-searching: of its 95,000 works, only four per cent are by women artists, says Bedford.

The exterior of the Baltimore Museum of Art in Maryland. Photo: AFP via Getty Images

“We’re an institution largely built by women leaders,” he says. The museum’s first director was a woman. And it is largely thanks to two women – the Cone sisters – and their friendship with Henri Matisse that the museum boasts such a rich collection of works by the French artist.

So the museum will spend US$2.5 million this year on works by women. It will also reorganise several rooms to showcase the work of women and offer 20-odd exhibits of works by female artists. It will, however, continue to accept donations of art done by men.

Visitors look at paintings by female artist Lynette Yiadom-Boakye at the Baltimore Museum of Art. Photo: AFP via Getty Images

A woman walks by a sculpture at the Baltimore Museum of Art. Photo: AFP via Getty Images

The BMA is hardly alone in having such a disproportionate amount of art by men. The fame of artists such as Elisabeth Vigee Le Brun, 

Frida Kahlo and Louise Bourgeois is an exception to the rule. A study published last year by the scientific journal Plos-One found that in 18 major American museums, 87 per cent of the artists whose works were on show were men.

And from 2008 to 2018, of 260,470 works acquired by 26 big museums, only 11 per cent were by women, according to a study by the company Artnet and the podcast: “In Other Words.”

This is the fruit of centuries of discrimination that can be either intentional or not, said Bedford. “And unless you call out that habit and consciously find a way to work against it, then you will never have a properly equitable museum,” he says.

Baltimore Museum of Art director Christopher Bedford. Photo: AFP via Getty Images

While the museum’s initiative has been welcomed by many as a good first step, not everyone is sold on it. Teri Henderson, a curator based in Baltimore, questions the museum’s use of the word “radical” to describe its decision to acquire only art by women for a year.

“I have observed that organisations and institutions use the word ‘radical’ as a sort of buzzword without actually implementing any programming or effort that is truly radical,” Henderson says.

“I do know that one year of collecting attached to this interesting choice of word cannot truly rectify the imbalance in the art world and in museums. I do think this year of collecting art by only women could possibly be the first step, but it is a tiny step.”

A visitor checks out an artwork by Baltimore female artist Shinique Smith. Photo: AFP via Getty Images

Bedford agreed that this plan is just a start.


“I’m also hoping that our decision has a reverberating effect across the museum field,” he says. “And that’s a consciousness-raising act as well. It’s supposed to precipitate an endless action in that direction,” he added, promising also to publish the results of this female-only programme in a year.


Henderson said that “many gigantic steps” are needed to rectify the male-female imbalance in the art world.

A sculpture at the Baltimore Museum of Art. Photo: AFP via Getty Images

She says that, for instance, museums need to invest in living artists that live and work in the surrounding areas if they really want to reflect the richness and diversity of today’s art.

“Stop buying art that isn’t good just because it’s made by well-known white artists. Start taking risks and investing in black and brown living artists,” she says.

Donna Drew Sawyer, chief executive officer of the Baltimore Office of Promotion and The Arts, had several questions about the initiative, including the fact that it drew so much attention.

“Why did a male’s call to action seem to resonate so loudly in this instance when women are the subject and have been calling for the same action forever?” Sawyer wrote in the magazine BmoreArt.

Coronavirus 

OVERLOOKED IS THE NUMBER OF CASES OF PEOPLE WHO HAVE RECOVERED

• Cases
  Deaths
• Mainland China
  40,171
  908
• Hong Kong
  36
  1
• Macau
  10
  --
• Taiwan
  18
  --
• Rest of Asia
  239
  1
• Europe
  37
  --
• North America
  19
  --
• South America
  --
  --
• Australasia
  15
  --
• Rest of the world
  9
  --

Total

40,554

cases

910

deaths

3,342

recovered

Source: China's NHC, state media, other authorities

SCMP

A new strain of resistance? How the coronavirus crisis is changing Hong Kong’s protest movement

Hard-core activists back off but contagion helping to maintain momentum of city’s anti-government movement

Mass strikes threat as new unions emerge ready to wreak havoc during this crisis, or the next

Natalie Wong and Tony Cheung
Published: 10 Feb, 2020

Hard-core activists back off but coronavirus helping to maintain momentum of city’s anti-government movement. Illustration: Lau Ka-kuen

When about 9,000 medical workers went on strike for five days early this month, it signalled not only their dissatisfaction with the Hong Kong government’s handling of the new
coronavirus outbreak, but also a change in the city’s protest movement.

After more than eight months of anti-government street marches, violence and vandalism, with riot police responding by firing tear gas and other crowd-dispersal weapons, the health crisis led to protests being called off.

New police tactics since the new year, with officers intervening earlier at demonstrations to end violence and arrest protesters, also had the effect of keeping protesters away.

Residents protest against a proposal to use the Heritage Lodge in Lai Chi Kok as a quarantine site. Photo: Felix Wong

But declining crowd sizes at protests were no indication that the social unrest was over, said Eric Lai Yan-ho, deputy convenor of the Civil Human Rights Front that organised seven mass rallies between last June and January 1 this year, including four which it said drew more than a million participants.

“Street protests are just a part of the movement,” he said.

The arrival of the coronavirus crisis provided the anti-government camp with an opportunity to revitalise its resistance, offering a glimpse of the shape of protests to come.

The front joined forces with pro-democracy lawmakers and district councillors to stage a citywide signature campaign slamming the government’s failure to control the spread of the new coronavirus.

Winnie Yu, chairwoman of the Hospital Authority Employees Alliance, and medical workers hold a protest outside Queen Mary Hospital. Photo: Bloomberg

The online petition gathered more than 35,000 signatures.

Then came Hong Kong’s largest ever medical workers’ strike, demanding that the city close its borders completely to travellers from the mainland.

It was organised by the new Hospital Authority Employees Alliance, which said its membership soared from 300 in December to more than 18,000 in less than two months of mobilisation.

Its members represent 22.5 per cent of the 80,000-strong workforce in the statutory body that manages all public hospitals and clinics in the city, the second-largest employer after the government.

The medical sector has established unions such as the Hong Kong Public Doctors’ Association and the Association of Hong Kong Nursing Staff, but before the alliance was set up, a large number of health care workers, including allied health workers and clerical support staff, were not unionised.

The alliance is one of several new unions to emerge from the social unrest. The Labour Department confirmed that 27 unions were formed in a month this year as of last Thursday, compared with 23 in the whole of 2019 and 13 in 2018.

Some of the new unions represent workers not previously covered by any registered unions, such as the Bartenders and Mixologists Union, Testing and Certification Union and Event Professionals Union.

Some expect to attract significant numbers because of the size of their employers, including the Union for New Civil Servants, a union for MTR workers called Railway Power, and the Hong Kong Financial Industry Employees General Union.

These were among about 50 new unions and pro-democracy groups who openly supported the medical workers’ strike.

Riot police on standby near a protest in Central. Photo: Felix Wong

Chris Chan King-chi, associate professor in sociology at Chinese University (CUHK), said the alliance’s high membership and the range of medical workers it represented gave it significant collective power to pressure the government.

A scholar of unionism and former labour organiser, he said previous significant strikes, including one by iron workers in 2007 and another by dock workers in 2013, involved no more than 1,000 union members.

The high number of medical workers who went on strike reflected their unhappiness with the government, as well as a sense of despair accumulated through the months of protests last year, he added.

A survey conducted by the Hong Kong Public Opinion Research Institute in late January showed that 75 per cent of respondents were not satisfied with the government’s response to the virus outbreak and 80 per cent supported a total shutdown of the border to travellers from the mainland.

“The strike, backed by people from all walks of life, has opened new dimensions in the labour movement and has a far-reaching impact for labour resistance in future,” Chan said.

With this, he added, the government and large institutions had been put on notice to expect more long-term and organised forms of confrontation with their workers.

Missing from the front line

Hong Kong’s long season of unrest was triggered by the government’s now-withdrawn
extradition bill which would have seen fugitives returned to mainland China as well as other jurisdictions.

Opposition to the bill began as early as last March with peaceful protests, but as Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor proved determined to push it through, large-scale protests erupted in June.

Although the hugely unpopular bill was finally withdrawn in September, the protest movement morphed into a wider anti-government and anti-mainland campaign, with demands for an inquiry into alleged police brutality, amnesty for protesters who had been arrested, and universal suffrage, among others.

Observers have noted that in the weeks following the sweeping victory of pan-democratic candidates at last November’s district council elections, protest crowds have shrunk, with lunchtime protests attracting mere dozens compared with the hundreds who gathered daily in Central earlier.

Protest fatigue might be one explanation for the smaller crowds, according to political scientist Ma Ngok of CUHK.

But he noted that Hong Kong’s new police chief had changed the way the force responded, especially to violence, and thought this might have discouraged people from joining protests.

“The police strategy now is to make peaceful marchers bear high risks even at police-approved protests,” he said.

For example, the approved New Year’s Day march was the first major protest since Police Commissioner Chris Tang Ping-keung  took command of the 31,000-strong force in November.

When some protesters vandalised a branch of HSBC bank in Wan Chai, police acted swiftly, asking the organisers to end the march. More than 400 people were arrested, the highest number in a single day since June.

Four days later, at a Sheung Shui protest organised by the Democratic Party, about 100 people were detained. Then, on January 19, police halted a gathering at Chater Garden and fired tear gas to disperse the crowds soon after skirmishes broke out between protesters and officers.

As of January 23, police have arrested 7,165 people, and more than 500 have been charged with rioting.

Hong Kong New Year’s Day march cut short, descends into chaos

Just a few weeks ago, regular frontline protester Alan (not his real name) was feeling disheartened by the dwindling numbers at anti-government marches.

The 32-year-old freelance cook was masked, dressed in black and wearing a helmet when he took part in the January 1 march which ended with riot police firing tear gas to disperse the crowd in Wan Chai.

He recalled that as he ran down the main street to snuff out tear gas canisters, the sea of protesters clapped and moved aside, creating a path for him.

Then he realised there was no one else in full protest gear confronting police. “People encouraged me to enter the battlefield, but my comrades at the front line were gone,” Alan said.

Morale among his small group of frontline protesters sank to its lowest, he said, and he stopped going to protests.

Since Hong Kong reported its first two cases of coronavirus infection on January 22, many planned gatherings and marches were called off and there have been only a few spontaneous protests and acts of vandalism.

On January 31, Alan returned to the street, and was at the Prince Edward MTR station to mark five months since police officers stormed the station, sparking rumours that three protesters died – an allegation the force and government have strenuously denied.

The crowd was smaller than at past protests but he was struck by the fact that everyone present – demonstrators as well as residents and bystanders – was wearing a surgical mask.

“Previously, we risked arrest for wearing a mask,” he said, referring to last October’s
ban on the use of face coverings at protests. “Now, how ridiculous it is that police fear us if we don’t wear a mask and cough at them.”

He never felt safer from the risk of arrest, he said.

‘They will be back’

The question is what happens after the ongoing health crisis ends – will street protests be a thing of the past, or will new forms of anti-government resistance proliferate?

A joint study by scholars from three universities has found that the solidarity between protest radicals remains strong enough to keep the movement going, at least for the foreseeable future.

The study was done by City University public policy associate professor Edmund Cheng Wai, Lingnan University political scientist Samson Yuen Wai-hei, and Chinese University journalism and communications professor Francis Lee Lap-fung.

Coronavirus crisis injects new life into Hong Kong ‘revolution’ with toxic results

Cheng said that since early November, the number of posts on LIHKG Forum, a Reddit-like platform protesters used to discuss plans and pro-democracy events, fell significantly compared with June last year. Big data analysts had earlier also reported a sharp decline in protest-related online activities over the past two months.

He said protesters now tended to coordinate among themselves through private channels and chat groups, such as the encrypted messaging application Telegram and Firechat, which ensure confidentiality.

The study also showed that unlike 2014’s
Occupy movement, which ended with deep divisions between protesters, a large number of peaceful demonstrators remained firmly behind the radicals in the current protests.

The scholars’ analysis of 18,000 questionnaires collected at protest sites from June to early January showed a high level of solidarity among protesters, with respondents strongly agreeing that “the peaceful faction and militant faction are in the same boat” and that “it is understandable for protesters to take radical action when the government acts in disregard of people’s opinions”.

Cheng warned that a political powder keg would remain in Hong Kong society if root problems remained unsolved and the anger of the people lingered.

“They will be back on the streets again. It need not be related to police brutality, the extradition bill or virus control measures, but any controversial policy might spark a public outcry,” he said, noting that city leader Carrie Lam’s support rating has plummeted from 64 points when she took office in 2017 to just 21 points in mid January – the lowest score for any chief executive.

The government’s recent performance has accelerated the pro-democracy campaign Professor Paul Yip, HKU

University of Hong Kong social sciences professor Paul Yip Siu-fai said the government’s failure to grasp a golden opportunity to rebuild trust with the people during the virus crisis had instead helped the protest movement.

“The government’s recent performance has accelerated the pro-democracy campaign to progress to a new stage – from street protests to everyday protests,” he said.
The pro-democracy camp is already mobilising eligible voters to register for the
Legislative Council elections in September.

Chinese University’s Ma hoped Beijing would review hardline policies towards Hong Kong after failing to grasp the sentiment expressed by voters who inflicted a humiliating defeat on pro-government candidates in last November’s district council elections.

“If police further escalate their use of force against protesters, resistance by people from all walks of life will persist in more diversified forms and the pro-Beijing camp may suffer another defeat in the coming elections for the legislature,” he said.

But Beijing loyalist Lau Siu-kai believes the central government recognises the Hong Kong police force’s efforts in deterring radicals, and will continue to rely on law enforcement bodies.

Lau, who is vice-chairman of the Chinese Association of Hong Kong and Macau Studies, is also sceptical over the virus crisis boosting the anti-government movement.

“The opposition continues to create issues in the health crisis to spread anti-mainland sentiments, but this tactic cannot be sustained in the long run,” he said. “People will eventually know who sacrificed professionalism in the medical workers’ strike for political goals.”

Protester Alan, for one, is not ready to give up the fight.

“Retreating from street battles doesn’t mean withdrawing from the war,” he said, adding that the protest mantra “Be water” was not merely a call to hit and run.

“We know it’s a long fight. It’s about flexibility and adaptability. We’ll observe, reform and fight back until the government heeds our demands,” he said.

COMMENTS



Tony Cheung

Tony Cheung became a political journalist in 2007. He joined the Post in 2012 and now leads the Hong Kong-mainland relations team on the Hong Kong desk. Tony also writes about the economy, and reports from mainland China, the United States, Germany and Britain.

Magnitude 4.3 earthquake hits Labrador, the largest in decades

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Small quake could be felt but unlikely to have caused any damage

CBC News · Posted: Feb 05, 2020 11:26 AM NT | Last Updated: February 5

An earthquake just east of Postville wasn't very strong, but it was still the largest to hit the region in a while. (Jerry Goudie/Facebook)

A number of minor earthquakes have been recorded around Newfoundland and Labrador over the last week,
according to Earthquakes Canada.

At approximately 2 p.m. Monday, a magnitude 4.3 earthquake was registered in coastal Labrador at a depth of 18
kilometres, about 18 kilometres east of Postville.

"That's actually quite uncommon for this area," said Fiona Darbyshire, an associate professor of seismology at the University of Quebec in Montreal.

Small seismic events tend to cluster offshore, Darbyshire said, and extend inland only occasionally.

Monday's quake was the largest of the dozen or so earthquakes on land on the Labrador coast in the last 40 years. "It's enough to give you a noticeable shake," she said.

Earthquakes Canada classifies magnitude 4.3 as among earthquakes that are "often felt, but rarely cause damage."

"The way in which an earthquake is felt is not directly associated with its magnitude," Darbyshire said, explaining that the depth of the quake, as well as local rock and soil conditions, also contribute to what's felt above ground.

She said residents can fill out an online survey to help seismologists track and monitor earthquake activity

A magnitude 4.6 earthquake was also recorded off eastern Newfoundland on Sunday, 310 kilometres east of Bonavista.

It follows a magnitude 4.4 quake recorded in the same area off of Bonavista on Friday, both at a depth of 18 kilometres.

• Postville without police presence since December, and unsure when it will return

Darbyshire said the spate of seismic activity there likely isn't directly related to the earthquake near Postville.

"There's always earthquake activity going on across eastern Quebec and from time to time in Newfoundland," she said. "So it's probably part of the natural background seismicity."

Dorothea Lange: An alternative look at the photographer who humanised the Great Depression

Her iconic photograph ‘Migrant Mother’ cemented Dorothea Lange’s place in history. Now a new exhibition and book seeks to expand the way we see Lange’s substantial body of work

Eve Watling @evewatling
1 day ago

Beyond 'Migrant Mother': Rediscovering Dorothea Lange
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Dorothea Lange is best known as a documenter of America’s Great Depression. Over the second half of the 1930s, she worked for the Farm Security Administration, capturing the plight of migrant labourers, sharecroppers and the rural poor with an unflinching empathy.

Her most famous picture is Migrant Mother, a closely framed portrait of a careworn farm labourer, her dirt-smeared children hiding their faces in her shoulders. Taken in 1936, Migrant Mother has become one of the most famous photographs ever, credited by TIME magazine for doing “more than any other [image] to humanize the cost of the Great Depression”. When it was first published in a newspaper, the State Relief Administration delivered food rations to 2,000 migrant workers the next day.


Although Migrant Mother cemented Lange’s place in history, its oversized presence has tended to obscure the rest of her work. Now an exhibition at New York’s Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), and a new book from MACK, seek to expand the way we see Lange’s substantial body of work.

In 2017, artist Sam Contis discovered a trove of Lange’s negatives and contact sheets at the Oakland Museum of California, the majority of which had not been seen before. This unexplored archive, featuring pictures of Lange’s family, travels and studio portraiture, recasts her work. Untethered from the heavy responsibility of telling the stories of people in dire situations, they delight in the texture of cotton shirts and weathered hands, more ambivalent and playful than her state-sponsored work.

“The archive felt very alive and open to me,” Contis told The Independent. “I had never felt that with another artist before. I was struck by her interest in gesture, her obsession with hands, the fragments of bodies, the ways she conveys intimacy in her photographs. There’s also a beautiful choreography and sense of movement in her work, and even in the way she presents her work, that I also hope to convey in mine.”
Migrant Mother, 1936 (Dorothea Lange)

Contis has included her research in the upcoming MoMA exhibition of Lange’s work, and her new book Day Sleeper collects her archival discoveries, which are presented along with Lange’s captions and fragments from a 1956 interview. “I wanted to reveal a largely unknown side of Lange,” says Contis, “but also do it in a way that felt fresh and reflected how contemporary I saw the individual pictures to be. In my book, Lange’s photographs are loosened from their original, temporal context. I wanted Lange’s photographs to feel alive to this present moment in a more unexpected way.”

The book is centred around the figure of the sleeper, a recurring subject for Lange, who struggled throughout her life with fatigue, chronic pain and disability after contracting polio as a child. The sleeper has a paradoxical relationship to photography – a sightless figure in a visual medium, it suggests a sense of impenetrability. “As viewers, we can’t see what the sleeper ‘sees’; we’re cut off from their interior vision, even though we can look as freely as we like without our gaze being returned,” says Contis. “In a way the book invites the viewer into this hidden, interior world: the sequences of images can be read as a sort of fragmented fever dream.”
Read more

Dorothea Lange, review: These photographs have a fearless honesty

Lange, who died in 1965, was interested in seeing the unseen, and “wanted to explore photography to its limits, whatever those limits might be,” says Contis. It seems appropriate her work is now being looked at from a new perspective, expanding the limits of how we view this celebrated photographer.

‘Day Sleeper’ by Dorothea Lange and Sam Contis is available from MACK; Dorothea Lange: Words & Pictures is at the Museum of Modern Art in New York until 9 May

‘I’m gambling every time I have sex’: How contraception shortages are affecting women in the UK

As health officials urge the government for support, Olivia Petter speaks to women who have suffered the consequences of contraceptive shortages



Getty Images/iStockphoto


Margot* always felt confident taking her contraceptive pill. “I never experienced any side effects aside from getting slightly larger breasts, which I thought was great,” she says. “I took it religiously for four years and everything was going great until my GP told me they could no longer offer me that same pill because it had run out.”

Instead the 26-year-old from London was offered a cheaper alternative that she was promised contained the same ingredients, just with different branding. “It made me so unwell,” she recalls. “Suddenly I was experiencing constant nausea in the mornings, vomiting and I had the mother of all periods.” Thankfully, Margot was eventually able to get hold of her old pill through private healthcare provided by her employer. “If I didn’t have that, I’d be screwed.”


Margot is just one of the women across the UK who has suffered the consequences of contraceptive shortages, which health officials have warned is causing “chaos”. It’s not clear why the shortages are happening, but without access to their regular contraception, women around the country are being forced to find alternatives that require major expenses, lifestyle changes or leave them with a whole host of uncomfortable side effects.

Women's March 2020: in photos
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On Friday, the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists (RCOG), the British Menopause Society and The Faculty of Sexual and Reproductive Healthcare (FSRH) wrote to the secretary of state for health and social care, Matt Hancock, urging for a working group to be set up to address ongoing supply constraints for both contraceptives and hormone replacement therapy in the UK. As well as this affecting the physical and mental wellbeing of women and girls, the professional bodies are concerned that contraceptive shortages will affect the most vulnerable in society. The RCOG has also said shortages could lead to a rise in unplanned pregnancies and abortions.

Speaking to The Independent, Julia Hogan of Marie Stopes – one of the UK’s leading abortion providers – explains that they regularly speak to women who have experienced difficulties accessing contraception. “Not only have many services been shut down due to cuts to sexual health clinics, but when women do manage to find a clinic many are being denied the full range of contraception, including some of the most effective long-acting methods,” she says.

Such restrictions, Hogan says, put limits on women’s bodily autonomy and leave them with fewer choices. “It’s enormously concerning and frustrating,” she adds, “because investment in contraceptive care is one of the most cost-effective public health measures, with every £1 invested in contraception saving £11 in averted costs.”

One form of contraceptive that has been impacted is Sayana Press, a self-injectable contraceptive for which there is no exact alternative. “Women who use Sayana Press now have to see a healthcare professional to access a non-self-injectable alternative, which is undoubtedly an extra burden for them, increasing demand in busy GP practices and sexual and reproductive healthcare clinics,” said Dr Asha Kasliwal, president of the FSRH. “At the moment, the resupply date for Sayana Press is unknown.”
Read more

Women unhappy with their breast size less likely to check for cancer

Paige, 26, had been on Sayana Press for 11 months and found it an accessible and easy to manage form of contraception. But when she recently went to her GP for a top-up, she was told they had run out and was promptly sent around to walk-in clinics, pharmacies and other doctors to no avail. “The whole experience left me feeling anxious and stressed,” Paige says, explaining that she regularly had to leave work early to make calls to clinics or attend doctor appointments.


“I felt as though my right to access my chosen contraception was being taken away from me and I didn’t want to drastically change my contraceptive during a time when I was already moving house and going on holiday.” While on her hunt for Sayana Press, Paige, who is based in London, visited one walk-in clinic, called two, attended one GP appointment, one appointment with a nurse and visited three different pharmacies.

“Not one of these informed me that there was a shortage of Sayana Press in the UK.” It was only through her own research that she discovered Sayana Press had been recalled due to a manufacturing fault, which had resulted in the shortage. “Ultimately, I had to change my contraception and am now using Depo-Provera, which I’ve been on for four weeks so far.”



Paige said the changeover has been fairly straightforward, although she can no longer administer the injections herself at home and must visit a nurse every 12 to 13 weeks to receive it. “I liked using Sayana Press because it removed the issue of trying to book an appointment so often with the nurse,” she says. “Securing appointments is getting harder and harder and when you do, managing to get one out of work hours is nearly impossible.”


Funding for sexual health services has plummeted in the last eight years after sexual health clinics were made the responsibility of local councils, rather than NHS England in 2013. This meant that funding clinics receive is part of the same pool that also pays for bin collections and speed bumps. The change has seen a reported £64m less being spent on sexual health services, according to the British Association for Sexual Health and HIV. With less funding, clinics around the UK are closing while others have started turning patients away. These contraceptive shortages mean there is additional strain being put on an already stretched service.

Alex*, 42, also had a negative experience when the pill she’d been taking for years was suddenly discontinued. “I liked it because I had very slight monthly bleeds and it gave me no side effects,” she explains. “Suddenly it just stopped being manufactured, and my GP could give me no explanation as to why. Instead, my doctor prescribed me another pill that was the wrong dose and severely affected my mental health.

“I just had a tough time emotionally, and it was hard to know if it was just life load or it was because the levels of oestrogen in my body were wrong”. Now, Alex has started using a different pill that seems to be “okay” so far, though it gives her headaches. “I’ll try it for a couple of months to see if it settles and just take paracetamol in the meantime.”

Alex says the impact is undoubtedly gendered and creates an unfair burden on women. “It’s just yet another responsibility that falls to me as a woman,” she says. “It’s up to me to go to three chemists in my lunch hour to see if they’ve got it in. It’s up to me to go back to the doctor and ask for a new script. It’s up to me to collect it, try it, feel ill, go back, try another one. But ultimately I’ve just had to get on with it.”

Sex Education star says she thought masturbation ‘was only a boy thing’

Molly*, 27, from south east England, suffers from an autoimmune disease, which means she’s not medically allowed to use any of the hormonal contraceptives. “I can only use the copper coil,” she explains.”It took months just to get an initial consultation appointment at my local sexual health clinic. Then I had to book another appointment after that before I could even book my coil fitting. I called seven different clinics looking for someone who could sort me out sooner.”

Molly now has to wait four months for her copper coil to be fitted; the waiting time is making her anxious. “I’m just trying to be a responsible adult,” she says, explaining that she’s just started seeing a new romantic partner. “I feel like I’m gambling every time I have sex. It’s not fair and is making me feel really uneasy, which I shouldn’t have to feel in a new relationship when everything’s meant to be so fun and natural.”

*Some names have been changed to protect identity

‘A global conservation disaster’: Fury as Botswana sells 60 elephant shoot permits to trophy-hunters

‘The species will be more prone to disease and the risk of extinction is greater,’ says wildlife activist

A pair of male elephants is seen in the Okavango Delta, Botswana

(File photo) ( REUTERS )

Botswana has sold licences to shoot dead dozens of elephants for tens of thousands of pounds each, in what experts are warning could be a “major global conservation disaster”.

The country auctioned off hunts for 60 of the huge mammals for a total of 25.7m Botswanan pula – £1.8m, or more than £30,200 each.

Conservationists have told the country’s leaders they risk hastening elephant extinction.

And African organisations that wanted to bid at the auction and put the money towards local community projects instead of shooting animals were angry at being excluded from the bidding.

The EMS Foundation tweeted afterwards: “Shame on you, President Masisi – we will not forget.”

Protesters demand a UK ban on imports of 'trophy hunt' animal parts
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Wildlife activists had lobbied against the decision last year by Mokgweetsi Masisi to end Botswana’s five-year ban on big-game hunting.

The government has issued a quota for the killing of 272 elephants during this year’s hunting season, from April to September.

A seventh lot at Friday’s auction – to shoot 10 others - failed to meet the reserve price of 2 million pula (£141,000).

Africa’s elephant population has plummeted by more than two-thirds in 40 years: from 1.3million in 1979 to 415,000 in 2015, official figures show, and the species is listed as vulnerable to extinction by wildlife body the IUCN. Poaching is the leading cause of the decline.

But Botswana has the world’s biggest population of elephants – about 130,000 – almost one-third of the continent’s total.

Their numbers in the country have grown since the 1990s, and as humans have expanded farmland, elephants have increasingly taken crops, prompting officials to promote hunting to ease the “human-elephant conflict”.

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Why Botswana resents their once-loved elephants

However, some environmentalists fear licensed hunting could fuel demand for body parts and so encourage even more illegal poaching, opening the path to extinction.

Eduardo Goncalves, founder of the Campaign to Ban Trophy Hunting, told The Independent that attrition from trophy-hunting and poaching was greater than the annual birth rate of elephants in Africa.

“Scientists have noticed that trophy hunting and poaching of African elephants is leading to elephants having shorter tusks and that there are now more adult elephants with no tusks,” he said.

“Trophy hunting is artificial selection. By targeting the biggest and strongest animals, it leaves the weaker, smaller animals behind. This means the best genes are being lost, so the species will be less able to adapt to accelerating climate change, it will be more prone to disease, and the risk of extinction is greater.”

He said the move would be bad for some of Botswana’s poorest communities, as it meant one-off trophy fees replacing income streams from nature tourism of $2m (£1.5m) over an elephant’s lifetime.

A letter from wildlife experts and celebrities, including explorer Sir Ranulph Fiennes, to President Masisi when he was reconsidering the ban said: “Trophy-hunting of elephants often brings a slow, painful death. With its population dwindling and increasingly scattered, the impact of trophy-hunting could be disastrous and possibly contribute to the extinction of the species.

“This would be a major global conservation disaster – potentially the worst in living memory – and have tremendously damaging consequences for efforts to conserve endangered fauna and flora everywhere.”

The country’s government says the large sums of money from trophy-hunters benefit local communities.
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Hundreds of vultures die after eating poisoned elephants in Botswana

But Leslie Olonyi, an environmental lawyer from Kenya, said: “African youth are now, more than ever, alive to the truth that elephants are part of our pride and heritage to conserve and hold in trust for future generations. Shortsighted politicians, poachers, trophy-hunters and their silver bullets must never be allowed to endanger this heritage.”

Animal Defenders International appealed to people to protest outside the Botswanan embassy in their country.

Rosemary Alles, co-founder and president of the Global March for Elephants and Rhinos, said: “Studies have shown that local communities do not reap the benefits that they are promised from the hunting industry.

“Killing 272 elephants in Botswana will not control elephant numbers, it will not reduce human-elephant conflict and will not create jobs in areas where opportunities are scarce.

“Appropriate land-use planning including dedicated migratory corridors will aid elephant dispersal and increase the probability of amicable human elephant coexistence.”

When the government last year decided to allow new culls, an environment ministry spokesperson said: “Predators appear to have increased and were causing a lot of damage as they kill livestock in large numbers.

“There is a negative impact of the hunting suspension on livelihoods, particularly for community-based organisations that were previously benefiting from consumptive utilisation [of wildlife].”

Tiro Segosebe, who lives in the capital, Gaborone, said: “Elephants have killed a lot of people and destroyed livelihoods. I think government is doing the right thing in reducing their numbers.”

Last year, Botswana banned two professional hunters who shot dead a research elephant and tried to hide the evidence.

Botswana to start auction of elephant hunting licences

AFP

Botswana, home to the world's largest elephant population, on Friday was set to hold its first major auction for trophy elephant hunting quotas since scrapping a hunting ban last year.© Kun TIAN Map of Africa's elephant populations, with chronology of species protection measures, the ivory trade ban and poaching

The sale will be conducted by a local firm Auction It from the premises of the Ministry of Environment, Nature Conservation and Tourism in the capital Gaborone.

President Mokgweetsi Masisi raised the ire of conservationists in May when he revoked a moratorium, just a year after he succeeded Ian Khama, an avid environmentalist, who introduced a blanket ban in 2014 to reverse a decline in the population of wild animals. 

© MONIRUL BHUIYAN Botswana is auctioning licences to kill elephants by trophy hunters, a move that has sparked widespread anger

Masisi fended off criticism of his government's decision, saying the move would not threaten the elephant population.


The government is issuing seven hunting "packages" of 10 elephants each, confined to "controlled hunting areas", a wildlife spokeswoman Alice Mmolawa told AFP on Thursday.

In a text message, she said hunting would help areas most impacted by "human wildlife conflict," a reference to elephants roaming off game parks into communities.

The 2020 hunting season is expected to open in April.

Bidding is open to "companies that are either owned by Botswana citizens or are registered in Botswana," she added.

Bidders must make a refundable deposit of 200,000 pula ($18,300) to participate.

According to an auction advisory, bidders must have "demonstrable appropriate elephant hunting experience" and have no previous wildlife criminal convictions.

Hunting of collared elephants will be prohibited.

All elephant hunting expeditions will be compelled to be accompanied by a guide and a professional, at all times, according to the auction notice.

Masisi's decision to lift the hunting ban last year was highly praised by local communities but derided by conservationists and ignited tension between Khama and Masisi.

- Overpopulation -

He has defended his decision to end the hunting ban saying Botswana has an overpopulation of elephants, and pledged to regulate the practice.

His predecessor Khama was bitter.

"I have been against hunting because it represents a mentality (of) those who support it, to exploit nature for self interest that has brought about the extinction of many species worldwide," he told AFP in a phone interview.

He said allowing commercial hunting could "demotivate those who are engaged in anti poaching, who are being told to save elephants from poachers but the regime is poaching the same elephant and calling it hunting".

Audrey Delsink, Africa's wildlife director for the global conservation lobby charity Humane Society International said "the Botswanan elephant hunting auctions are deeply concerning and questionable".

"Hunting is not an effective long-term human-elephant mitigation tool or population control method," she said from neighbouring South Africa.

Neil Fitt, who heads Kalahari Conservation Society in Botswana, said hunting was a new source of revenue for the country, but cautioned it had to be practised "ethically and properly".

With unfenced parks and wide-open spaces, Botswana has the world's largest elephant population with more than 135,000 animals -- about a third of the African continent's total.

Most of the animals are in the Chobe National Park, an important tourist draw.

But elephants invade villages located near wildlife reserves, knocking down fences, destroying crops, and at times killing people.

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Cannabis compound discovered by scientists could be 30 times more powerful than THC

Findings may explain why especially potent types of marijuana have a more powerful impact than can be explained simply by THC levels

Maya Oppenheim @mayaoppenheim

The study involved giving a fairly low dose of the newly discovered compound to lab mice ( Getty )

A cannabis compound has been found to be potentially 30 times more powerful than THC (tetrahydrocannabinol), the plant's main psychoactive constituent.

A study, published in academic journal Scientific Reports, involved giving a fairly low dose of the newly unearthed compound, known as THCP (tetrahydrocannabiphorol), to lab mice.

These mice responded less strongly to painful stimuli and also behaved like they had consumed THC, moving around leisurely.

Italian scientists have not tested THCP on humans, so it is yet to be established if the new cannabinoid will get users high.

But the researchers said THCP could be the reason why certain especially potent strains of the drug have a more powerful impact than can be explained simpy by the THC content.

Dr Cinzia Citti, the report’s lead author, of the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia in Italy, said: “In cannabis varieties where THC is present in very low concentrations, then we can think that the presence of another, more active cannabinoid can explain those effects.”


At the end of last year, Italy’s Supreme Court ruled growing small quantities of cannabis at home for private usage to be legal in a landmark verdict.

The farming and selling of cannabis was barred under legislation which dates back to the 1990s, but contradictory court decisions since then have generated uncertainty around the law. Shops that sell low-strength “legal weed” - with only minute quantities of THC - are widespread in Italy.

Cannabis resin typically contains CBD (cannabidiol) as well as THC. CBD may offset some of the damaging effects of THC, such as paranoia and memory impairment.

New resin production techniques in Morocco and Europe have boosted levels of THC but not CBD.

In Britain alone, THC levels in herbal cannabis remained roughly similar between 2006 and 2016, but police seizures indicate they have increased steeply in cannabis resin.

Dying doctor warns of asbestos ‘hidden epidemic’ caused by NHS failures

‘The managers who make these decisions, I don’t know how they sleep at night. They made an economic decision and it condemned me to death,’ Dr. Kate Richmond says

Shaun Lintern Health Correspondent @ShaunLintern
5 hours ago

Dr Kate Richmond, with her husband Brett, was exposed to asbestos at the old Walgrave Hospital in Coventry while working as a junior doctor


A doctor and mother of two with just months left to live has warned of a “hidden epidemic” of asbestos-related cancers among NHS staff and patients because hospitals have failed to properly handle the toxic material.

Kate Richmond, 44, has spoken out to raise awareness after she won a legal case against the NHS for negligently exposing her to asbestos while she was working as a medical student and junior doctor.

An investigation by The Independent has learnt there have been 13 prosecutions linked to NHS breaches of regulations for the handling of asbestos since 2010, while 381 compensation claims have been made by NHS staff for work-related diseases, including exposure to asbestos, since 2013, costing the health service more than £26m.

According to data from the Health and Safety Executive, between 2011 and 2017, a total of 128 people working in health and social care roles died from mesothelioma, the same asbestos-related cancer which is killing Kate Richmond.

She described how maintenance staff removed asbestos ceiling tiles with no protective measures, allowing dust and debris to fall on to wards where patients were in their beds and staff were working. Managers at the Walsgrave Hospital in Coventry failed to heed warnings by workers that they were putting people at risk.

“They made an economic decision that condemned me to death,” said Dr Richmond, adding: “No amount of money can compensate for my children growing up without their mother.


She believes the true extent and cost for NHS staff and patients is likely to be much worse than current data suggests as it can take up to 50 years for disease to emerge after exposure.

Speaking to The Independent from her home in Australia, Dr Richmond, who has been told she may die as soon as July this year, described how she was exposed to asbestos at the old Walsgrave Hospital in Coventry, run by the University Hospitals Coventry and Warwickshire Trust between 1998 and 2004.

As well as the exposure during maintenance work on wards, she said she regularly used underground service tunnels, where asbestos-lined pipes were common, to move between areas.

Her lawyers, from law firm Leigh Day, successfully brought a claim against the hospital after a former maintenance worker responded to a public appeal and corroborated her testimony that they openly worked on ceiling tiles and asbestos materials with no safety measures.

In a statement one worker described how debris fell from the ceiling: “We had to clean it up afterwards, so I just swept up the dust. It was always busy, so we just put a couple of cones up where we were working. The doctors and nurses walked past where we were working.”

More than 20 former members of staff provided evidence of asbestos at the hospital and emails revealed managers had been warned of the risk. The court ruled there had been “serious and repeated failings”.

A decision on the amount of compensation she will receive may not be made for several months.

“I will be lucky if this comes to a close while I am still alive,” she added.

Explaining why she took legal she said: “The trust knew about it and they chose to do nothing. It is terrifying. I have become sick relatively early, but there are lots of other people who I worked with who could be affected in the future. I really wanted to make things easier for them. I felt I had a duty to my colleagues.


“I am far from unique, this is the tip of the iceberg. I strongly believe there is a hidden epidemic.”

She added: “We had no idea and just walked around the ladders with the dust and debris falling down into the ward where there were still patients in their beds.

“It is indefensible not to do the right thing. The managers who make these decisions, I don’t know how they sleep at night. They made an economic decision and it condemned me to death.”

The GP, who emigrated to Australia with her husband Brett, has endured six operations and chemotherapy after being diagnosed in May 2018.

She said: “My children were nine and six at the time and I’ve had to come to terms with the fact I am not going to be around to bring them up. It has taken all my dignity, my ability to care for my children and I can’t work so it’s taken me away from my patients too.”

She and her husband are now having to prepare for life after her death.

“Brett has been very strong. We have long conversations about whether the kids should be there when I die, whether I am going to die in a hospice or hospital, all these conversations you never want to have. No amount of money can compensate for my children growing up without their mother.”

Mesothelioma is a form of cancer that affects the lining of the lung and is almost always fatal, causing around 5,000 deaths a year.

Many older NHS hospitals built between the 1950s and 1980s may contain asbestos, which can be dangerous when disturbed. Strict regulations are in place for how to handle its removal.

The Health and Safety Executive said it had launched 13 prosecutions against six NHS trusts for asbestos failings since 2010.

In 2019 it prosecuted the Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital Trust after it exposed workers and contractors to asbestos despite concerns being reported to trust bosses by whistleblower Les Small, who won an unfair dismissal ruling against the trust before his death from cancer last year. The trust was fined £16,000 and ordered to pay costs of £18,385.

NHS Resolution, which handles compensation claims on behalf of hospital trusts, told The Independent: “Since 2013, NHS Resolution has received 381 industrial disease claims and has paid out £26.1m in compensation during this same period (damages and legal costs combined). However, these are matters that stretch back over many years.”

NHS Providers, which represents NHS hospitals, has warned the mounting backlog of maintenance work in the NHS, including dealing with older buildings that contain asbestos, is a risk to safety. It is calling on the government to launch a major investment programme.

Saffron Cordery, deputy chief executive of NHS Providers,​ said: “Ensuring staff and patient safety is a fundamental priority for trusts. That means being able to provide the right environment. But years of cuts to capital funding have made this increasingly difficult and this is showing.

“Trusts urgently need the resources to renew and refurbish buildings and equipment. Their staff, and patients, deserve nothing less.”

A spokesperson for the University Hospitals Coventry and Warwickshire Trust said: “We would like to extend our heartfelt sympathies to Dr Richmond and her family at this difficult time. We believe there were stringent controls in place to manage asbestos at the old Walsgrave Hospital, which closed in 2006.

“After a thorough review with those directly involved at that time, the trust felt that the opportunity for any incidental exposure would have been very low. We are pleased that the settlement will enable Dr Richmond to meet her ongoing care needs and will provide security for her and her family into the future.”

An NHS England spokesperson said: “Hospitals have established processes in place including undertaking inspections, maintaining a register and when appropriate disposing of relevant materials safely.”