CRIMINAL CAPITALISM POISION FOR PROFIT

French firm accused of selling deadly diet pill faces millions in fines as trial ends
Issued on: 06/07/2020 -

French lawyer Martine Verdier (L) uses tissue after washing her hands with hydroalcoholic gel next to French pulmonologist Irene Frachon (R), at Paris' courthouse on June 9, 2020, prior to a hearing of the trial of France's medicines watchdog and pharmaceutical firm Servier on fraud and negligence charges linked to the deaths of hundreds of people who were prescribed a diabetes pill for weight loss despite safety concerns. © Philippe Lopez, AFPText by:NEWS WIRES
4 min

Accused of favoring profits over patients’ lives, French pharmaceutical company Servier Laboratories is facing millions of euros in potential fines and damages after a huge trial involving 6,500 plaintiffs who say the company allowed a diabetes drug to be widely and irresponsibly prescribed as a diet pill — with deadly consequences.
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The popular drug, called Mediator, became one of France’s biggest modern health scandals, and the trial is wrapping up Monday after more than six months of proceedings targeting both Servier and France’s medicines watchdog. Servier says it didn’t know about the drug’s risks.

The trial was interrupted by another health crisis: the coronavirus, which has prompted new scrutiny of health authorities and of drugs being rushed out as treatments or vaccines.

In the 33 years that Mediator was on the market, it was suspected in 1,000-2,000 deaths among millions who took it as an appetite suppressant, according to a 2010 study. Doctors linked it to heart and lung problems.

One doctor flagged concerns as far back as 1998, and testified that he was bullied into retracting them. Facing questions about the drug's side effects from medical authorities in Switzerland, Spain and Italy, Servier withdrew it from those markets between 1997 and 2004.


But it took an independent investigation by another worried French doctor before the company suspended sales in its main market in France in 2009. It wasn't sold in the U.S.

'Deadly poison'

“There are men and women who put a deadly poison on the market,” the whistleblower, Dr. Irene Frachon, told the court. She published a book detailing her findings, and her efforts were profiled in a 2016 film, “The Girl from Brest.”

Servier is accused of manslaughter, involuntary injury, fraud, influence trading and other charges. Investigating magistrates concluded that Servier for decades covered up Mediator’s effects on patients. The national medicines agency is suspected of colluding in masking its dangers.

Lawyers for Servier argued that the company wasn't aware of the risks associated with Mediator before 2009, and said the company never pretended it was a diet pill. They argued for acquittal.

Prosecutors asked last week for nearly 15 million euros (around $16.9 million) in fines for Servier, and a three-year prison sentence and 278,000-euro fine for the only surviving Servier executive accused of involvement, Dr. Jean-Philippe Seta.

In addition, the 6,500 plaintiffs want a total of 1 billion euros in damages.

Lisa Boussinot, whose mother died after taking Mediator, wants more — she wants the company’s labs shut down. She said she wants a strong signal “that shows that our justice system protects us" from powerful companies that don't brook criticism.

Prosecutor Anne Le Guilcher asked for a fine of 200,000 euros against the French medicines agency, accusing it of failing to take adequate measures to protect patients and of being too close to Servier.

The agency, since reformed and renamed, is accused of manslaughter by negligence and causing unintentional harm. The agency's lawyers said it acknowledged some responsibility but said Servier misled medical authorities.

Also on trial are 12 representatives of the pharma giant and the medicines agency.

“Patient safety was not at the heart of Servier’s policy,” the prosecutor told the court last week, saying the drug should have been withdrawn in the 1990s. “The firm was only interested in money.”

The central witness in the extensive trial was Frachon, a pulmonologist in the western city of Brest who investigated Mediator's effects after treating an obese patient in 2007 who later died.

“What I did was not a scientific feat, it was just a clinical trial. As I did not have the correct information from Servier, I turned into an investigator, “ Frachon said. She maintains that Servier knew about problems with the drug since 1993.

After she spoke out, she said, “One of the drug agency experts said to me, you’re going to pay for this. He wanted to punish me ... Servier’s pressure was omnipresent. I become persona non-grata in many scientific events.”

She wasn’t the first to ask questions about Mediator.

In 1998, Dr. Georges Chiche, a cardiologist in Marseille, received an overweight colleague with heart problems who had been prescribing himself Mediator for weight loss.

Chiche filed a report expressing his concerns, and testified that two people from Servier pressured him to withdraw it. Then, Chiche told the court, a former professor told him the same thing, calling his report shoddy “nonsense.”

“After that, I didn’t report again,” he said.

He later learned that his former professor had organized jazz festivals paid for by Servier.

The company's CEO and founder, Jacques Servier, was indicted early in the legal process but died in 2014.


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The exceptional trial was spread across five rooms at the Paris courthouse, connected by video link, and nearly 400 lawyers were working the case.

It’s expected to take several months to reach a verdict, expected early next year.

(AP)

Climate change blamed for surge in India's deadly lightning strikesIssued on: 06/07/2020  

 

Lightning strikes have killed 147 people in the last ten days in the north Indian state of Bihar local authorities said Sunday July 5, 2020. © AFP / FRANCE 24
Text by:FRANCE 24
Video by:Sam BALL

Lightning strikes have killed 147 people in just ten days in the north Indian state of Bihar, local authorities said Sunday, an unprecedented surge in deaths caused by lightning that has been blamed on climate change.
The latest deaths bring the number of those killed by lightning in the state to around 215 since late March, already surpassing the total number of deaths for the whole of last year.

Lightning strikes are common in India during the monsoon season but the season in Bihar, which typically runs from June to September, has only just begun and authorities have warned of more thunderstorms to come.

The deadly trend has been blamed on rising temperatures caused by climate change.

Elevated heat and excessive moisture are causing large-scale instability in the atmosphere, fuelling thunder and lightning storms, Bihar agrometeorologist Abdus Sattar told AFP.

The last decade was the hottest on record in India, with temperatures averaging 0.36 degrees above normal. The rising temperatures have been linked to increasingly frequent heatwaves followed by delayed but more intense monsoons.

A report last year from India’s Climate Resilient Observing Systems Promotion Council warned the changing weather patterns are making deadly lightning strikes “the new normal” in many parts of the country.

US lawmakers, ALL DEMOCRATS,press Colombia on killings of rights activists

Issued on: 06/07/2020

Women take part in a protest against violence in Medellin, Colombia, 

in June 2020 JOAQUIN SARMIENTO AFP/File
WITH THE DISBANDING OF FARC ALL VIOLENCE IS STATE VIOLENCE

INCLUDING DEATH SQUADS AND RIGHT WING MILITIAS
Washington (AFP)

Nearly 100 Democratic lawmakers on Monday urged President Donald Trump's administration to press Colombia over attacks on rights activists and warned that US assistance should not contribute to surveillance.

A UN report earlier this year found that 108 human rights defenders were killed last year in Colombia, with activists of indigenous and African descent hit especially hard.

"Colombia is now the most dangerous country in the world for human rights defenders," the 94 members of the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives wrote in a letter to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.

They called for pressure on conservative President Ivan Duque, a close US ally, to "stop this tragedy."

"We urge you, Mr. Secretary, to ensure that all agencies of the United States speak with one clear voice to condemn these ever escalating murders," said the letter spearheaded by Representatives Jim McGovern and Mark Pocan, leaders of the Congressional Progressive Caucus.

The lawmakers called for the United States "to press the Duque administration to take the necessary steps to identify and prosecute the intellectual authors of these crimes and dismantle the criminal structures that protect them."

They also warned they were watching the nature of US aid, which amounts to $528 million in the current fiscal year, after accounts that Colombian intelligence has spied on activists and journalists.

US financial help must not "assist, aid or abet such illegal surveillance, now or in the future," they wrote.

Colombia in 2016 signed a landmark peace agreement with FARC rebels that end a half-century of conflict.

But security remains dangerously lax in impoverished areas formerly controlled by the rebels as they lay down their arms.

The lawmakers said that illegal arms groups were filling a vacuum amid the COVID-19 pandemic, "further increasing the vulnerability of targeted rights defenders and local leaders."

© 2020 AFP

Lockdown in Colombia leads to spike in domestic violence
WOMEN / CORONAVIRUS - 07/06/2020   

Screen grab of a video showing a man violently abusing a woman in Puerto Wilches, Colombia. The video was posted online on June 27.
Across Colombia people reacted in horror to two videos that circulated widely on social media in June, showing men violently abusing women. But the videos were just the tip of the iceberg: Statistics show a sharp increase in domestic violence since the country went into lockdown, making it even harder for women to escape or report abuse.

The first video shows a man entering a home and dragging a woman out by her hair and then, still gripping her hair, spinning her around him several times, her back on the ground. You can hear the woman screaming. When she eventually gets up, starts to hit her. The video was filmed in Puerto Wilches, in the northern Colombian department of Santander, and was posted online on June 27.

No sé cómo y por qué pasan estas cosas. Qué Ira ????
Esto fue en Santander. pic.twitter.com/p7oIl7THAo La Paz, Dijo Colombianito.???? ???????? ???? (@LaPazColombiani) June 27, 2020

This video was posted online on June 27.

People were shocked by the abuser’s violence. They also expressed anger that the person filming the scene did not intervene. A few days later, local authorities announced that the man in the video had been jailed and that he had had previous domestic violence convictions.

A few days before the video emerged, another video showing domestic violence circulated widely on social media in Colombia. This video, filmed in Pueblo Bello in the northern Colombian department of Cesar, shows a man sitting on the side of the road next to a parked car, holding a struggling woman across his knees.

???????????????????? ????????????????????????????????
Autoridades en Pueblo Bello, - Cesar ayuden a esta mujer victima de su marido, quien es un locutor de radio Edgardo José Carreño Pavajeau de esta región. @gobcesar @FiscaliaCol @DefensoriaCol @SismaMujer #NoMasFeminicidios pic.twitter.com/d4LXpfaYE3 Fiallo-Arake Nancy ???????????????????????????????????????????????? (@NancyFiallo) June 23, 2020
This video was posted online on June 23.
The office of the attorney general opened an investigation after the video was posted online and the authorities later said the man, a radio journalist, had been detained. According to a local media outlet, the woman was in a relationship with her abuser and did not want to speak out against him. But the police arrested him based on testimony by friends and family, the video and a photo of the woman with an injury to her face.

Increase in reports of domestic violence

Most domestic violence is not caught on camera, but such incidents have been on the rise since the country went into lockdown on March 25 in an attempt to limit the spread of Covid-19.

On June 26, Colombian Vice President Marta Lucía Ramírez said that calls to a special hotline (155) for victims of domestic violence were up 150 percent from the same period last year. Ramírez added that calls reporting domestic violence to the traditional emergency number (123, for police, fire department, etc.) also increased by about 39 percent during lockdown.

However, the Instituto Nacional de Medicina Legal reported that at least 8,972 women were victims of domestic or sexual violence and 164 were killed between March 25 and June 23, 2020, which represents a decrease from the same period last year. But a close analysis of these numbers reveals a gradual increase in reports of violence in the weeks following lockdown. For example, statistics show that at least 1,241 women were victims of domestic violence during the first month of lockdown but that the number rose to 1,859 the next month.

"Incidents of violence against women during lockdown have been vastly underreported”
Carlos Fernando Galván Becerra works at the Organización Feminina Popular, a women’s rights organization based in Magdalena, northern Colombia.

We think that incidents of violence against women during the pandemic have been vastly underreported, firstly, because many women don’t report their abusers, especially because lockdown makes this process even more complicated than usual (even though lockdown restrictions have been loosened these past few months).

Lockdown makes it more difficult for women to leave the house. And while women can theoretically report domestic violence online or by calling a special number, this is not always possible. Many homes in Colombia don’t have internet access. And it isn’t easy to make a phone call reporting abuse if you live under the same roof with your abuser.

Moreover, if a woman lives with her abuser and she has to return to the home after reporting him, there is the risk that he might become even more violent if he finds out. This is especially dangerous because when women report domestic violence, institutions rarely respond immediately. There are also very few shelters where women can go stay.

“With Covid-19, help for victims of domestic violence is not really a priority”

This increase in violence can be explained by the fact that confinement can cause immense stress. Aside from physical violence, we’ve also recorded an increase in psychological violence.

Right now, the authorities are focused on the fight against Covid-19, so help for victims of domestic violence is not really a priority. Not to mention that there is historic, structural violence against women in Colombia.
In early May, an initiative called #ElTrapoAvisa (#ClothAlert) was launched to encourage victims of domestic violence to hang up a black piece of cloth in their window to indicate that they need help.



A similar initiative encouraged families who were going hungry to hang a piece of red cloth in their window to indicate that they needed food.

>> READ ON THE OBSERVERS: Out of work and hungry, Colombians protest during Covid-19 lockdown

In late June, the Colombian vice president announced that new measures would be introduced to fight the epidemic of violence against women. Colombian women’s rights organizations have consistently highlighted major failures in terms of prevention, care for victims and the response of the judicial system to these matters.

Article by Chloé Lauvergnier

Fewer medical graduates from Muslim countries entering US in Trump-era

CUTTING NOSE TO SPITE FACEIssued on: 06/07/2020 - 

Members of the New York Immigration Coalition hold a news conference in Foley Square, to talk about the US Supreme Court decision to uphold US President Donald Trump's Muslim ban, in June 2018 Don EMMERT AFP/File


Washington (AFP)

The number of foreign medical graduates from Muslim-majority countries coming to the US to become doctors has declined by 15 percent under the Trump administration, exacerbating shortages in America's physician workforce, a study said Monday.
International medical graduates represent about a quarter of practicing doctors in the United States, with countries like Pakistan, Egypt and Iran historically providing the bulk from Islamic nations.

Overall, citizens from Muslim-majority nations made up 4.5 percent of the US physician workforce in 2019.


The number of graduates from these countries applying for certification in the United States rose from 2009-2015, peaking at 4,244, before falling steadily to 3,604 in 2018 -- a decline of 15 percent.

The study appeared in Journal of the American Medical Association, and was led John Boulet, vice president of the Educational Commission for Foreign Medical Graduates that oversees the certification process.

Boulet and colleagues said that recent US policies, such as the travel ban on Muslim-majority countries "affect the inflow of IMGs International Medical Graduates) by restricting travel to the country for citizens from specific nations."

They added: "Even a perceived immigration ban could affect who chooses to complete the requirements for... certification" while potential difficulty obtaining a visa could dissuade the program directors of medical residencies from making a job offer.

The US demand for physicians has long outstripped supply for a variety of reasons, from population growth and aging, to a federal cap on funding for residency training.

As a result, the US could see a shortage of as many as 122,000 doctors by the year 2032, according to a 2019 report by the Association of American Medical Colleges.

Some economists also argue that the short supply of doctors has led to a surge in their wages; costs that are eventually passed down to patients.

"To the extent that citizens from some countries no longer seek residency positions in the US, gaps in the physician workforce could widen," the authors said.

The attractiveness of the United States as a destination may have also waned in comparison to other countries like Canada, New Zealand, Australia and Britain, the authors wrote.
© 2020 AFP

US says foreign students must leave if classes go fully online due to Covid-19

Issued on: 07/07/2020 -

Students and pedestrians walk through the Yard at Harvard University, after the school asked its students not to return to campus after Spring Break and said it would move to virtual instruction for graduate and undergraduate classes, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, U.S., March 10, 2020. © REUTERS/Brian Snyder

Text by:NEWS WIRES


The United States said Monday it would not allow foreign students to remain in the country if all of their classes are moved online in the fall because of the coronavirus crisis

"Nonimmigrant F-1 and M-1 students attending schools operating entirely online may not take a full online course load and remain in the United States," US Immigration and Custom Enforcement said in a statement.

"Active students currently in the United States enrolled in such programs must depart the country or take other measures, such as transferring to a school with in-person instruction to remain in lawful status," ICE said.

"If not, they may face immigration consequences including, but not limited to, the initiation of removal proceedings."

ICE said the State Department "will not issue visas to students enrolled in schools and/or programs that are fully online for the fall semester nor will US Customs and Border Protection permit these students to enter the United States."

F-1 students pursue academic coursework and M-1 students pursue "vocational coursework," according to ICE.

Most US colleges and universities have not yet announced their plans for the fall semester.

A number of schools are looking at a hybrid model of in-person and online instruction but some, including Harvard University, have said all classes will be conducted online.

Harvard said 40 percent of undergraduates would be allowed to return to campus but their instruction would be online.

There were more than one million international students in the United States for the 2018-19 academic year, according to the Institute of International Education (IIE).

That accounted for 5.5 percent of the total US higher education population, the IIE said, and international students contributed $44.7 billion to the US economy in 2018.

The largest number of international students came from China, followed by India, South Korea, Saudi Arabia and Canada.
(AFP)

Dalai Lama channels 'Inner World' in album to mark 85th birthday



Issued on: 06/07/2020 -

The Dalai Lama, shown here in 1996, has put out a music album to mark his 85th birthday David HANCOCK AFP/File

New Delhi (AFP)

Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama launched an assault on the music charts on Monday by releasing his first album to mark his 85th birthday.

"Inner World", in which the Dalai Lama chants meditations and Buddhist sayings, was inspired by New Zealand follower Junelle Kunin who spent five years working on the project after persuading him to take part.

The Dalai Lama went to her home in Auckland three times and she recorded some sessions at his residence in Dharamsala in India, where the Tibetan government in exile is based.

"He had a clear vision with this work and has been very committed to it," Kunin, who produced the music with her husband Abraham, told the Radio New Zealand programme Nine to Noon.

"It's not a religious project although they are mantras. It's really just a work to try and benefit people. So I thought about what we need day-to-day -- courage and healing and wisdom and so forth so that's the path we went down."

The Dalai Lama has won the Nobel Peace prize, is the best-selling author of a number of books and has been depicted in a number of Hollywood movies, but his involvement with music has been rare.

He appeared at the Glastonbury rock festival in England five years ago with US rock singer Patti Smith when she sang for his 80th birthday.

On a video to promote the album, the Dalai Lama was asked why he had agreed to take part, and answers: "I can say the very purpose of my life is to serve as much as I can."

Lobsang Sangay, president of the Tibetan government-in-exile based in Dharamsala, said he hoped the album would "contribute in calming minds and nerves" of many people as the coronavirus pandemic rages around the world.

He also said the Dalai Lama was making the most of the lockdown and treating it like a "vacation of sorts".

"The lockdown is very good for him. He can now go into retreat, go through all his scriptures and daily prayers... He is a spiritual in heart. He is getting the needed rest, he is 85 years old," Sangay told AFP.

Hollywood star Richard Gere, British pop singer Annie Lennox and comedian Russell Brand were among international celebrities to join special birthday greetings in a video on Facebook.

© 2020 AFP

'Devil Went Down to Georgia' country star Charlie Daniels dies

THE DEVIL YOU SAY, HOPE CHARLIE TOOK HIS FIDDLE DOWN WITH HIM
PROVING THAT NOT ALL LONG HAIRS WERE HIPPIES 
SOME GREW THEIR HAIR LONG TO COVER THEIR RED NECKS

Issued on: 06/07/2020 -

New York (AFP)

Charlie Daniels, a musical force who melded country music and southern rock, showcasing his blistering fiddle skills on hits like "The Devil Went Down to Georgia," died Monday. He was 83 years old.

The Country Music Hall of Fame musician died following a hemorrhagic stroke in Tennessee, a statement on his website said.

Originally a session musician who worked with icons including Bob Dylan, Ringo Starr and Leonard Cohen, Daniels made his name as leader of the Charlie Daniels Band, a country-rock group that hosted the Volunteer Jam annual music festival.

An outspoken persona who waffled between patriotic and countercultural bents, Daniels' intrepid attitude was on full display in his best known hit "The Devil Went Down to Georgia," which hit number one on the country charts and jumped into the top ten pop songs.

The uptempo but growling bluegrass song recounts a fiddle player's musical duel with Satan after wagering his soul -- and playing well enough to keep it -- a song hearkening to historical associations tying fiddle-playing to dark arts and sin.

The rollicking hit won Daniels a Grammy in 1979.

The singer long backed veterans' causes and was also a staunch supporter of the National Rifle Association.

He favored Jimmy Carter, a Georgian, and played the former Democratic president's inauguration ball. Later in life he called former president Barack Obama a "fresh-faced, flower-child president (with) his weak-kneed, Ivy League friends."

Daniels often sounded off his opinions on his website in a section entitled "Soap Box," with a final post celebrating the United States' Independence Day on July 3.

Late last month on the site he skewered protestors marching for anti-racist causes and against police brutality, railing against the demonstrations as a "revolutionary street battle... funded and lead by socialist factions."

"Gun sales are through the roof and America is locked and loaded to protect their families and their neighborhoods," Daniels wrote.

HERE IS MY FAVORITE VERSION OF THE SONG BY EDMONTON'S OWN THE KUBASONICS
THE INSTRUMENT THEY REFER TO IS NOT A VIOLIN OR FIDDLE BUT A UKRAINIAN INSTRUMENT

Tsymbaly - Wikipedia

https://en.wikipedia.org › wiki › Tsymbaly

The tsymbaly (Ukrainian: цимбали) is the Ukrainian version of the hammer dulcimer. It is a chordophone made up of a trapezoidal box with metal (steel or bronze) strings strung across it. The tsymbaly is played by striking two beaters against the strings.

US judge temporarily closes controversial oil pipeline

Issued on: 06/07/2020 -

Protests against the Dakota Access Pipeline raged for months in North Dakota in 2016 Robyn BECK AFP/File

New York (AFP)

A US judge on Monday ordered the closure, at least temporarily, of the Dakota Access Pipeline, which has been the subject of dispute and massive protest for years by Native American tribes and environmental groups.

Activists protested and blocked construction of the controversial $3.8-billion, 1,172-mile oil pipeline for months in 2016, objecting to the route connecting the Bakken and Three Forks oil production areas in North Dakota to a distribution center in Illinois.

Washington-based federal judge James E. Boasberg ruled the pipeline falls far short of environmental standards, particularly when it comes to preventing oil spills.

In his 24-page order, he suspended an operating permit granted by the US Army Corps of Engineers to the company Energy Transfer to build a portion of the pipeline under Lake Oahe that stretches from South Dakota into North Dakota in the Northwest United States.

"Fearing severe environmental consequences, American Indian tribes on nearby reservations have sought for several years to invalidate federal permits allowing the Dakota Access Pipeline to carry oil under the lake," Boasberg wrote.

"Today they finally achieve that goal -- at least for the time being."

The ruling means the pipeline must be emptied of oil by August 5 while the Army Corps of Engineers prepares an environmental impact statement -- a step that it had forgone in approving the pipeline.

The ruling is a setback for President Donald Trump, who relaunched the Dakota Access Pipeline shortly after taking office in January 2017, alongside the Keystone XL, another controversial oil pipeline.

Both projects had been frozen under his predecessor Barack Obama.

The Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe sued over Trump's decision, claiming the pipeline threatened their drinking water and degraded sacred sites.

In a statement to AFP, Energy Transfer said it would ask the court to stay the decision, or appeal Monday's ruling.

"We believe that the ruling issued this morning from Judge Boasberg is not supported by the law or the facts of the case," spokeswoman Lisa Coleman said.

"Furthermore, we believe that Judge Boasberg has exceeded his authority in ordering the shutdown of the Dakota Access Pipeline, which has been safely operating for more than three years."

Brazil's Bolsonaro dilutes face mask law again
Issued on: 06/07/2020

Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro, whose image can be seen on this person's face mask, has further diluted a law mandating such masks in his country as it struggles with the coronavirus pandemic CARL DE SOUZA AFP/File

Brasília (AFP)

Brazil President Jair Bolsonaro on Monday made more changes to weaken a law requiring the wearing of face masks in public places in order to slow the spread of the coronavirus.

On Friday, the far right president had already watered down the bill by vetoing several articles, including ones requiring employers to supply face masks for their staff and another mandating that public authorities should provide face coverings for "economically vulnerable people."

Now he has also vetoed articles requiring masks be worn in prisons and another obliging businesses to provide information on how to wear masks properly.

Some states have already made the wearing of masks mandatory, but this was the first such law on a national level.

Since the beginning of the virus outbreak, Bolsonaro has minimized the risks of what he initially called "a little flu" and flouted social distancing rules and containment measures, such as wearing a mask in public.

Brazil is the second worst-hit country in the world in the pandemic, with almost 65,000 deaths and more than 1.6 million cases.

On Saturday, Bolsonaro published photos on social media in which he is seen without a face mask at a lunch with the US ambassador and several ministers celebrating the US independence day.

Since he was in a private residence he did not break the new law -- but that didn't spare him an avalanche of criticism on social media for not providing a good example.

Holiday park sculpture by artist Calder on sale in Paris
Issued on: 06/07/2020

]Une sculpture de l'artiste américain Alexander Calder proposée aux enchères mercredi 8 juillet 2020 à la maison de ventes Artcurial à Paris BERTRAND GUAY AFP


Paris (AFP)

A huge sculpture by American artist Alexander Calder will be auctioned this week in Paris after spending over 50 years at a holiday park in southern France, the auction house said on Monday.

The influential sculptor is known primarily for his colourful and abstract mobiles, of which he made thousands over the course of his career.

But he also made "stabiles" -- the opposite of mobiles -- one of which has remained concealed from the general public in La Colle-sur-Loup village, a few dozen kilometres from the ritzy city Cannes. Until now.

The black steel 3,5 metre (11 foot) structure, which will go under the hammer at the auction house Artcurial on Wednesday, was made by Calder in 1963.

It was installed six years later in front of a holiday park which aims to attract low-income families by maintaining affordable prices.

The free-standing stabile is being sold by the current owner of the holiday park Belambra Clubs and is estimated to be worth between 2.5 and 3.5 million euros ($2.8-4.0 million).

"It's the first time that a major monumental stabile by Calder will be on auction in France," said Hugues Sebilleau, the director of the modern art department at auction house Artcurial.

"The stabile is completely characteristic of Calder's style at the time. The structure is very assertive and well planted on its four bearing points," said sales expert Serge Lemoine.

"Rhythm and space are the vital compositions. The curves respond to the angles and the surfaces respond to the voids," Lemoine said.

The stabile is on show in the entry of the Artcurial building on the famous Champs Elysees avenue in Paris until its sale on Wednesday.

Trained as an engineer, Calder used a wide variety of media to make more than 22,000 works before he died in 1976.

© 2020 AFP

https://loumessugo.com/secret-riviera-la-colle-sur-loup/

ELECTORAL FASCISM
Egypt parliament approves law for military to run in polls

Issued on: 06/07/2020 - 1

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi (C), a former army chief, seen in a January 2015 picture surrounded by top generals, could potentially stay in power until 2030 under amendments passed by parliament MENA MENA/AFP

Cairo (AFP)

Egypt's parliament on Monday approved amendments allowing active or former military personnel to run for the presidency and parliament pending the army's approval.

The legislative changes come a year after Egyptians overwhelmingly voted in favour of constitutional amendments that potentially allow President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, a former army chief, to stay on until 2030.

Since it became a modern republic, all but two of Egypt's presidents have hailed from a military background.

The army is highly visible in Egypt's public life, with former top brass currently serving as ministers and heading governorates as well.

The nationalist institution boasts a sizeable business portfolio ranging from massive construction projects to most recently producing protective masks.
Sisi, the former general-turned-president, led the army's overthrow of elected president Mohamed Morsi in 2013 following mass protests against the Islamist leader's rule.

He won his first term as president in 2014 and was re-elected in March 2018 with more than 97 percent of the vote, after standing virtually unopposed.

The amended law also prohibits officers from divulging information during their service publicly or joining political parties without the Supreme Council of Armed Forces' permission.

SCAF is a military council comprised of the country's most senior generals. It ruled Egypt following the toppling of long-time autocrat Hosni Mubarak in 2011.

A former chief of staff of the armed forces, Sami Anan, was jailed in January 2018 after contesting the presidential elections against Sisi without the military's explicit approval.

He was released nearly two years later.

A military court jailed another former soldier in December 2017 for six years for announcing his decision to enter the presidential race as a potential candidate in a video he posted on YouTube.

© 2020 AFP

Opposition candidate wins Dominican Republic presidential poll

ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE ISLAND WITH HAITI
Issued on: 06/07/2020 -

Opposition candidate Luis Abinader, who ran out winner of the Dominican Republic's presidential election, pictured casting his vote in the capital Santo Domingo Juan VALENZUELA afp/AFP


Santo Domingo (AFP)

Opposition candidate Luis Abinader swept to victory in the Dominican Republic's presidential election, early results showed Monday, ending 16 years of unbroken rule by the Caribbean nation's center-left PLD party after voters braved a worsening coronavirus outbreak to cast their ballots.

Abinader, the candidate of the Modern Revolutionary Party (PRM), took 52.51 percent of the vote with 82 percent of polling station returns counted, the Central Electoral Board said.

"We won, today we won," a victorious Abinader told dozens of supporters at his campaign headquarters in the capital Santo Domingo.
"This is the change the Dominican people voted for," said the 52-year-old businessman who will take office on August 16.

Gonzalo Castillo, standing for outgoing President Danilo Medina's Dominican Liberation Party (PLD), conceded late Sunday after winning just 37.69 percent of the vote.

Gray-haired Abinader -- whose holding company has interests in tourism, agriculture and cement -- has the dual challenge of reviving the coronavirus-hit economy and regaining public trust after the Latin America-wide Odebrecht corruption scandal embroiled local officials.

- Record coronavirus infections -

Voters lined up to cast their ballots wearing masks and standing six feet apart as the presidential and legislative polls went ahead Sunday despite soaring coronavirus cases.

The polls were originally scheduled for May 17 but were postponed as the virus outbreak gathered pace across the Caribbean and Latin America.

Gunfire outside a polling station in the capital left one person dead after an argument among opposing party activists turned violent, police said.

But elsewhere, voting appeared to progress smoothly, with few disruptions despite the extra virus precautions.

"It's pretty fluid and very well organized. The truth is I didn't expect it," said Maribel Roman, a 47-year-old business consultant, as she waited for her turn to vote.

The country on Sunday broke its record for the number of daily infections as health officials reported 1,241 new cases. On Saturday, the number of new infections had exceeded 1,000 for the first time.

Since the first infections were registered on March 1, the country has recorded 37,425 cases with 794 deaths from COVID-19.

An election monitor from the Organization of American States (OAS) who travelled from Washington, "tested positive" for the virus and is "in isolation" the organization said on Twitter.

Abinader, whose grandparents immigrated from Lebanon, unsuccessfully ran for the presidency in 2016 and the vice-presidency in 2012. He failed as a Senate candidate in 2005.

His father, Jose Rafael Abinader, fought against the dictatorship of Rafael Leonidas Trujillo in the 1930s and 1940s.

When democracy returned, Abinader senior held numerous public offices and unsuccessfully ran for the presidency three times before winning a senate seat in the 1990s.
- Economic challenges -

While regaining public trust remains a deep concern, restoring economic performance to the levels of the past seven years -- when the tourism-dependent country averaged around 5.0 percent annual growth -- will be Abinader's key task.

GDP slumped almost 30 percent in April compared to the same month last year due to the impact of COVID-19 containment measures.

"We will face the most difficult challenges in our history, economic recovery and regaining confidence in democratic institutions," he said.

Brazilian developer Odebrecht has admitted to doling out $92 million in bribes in the Dominican Republic in exchange for winning public works contracts.

The country, which shares the island of Hispaniola with Haiti, ranks 137th out of 180 countries on Transparency International's corruption index.
© 2020 AFP

World Cup 2022 organisers to cut staff: sources
Issued on: 06/07/2020

World Cup staff are to be layed off in Qatar GIUSEPPE CACACE AFP/File

Doha (AFP)

The organisers of the 2022 World Cup will lay off an undisclosed number of staff as gas-rich Qatar cuts costs amid the coronavirus economic downturn, several sources have told AFP.

The job losses, which have not previously been reported, follow similar redundancies at state-run organisations including Qatar Petroleum and Qatar Airways.

The government body organising the tournament, known as the Supreme Committee, directly employs 550 people -- both Qataris and expats -- but oversees the work of tens of thousands of contractors.
"The Supreme Committee has recently undertaken an internal exercise to assess the current workforce and engaged in a budget management and operational efficiency exercise as part of this transition," the organisation said in a statement to AFP Monday.

The 2022 organisers did not confirm how many posts would be lost or what the projected savings would be.

Qataris have largely been spared from past staff cuts at other state-controlled organisations.

- Expat exodus -

"As a result, we have taken the decision to make a number of positions redundant. All due salary and end of service benefits will be paid to those leaving, in line with Qatari labour laws," the statement added.

A source at one major engineering firm involved in the completion of one of seven new stadiums being built for 2022 told AFP that some staff at the company, an SC contractor, had also been terminated.

Despite the impact of coronavirus on construction work, slowing progress to permit social distancing, officials insist preparations are ahead of schedule and 85 percent of all tournament infrastructure is now complete.

Officials have confirmed more than 1,100 cases of COVID-19 among workers at tournament projects and at least one virus death.

Qatar passed the milestone of 100,000 coronavirus cases on Monday and has one of the world's highest per capita infection rates.

Of its 2.75 million population, 100,345 people or 3.65 percent have tested positive for COVID-19. Almost 94,000 of those have recovered and 133 people have died.

The economy of super-wealthy gas exporter Qatar has been buffeted by the global economic downturn and associated energy price collapse caused by the pandemic.

Qatar-based broadcaster BeIN will shed around 100 jobs and cut some salaries in response to the virus downturn, while Qatar Airways will slash some pilot pay by as much as a quarter.

The wider Gulf is in the midst of an expat exodus as foreign workers, who make up the majority of the populations in Bahrain, Qatar, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates, return home.
The Supreme Committee said it was transitioning its focus from "constructing tournament infrastructure" to "delivering the event operations".

"The organisation's workforce needs to transition as well," the statement said.

burs-gw/dmc

Fossil of giant 70m year-old fish found in Argentina

THE BIG ONE THAT GOT AWAY
Issued on: 06/07/2020 -

The fossilized remains of this Xiphactinus - similar to the one found in Argentina - was discovered in the US state of Kansas and sold at auction in 2010 ROBYN BECK AFP

Buenos Aires (AFP)

A giant 70 million year old fossil of a fish that lived amongst dinosaurs has been discovered in Argentine Patagonia, a team of researchers said on Monday.

Argentine paleontologists "found the remains of a predator fish that was more than six meters long," the researchers said in a statement.

The discovery was published in the scientific journal Alcheringa: An Australasian Journal of Palaeontology.


The fish "swam in the Patagonian seas at the end of the Cretaceous Period, when the temperature there was much more temperate than now," the statement said.

"The fossils of this carnivorous animal with sharp teeth and scary appearance were found close to the Colhue Huapial lake" around 1,400 kilometers south of the capital Buenos Aires.

This fossil belonged to the Xiphactinus genus, "amongst the largest predatory fish that existed in the history of Earth."

"Its body was notably slim and ended in a huge head with big jaws and teeth as sharp as needles, several centimeters long."

Examples of this species have been found in other parts of the world, "some of which even have preserved stomach contents," said Julieta de Pasqua, one of the study authors.

Previously, the Xiphactinus had only been found in the northern hemisphere, although one example was recently found in Venezuela.

Patagonia is one of the most important reservoirs of fossils of dinosaurs and prehistoric species.

© 2020 AFP

Trump Administration Has Blocked Anthony Fauci From Giving TV Interview For Three Months, CBS News Anchor Says

WIN MCNAMEE / GETTY IMAGE

Nathan Francis  July 5, 2020

Donald Trump’s administration has been blocking Dr. Anthony Fauci from appearing on television interviews with CBS News for the last three months, a network anchor said on Sunday.

Margaret Brennan, moderator of Face the Nation, said on Sunday that the administration has been preventing Fauci and other experts from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention from appearing on the network’s shows.

The message, which was also shared on the show’s Twitter account, said that the administration has not approved requests for appearances by Fauci in recent months and has approved nothing from the CDC.

.@margbrennan: "We think it's important for our viewers to hear from Dr. Anthony Fauci and the @CDCgov
But we have not been able to get our requests for Dr. Fauci approved by the Trump administration in the last three months. And the CDC not at all. We will continue our efforts" pic.twitter.com/ZLDYHU2anY
— Face The Nation (@FaceTheNation) July 5, 2020


As Newsweek noted, Fauci has given a number of other interviews during that time, along with other top health experts within the Trump administration. But other networks have reported difficulties in securing interviews with top health experts within the Trump administration, especially recently.

On Friday, CNN reported that the administration had not been approving any interview requests for Fauci, whose last television interview was on June 12. Fauci has made some appearances on podcasts and webcasts during that time.

A Trump administration official told CNN that it was dangerous to keep the federal government’s top public health experts away from interviews.

“Now is the time to be sending a strong public health message,” the official said, noting the surge of coronavirus cases, especially in the south and southwest.

Donald Trump has been criticized for making statements that contradict public health experts on the coronavirus, including a recent claim that the outbreak will go away suddenly and that the rise in cases is due to an increase in testing.

Going viral: Why Canadian sparrows have changed their tune

OUR INDIGENOUS SONG BIRD

Issued on: 02/07/2020

The white-throated sparrow of North America, whose singing preferences are the subject of a new study Ken A. OTTER AFP

Washington (AFP)

Members of a Canadian sparrow species famous for their jaunty signature song are changing their tune, a curious example of a "viral phenomenon" in the animal kingdom, a study showed Thursday.

Bird enthusiasts first recorded the white-throated sparrow's original song, with its distinctive triplet hook, in the 1950s.

Canadians even invented lyrics to accompany the ditty: "Oh my sweet, Ca-na-da, Ca-na-da, Ca-na-da."

But starting from the late 20th century, biologists began noticing that members of the species in western Canada were innovating.

Instead of a triplet, the new song ended in a doublet and a new syncopation pattern. The new ending sounded like "Ca-na, Ca-na, Ca-na."

Over the course of the next two decades, this new cadence became a big hit, moving eastward and conquering Alberta, then Ontario. It began entering Quebec last year.

It's now the dominant version across more than 2,000 miles (3,000 kilometers) of territory, in an extremely rare example of the total replacement of historic bird dialect by another.

Scientist Ken Otter at the University of Northern British Columbia, and his colleague Scott Ramsay from Wilfrid Laurier University, described the dizzying pace of this transformation in the journal Current Biology.

"What we're seeing is like somebody moving from Quebec to Paris, and all the people around them saying, 'Wow, that's a cool accent' and start adopting a Quebec accent," Otter told AFP.

Their work was based on 1,785 recordings between 2000 and 2019, the majority made by them but with contributions from citizen-scientists, who posted the files on specialist sites like xeno-canto.org.

In the western province of Alberta, about half of the recorded songs ended with the triplet in 2004; ten years later, all the males had adopted the doublet.

In 2015, half of western Canada had converted to the doublet version, and by last year, the new song had been well established on the western tip of eastern Quebec province.At this rate, the historic triplet version may soon exist only in tape recordings.

- Bird influencers -

The males of the species sing to mark their territory, and their songs all share a common structure. Usually, if a variation appears, it remains regional and doesn't make headway in neighboring territories.

The study represents the first time scientists have been able to show this kind spread at huge geographic scale, said Otter.

So how did it happen?

Probably in the same way that children return from summer camp humming new tunes: songbirds from different parts of Canada winter in the same parts of the United States, then return to their own homes in spring.

The researchers verified this theory by tagging a few of the birds.

So it was that in the plains of Texas and Kansas, the new song's first adopters from western Canada -- avian influencers, if you will -- popularized the trend among their eastern brethren.

Previous work has shown that young birds can pick up a foreign song after listening to a recording.

But to truly understand why the males were willing to abandon the old song that had once served them well, the scientists have to rely on theories.

Otter believes it may be because females were more attracted to the new song, so young males rushed to adopt it.

"There seems to be some advantage to adding novel elements into your song that make the song, not necessarily more attractive, but increases people's attention to it," said Otter.

Going back to the human example, it would be akin to "if all the French women in Paris thought that a Quebec accent sounded much more interesting than a Parisian accent, and so everybody starts adopting a Quebec accent."

The hypothesis remains unverified.

© 2020 AFPTwenty-year study tracks a sparrow song that went "viral" across Canada

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VIDEO: THIS VIDEO SHOWS THE TWO DIFFERENT WHITE-THROATED SPARROW SONGS. view more 

CREDIT: SCOTT M. RAMSAY

Most bird species are slow to change their tune, preferring to stick with tried-and-true songs to defend territories and attract females. Now, with the help of citizen scientists, researchers have tracked how one rare sparrow song went "viral" across Canada, traveling over 3,000 kilometers between 2000 and 2019 and wiping out a historic song ending in the process. The study, publishing July 2 in the journal Current Biology, reports that white-throated sparrows from British Columbia to central Ontario have ditched their traditional three-note-ending song in favor of a unique two-note-ending variant--although researchers still don't know what made the new song so compelling.

"As far as we know, it's unprecedented," says senior author Ken Otter, a biology professor at the University of Northern British Columbia. "We don't know of any other study that has ever seen this sort of spread through cultural evolution of a song type." Although it's well known that some bird species change their songs over time, these cultural evolutions tend to stay in local populations, becoming regional dialects rather than the norm for the species. This is how the two-note ending got its start.

In the 1960s, white-throated sparrows across the country whistled a song that ended in a repeated three-note triplet, but by the time Otter moved to western Canada in the late 1990s and began listening to the local bird songs, the new two-note ending had already invaded local sparrow populations. "When I first moved to Prince George in British Columbia, they were singing something atypical from what was the classic white-throated sparrow song across all of eastern Canada," he says. Over the course of 40 years, songs ending in two notes, or doublet-ending songs, had become universal west of the Rocky Mountains.

Otter and his team used the large network of citizen scientist birders across North America who had uploaded recordings of white-throated sparrow songs to online databases to track the new doublet-ending song. They found that the song was not only more popular west of the Rocky Mountains, but was also spreading rapidly across Canada beyond these western populations. "Originally, we measured the dialect boundaries in 2004 and it stopped about halfway through Alberta," he says. "By 2014, every bird we recorded in Alberta was singing this western dialect, and we started to see it appearing in populations as far away as Ontario, which is 3,000 kilometers from us."

The scientists predicted that the sparrows' overwintering grounds were playing a role in the rapid spread of the two-note ending. "We know that birds sing on the wintering grounds, so juvenile males may be able to pick up new song types if they overwinter with birds from other dialect areas. This would allow males to learn new song types in the winter and take them to new locations when they return to breeding grounds, helping explain how the song type could spread," Otter says.

So the researchers harnessed sparrows with geolocators--what Otter calls "tiny backpacks"--to see if western sparrows who knew the new song might share overwintering grounds with eastern populations that would later adopt it. They found that they did. And not only did it appear that this rare song was spreading across the continent from these overwintering grounds, but it was also completely replacing the historic triple-note ending that had persisted for so many decades--something almost unheard of in male songbirds.

Otter and his team found that the new song didn't give male birds a territorial advantage over male counterparts, but still want to study whether female birds have a preference between the two songs. "In many previous studies, the females tend to prefer whatever the local song type is," says Otter. "But in white-throated sparrows, we might find a situation in which the females actually like songs that aren't typical in their environment. If that's the case, there's a big advantage to any male who can sing a new song type."

Now, another new song has appeared in a western sparrow population whose early spread may mirror that of the doublet-note ending. Otter and his team are excited to continue their work and see how this song shifts in real time with more help from citizen scientists. "By having all these people contribute their private recordings that they just make when they go bird watching, it's giving us a much more complete picture of what's going on throughout the continent," he says. "It's allowing us to do research that was never possible before."

###

This work was supported by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, the University of Northern British Columbia, and Wilfrid Laurier University.

Current Biology, Otter et al.: "Continent-wide shifts in song dialects of white-throated sparrows" https://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(20)30771-5

Current Biology (@CurrentBiology), published by Cell Press, is a bimonthly journal that features papers across all areas of biology. Current Biology strives to foster communication across fields of biology, both by publishing important findings of general interest and through highly accessible front matter for non-specialists. Visit: http://www.cell.com/current-biology. To receive Cell Press media alerts, contact press@cell.com.

A new birdsong unexpectedly spread across North America

Alison Snyder, author Science Jul 2, 2020 

White-throated sparrow. Photo: Scott M. Ramsay/Wilfrid Laurier UniversityOver 19 years, a once rare song sang by sparrows in western Canada has spread across North America, replacing a traditional song along the way, according to new research.

The big picture: Birdsongs, like human languages, have dialects that can evolve, and birds and humans learn their languages in similar ways and timeframes.
Studying birdsong might help scientists to understand how humans develop dialects, says Angelika Nelson, an ornithologist at the Landesbund für Vogelschutz in Bavaria, Germany, who studied white-throated sparrow song and wasn't involved in the study.

Birdsongs can change over time but those changes are typically limited to a region and its dialect. In the case of the white-throated sparrows of North America, their song changed across the continent.
The traditional three-note-ending song, which dominated the repertoire of sparrows west of the Rockies, was abandoned for one that ends in two notes. (The mnemonic is Oh my sweet, Can-a-da, Can-a-da, Can-a-da! for the three-note tune versus Oh my sweet, Can-a, Can-a, Cana-da!)
The song spread across North America and, as of 2019, only birds in the easternmost regions of the continent continue to sing the triplet-ending song
"This would be like, if you were from Kentucky, and you move to Seattle, and everybody starts thinking, 'hey, this Kentucky accent sounds awesome.' And suddenly 10 years later, everybody in Seattle has a Kentucky accent," says Ken Otter, an ornithologist at the University of Northern British Columbia and an author of the study.
"It's completely at odds with the expected norm for how regional song variants would establish and solidify. Instead this is actually spreading."

What they did: Otter and his colleagues used 1,785 male white-throated sparrow, Zonotrichia albicolis, bird song recordings collected by citizen scientists to show the spread of the new song.

Birds migrate and spend the winter with birds from other regions and the researchers thought perhaps the younger birds were learning the new song from their seasonal friends and taking them back to their breeding grounds.

The team tracked the location of sparrows with backpack geolocators and found those from the west, where the song was first observed, were overwintering in the southern U.S. with birds from farther east, where the song was later observed.

"It took 9 years (2005–2014) for the song variant to go from approximately 1% to 22% of males adopting, but then only 3 years (2014–2017) to go from 22% to nearly 50%, suggesting that the cultural spread may be exponential once a critical number of males have begun adopting the new variant," the authors write in Current Biology.

"To our knowledge, this is an unprecedented rate of song-type transition in any species of birds."

The intrigue: It's unclear why the new song is preferable.

Males sing to defend territory, which allows them to attract a mate. At the same time, females use birdsong to assess a male's prospects as a mate.

The researchers think females may have a preference for novel songs — but not too novel.

What to watch: Evidence for that comes from another song that has emerged — and spread — in the west. (This one is a doublet too but the first note is modulated.
"As of this year, it's completely replaced the traditional doublet. And so there was nothing super special about the doublet," says Otter. "It was just something different."