CRIMINAL CAPITALI$M
Media company Ozy to shut down after report highlights potential securities fraud
Tali Arbel
Associated Press

Ozy is shutting down less than a week after a New York Times column raised questions about the media organization's claims of millions of viewers and readers, while also pointing out a potential case of securities fraud.

The story triggered canceled shows, an internal investigation, investor concern and high-level departures at the company.

An emailed statement Friday from Ozy Media's board called it a company with many “world-class journalists and experienced professionals to whom we owe tremendous gratitude.” It said it was "with the heaviest of hearts that we must announce today that we are closing Ozy’s doors.”

The board's statement did not give the reason for shutting down the company based in Mountain View, California. Ozy did not respond to questions about why it was shutting down now or how many employees it had 

.

Ozy's CEO, former cable-news commentator and host Carlos Watson, started Ozy in 2013. It published stories on its website, made podcasts, newsletters and shows and hosted the OzyFest festival. Its website remained up on Friday afternoon.

The Times story said Ozy's chief operating officer and co-founder, Samir Rao, impersonated a YouTube executive on a call with Goldman Sachs while attempting to raise money from the investment bank. It also addressed long-held industry questions of whether Ozy was inflating its audience size.

In a tweet, Watson claimed 25 million newsletter subscribers – the New York Times, with a much bigger brand presence, says it has 15 million newsletter readers – and more than 30 million views on YouTube. The Times said fewer than 500,000 people went to Ozy's website in June and July, according to Comscore data.

On Thursday, Marc Lasry, the hedge-fund billionaire and Milwaukee Bucks co-owner who had been named Ozy's chairman in September, resigned, citing Ozy's need for someone experienced in crisis management and investigations. He remained an investor.

A high-profile employee, former BBC anchor Katty Kay, resigned earlier in the week, and an early investor, a venture capital firm, gave up its Ozy shares. The board had reportedly hired a law firm to review Ozy's business activities.

Cable network A&E pulled a special on mental health hosted by Watson that was scheduled for Monday night, and Watson stepped down from hosting a documentary Emmys awards show Wednesday night.

The website Crunchbase, which tracks corporate fund-raising, said Ozy had raised more than $70 million from investors as of late 2019.

Ozy Media is shutting down after reports about misconduct and lies at the company

PUBLISHED FRI, OCT 1 20211

CNBC
Alex Sherman@SHERMAN4949

KEY POINTS

Ozy Media’s board on Friday announced that the company is shutting down.

CEO Carlos Watson informed employees of the board’s vote.

Watson had a reputation for being demanding and temperamental but also built a diverse newsroom employees respected.

VIDEO 03:40 Ozy Media shutting down

Ozy Media CEO Carlos Watson informed employees Friday that the board had voted to shut down the company, according to a person familiar with the matter.

In a five minute phone call late in the afternoon, Watson informed Ozy’s staff of the decision, said the person, who asked not to be named because the conversation was private. A dejected-sounding Watson did not take any questions, the person said.

The New York Times was first to publish news of Ozy’s decision.

“At Ozy, we have been blessed with a remarkable team of dedicated staff,” the company’s board told the Times. “Many of them are world-class journalists and experienced professionals to whom we owe tremendous gratitude and who are wonderful colleagues. It is therefore with the heaviest of hearts that we must announce today that we are closing Ozy’s doors.”

A spokesperson for Ozy wasn’t immediately available for comment. According to Axios, which also reported Ozy Media is shutting down, the company had 75 full-time employees.

Full-time staffers are now waiting to hear if they will receive any severance or extended benefits from the abrupt shutdown, the person said. Freelance writers will be paid final pay checks next week, another person said.

The Times first reported on Sunday that an Ozy executive later revealed to be COO Samir Rao, impersonated a YouTube executive on a conference call with Goldman Sachs, which was considering a $40 million investment in the company. The company had also allegedly vastly inflated its monthly unique visitors, a metric used by media companies to attract advertisers.

That report set off a tailspin at the company.

On Wednesday, former BBC anchor Katty Kay, and one of Ozy Media’s executive producers, resigned from the company amid the fallout.

On Thursday, Marc Lasry resigned as the chair of Ozy Media after just three weeks on the job. Billionaire investor Lasry is the CEO of Avenue Capital Group and owner of NBA champions the Milwaukee Bucks.

“I believe that going forward Ozy requires experience in areas like crisis management and investigations, where I do not have particular expertise,” Lasry said on Thursday. He added that he remains an investor in Ozy Media.

CNBC also reported on Thursday that Ozy Media founder Carlos Watson lied when he claimed Sharon and Ozzy Osbourne invested in his company. The Osbournes filed a trademark lawsuit in 2017 over the company’s name Ozy Fest, which is the firm’s annual concert and festival. Osbourne told CNBC Watson leveraged his connections with billionaire Ozy Media investor Laurene Powell Jobs to threaten lawsuits. “This guy is the biggest shyster I have ever seen in my life,” Osbourne said.

Ozy also promised former producers that it was filming a show for A&E, according to a report from the Times on Thursday. But producers discovered that, too, was a lie, and that A&E never had plans to air interviews Ozy had filmed, according to The New York Times.

Previous employees at Ozy told CNBC Friday that Watson ran the company as a charismatic and temperamental leader. His demands on reporters — including writing four feature-length stories a week with “flavorful” prose — led several employees to quit from burnout. CNN spoke with other employees that mentioned similar stories of long work days and exhaustion.

Both Watson and Rao gained reputations for screaming at employees in the workplace, according to five ex-employees. One said working at Ozy felt like a Wall Street trading floor and thought the pair’s time working at Goldman Sachs may have contributed to their demeanors.

Watson would frequently boast of Ozy’s reach at internal meetings, said three people who were present for them, but reporters and editors saw little evidence of Ozy’s popularity. Still, they stayed with the company because they believed in its mission: to report stories and trends that other media outlets hadn’t yet discovered. Former Ozy employees also credited Watson with building a diverse workplace and allowing them to cover outside-the-box issues.

“I’ve never seen a workplace as diverse as Ozy’s,” one ex-employee said. “That was a huge reason to stay at the company.”

But the demanding pace and Watson’s temper caused many to leave -- often to Watson’s chagrin. Several noted Watson attempted to keep them and even contacted them after they’d quit.

“There’s a real guy in there, somewhere,” one ex-employee said of Watson. “It’s just tough to cut through the vanity.”

Watson was the face of the company both literally and figuratively, the employees said. He would ask to be more prominently featured on the website, with links to his YouTube talk show, “The Carlos Watson Show,” two of the people said. A YouTube advertisement for the show cites a quote from Deadline calling Watson “The Best Interviewer on TV.” That line was actually said by Rao, the executive who impersonated the YouTube executive, in a 2020 Deadline article about “The Carlos Watson Show.”

WATCH: NYT’s Smith discusses Marc Lasry’s resignation from Ozy

   

Ozy Media to shut down after advertisers flee, chairman resigns and Sharon Osbourne cries foul

By 

Will Feuer and

 

Alexandra Steigrad

  

October 1, 2021 

Ozy Media advertisers began jumping ship as the company's chairman, 

Marc Lasry (right), called it quits and, separately, reality star Sharon Osbourne 

shared surprising allegations about Ozy Media's CEO.WireImage; Getty Images

Ozy Media said late Friday it would shut down after big advertisers put their campaigns on hold and the digital media startup’s billionaire chairman resigned amid a slew of bizarre scandals — including surprise allegations from reality star Sharon Osbourne.

“At Ozy, we have been blessed with a remarkable team of dedicated staff. Many of them are world-class journalists and experienced professionals to whom we owe tremendous gratitude, and who are wonderful colleagues. It is therefore with the heaviest of hearts that we must announce today that we are closing Ozy’s doors,” a statement from its board said, according to the New York Times.

As of Friday evening, the site was still online. There was no immediate indication of when or how it would turn out the lights.

Ford, Airbnb, Goldman Sachs and Target are among the firms that had earlier pressed pause on their campaigns with the media company, costing Ozy as much as $5 million in revenue, The Wall Street Journal reported Friday, citing unnamed sources.

Ford confirmed the news, saying: “We are pausing our advertising while Ozy Media addresses their current business challenges.” Airbnb, Goldman Sachs and Target did not immediately return requests for comment.

Late Thursday, billionaire Marc Lasry, who is owner of the Milwaukee Bucks NBA team and CEO of the buyout firm Avenue Capital, resigned as Ozy’s chairman after just three weeks on the job.

“I believe that going forward Ozy requires experience in areas like crisis management and investigations, where I do not have particular expertise,” Lasry said. “For that reason, I have stepped down from the company’s board. I remain an investor in the company and wish it the best going forward.”

Separately Thursday, reality star Sharon Osbourne said the company’s disgraced co-founder and CEO Carlos Watson falsely claimed that she and her husband, heavy-metal legend Ozzy Osbourne, were investors in the company.

Sharon Osbourne said Ozy Media co-founder and CEO Carlos Watson lied about her and husband, Ozzy Osbourne, being investors in the venture.

Getty Images

Earlier this week, a New York Times report uncovered that Ozy’s co-founder and COO Samir Rao impersonated a YouTube executive on a call with potential investor Goldman Sachs. That article and several follow-ups have also claimed that Ozy frequently inflated key business metrics to other investors and even lied to its own employees about business operations.

Since then, the FBI has reportedly begun looking into the phone call that alleged Rao pretended to be a YouTube exec in order to drum up investor dollars. Although Ozy has not publically released a statement, Watson tweeted Monday that the Times article was a “hitjob.” He hasn’t tweeted since.

The dustup with the Osbournes started in 2017 when the couple filed a trademark lawsuit over Ozy Media’s annual concert and festival, which is called Ozy Fest. For years, The Osbournes had produced the Ozzfest music festival, which featured acts such as Black Sabbath, Tool and Slayer.

Ozy Media co-founder and CEO Carlos Watson called an unflattering report by the New York Times a “hitjob” in a tweet earlier this week but has not tweeted since.

Getty Images

“Fun fact: our friend Ozzy and Sharon sued us briefly, and then we decided to be friends and now they’re investors in Ozy,” Watson said on CNBC two years ago. 

That was a flat-out lie, according to Sharon Osbourne, who spoke to CNBC on Thursday.

“This guy is the biggest shyster I have ever seen in my life,” she said, adding that Watson tried to intimidate her while the lawsuit was being filed, saying that Ozy Media has a slew of resources and could draw out the legal battle so much that the family would be saddled with exorbitant legal fees for years to come.

The two sides settled after the Osbournes shelled out $300,000 in legal fees. The settlement required that Ozy Media submit musical acts and advertisers to Osbourne for approval, so as to make sure there was no overlap. 

SV Angel, an early investor in Ozy led by legendary Silicon Valley venture capitalist Ron Conway, surrendered the shares it acquired in the company in 2012, Axios reported.

Separately, veteran journalist Katty Kay, who joined Ozy in May, announced her resignation from the media company after writing on Twitter that she found the allegations to be “deeply troubling.”

Ozy’s board earlier this week announced that it hired a law firm to launch an external investigation “following reports of conduct that is not in keeping with our standards of values.” The board also said it asked Rao, the COO at the center of some of the allegations, “to take a leave of absence pending the results of the investigation.”

However, in the original Times story that sparked the flurry of activity at the media upstart darling, Lasry — then the chairman of the board — said the board was aware of the incident and supported how it was handled.

–– ADVERTISEMENT ––

“The board was made aware of the incident, and we fully support the way it was handled,” he was quoted as saying. “The incident was an unfortunate one-time event, and Carlos and his team showed the kind of compassion we would all want if any of us faced a difficult situation in our own lives.”

Dwindling Alaska salmon leave Yukon River tribes in crisis


STEVENS VILLAGE, Alaska (AP) — In a normal year, the smokehouses and drying racks that Alaska Natives use to prepare salmon to tide them through the winter would be heavy with fish meat, the fruits of a summer spent fishing on the Yukon River like generations before them

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© Provided by The Canadian Press

This year, there are no fish. For the first time in memory, both king and chum salmon have dwindled to almost nothing and the state has banned salmon fishing on the Yukon, even the subsistence harvests that Alaska Natives rely on to fill their freezers and pantries for winter. The remote communities that dot the river and live off its bounty — far from road systems and easy, affordable shopping — are desperate and doubling down on moose and caribou hunts in the waning days of fall.

“Nobody has fish in their freezer right now. Nobody,” said Giovanna Stevens, 38, a member of the Stevens Village tribe who grew up harvesting salmon at her family's fish camp. “We have to fill that void quickly before winter gets here."

Opinions on what led to the catastrophe vary, but those studying it generally agree human-caused climate change is playing a role as the river and the Bering Sea warm, altering the food chain in ways that aren't yet fully understood. Many believe commercial trawling operations that scoop up wild salmon along with their intended catch, as well as competition from hatchery-raised salmon in the ocean, have compounded global warming's effects on one of North America's longest rivers.

The assumption that salmon that aren't fished make it back to their native river to lay eggs may no longer hold up because of changes in both the ocean and river environments, said Stephanie Quinn-Davidson, who has worked on Yukon River salmon issues for a decade and is the Alaska Venture Fund's program director for fisheries and communities.

King, or chinook, salmon have been in decline for more than a decade, but chum salmon were more plentiful until last year. This year, summer chum numbers plummeted and numbers of fall chum — which travel farther upriver — are dangerously low.

“Everyone wants to know, ‘What is the one smoking gun? What is the one thing we can point to and stop?’” she said of the collapse. “People are reluctant to point to climate change because there isn’t a clear solution ... but it’s probably the biggest factor here."

Many Alaska Native communities are outraged they are paying the price for generations of practices beyond their control that have caused climate change — and many feel state and federal authorities aren't doing enough to bring Indigenous voices to the table. The scarcity has made raw strong emotions about who should have the right to fish in a state that supplies the world with salmon, and underscores the powerlessness many Alaska Natives feel as traditional resources dwindle.

The nearly 2,000-mile-long (3,200-kilometer) Yukon River starts in British Columbia and drains an area larger than Texas in both Canada and Alaska as it cuts through the lands of Athabascan, Yup’ik and other tribes.

The crisis is affecting both subsistence fishing in far-flung outposts and fish processing operations that employ tribal members in communities along the lower Yukon and its tributaries.

“In the tribal villages, our people are livid. They’re extremely angry that we are getting penalized for what others are doing," said P.J. Simon, chairman and chief of the Tanana Chiefs Conference, a consortium of 42 tribal villages in the Alaska interior. “As Alaska Natives, we have a right to this resource. We have a right to have a say in how things are drawn up and divvied up.”

More than a half-dozen Alaska Native groups have petitioned for federal aid, and they want the state's federal delegation to hold a hearing in Alaska on the salmon crisis. The groups also seek federal funding for more collaborative research on effects that ocean changes are having on returning salmon.

Citing the warming ocean, Republican Gov. Mike Dunleavy requested a federal disaster declaration for the salmon fishery this month and has helped coordinate airlifts of about 90,000 pounds (41,000 kilograms) of fish to needy villages. The salmon crisis is one of the governor's top priorities, said Rex Rock Jr., Dunleavy’s advisor for rural affairs and Alaska Native economic development.

That's done little to appease remote villages that are dependent on salmon to get through winter, when snow paralyzes the landscape and temperatures can dip to minus 20 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 29 C) or lower.

Families traditionally spend the summer at fish camps using nets and fish wheels to snag adult salmon as they migrate inland from the ocean to the place where they hatched so they can spawn. The salmon is prepared for storage a variety of ways: dried for jerky, cut into fillets that are frozen, canned in half-pint jars or preserved in wooden barrels with salt.

Without those options, communities are under intense pressure to find other protein sources. In the Alaska interior, the nearest road system is often dozens of miles away, and it can take hours by boat, snow machine or even airplane to reach a grocery store.

Store-bought food is prohibitively expensive for many: A gallon (3.8 liters) of milk can cost nearly $10, and a pound of steak was recently $34 in Kaltag, an interior village about 328 air miles (528 kilometers) from Fairbanks. A surge in COVID-19 cases that has disproportionately hit Alaska Natives has also made many hesitant to venture far from home.

Instead, villages sent out extra hunting parties during the fall moose season and are looking to the upcoming caribou season to meet their needs. Those who can't hunt themselves rely on others to share their meat.

“We have to watch our people because there will be some who will have no food about midyear,” said Christina Semaken, a 63-year-old grandmother who lives in Kaltag, an Alaska interior town of fewer than 100 people. “We can’t afford to buy that beef or chicken."

Semaken hopes to fish next year, but whether the salmon will come back remains unknown.

Tribal advocates want more genetic testing on salmon harvested from fishing grounds in Alaska waters to make sure that commercial fisheries aren't intercepting wild Yukon River salmon. They also want more fish-tracking sonar on the river to ensure an accurate count of the salmon that escape harvest and make it back to the river's Canadian headwaters.

Yet changes in the ocean itself might ultimately determine the salmon's fate.

The Bering Sea, where the river meets the ocean, had unprecedented ice loss in recent years, and its water temperatures are rising. Those shifts are throwing off the timing of the plankton bloom and the distribution of small invertebrates that the fish eat, creating potential chaos in the food chain that’s still being studied, said Kate Howard, a fisheries scientist with the Alaska Department of Fish and Game. Researchers have also documented warming temperatures in the river that are unhealthy for salmon, she said.

Because salmon spend time in both rivers and the ocean during their unique life cycle, it's hard to pin down exactly where these rapid environmental changes are most affecting them — but it's increasingly clear that overfishing is not the only culprit, Howard said.

“When you dig into all the available data for Yukon River salmon," she said, "it’s hard to explain it all unless you consider climate change.”

Alaska Natives, meanwhile, are left scrambling to fill a hole in their diet — and in centuries of tradition built around salmon.

On a recent fall day, a small hunting party zoomed along the Yukon River by motorboat, scanning the shoreline for signs of moose. After three days, the group had killed two moose, enough to provide meat for seven families, or about 50 people, for roughly a month in their small community of Stevens Village.

At the end of a long day, they butchered the animals as the Northern Lights blazed a vibrant green across the sky, their headlamps piercing the inky darkness.

The makeshift camp, miles from any road, would normally host several dozen families harvesting salmon, sharing meals and teaching children how to fish. On this day, it was eerily quiet.

“I don’t really think that there is any kind of bell out there that you can ring loud enough to try to explain that type of connection,” said Ben Stevens, whose ancestors founded Stevens Village. "Salmon, to us, is life. Where can you go beyond that?”

Nathan Howard And Gillian Flaccus, The Associated Press

How psychedelics are returning to the world of medicine

Millions of people in Germany have been diagnosed with depression. Researchers believe that drugs such as LSD and psilocybin can offer an effective treatment. They could also bring big profits.


Psychedelic drugs could be used to treat depression

On July 13, there was a rainy sky above the southern German city of Mannheim. But, despite the uninspiring weather, it was a day of hope for millions of people with depression — because the first patients of a research project run by the Central Institute of Mental Health were scheduled to have a psychedelic experience.

They wore a blindfolds and headphones that played music and were accompanied by two therapists. The hallucinogen used for the inner journey is called psilocybin.

This active ingredient was isolated about 60 years ago. It gives the magic mushrooms their "magic" — i.e., their mind-altering effect. And it has been banned almost worldwide, including in Germany, for over half a century.

Even for the Mannheim researchers, "obtaining the substance has proven to be the highest hurdle." That's according to researcher and psychiatry professor Gerhard Gründer.


Can 'magic mushrooms' help treat depression?

"There are not that many manufacturers in the world from whom you can obtain such a substance in the required quality. It was a long and laborious process," he said.

But that laborious process is becoming more common. Hallucinogenic trips have long ceased to be solely the recreational pastime of hippies. A growing number of scientific studies point to the potential of psilocybin-assisted therapy for treating depressed patients — even those for whom other therapies have been exhausted. The Mannheim study, with a total of 144 patients, is now large enough that Gründer "expects statistically robust conclusions."
Depression is a widespread condition

According to estimates by the World Health Organization, about 300 million people worldwide live with depression. In Germany, that number is an estimated 5 million, and the Health Ministry has referred to it as a "widespread disease."

A conservative estimate is that around one in five patients cannot be helped with conventional treatment methods. "There is a huge need," Gründer said, adding that his institute is almost overrun with inquiries from patients.

In conventional therapies, patients are treated with daily doses of antidepressants. The new approach is fundamentally different.

"Here, it's a matter of taking this substance once or twice," Gründer said. "This is a very disruptive therapy that becomes embedded in a psychotherapeutic program."

Gründer believes that there is a huge need for unconventional therapy

Subjects in earlier studies reported life-changing experiences and significantly improved mental states, and were even able to stop taking their antidepressants, often a state that lasted for many months after the healing trip. The prospect of being able to significantly improve the condition of severely depressed people with just a few psychedelic sessions is worth over €2 million ($2.3 million) in funding to the ministry of education and research.

The fact that public money is now also flowing into research with psilocybin in Germany shows that psychedelic research is slowly edging from the fringes into the medical mainstream.

Psychedelic substances have returned to where they once stood in the 1950s and '60s — to the center of psychiatric, medical and psychological research.

An international meeting on psychedelic therapy took place in Berlin in mid-September
International meeting of experts in Berlin

This could be seen in mid-September in Berlin, when the Insight 2021 conference took place, organized by the Mind Foundation. According to its website, the foundation advocates the "evidence-based, safe and legal use of psychedelic experience in medicine and society." The venue for the meeting of the center of international psychedelics research is the Berlin Charite, one of Germany's most prestigious medical institutions.

For four days, attendees discussed neurological processes, compared the effects of LSD, psilocybin and other drugs with diagrams, and presented the state of research in a wide variety of fields. Even an employee of the German drug approval authority, the federal authority for drugs and medical devices, was there.

"We managed to destigmatize the topic; a discourse has emerged," Mind Foundation co-founder Andrea Jungaberle said in summary. "How this discourse will affect day-to-day medical business remains to be seen."

Experts are already enthusiastic. "How ecstasy and psilocybin are shaking up psychiatry" a headline of the science magazine Nature gushed at the beginning of the year.

Watch video02:08 Drug use: Why do we get high?

Psilocybin on the stock market

A growing number of companies are also keen. If they had their way, psilocybin, the ecstasy active ingredient MDMA and other substances would soon be used across the board to treat depression, addiction, and an array of other diseases. At least, that is the goal of the biotech holding company ATAI Life Sciences, owned by German investor Christian Angermayer.

Angermayer has discussed his own psilocybin experiences in German media, including newspapers Handelsblatt and Wirtschaftswoche — and this summer he took his company public in New York. Just three years after its founding, the psychedelic holding is already worth over $2 billion.

ATAI's holdings include Compass Pathways, a British company that has developed its own synthetic psilocybin. Compass Pathways is currently conducting a phase 2 trial with the drug involving more than 200 patients at 22 locations in 10 countries, currently the largest psilocybin clinical trial in the world. The company, which is also listed on the Nasdaq in New York, has been valued at over $1 billion after only five years in existence.

Watch video 42:36 LSD is back

The Berlin Registry of the Mind Foundation shows that the "trip therapy boom" has allowed an entire industry to flourish. It lists about 130 companies in the psychedelic industry, from A Whole New High, which offers psilocybin retreats in the Netherlands, to Wavepaths, a specialist for the right sound via headphones for an inward journey.

Even Andrea Jungaberle is not entirely comfortable with the rapid development. "Our best friend and our biggest enemy is the hype," she states soberly, promoting an "appropriate approach between demonization and transfiguration."

Swiss psychotherapist Peter Gasser, who has been working with LSD and MDMA for 30 years, shares this assessment.

"This pace almost scares me," he said. "This scaling up of small niche treatments: Just a few patients per the study, now you're already thinking in terms of millions." Gasser fears that the quality of treatment could suffer "because it's seen as too technological or too schematic."

From the plague to COVID: How epidemics shape(d) history

Infectious diseases have killed millions of people, but also brought change and progress. A unique exhibition explores the past and the future of pandemics.


Beaked masks were once used to protect doctors from plague victims

One of my early childhood memories is of me standing on an escalator in a department store, reaching for its handrail. My grandma gently pulled my hand away. "Don't," she said, "it's dirty." She held my hand tightly as we descended.

It must have been the late 1960s, and I was 4 or 5 years old. At that time, the Hong Kong flu was sweeping the globe. It killed an estimated 1 to 4 million people worldwide, yet today it is almost forgotten. Just like the simple hygiene measures of the time, which we have relearned from COVID-19: Keep your distance, wear a face mask, wash your hands.

During the flu pandemic in the late 1960s many people wore face masks at work, as here in a London office

Smallpox, polio, typhoid fever once haunted Europe

My grandmother, whose mother almost died during the Spanish flu pandemic of 1918, was still familiar with these safety precautions.

Before antibiotics and widespread vaccination, infectious diseases such as polio, typhoid, diphtheria and smallpox struck terror into the hearts of people in Europe for centuries.

Today, it is mainly children in less developed countries who die from these diseases; many countries cannot afford the luxury of expensive vaccinations and good health care systems.

'A warning to humanity'

But the SARS-CoV-2 virus has also shaken our sense of security and shown that no one is immune.

"Epidemics," said Oliver Gauert, "are the biggest global threat next to climate change. They just haven't entered the public consciousness to nearly this degree. COVID is a warning to humanity."

The human body, susceptible to epidemics: A display from the new exhibition in Hildesheim

Gauert has curated what is, by his own estimation, the world's largest medical history exhibition ever.

"Epidemics. Curse of the Past — Threat of the Future" opens its doors on October 2 at the Roemer and Pelizaeus Museum in Hildesheim, in the German state of Lower Saxony. It was conceived in cooperation with numerous scientific institutions, including the University of Applied Sciences and Arts in Hanover and the Helmholtz Center for Infection Research.

A history of epidemics in 30 chapters

The entrance to the exhibition is designed like an oversized book through which one enters.

In 30 walk-through settings, visitors experience key moments in medicine — from the anatomical theater in Padua, where early cadaveric dissections were performed, to the laboratory of researcher Paul Ehrlich, who developed a cure for syphilis.

The exhibition also reproduces a COVID-19 intensive care unit. Displaying a mannequin hooked up to a ventilator, it is a harsh reminder of the countless people who are still fighting for their lives like this every day in hospitals around the world.

Curator Oliver Gauert has assembled exhibits like the recreated laboratory of the physician Paul Ehrlich

Grim Reaper and the plague

The exhibition also includes major works of art dealing with the topic of pandemics.

In The Triumph of Death by Flemish painter Pieter Bruegel the Elder, the sky in the painting is gloomy; blue-gray clouds hang low over a landscape of charred trees. In front of a mountain of corpses, a skeleton slits the throat of a man in a white shirt, while another towers over a dying king. And behind a gate, an army of other skeletons waits to bring the "Black Death" to the people.

'The Triumph of Death' — an art history highlight of the exhibition

This creepy skeleton — the "Grim Reaper" — is deeply embedded in the cultural memory of Europe as the quintessential emblem of epidemics. And Bruegel's Grim Reaper does not discriminate between poor and rich, or men, women and children.
Promoting change and innovation

Even medical historians cannot quite tell how many millions of people ultimately died because of epidemics.

What is certain, however, is that the plague "didn't just affect the poor, as with typhus or typhus fever, but also the elites of society," said Gauert. "So you can imagine that there was a complete redistribution of property and power." Agriculture, trades and guilds had to find new forms of work.

Overcome pandemics thus promoted social, cultural and political change. So did the plague. Until its outbreak in the 14th century, disease was considered a divine punishment.

Jesus covered in plague boils: 'Plague Cross' from the year 1700

"But the Black Death claimed so many victims, even in the ranks of the church, that people were no longer willing to put up with it," explained Gauert. "For the first time, a scientific institution, the University of Paris, was commissioned to give an expert opinion on the causes of this disease. That was the first time that such a disease was systematically dealt with scientifically."

Plagues determined victory or defeat

Plagues could also bring wars to a standstill and determine victory or defeat — as in the early 16th century, when the Spanish conquistador Hernan Cortes and a small army of mercenaries brought down the mighty Aztec empire.

During the battle of Tenochtitlan, an epidemic broke out among the Aztecs, killing nearly half of the native population. The conquerors had brought the epidemic (measles, smallpox, or another pathogen) with them from Europe. They themselves were largely immune — the Aztecs were not.

Humans caused a 'mini Ice Age'?

The transmission of epidemics from the Old to the New World may have even influenced the climate, a 2019 study suggested.

Around 90% of Native Americans are thought to have died from introduced plagues, which is why many square kilometers (miles) of previously cultivated land lay fallow. Trees and shrubs once again grew unimpeded, absorbing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

The world's climate cooled, leading to the so-called "Little Ice Age" around the middle of the 16th century, according to researchers at University College London.

In August, Mexicans commemorated the fall of the Aztec capital 500 years ago

Why are infectious diseases gaining ground?

This shows how closely climate, diseases and globalization are linked. "Infectious diseases are advancing," said Gauert, citing four decisive factors.

First, the global movement of goods and people, which allows diseases to spread worldwide within a matter of weeks.

Second, climate change, which is increasingly widening tropical and subtropical zones. For example, the tropical-subtropical, mosquito-borne dengue fever is also expected to be present in Germany within a decade.

The third factor is that people are penetrating into ever more remote regions of the jungle, where dangerous viruses lie dormant — as evidenced by Ebola and AIDS.

And finally, the decreasing effectiveness of antibiotics in the fight against bacterial infections, due to increasing antibiotic resistance.

But Gauert also emphasized that these are still largely controllable threats. Unlike previous generations, we are no longer as helpless against viruses and bacteria.


And while it previously took decades to develop a vaccine, the first COVID-19 vaccine was available after just one year. "Every single pandemic pushes science, medicine and health systems forward," said Gauert.

But those developments do not occur at the same rate everywhere. Even during the COVID pandemic, there has been a massive gap between rich and poor countries, as DW's graphic on vaccination progress shows.
'Don't forget to wash your hands!'

Still, everyone can contribute to the fight against viruses and bacteria.

As a child, it used to annoy me when I rushed hungrily to the dinner table and was admonished by my grandma with a firm, "Don't forget to wash your hands!" Today, during the current pandemic, I heed her hygiene principles more conscientiously than ever.

EPIDEMICS IN LITERATURE
Thomas More: 'Utopia' (1516)
On a faraway island, a sailor discovers an ideal society: There is equality among the locals, it is democratic, ownership is communal. It was the opposite of life in England at the time. And: there were no epidemics, unlike England that had suffered from the plague more than once. The above photo shows Dresden Semper Opera dancers as "Utopians" in a musical theater project based on More's novel.
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This article was translated from German

Trans in Afghanistan: A mortal danger under the Taliban

Danish is transgender, Khalid is gay. But in Afghanistan under the Taliban rule, LGBTQ people face the death penalty. So their only option is to flee the country. Here's their story.



On August 15, the Taliban retook control of Afghanistan

Danish has been living in semidarkness for weeks. Since the Taliban's takeover in mid-August, he has been hiding in the windowless back room of a friend's now-closed shop in Kabul. He no longer dares go outside. Under the Islamist Taliban, he and many like him face the death penalty.

Assigned female at birth and raised as a girl, Danish has known since he was 13 that he was in the wrong body. A body that he "hates," he says. In the photos that he sends, he emphatically wears masculine clothing and a short haircut.

Now he just kills time, "just breathing in a room like a prison." At night he takes sleeping pills to calm his ruminations. "My mind is stuck. I am getting mad overthinking." Most of all, he writes, he would like to stand by the sea and just scream until his throat is sore.


Danish only has contact with the outside world via his mobile phone — with very few people. His closest confidante is Khalid, a good friend who is gay and, like Danish, in his mid-20s. DW has been in daily contact with both of them via an encrypted message service since the beginning of September. Their names have been changed for safety reasons.

Attacked in the street

Khalid has taken precautions. As the Taliban advanced on Kabul, he swapped his jeans and a hooded jacket for traditional Afghan clothing. He even grew a beard — so as not to attract attention.

But he's really a feminine guy, he says. And he knows that this alone can be dangerous for him.


Khalid dares not venture outside, where Taliban fighters patrol the streets of Kabul

On August 15, the day the Islamists took Kabul, he left his room to run errands. He thought he was well prepared. But his precautionary measures were not enough.

In the middle of the street, he felt a sudden pain in his right shoulder. "Then there was this Talib. I did not see him. He had a plastic pipe which is used for water. It was really thick and heavy. He hit me on my right shoulder. It hurt a lot, my eyes were full of tears. Then he used some curse words in Pashto, basically, he said: 'Why are you walking so feminine, don't you know how to walk [properly]?'"

Khalid has stayed at home since then.

Brutal punishment under the Taliban

Under the Taliban, LGBTQ people like Khalid and Danish fear for their lives. For a man who has sex with another man there are only two possible punishments — and both are lethal, according to a Taliban judge who spoke with German tabloid newspaper Bild in an exclusive interview a few weeks before the takeover: "Either stoning or he has to be behind a wall that falls on him. The wall must be 2 1/2 to 3 meters [ca. 8 to 9 feet — Editor's note] high."

Mullah Nooruddin Turabi, one of the founders of the Taliban, wants to bring back executions and amputations

At the end of September, Mullah Nooruddin Turabi, a senior founding member of the Taliban, told The Associated Press news agency that the government would reintroduce executions and hand amputations, just like they did in the 1990s.

Back then, Turabi was the justice minister in the Taliban government. According to an Australian government report, homosexuals in Afghanistan were executed regularly between 1996 and the fall of the Taliban in autumn 2001.
Discrimination and violence

Under President Hamid Karzai and his successor, Ashraf Ghani, LGBTQ people were no longer threatened with the death penalty. However, according to Afghan criminal law, sexual relationships outside of marriage between a man and a woman were fundamentally prohibited and punishable.

In 2018, a new law criminalizing homosexuality was passed under Ghani. Thereafter, homosexual physical relationships were punishable by up to two years in prison.

Everyday discrimination against LGBTQ individuals is ubiquitous, as is violence against them. Both Danish and Khalid experienced this firsthand. Both were beaten mercilessly by their families and were outcasts because of their sexual orientation. Both have few people they trust.

Watch video01:48 Taliban to reinstate executions, amputations

Dating under a false name

There is no openly queer community in Kabul, explains Khalid in a telephone conversation over an encrypted messenger service. Everything takes place in secret for safety reasons, he says. Dating works mainly through a specific app. Everyone is there under a false name and with a fake photo, which can be that of a celebrity like Hollywood actor Tom Cruise.

Has he ever been in a relationship? Khalid starts laughing briefly at this question. No, he then says, so far only no-strings-attached acquaintances. "It is [a] no-commitment situation, we are really good friends, and we do stuff."

LIFE IN AFGHANISTAN UNDER THE TALIBAN

New but old dress code

Although it is not yet mandatory for women to wear a burqa, many do so out of fear of reprisals. This Afghan woman is visiting a local market with her children. There is a large supply of second-hand clothes as many refugees have left their clothes behind.

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Harassment in everyday life

Sideways glances, comments, insults: Khalid has experienced all these again and again on the streets of Kabul.

Khalid is educated and has a degree in economics, but he still can't find a job. He tells DW that he has been invited to numerous interviews. He had all the necessary qualifications, but that made no difference.

"They were asking me very personal questions and they were just making fun of me. They were not asking me any questions about what I do. They didn't want to hear that I am a Google certified data analyst," he says. Khalid believes his feminine appearance was the reason for the rejections.
Losing the will to live

In mid-September, Khalid became very worried about Danish. His friend's mental situation had seemed to deteriorate.

The loneliness, the darkness, the uncertainty and the constant fear of death got to him more and more. At this point in time, Danish had not seen anyone for 36 days, and had only eaten water and dry biscuits.

Watch video 01:35 Taliban impose beard-trimming ban

Danish sent DW photos of himself: Tattoos decorate his arms, hands and neck. About three years ago he got his first tattoo — an act which is something of a taboo in conservative Afghan society, he explains. And now strictly prohibited under the Taliban.

One of his tattoos shows the nickname of the woman he loves. He was in a secret relationship with her for two years; they were happy. Then her parents found out that their daughter was dating a trans man, and she was forcibly married off to someone else. He hasn't heard from her for a year.

In other photos, reddish-purple bruises and welts are clearly visible on the skin of his upper arms back and thighs, some up to 20 centimeters (8 inches) long. "That was my father," he says. He has not seen his family since the day he was beaten up.
A sudden ray of hope

Danish's tone is often desperate. He just wishes that everything were over, he writes. He has no more energy to be optimistic.

But then, at the end of September, things suddenly happened very quickly. Danish and Khalid made it onto evacuation lists of foreign NGOs that specifically look after LGBTQ people in need. On September 25, 41 days after the Taliban came to power, the two friends boarded a Pakistan International Airlines plane that took them to Islamabad.

"I literally feel like a bird whose wings are open and just need to fly," Khalid says in a voice message, describing his feelings at that moment.

Danish sent this picture from the tarmac in Kabul shortly before his plane took off

Dreams of the future

In Pakistan, Danish and Khalid are now staying in safe houses until their documents have been checked and they can fill out their immigration applications for third countries.

Danish would like to go to the United States. His dream is to be a musician. "I want to be a rock star. I would love to have a rock concert in the middle of New York City one day and chat with the crowd and sing," he says.

Khalid would like to go to Canada. Gay acquaintances told him that the LGBTQ community there was treated with respect and that everyone could live in dignity.

Khalid has already fulfilled a small wish: he painted his fingernails in yellow, orange, pink and blue. Nail polish makes him happy. Now, after a long time, he dares to wear it again. When he saw the colorful bottles in a shop in Islamabad, he got them right away. "I could not stop myself when I saw those."

This article has been translated from German.

How violence and abuse drove a transgender migrant back to Pakistan

Watch video 03:22

Romesa Ahmed, a transgender woman from Pakistan, tells the story of her failed attempt to flee to Europe. Shunned by her family, raped and tortured by those meant to help her, Romesa's journey shows the particular hardship suffered by transgender people.

Date 01.10.2021

Author Anooshay Abid, Afifa Nasrullah (Lahore)

German youth voted for change — but what does that really mean?

In last weekend's German election, the neoliberal FDP was the most popular party for first-time voters, along with the environmentalist Greens. For some, this was no surprise.



Germany's first-time voters are not impressed by the traditional 'big tent parties'

Eighteen-year-old Oskar from Saxony headed to the polls for the first time last Sunday. He followed the trend of his generation and did not cast his ballot for either of the two big tent parties of Germany, the conservative Christian Democrats (CDU) and the center-left Social Democrats (SPD) — and instead plumped for the business-focused Free Democrats (FDP).

The FDP is one of two parties that have been dubbed the kingmakers in the coalition talks to form Germany's new government, along with the Greens. Both enjoyed broad support from young voters.

It may come as no surprise that young people voted for the Green Party in large numbers. After all, youth have repeatedly said in polls that climate protection is the most important thing to them and the Fridays for Future school strike movement, spearheaded by Swedish teen activist Greta Thunberg, has been enormously popular in Europe's largest economy.

But the FDP also did well among young people and first-time voters. For those under the age of 24 they came a close second to the Greens, and among first-time voters they narrowly beat out the environmentalist party to be the most popular choice, with 24% of the vote share. That's compared to 11.5% in the electorate as a whole.

Watch video02:58 First-time voters unhappy with election result

Oskar said pensions were one of the reasons he voted for the FDP. The Free Democrats believe the current statutory pension insurance system has failed. They want to bolster it by introducing a statutory equity pension based on the Swedish model.

"I think it's incredibly important to a lot of young people how pensions are going to work," said Oskar. When it comes to pensions as a young person today, "you're bound to end up with the FDP."

Jona from North-Rhine Westphalia, another first-time voter, went for the Green Party but is not surprised by the success of the FDP.

"It's because of the young, digital image of the FDP," he said, citing their savvy social media use and embracing of memes and other online forms of communication. "They're also progressive on social issues, pro-LGBTQ for example, which is important for young voters."

"I don't think the FDP is a bad option in principle. But they have the problem that they are not a party for the less advantaged; they are neoliberal," he said.

"But I can also understand that many young people are annoyed with the Greens," he added, given their policies that have been perceived as limiting freedoms and dominated by restrictions and regulations.

Watch video 02:06 Greens, FDP get boost from younger voters

Explaining the youth vote

The high youth support for the Greens and the FDP did not surprise sociologist Norbert Schäuble, of the Sinus Institute for Market and Social Research. "Young people are just as diverse as the population as a whole," he said.

The Sinus Institute has produced a model to explain the distribution of the German population's social backgrounds, which identifies groups that are concerned with "reorientation." This includes the so-called Expeditive Milieu and the Neo-Ecological Milieu. According to Schäuble, these are the "future milieus" — in other words, the trendsetters.

Both groups are united by concerns and thoughts about the future, but they differ in their ideas on how to shape it, Schäuble said.

"The Neo-Ecologicals' focus on climate protection, sustainability and normative requirements up to and including renunciation. The Expeditives are more focused on digital innovation and technologies, personal responsibility and freedom," he said. "These visions of society are most likely to be attributed to the Greens and the FDP, who are convincing with their respective narratives of the future."

The campaign messages promoted by the FDP and the Green Party appealed most to younger voters
Coalition options?

Oskar and Jona may have voted for different parties, but they are equally pleased with the prospect of both of their favored parties entering government.

"Now with strong Greens and a strong FDP and a relatively weak CDU and SPD, the coalition partners' policy ideas will be high on the agenda," Oskar said, mentioning climate protection legislation as a key issue. He would prefer a coalition of the CDU/CSU-Greens-FDP, but acknowledges that it is unlikely.

Jona supports a coalition of Social Democrats, Greens and FDP, but is wary of the possibility that the FDP and Greens might decide to cooperate with the CDU/CSU instead.

"I think it's a bit cheeky that the FDP said straight away they'd also talk to the CDU/CSU, even though they didn't win," he added. The FDP has historically been the preferred coalition partner for the CDU/CSU.

But, for both the CDU/CSU and, to a lesser extent, the SPD, this election has shown that their voter base is aging, with the parties winning a respective 38% and 35% share of the over-70 vote. The younger generation's preferences will shape elections to come.

This article has been translated from German.

US charges Canadian  SAUDI who narrated Islamic State videos

Issued on: 02/10/2021 

A US Justice Department statement said Mohammed Khalifa, who narrated violent IS videos, was recently handed over to US authorities and charged 

MANDEL NGAN AFP/File


Washington (AFP)

A Canadian jihadist who fought for the Islamic State group and narrated violent propaganda videos has been taken into custody by the United States and charged, the Justice Department said Saturday.

Mohammed Khalifa, 38 and born in Saudi Arabia, was captured during a firefight in January 2019 by Kurdish-dominated Syrian forces allied with the United States.

He was handed over "recently" to US authorities and charged in Virginia with conspiring to provide material support to IS resulting in death, says a Justice Department statement.

Khalifa left Canada in 2013 to join the Islamic State group in Syria, and by the next year had become a key member of its propaganda team because of his fluent English and Arabic, according to the statement.

He allegedly served as a lead translator in Islamic State propaganda production and as the English-speaking narrator on two violent recruitment videos.

This cell was behind videos showing the beheadings of foreigners including the US journalists James Foley and Steven Sotloff, who died in 2014.

He faces a possible life sentence in the United States. Canada additionally hopes to charge him, according to media there.

In an exchange of emails cited in the charge sheet, Khalifa defended the IS killings he was associated with.

"Mohammed Khalifa not only fought for ISIS on the battlefield in Syria, but he was also the voice behind the violence," said Acting US Attorney Raj Parekh for the Eastern District of Virginia, using another acronym for the Islamic State group.

According to the indictment, Khalifa's "primary focus" was "enticing ISIS supporters to travel to ISIS-controlled areas to join ISIS or to conduct attacks in the West, including in the United States."

The jihadist group, classified as a terrorist organization by US authorities, is responsible for a wave of deadly attacks in Western countries.

Its emergence prompted intervention by a US-led international military coalition, which succeeded in defeating the self-proclaimed "caliphate" even though IS is still present in many additional countries, particularly in Africa and Asia, and continues to pose a threat according to US and European intelligence services.

- 'Glorified' murders, cruelty -

In a 2019 interview with Canada's CBC from his Syrian prison, Khalifa showed no regret for his actions. He said he wanted to return to Canada with his wife and their three children, but on the condition that he would not be tried there.

"Through his alleged leading role in translating, narrating, and advancing ISIS's online propaganda, Khalifa promoted the terrorist group, furthered its worldwide recruitment efforts, and expanded the reach of videos that glorified the horrific murders and indiscriminate cruelty of ISIS," Parekh said.

This is the first known indictment of a foreign IS fighter in America since President Joe Biden took power in January.

Two members of the notorious Islamic State kidnapping cell dubbed the "Beatles," Alexanda Kotey and El Shafee Elsheikh, are currently in the hands of US authorities after being transferred to the United States from Iraq nearly a year ago.

The pair are accused of involvement in the murders of Foley and Sotloff, as well as those of relief workers Peter Kassig and Kayla Mueller.

Kotey, a former British national who was stripped of his citizenship, pleaded guilty in early September to charges of conspiring to murder the four American hostages.

© 2021 AFP