It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
Saturday, September 24, 2022
ANTI VAX HEGEMONY
Secret vaccination help Zimbabwe mothers protect children from measles
Issued on: 23/09/2022 -
01:42 More than 700 children have died from measles in Zimbabwe in an outbreak first reported in April. Many were unvaccinated because of religious reasons, Information Minister Monica Mutsvangwa said.
Historic UK castle at risk from climate change: heritage body
Tintagel Castle in Cornwall was visited by Britain's new king Charles III and his wife Camilla in 2020.
The cliff-top ruins of an ancient castle long claimed as the birthplace of the legendary King Arthur is "at risk of being lost for ever" as climate change quickens the pace of coastal erosion, a UK heritage body warned on Friday.
Tintagel Castle in Cornwall, southwest England, attracts tens of thousands of visitors each year, fuelled by the legend of King Arthur and his fabled Round Table.
But the structure is now among six important historic coastal sites at risk "as a result of accelerating coastal erosion", charity English Heritage said.
"Erosion along England's coastline is nothing new but the rate of land loss that we have seen over the past few years is alarming, and some scenarios indicate that sea levels could increase by up to a metre (3.2 feet) by the end of the century," said English Heritage Estates director Rob Woodside.
In the last century sea levels rose by 14 centimetres along the southern coast of England, according to the body.
"Climate change is accelerating the issues faced by our coastal heritage. Rising sea levels and more regular storms pose a real risk to the future of many of our sites," Woodside added.
The legend of the ancient English king and his Round Table of knights has inspired numerous filmmakers over the years.
Although researchers have never established if King Arthur was a real person or a mythical hero, some historians believe there was an important English leader called Arthur around the fifth century, although not necessarily a king.
English Heritage said parts of the cliff directly in front of Tintagel Castle's visitor centre recently fell into the sea due to coastal erosion.
This and other damage caused by storms last winter alone would cost £40,000 ($44,000) to repair, the charity said. A MERE PITTANCE
"Protecting our coastal heritage from the effects of erosion and flooding is one of the greatest challenges English Heritage has ever faced," it said.
"Sea levels are rising at their fastest rate for more than 2,700 years and are predicted to surge by up to a metre before the end of the 21st century."
Other sites in southwest England listed by English Heritage as being at risk include Hurst Castle and Calshot Castle, both built by the 16th century king Henry VIII in Hampshire, southern England.
English Heritage said it was launching a public appeal via its website to raise funds to shore up the sites and make them less vulnerable to coastal erosion.
"If these coastal properties are to survive the coming decades, we will need to strengthen their walls and build sea defences to protect them," it added.
For first time in 233 years, Native American, Native Alaskan, Native Hawaiian all in U.S. House From left to right: Reps. Kaialiʻi Kahele, Mary Peltola and Sharice Davids.
Natalie Neysa Alund Wed, September 21, 2022
Last month, Mary Peltola made history when she became first Native Alaskan and woman elected to the U.S. House of Representatives for the Last Frontier State.
When Peltola was sworn in last week, Congress reached a milestone: for the first time in more than two centuries, the House has full U.S. Indigenous representation, according to Rep. Kaiali'i Kahele of Hawaii.
"It has taken 233 years for the U.S. Congress to be fully represented by this country’s indigenous peoples," Kahele, the second Native Hawaiian to represent his home state, posted on Twitter alongside a photograph of him, Peltola, and Rep. Sharice Davids of Kansas, a member of the Ho-Chunk Nation. "Tonight, a Native American, a Native Alaskan & a Native Hawaiian are sitting members of the people’s House."
Peltola, former Gov. Sarah Palin and Nick Begich ran both in a special election to fill out the rest of Young's term and will run in the general election for a new term.
After her Sept. 13, swearing in, there are now six Indigenous Americans who are representatives in the House.
She attended the University of Northern Colorado and the University of Alaska. She also established the lobbying firm Sattler Strategies.
She served as the executive director of the Kuskokwim River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission, and a councilwoman in Bethel, a small city in Alaska, from 2011-2013. U.S. House candidate Democrat Mary Peltola answers questions from a reporter prior to a forum for U.S. House candidates at the Alaska Oil and Gas Association annual conference at the Dena'ina Convention Center in Anchorage, Alaska, on Wednesday, Aug. 31, 2022. Peltola won the special election for Alaska’s only U.S. House seat on Wednesday, besting a field that included Republican Sarah Palin, who was seeking a political comeback in the state where she was once governor.
(Marc Lester/Anchorage Daily News via AP) ORG XMIT: AKAND601More 'A historic moment'
"It's a historic moment," Lani Teves, an associate professor at the University of Hawai'i at Mānoa told NPR.
The representation, she told the outlet, can have a big impact on the political power of Indigenous communities across the U.S.
"People need representation and young people need to see people that look like themselves, that come from their communities," Teves said. U.S. House candidate Democrat Mary Peltola celebrates after results are announced for the special election in which she won the race for Alaska's lone seat in the U.S. House of Representatives on Wednesday, Aug. 31, 2022, in Anchorage, Alaska.
She also told the outlet that having members who come from Indigenous communities can mean issues important to those communities, including climate change and violence against Native women may get more attention in Congress.
Contributing: Merdie Nzanga
Natalie Neysa Alund covers trending news for USA TODAY. Reach her at nalund@usatoday.com and follow her on Twitter @nataliealund.
Ahmed, Wissam's brother, said he had decided to leave Lebanon because he "couldn't afford his daily expenses, or the cost of enrolling his children in school". A woman in the northern Lebanese city of Tripoli holds a photograph of her son who drowned a day earlier in a boat carrying migrants that sank off the Syrian coast - Fathi AL-MASRI by Jana Dhaybi
September 23, 2022 — Tripoli (Lebanon) (AFP)
Mustafa Misto embarked on a sea voyage from crisis-hit Lebanon seeking a better life for his family, but he drowned in a shipwreck alongside his children and dozens of others, relatives said Friday.
"His dream was not to obtain another nationality, but simply to enrol his children in a school and feed them," his relative Jihad al-Maneh said.
Lebanon, which since 2019 has been mired in a financial crisis branded by the World Bank as one of the worst in modern times, has become a launchpad for illegal migration.
Its desperate citizens are joining Syrian and Palestinian refugees clamouring to leave the country, where more than 80 percent of the population lives below the poverty line.
Misto, a taxi driver, and his three children were among at least 73 people who died when the boat they boarded in northern Lebanon sank off Syria's coast on Thursday, in one of the deadliest such tragedies from the eastern Mediterranean nation.
His wife was among the 20 people who survived, but with more than 100 people believed to have been aboard the vessel, many are still missing.
In the northern city of Tripoli, Lebanon's poorest, anger mixed with grief as relatives received news of the death of their loved ones.
In Bab al-Raml, one of Tripoli's most impoverished districts, Misto's bereaved relatives gathered in a family home.
According to Maneh, Misto had paid between $3,000 to $5,000 for each member of his family who joined him on the boat.
He had sold his car and borrowed money from his brothers to pay the smuggler's fees, Maneh said
.
Misto's mother even sold her jewelry to help her son cover the costs. - 'Dead or alive'? -
Misto's family was not informed of the boat's intended destination.
They have repeatedly tried to reach out to caretaker prime minister Najib Mikati, who hails from Tripoli, but they have yet to receive a reply.
"Where are the authorities? We don't know if our children are dead or alive," Maneh said.
One of Misto's childhood friends, Omar, was among the mourners who visited the family to pay his condolences.
"Poverty and dire living conditions made Mustafa leave Lebanon," Omar told AFP.
He said that Misto had been determined on securing a better life.
"I will leave even if I die: either I succeed or I die," he had kept repeating before he left, Omar said.
The Talawi family, which hails from the northern region of Akkar but lives in Tripoli, were among the first to bury their dead.
The body of two children were returned to them by Syria.
Early on Friday morning, they buried two sisters, aged five and nine, who were among the victims of the shipwreck. Their mother and two brothers are still missing.
Their father, Wissam al-Talawi, who works in a cleaning company, survived the tragedy, and was receiving treatment in hospital.
Ahmed, Wissam's brother, said he had decided to leave Lebanon because he "couldn't afford his daily expenses, or the cost of enrolling his children in school".
Fear grips undocumented foreign workers in South Africa
Claire DOYEN Fri, September 23, 2022
Zimbabwean domestic migrant worker Precious clocked in late for work, launched into her duties for a white South African family as if nothing happened, yet hours earlier she had been arrested for being in the country without papers.
South Africa -- the continent's most industrialised country -- is buckling under a wave of illegal migration triggered by economic woes in its neighbours. Many come from Malawi, Lesotho, but the majority are from Zimbabwe.
Lately police have scaled up crime-busting stop-and-search operations, including weeding out undocumented migrants.
One such early morning blitz was launched this week in Springs, a district at the eastern end of the largest city of Johannesburg.
Several dozen police officers mounted a check point on a narrow road, stopped cars and buses, meticulously searching boots and ordering occupants out, demanding identification documents.
Grabbed by the waist or arm, one-by-one they were led to the side of the road to a queue stretching out in front of immigration officers.
"These are weekly operations," provincial police chief Elias Mawela, told AFP. "When it's confirmed they are illegal in the country they'll be taken in and later on they'll be taken to court... and back to their countries of origin".
But in some raids, police officers solicit bribes to release the migrants.
The day Precious was arrested at a minibus taxi rank in downtown Johannesburg, she was one of 30 people bundled into a police van.
She was asked to pay 1,000 rands on the spot -- equivalent to her weekly wages -- or risk being taken to the police station for eventual deportation.
Precious immediately texted her employer warning she would be late and frantically called friends and associates to raise the bribe money. - 'Scared' -
"I was scared," said the single mother of two.
"It's not good being a foreigner these days," said Precious, 36, folding a pair a velvet pants she was ironing.
Official data lists an estimated 3.8 million migrants in South Africa, a figure considered a gross understatement.
Foreigners, especially those from the rest of Africa, are targets of xenophobic resentment and accused of taking jobs in a country where at least one in every three people is unemployed.
Zimbabwe has a long history of immigration into South Africa, dating back to the 19th century when the gold rush saw mining companies hiring labour across the borders.
In 2009 Pretoria granted four-year work visas to around 250,000 Zimbabweans fleeing economic and political turmoil at home. The permits have since then been repeatedly renewed, but authorities have vowed they will not be extended beyond June 2023.
But many more Zimbabweans have continued to pour into South Africa illegally through porous borders in search of greener pastures.
The huge influx of foreigners has irked many South Africans who accuse them of taking their jobs and placing undue pressure on public facilities.
Recently an anti-immigration group of activists picketed outside a public hospital west of Pretoria -- blocking patients they suspected were foreigners, accusing them of putting the public health sector under strain.
Their action followed a viral video of provincial health minister berating a Zimbabwean patient, accusing her of seeking free treatment at a government hospital at the expense of South Africans.
Domestic worker Precious recalls giving birth to her now 11-year-old son at a public hospital in Zimbabwe.
"There is nothing there, not even water to wash the baby when he's born. No painkillers," she said.
Asked about some of his bribe-taking officers in a country dogged with high crime levels and endemic corruption, police commissioner Mawela urged anyone who is asked for a bribe "to bring it to our attention so we can investigate it".
"We can't just take it lightly these accusations".
cld/sn/bp
Africa's first post-pandemic Comic-Con festival draws thousands
LOOKS KINDA WHITE
Zama LUTHULI Sat, 24 September 2022
In a makeshift changing room swathed with black fabric, South African Luke Andalis transforms into the burly Aratak, preparing to perform at Comic-Con Africa, the continent's largest pop culture, fantasy and gaming festival.
"There's so much fur in my mouth," the 32-year-old cosplayer Andalis chuckles to friends as he dons a stiff green pleather parka over his head and shoulders.
This year he chose to cosplay Aratak, the middle-aged chieftain of the Banuk tribe in the popular video game Horizon Zero Dawn: The Frozen Wild.
After a two-year Covid hiatus, Comic-Con Africa's return has been widely anticipated by cosplayers and fans.
Clad in superhero capes, colourful masks, sci-fi costumes and eccentric wigs, thousands on Saturday flocked to a vast expo centre near the FNB Stadium, which hosted the FIFA 2010 World Cup final.
Loud music welcomed the festival-goers to Stranger Things escape rooms, pop-up tattoo parlours and comic haven.
This year's festivities are star-studded, hosting fan favourites including award-winning Stranger Things and Twilight actor, Jamie Campbell Bower among others.
Africa's third edition of the comic convention is being staged at the national recreation centre, south of the economic hub Johannesburg. The festival first hit African soil in 2018. - 'Very proud moment' -
Andalis has been cosplaying for six years but says his 12 years as a film costume designer and maker made for a natural transition.
During the pandemic when performances slammed to a halt, the Cape Town-raised artist shared tips on costume play and showing off his "builds", a term used to describe a finished costume, racking up a large Instagram following.
Shortly before stepping on stage, Andalis's personality shifts slightly as he starts to get into character.
He complains about the stiffness of the costume, which perfectly imitates Aratak’s garb, a traditional attire used to protect the character from the frigid climate of his tribe's territory.
"It is a very proud moment. I've been working on this costume for eight months," he says.
Complete with stocky faux fur tussles that swing as he turns and a regal head garment atop a fake triangle shaped beard and thick sideburns, Andalis's friend helps him put on the last component of the ensemble -- armoured quill braces.
As he walks from the dimly-lit dresser, a crowd swarms around him marvelling at the final product.
The four-day pop culture festival has won praise for opening doors for cosplayers in a country where the industry is not yet as big as in more developed nations.
NO PICTURE A SHAME
It is the first time at Comic-Con for Johannesburg-based Thifhuriwi Nephawe.
She is dressed as princess Neytiri of the alien Na'vi race, in the American science fiction film series Avatar.
"The character Neytiri is for me an African woman who's very powerful and fighting for her village, for her tribe," she tells AFP.
"People from the outside are coming to try and take everything from them, so she's trying to fight against that, that's what I resonate with, just the power."
zam-sn/bp
Detained Russian protesters face conscription or jail
Mikhail Suetin expected to be detained when he protested Russian mobilisation, but he never imagined he would be ordered to enlist in the very army he was denouncing.
After President Vladimir Putin appeared on state television on Wednesday to announce the country's first mobilisation since World War II, protests erupted in Russia.
"I was ready for the usual: to be arrested, taken to the police station, brought to court," 29-year-old Suetin, who regularly joins opposition protests in Moscow, told AFP.
"But to be told 'tomorrow you will go to war'... that was a surprise," he said in a telephone interview.
The Independent monitoring group, OVD-Info, reported that men detained in the protests were handed draft papers while in custody in at least 15 Moscow police departments.
Answering questions from reporters the following morning, Vladimir Putin's spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, defended the procedure, saying "it isn't against the law".
One day before mobilisation was announced, the Russian parliament approved a bill to toughen punishment for those refusing military summons or who desert.
The bill, yet to be signed into law, will impose prison sentences of five to 15 years. - 'Big trouble' -
At the police station, Suetin said he was taken to a room alone and pressured to sign papers summoning him to the military mobilisation office the following day.
Suetin refused, on the advice of his lawyer, and was released at around 5:00 am the following morning.
He was told Russia's investigative committee, which probes serious crimes, would be notified and that he was in "big trouble".
More than 1,300 people were arrested during protests on Wednesday, a monitoring group reported. For those who did answer the call-up, the future is no brighter.
Andrei, who turned 18 last week, was called up -- in papers seen by AFP -- after being detained during the anti-mobilisation protests in Moscow.
The student described feeling "numb" after sitting for hours in a police station where officers "threatened" people who wouldn't sign.
"It was clear I couldn't run away... I looked around and decided not to resist... Unfortunately, I signed the paper," Andrei told AFP by telephone, referring to documents that acknowledge he intends to turn up at his recruitment office.
- 'Worried' -
Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu had promised on Wednesday that students would not be called up.
This means that Andrei, who recently began university, should not have been caught up in the recruitment drive.
"As we say, Russia is a country of endless possibilities," he joked bitterly.
Andrei decided not attend the appointment at the enlistment office on Thursday.
He says he is still looking for a lawyer and doesn't know what he'll do next.
"I haven't told my parents yet," Andrei told AFP.
They would "be worried," he added.
"I'll probably tell them when I have a better understanding of what's going to happen to me."
'The only good thing is that they won't grab me off the street' How Russia's mobilization affects women and transgender people
MEDUZA Buses wait for new conscripts outside of the Moscow Military Commissariat Moskva News Agency
On September 21, Vladimir Putin announced that Russia would officially begin conscripting people to fight in the country’s war against Ukraine. Contrary to what the bulk of media coverage has suggested, cisgender men aren’t the only people at risk of being sent to war. Some cisgender women and transgender people are at risk of being drafted, too — potentially a lot of them, given that the call-up could apply to as many as 1.2 million Russians. The Feminist Anti-War Resistance and the nonprofit Center-T recently spoke to legal experts about what cis women and trans people should know about the mobilization. Meduza summarizes their advice.
According to Tamilla Imanova, a lawyer from the Memorial Human Rights Center who recently spoke to the Feminist Anti-War Resistance (FAS), the women most likely to be called up for Russia’s mobilization are those who have degrees in certain fields as determined by Russian law: medicine, communications, computer engineering, hydrology and meteorology, printing, and cartography.
“All women are assigned to the third category of Russia’s reserve forces,” said Imanova. “Women with the rank of officer remain in the reserve until 50 years old, while all others are taken off at 45 years old. Unfortunately, the fact that women are in the third [of three] categories doesn’t mean they’ll necessarily be the last to be drafted.”
Instead, she said, who gets drafted will depend on which skills are in demand at the front. And this has already begun to play out: in just the last three days, there have been numerous reports in the Russian media of people with medical degrees receiving draft orders “en masse,” Imanova said.
Certain women in these categories, however, will be spared from mobilization — at least temporarily. According to Imanova, women in the following categories are eligible for deferment:Women who have at least one child younger than 16 years old, as well as women who are at least 22 weeks pregnant;
Women in reserved occupations as spelled out by the Russian Government (though the only way to find out whether you’re in this category is to asked your employer; the official documents outlining which occupations are reserved are classified) Women declared temporarily unfit for service due to health issues (for up to six months) Women responsible for providing constant care to family members or to people with certain disabilities
Women whose mothers have four or more children under the age of 8 and who care for the children in place of their father Women who work in the defense sector (only for the duration of their employment)
‘Some want to flee, but others can’t — because of their husbands and children’
One woman who works as a doctor spoke to the FAS about how her work has changed since mobilization was announced — and about her fear that she’ll be drafted. As a medical professional, she said, she’s required to report to her local military commissariat if summoned. She’s also not allowed to change her place of residence during mobilization without the military commissariat’s permission.
But because the Russian authorities are trying to have it both ways, maintaining that this mobilization is only “partial,” the doctor has had difficulty keeping up with the specifics, she told the FAS.
“I get my information about the ‘partial mobilization’ and its various odd rules from Telegram channels,” she said. “Every day, it's something new. We don’t get any clear information.”
The woman said a number of employees at her workplace were granted exemptions from the draft, but she wasn’t one of them — and it appears to be too late to get one.
“On the day the 'partial' mobilization was announced, 2–3 hours after the announcement, they received forms granting them exemptions for one year [...] and the forms were stamped by the military commissar,” she said. “In other words, their exemptions had been granted in advance; evidently, the list of people to be made exempt from the draft had been submitted long before the announcement.”
In addition, she told the FAS, the higher-ups at her workplace don’t seem to be concerned about the mobilization at all. “It wasn’t until [September 23] that the head of my department learned that some people hadn’t been granted exemptions,” she wrote, “so 🤡.”
So far, said the woman, nobody at her hospital has received a summons — though it’s only been three days. “There’s one guy who [previously] served in the army,” she said, “and he’s been pale as a ghost.”
She told the FAS that she felt “anxious and panicky,” and that every time she’s found herself idle since mobilization was announced, she’s started shaking. “The other women are in shock, too; some of them are thinking about fleeing the country, while others can’t, because of their husbands and children. [...] The only good thing is that because I’m a woman, I don’t have ‘medic’ written on my forehead, so at least they won’t grab me off of the street.”
A lawyer’s advice for trans people
Despite the fact that Vladimir Putin’s mobilization order doesn’t mention trans people directly, many of them could still be subject to conscription. Center-T, an advocacy group for trans people in Russia, asked Alexander, a lawyer, what trans people seeking not to be drafted need to know.
According to Alexander, if a transfeminine person has a female gender marker in her passport and doesn’t have a degree in a "military occupational" field but was once included in the draft registry, she’s legally supposed to have notified her local military commissariat of her passport change when it was completed. Failing to inform the commissariate is punishable by a fine. Nonetheless, Alexander recommends that anybody in that situation keep quiet for now — unless they receive a summons, in which case he offered a template for requesting to be removed from the draft registry.
Transmasculine people who have male gender markers in their passports are probably not on the military authorities’ radar unless they’ve gone to their local commissariat and requested to be added to the draft registry, Alexander said. There is a chance, however, that somebody could be spotted by a law enforcement official and reported to his local military commissariat, which might require him to register for the draft. In that case, he should insist that he’s unfit for military service when he appears before the medical evaluation board, which every conscripted soldier is required to do before being sent to a combat zone.
In the past, however, the Russian Defense Ministry has done everything in its power to “disown” trans people, including by categorizing them as “unfit for military service” when there’s no legitimate reason to, according to Alexander. Even if a transmasculine person is deemed to be fit for military service after an initial medical evaluation, the lawyer said, he’s legally allowed to submit a written statement demanding an additional one — and that's likely his best option.
REST IN POWER
Pharoah Sanders, Saxophonist Who Pushed Jazz Toward the Spiritual, Dead at 81
Daniel Kreps
Pharaoh Sanders In Holland - Credit: Redferns
Pharoah Sanders, the saxophonist who helped John Coltrane explore the avant-garde and pushed jazz itself toward the spiritual, has died at the age of 81.
Record label Luaka Bop, which released Sanders and Floating Points’ acclaimed collaboration Promises in 2021, announced the jazz legend’s death Saturday; no cause of death was provided.
“We are devastated to share that Pharoah Sanders has passed away,” the label wrote on Instagram. “He died peacefully surrounded by loving family and friends in Los Angeles earlier this morning. Always and forever the most beautiful human being, may he rest in peace.”
The Little Rock, Arkansas-born Farrell Sanders first came up in the Bay Area jazz scene before moving to New York City, where he initially struggled.
“Unable to make a living with his music, Sanders took to pawning his horn, working non-musical jobs, and sometimes sleeping on the subway,” the saxophonist’s website said. However, Sanders soon found work alongside fellow innovators like Sun Ra (who told him to adopt the name “Pharoah” instead of Farrell), Ornette Coleman and John Coltrane, who after his landmark A Love Supreme was beginning to experiment with free jazz.
Sanders’ joined Coltrane’s group on tenor saxophone in 1965, a year that saw Coltrane record three of his avant-garde masterworks: Ascension, Meditations and Om. Following Coltrane’s death in 1967, Sanders briefly performed alongside his widow Alice Coltrane (including her classic Journey in Satchidananda) before embarking on his own path as leader.
In 1969, Sanders released what is considered his most revered work, Karma, which features his side-and-a-half-long opus “The Creator Has a Master Plan,” a recording that pushed spiritual jazz further skyward and one of the most influential tracks of its era.
The saxophonist continued his steady output over the Seventies and Eighties, both as leader and sideman for fellow jazz greats like McCoy Tyner, Sonny Sharrock, Idris Muhammad, Leon Thomas and many more.
While the saxophonist remained a fixture on the live jazz circuit, in 2021 Sanders returned from a nearly two-decade studio hiatus to record alongside electronic music producer Floating Points and the London Symphony Orchestra. The resulting work, Promises, has been hailed as one of the best jazz albums of the past decade.
“Consisting of a single, 46-minute work, the album is both startlingly minimal and arrestingly gorgeous,” Rolling Stone wrote of the LP.
“Only sparingly, such as one during brief, stunning episode about 35 minutes in, does Sanders break into the harsh sax ululation that he’s famous for, but overall, the piece feels like a loving sonic gift to a master from a disciple, and a worthy successor to Sanders’ foundational Sixties and Seventies epics.”
Floating Points paid tribute to Sanders Saturday following news of his death, “My beautiful friend passed away this morning. I am so lucky to have known this man, and we are all blessed to have his art stay with us forever. Thank you Pharoah.”
“An anarchist is someone who doesn't need a cop to make him behave.”
