Ottawa has millions still to spend on missing children and cemetery searches

David Akin 

CTV NEWS

The Canadian Press This residential school was in British Columbia. Aboriginal children were sent thousands of miles from their homes in some instances.

Alice.

Victor (Fort Resolution).

(Baby) Redbreast.

Jack B.

Mona.

Those are but five of the 4,118 names listed in the National Student Memorial Register, the registry of all those Indigenous children known to have perished at a residential school.

Five names of children who were so little known to their minders that they are not identified by their full names. There are dozens and dozens on that grim list who could only be listed this way.

Read more: Residential schools: What we know about their history and how many died

The Register was created and is maintained by the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation (NCTR) at the University of Manitoba, the centre created in the wake of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission to be a repository of the commission’s work and to help fulfill the Commission’s 94 recommendations or “Calls To Action.” The 72nd recommendation was that a register ought to be created with the names of all those young Indigenous People who died in a residential school.

The register will only grow. When the commission finished its work in 2015, it concluded that at least 3,000 children had died in residential schools, though it conceded then that that was a conservative estimate. Six years later, the registry has 4,118 names and some researchers and advocates believe that the list may grow to 6,000 names or more. Notably, it does not include the names — at least not right now — of Indigenous students that passed away while at day schools.

Video: N.B. to investigate history of Indian day schools in province

The registry was created with a one-time grant from the federal government of $2.6 million but, as the Centre notes on its online FAQ page, “a significant portion” of its funds now comes from donations. In addition to maintaining and updating the student death registry, the NCTR also operates a program that offers modest grants of up to $7,500 to Indigenous communities, survivor organizations and other groups which may wish to hold commemoration or healing events.

There were six Calls To Action in the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s final report that dealt with missing children and burial information and while the Trudeau government from its inception in 2015 promised it would implement every last one of the 94 Calls to Action (CTA), the only one of the six involving missing children and burials that has been completed is number 72 -- the student memorial register.

It was not until its final budget as a majority government that the Trudeau Liberals set aside funds to implement all the Calls to Action on missing children and burial information. In Budget 2019, the government set aside $33.8 million to be spent over three years to implement five of the six CTAs on missing children and burials for which it was responsible.

Read more: TRC requested $1.5M to find mass graves at residential schools. The feds denied the money in 2009

The CTAs that are still outstanding call on the federal government to lead the way in searching for and identifying residential school cemeteries; to find and inform families of deceased children’s whereabouts and arrange for appropriate commemoration and, if requested, reburial; to create a plan for ongoing maintenance and repair of cemeteries; and to do all of that according to principles established by Indigenous communities.

The government maintains its own website where it tracks progress on all Calls To Action and, for Calls To Action, 73-76, the government is, by its own admission, still working on things. Pressed this week on when those outstanding four will finally be complete, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau insisted that the work must move at a pace that is determined, above all else, by its Indigenous partners.

"I am as impatient as you are to move forward on this, but not so impatient that I'm going to take shortcuts that are going to leave us with missed opportunities and further trauma in the years to come,” Trudeau told reporters Monday. "Yes, we have to do these things as quickly as possible. People are impatient. People know that we need to move forward … concretely on this. But it can't be just Ottawa saying this is what we need to do, this is how you need to fix it, this is what the money is going to go for. It has to be done in true partnership. And that is one of the big lessons of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission."

Trudeau vows ‘concrete action’ after B.C. residential school grave discovery

Of the $33.8 million set aside in 2019, most of it — $27.1 million remains unspent, in reserve -- waiting to be allotted to “communities in locating, memorializing and commemorating those children who died while at Indian Residential Schools,” according to Ani Dergalstanian, the press secretary to the minister for Crown-Indigenous Relations, Carolyn Bennett.

It’s unclear though how that money will be disbursed, how communities will apply for it, or what sort of eligibility rules for funding will emerge. And, of course, no one seems to know if that will be enough money.

Read more: Saskatchewan residential school survivor reflects on tragic legacy: ‘My little heart was just crying’

The government did spend about $4 million last year to bring 140 people together in 16 different virtual engagement sessions on the issue. The participants, Crown-Indigenous Affairs Minister Carolyn Bennett said in the House of Commons Tuesday evening, were from a wide variety of groups: Indigenous organizations across the country, survivor groups, advocacy organizations, healing and cultural centres, churches and communities, archives and research institutions, provincial and territorial heritage practitioners, Knowledge Keepers and health support workers.

The point of these sessions was to get advice on how to proceed and fulfill Calls to Action 73-76. A key next step is the formation of a National Oversight Committee, though no details were available about the membership of that committee, its funding, or its mandate.

Finally, the government, in the budget tabled last month, has promised an additional $13.4 million to commemorate residential schools more broadly. Work has only just started to determine how the government will disburse those funds.

The Indian Residential Schools Crisis Line (1-866-925-4419) is available 24 hours a day for anyone experiencing pain or distress as a result of their residential school experience.

First Nations were speaking the truth all this time, says regional chief

The discovery of a mass grave where the remains of 215 children were found at an Indian residential school in British Columbia last week has spurred the Alberta government to take action.

Yesterday, Indigenous Relations Minister Rick Wilson announced that his government will fund research to compile a registry that will include undocumented deaths and burials of the Indigenous children who attended residential schools in Alberta.

Assembly of First Nations Alberta Regional Chief Marlene Poitras appreciates the move, but admits it “bothers” her that a mass grave is what was needed for the province to respond.

“Our people knew about it. Our people talked about this, that they witnessed babies being burned in incinerators. They witnessed the children. Young boys had to bury the dead. That was what was requested of them from the priests and the nuns. They knew these stories.

“Now it’s come to light they have been speaking the truth for all this time. And, yes, it does unfortunately take something like this to make people stand up, take notice and to make attempts to do something about it,” she said.

Wilson points out that the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s 94 Calls to Action, which were delivered in 2015, includes six calls for Missing Children and Burial Information. The TRC called upon the federal government “to allocate sufficient resources” (Call No. 72) for the development and maintenance of a National Residential School Student Death Register.

Poitras believes the federal government “has a huge responsibility” and needs to take it on considering it was a federal policy that brought about the Indian residential school system.

Wilson says because the federal government has not “step(ped) up to the plate,” Premier Jason Kenney gave him permission to take on the work. PARTISAN BS

Wilson says that Kenney also told him that if Ottawa didn’t provide funding to advance the work, Alberta will make the funding available. There is no price tag yet as to how much that funding will be. Wilson said he made an initial call to the federal government today for financial support.  FINALLY

There is already provincial grant funding available for research work for residential schools through Culture, Multiculturalism and Status of Women. Wilson said Minister Leila Aheer has said she will provide support.

Service Alberta Minister Nate Glubish will be the lead on the government-led initiative because he has “the ability to get into files,” said Wilson.

Wilson anticipates searching will begin in the Legislature library and will branch out to include working with the churches, First Nations, colleges like Blue Quill, and organizations like Poundmaker’s Lodge. Both Blue Quills, in Saddle Lake First Nation, and Poundmaker’s, in St. Albert, are former residential schools.

Poitras knows records will not be easy to track down. She points to Holy Angel residential school in her home community of Fort Chipewyan. Once it was demolished the records went to Fort Smith, NWT, and are now in Yellowknife.

“So there’s a lot of digging that needs to happen,” she said.

Poitras says she has had only a brief discussion with Wilson about the registry.

“He needs to get the leadership involved,” she said. “Talk to the leadership and establish some kind of committee, working together to ensure that we do this in a respectful way and that we have the information that we need for us to work through.”

Wilson understands that documentation is not available for all of the 25 residential schools that operated in Alberta.

“Several of the chiefs have reached out to me and said come and meet with us. We’ll work with you.…We have to work with the Elders. We have to work with the survivors, because they're going to be the boots on the ground. They're going to know from their own personal histories and the stories that they've heard as to where these things are,” he said.

Wilson said while Alberta Services began the work today of looking at documents, there is no deadline set as to when the registry will be completed.

“It’ll be evolving as we go. This isn’t something that’s just going to (be taken) on and disappear,” he said.

Wilson said the work could go beyond developing a registry and include looking for unmarked graves.

“That’s part of it, but of course we have to really be sensitive around that area,” he said. He emphasized moving forward on what happens with “very sacred ground” will be up to chiefs and Elders.

A resource guide put out by Aheer’s department in 2020 for researching and recognizing residential school sites references “careful archaeological investigation using ground-penetrating radar … to find burial locations.”

It was this technique that discovered the mass grave at Kamloops Indian Residential School.

Poitras points out that the federal government provided the resources for that work so “there is precedent set in terms of the amount of resources that are required, so it’s not something that we don’t know.”

She said the registry and finding the burial sites are necessary work for families.

“Every region, right across the country, it needs to happen. We have to do a search for the rest of the missing children to honour them, bring them back, so the people that have all those losses can have some form of closure,” she said.

She said an apology from the Pope, as the Roman Catholic Church operated about 70 per cent of the country’s Indian residential schools, would also help heal. Other church leaders have apologized for their part in the schools.

Wilson said people are now more aware of Indian residential schools because of the news of the 215 children buried in the mass grave.

He says a vigil he attended last night at the Alberta Legislature had easily 3,000 people there, many of whom were non-Indigenous.

“(There were a) lot of tears, but we've got to do that grieving and hopefully like now, with what we're doing, we can move forward and start that healing process because we can't dwell on the grief. It will just overwhelm you,” said Wilson.

Because of that grief, Poitras stresses the need for mental health support for trauma and healing. Wilson says the government has “pumped up” the services during the coronavirus pandemic.

In a news release issued today, Métis Nation of Alberta President Audrey Poitras called yesterday’s announcement “a good start.”

“History sadly supports our mistrust, but we hope that this devastating discovery is the catalyst for true reconciliation in this province,” said Audrey Poitras, who pointed out that Métis children also attended residential schools.

Métis were not included in the Indian Residential School Settlement Agreement approved in 2006, nor in Prime Minster Stephen Harper’s apology in 2008.

“While we cannot bring these children home to their families, we can honour them, their communities, and the plight of Indigenous people everywhere by ensuring that the atrocities of the past are never repeated and never forgotten,” said Audrey Poitras.

Windspeaker.com

By Shari Narine, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, Windspeaker.com, Windspeaker.com

Syilx journalist shares how she’ll report on Kamloops Indian Residential School



Video: Remains of more than 200 children found in Kamloops on former residential school site (Global News)
Duration 1:57

This article contains content about residential schools that may be triggering. IndigiNews is committed to trauma-informed ethical reporting, which involves taking time and care, self-location, transparency and safety care plans for those who come forward with stories to share.

Last Thursday, I was driving home from my little cousin’s wake, who tragically passed much too soon. When I got home I opened my phone and saw the news: “215 Bodies Found at the Kamloops Indian Residential School (KIRS),” read multiple headlines.

My heart sank. My first instinct was complete anger.

Immediately, I went on social media, to try and inform other journalists how to report on the tragedy.

I was angry at how this news was splayed across so many outlets, without due care or attention to how it would impact my family. News like this needs careful specific treatment to protect the integrity of the people.

I have spent the past 15 years working in trauma-informed community-based spaces, where I’ve advocated for children and families’ well-being. I knew immediately how news like this should have been delivered.

I thought about the impact this news was going to have on my family who survived the Kamloops Indian Residential School, and the impact on my relations and kin across the country.

I was raised to speak from my heart, and to locate myself in relation to an issue I’m speaking to. Because this tragedy directly impacts my family, I needed to declare who I was immediately, so that I could know how to go forward with my voice.

I declared Friday morning that I speak as a mother.

In Syilx ways, I am stepping forward as a caretaker of relationships and kinships. I am speaking as someone who is inherently protective of my relations in their time of grief — I knew instantly that this would be my role throughout this time.

Any reporting that follows this story, I situate myself as a mother.

I am writing on behalf of all the mothers whose voices were taken away. I write for the Elders who as children never got to know their mother’s loving embrace, and I write for the children today.

We will pour our love into our children, and we will protect their integrity at all costs.

This means my writing practices will be centered around love, healing, integrity, and uplifting the good, while following the highest quality of journalistic standards.

I have always declared I am a Syilx and Secwépemc woman, before I am anything else. I am making it known that this issue has impacted my family gravely. We have been triggered. We, the Syilx and Secwépemc, and nations beyond have family there in the ground, and in all of my writing, I write in honour of the 215 children whose lives were taken, and those who didn’t make the count.

It is time for the media to step up and raise the ethical standards. It’s time for newsrooms to make space for those who see and represent Indigenous Peoples as the diverse, beautiful, powerful, strong human beings we are, and to stop reducing people to bodies to be further exploited. Every morning as I wake, I will smudge and pray, and do my best to write in a way that doesn’t cause more harm. I situate myself as a mother, a Syilx and Secwépemc journalist who pledges to protect the people, as a mother does.

A National Indian Residential School Crisis Line has been set up to provide support for former students and those affected. Access emotional and crisis referral services by calling the 24-hour national crisis line: 1-866 925-4419.

Within B.C., the KUU-US Crisis Line Society aims to provide a “non-judgmental approach to listening and problem solving.” The crisis line is open 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Call 1-800-588-8717 or go to kuu-uscrisisline.com. KUU-US means “people” in Nuu-chah-nulth.

Kelsie Kilawna, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, The Discourse

Canada's Centerra Gold says Kyrgyz units seek bankruptcy after mine seizure

TORONTO (Reuters) - Canada's Centerra Gold Inc on Monday said Kyrgyzstan units Kumtor Gold Co and Kumtor Operating Co have commenced bankruptcy proceedings in a U.S. court following nationalization of the miner's Kumtor gold mine by the former Soviet republic.

 Reuters/VLADIMIR PIROGOV FILE PHOTO: A general view of the Kumtor open pit gold mine in Tien Shan mountains

Centerra said the Chapter 11 filing would have no financial or operational impact on it or any other areas of its business, including the Mount Milligan mine in Canada, the Oksut Mine in Turkey and its molybdenum business in North America.


Kumtor, Kyrgyzstan's largest foreign investment project, was operated by Centerra. However, the government of the Central Asian country seized the mine, prompting the Canadian miner to seek redress in an international court.

Kyrgyz lawmakers in early May passed a law giving the state power to temporarily take control of the mine and appoint "external management" to address alleged environmental and safety problems.

Centerra said bankruptcy proceedings would prevent further efforts by the Kyrgyz government to strip Kumtor Gold of its assets or otherwise "improperly dispose" of the Kumtor mine in violation of its investment agreements with the company.

Representatives for the Kyrgyz government could not immediately be reached by Reuters for comment.

Centerra said the court-supervised restructuring provides for a worldwide automatic stay of all claims against the Kyrgyz business units, which it said are currently solvent.

The Canadian miner said that while it hopes the process will facilitate talks, it will continue to pursue arbitration proceedings to enforce agreements with the Kyrgyz government.

"Those agreements are governed by New York law, and we expect the U.S. court proceedings will serve to further protect Centerra's interests under their terms pending a restructuring or other resolution of the dispute," Centerra Chief Executive Scott Perry said in a statement.

Centerra has suspended its 2021 production guidance and three-year outlook for Kumtor, which last year produced more than 556,000 ounces (15,762 kg) of gold.

The miner said it would also conduct a strategic review of its ownership of the subsidiaries "in light of recent events involving the Kumtor mine".

(Reporting by Jeff Lewis and Mike Spector; Editing by Christopher Cushing)

Conspiracy theories are no longer the domain of lovable weirdos tracking Bigfoot - they're a sinister problem that's only getting bigger

cdavis@insider.com (Charles Davis) 5 hrs ago

© Rick Loomis/Getty Images A man holds up a "Q" sign while waiting in line to see President Donald J. Trump at his rally on August 2, 2018 in Wilkes Barre, Pennsylvania. Rick Loomis/Getty Images

Conspiracy theories are increasingly sinister and in the service of the world's most powerful people.

Investigative journalist Dave Neiwert argues that conspiracy theories such as QAnon, appeal to Americans' desire for heroism.

Neiwert wrote a new book, "Red Pill, Blue Pill: How to Counteract the Conspiracy Theories That Are Killing Us."

As a teen who objected to sleeping at a decent hour, I would often lay in bed, fire up the shortwave receiver from RadioShack, and listen to a total crank named Art Bell tell me that Bigfoot was real. Before there was YouTube, there was "Coast to Coast AM," Bell's multi-hour program on all things paranormal. 

I DID TOO!

Conspiracy theories, as I understood them back then, were good, clean, frivolous entertainment - secret government teleportation programs, powered by alien technology, and interdimensional animals linked to the disappearance of cattle in the American southwest. It was science fiction with an additional element of fun: What if it's actually real?

In 2021, conspiracy theories are no longer a source of amusement, nor are leading purveyors mere harmless weirdos. What was once AM-radio "Star Trek" is now state-sponsored disinformation and plagiarized anti-Semitism - a global cabal of cosmopolitan elites conspiring to abuse children - serving the interests of the world's most powerful people, with heads of state and big tech companies profiting whenever someone new goes down the rabbit hole.

The popular, modern-day shills for conspiracism deal in much darker fare than a gift shop in Roswell

Dave Neiwert, a long-time investigative journalist and chronicler of the far-right, told Insider that the appeal of conspiracy theories is the key to not just understanding but combating the rise of conspiracism.

People, particularly those with authoritarian tendencies - on either the left or the right - desire simple explanations for complex phenomena that flatter their existing beliefs. And the darker the allegation, the more noble an "independent journalist" or Facebook user can feel in their crusade against mainstream notions of truth.

"Heroism is really a key component," Neiwert told me over the phone, laying out the thrust of his most recent book, "Red Pill, Blue Pill: How to Counteract the Conspiracy Theories That Are Killing Us."

The most popular genre of films is comic book characters engaged in binary combat: good versus evil. "I think we are seeing an America that's increasingly educated to be heroes," he said.

But most of us aren't heroes.

Enter, then, the world of forbidden enlightenment; a select, online minority of people who get it - who can decode the seemingly banal and uncover the supposed evil within.

"One of the things that really offers is the sense that you are heroically saving the world by advancing this secret knowledge that's been suppressed," Neiwert said.

In the case of QAnon, a conspiracy theory which holds that an anonymous account on the internet reflected the insights of a high-ranking state official with the goods that Donald Trump was too modest to share, "people really see themselves as saving these children who are victimized by the global pedophilia ring, and against these nefarious conspirators." And they have support at high levels: at a QAnon conference in Dallas, former national security advisor Michael Flynn was a featured star (he called for a military coup while there).

It's not the encyclopedic knowledge of the conspiracy theorists that attracts followers, either.

"Particularly, post-9/11, it has reached a sort of new form where it is completely evidence-free," Neiwert commented. It doesn't matter that "Q" followers, yesterday, believed Hillary Clinton's arrest was imminent, but what they believe, today, that holds together the online social club. Much more important than the truth of a prophecy is what the belief enables and justifies: the failures of the politicians they support - the deep state stopped it - and the belief that those who stand against them are irredeemable (in the case of QAnon, satanic, even). The group identity comes not from vindication that never comes, but in the persistent opposition to the hated and dehumanized "other," whether it's milquetoast liberals or Chinese communists.

That's one of several curiosities about today's conspiratorial mindset. Once upon a time, the en-vogue political conspiracy theories used to be oppositional. They did not echo, precisely, what one could hear a president (or now-former president) of the United States. (Fringe views are in Congress, including Georgia's Majorie Taylor Greene or Colorado's Lauren Boebert who are sympathetic to QAnon.)

That could not be said of the theories popularized since 2016, crafted to defend elite failures and amplified by the world's most powerful people.

Under the guise of standing up to the establishment, far-right conspiracy theorists promoted the idea that the opposition party rigged a plebiscite and argued the former president should impose military rule to remain in power, culminating in the violent January 6 attack on democracy and the US Capitol.
Not everything that gets labeled a 'conspiracy theory' actually is one: Real conspiracies have limitations.

"There are three limitations in real conspiracies that do not exist in conspiracy theories," Neiwert told Insider. "First is limitation in time: Conspiracy theories, such as the 'Protocols of the Elders of Zion' or the 'New World Order' - these go on for years and years and years, whereas most conspiracies that we actually know of are very limited in time."

"Secondly," Neiwert said, "they are very limited in the numbers of actors who participate. The real conspiracies that we know of involve very few actual conspirators, mainly because they can only exist as long as it's secret - and the more people you have involved, the sooner that secret is going away."

"And then the third," per Neiwert, "unreliable conspiracy theories propose things that are basically global in reach, affecting massive numbers of people, whereas as a real conspiracy only affects a limited scope."

Social media has to be part of the solution

One thing about conspiracy theorists, these days, is that they are gravely online, speaking to potentially millions of people who have clicked "like" and "subscribe."

You can spend weeks trying to pull a family member back from the brink of "false flags" and pedophile cults and "PsyOps," a process, Neiwert counsels, that will require patience, empathy, and a good deal of energy; in the meantime, however, for every person brought of the fog thousands more will have been radicalized by a viral meme.

"There's gotta be social media reform," Neiwert argued, saying the rise of viral posts has led to the worst proliferation of conspiracy thinking he's seen since he started following the stuff in the 1990s.

Social media companies have been loath to do much about this, as removing influential conspiracy theorists from a platform is also removing a source of revenue. It took a failed coup d'etat, resulting in a handful of deaths and hundreds of injuries, to really drive home the urgency, with Twitter and Facebook then banning a president and many of his followers from their platforms. In the free market, ad revenue is ad revenue, even if it aids the rise of violent extremism.

The obvious risk of a harder line from social media companies is that legitimately differing opinions could be tossed in the same bin as the harmful cranks.

Conservative politicians have portrayed "Big Tech" as eager to silence dissenting voices, ignoring the fact that those voices only first went viral because of earlier content decisions. Indeed, Facebook only started removing groups that promote QAnon and right-wing paramilitary organizations after first coddling the far right out of fear of GOP backlash.

At the same time, recognizing that declining to grant someone a free platform is not quite the same as silencing them, is important. The present risk of fringe conspiracies on the digital equivalent of the front page can also not be ignored. Malicious actors are currently exploiting popular platforms for cynical purposes.

Any regulation of speech requires constant vigilance; there are always pitfalls. But consider, also, the status quo and its record: state actors using stolen emails, ripped out of context by partisan actors like WikiLeaks, to tilt an election; a genocide in Myanmar fueled by anti-Muslim disinformation posted by that country's military; and a violent extremist in New Zealand live-streaming mass murder after being radicalized with the help of YouTube.

Belated efforts to confront this read more like public relations - a tag on a video, post, or tweet saying that the content above is disputed.

Unemployed journalists, displaced by social media, could be employed to identify and stop the plainly false from gaining traction. Misinformation, unchecked, "is what makes conspiracy theories go and what gives them their toxic power," Neiwert said, "making it impossible for people to come to an agreement on what's factual and what's not."

From school shootings to war crimes, the "official story" is no longer under attack from only disaffected, ultimately powerless people in their mother's proverbial basement, but state-sponsored trolls with geopolitical agendas.

Sasquatch, this is not. But maybe we can learn something from the North American ape, purported, with large feet: don't use Facebook, never tweet.

Have a news tip? Email this reporter: cdavis@insider.com

Study pinpoints key causes of ocean circulation change

UNIVERSITY OF EXETER

Research News

 

IMAGE: VARIABILITY IN OCEAN CURRENTS IS INFLUENCED BY MULTIPLE FACTORS. view more 

CREDIT: PROF HELEN JOHNSON

Researchers have identified the key factors that influence a vital pattern of ocean currents.

The Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (AMOC) carries warm water from the tropics northward.

Many scientists think that this heat transport makes areas including north-west Europe and the UK warmer than they would otherwise be.

Climate models suggest the AMOC is likely to weaken over the coming decades, with widespread implications for regional and global climate.

The new study - led by the universities of Exeter and Oxford, and published in Nature Geoscience - pinpoints the causes of monthly and annual AMOC variation and finds a differing picture at two key locations.

Observational data came from large arrays of monitoring equipment - off the coasts of Florida and Africa, and in the North Atlantic between Greenland and Scotland - run by the international RAPID and OSNAP projects.

"Understanding AMOC variability is challenging because the circulation is influenced by multiple factors that all vary and whose overlapping impacts persist for years," said lead author Dr Yavor Kostov, of the Department of Geography at the University of Exeter.

"Our findings reveal the vital role of winds in driving changes in this ocean circulation.

"Winds were a key factor both in the sub-tropical and sub-polar locations we examined.

"As the climate continues to change, more efforts should be concentrated on monitoring those winds - especially in key regions on continental boundaries and the eastern coast of Greenland - and understanding what drives changes in them."

While AMOC variability off the southern USA is dominated by the impact of winds, variability in the North Atlantic is generated by the combined effects of winds, heat and freshwater anomalies. "Our reconstruction suggests that, compared to the subtropics, the overturning circulation in the subpolar North Atlantic is more sensitive to changes in the background ocean state such as shifts in the sites of deep convection," Dr Kostov said.

"This implies that future climate change may alter annual AMOC variability in this region. It emphasises the need for continued observations of the subpolar North Atlantic ocean."

The study also finds that changes in the surface temperature and salinity near Canada and Greenland can trigger a delayed remote impact on the Atlantic circulation as far south as Florida.

###

Funding for this study came from the UK Natural Environment Research Council, and the National Science Foundation, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, NASA and Simons Foundation in the United States.

The paper, published in the journal Nature Geoscience, is entitled: "Distinct sources of interannual subtropical and subpolar Atlantic overturning variability."

Make COVID jab free for everyone in India to boost uptake and curb death toll

And expedite approval of foreign vaccines, urge experts

BMJ

Research News

 

The COVID-19 jab should be made free for everyone in India to boost uptake and curb the death toll from the infection, urge experts in a personal view (commentary) published in the online journal BMJ Global Health.

And approval of foreign vaccines already deployed elsewhere around the globe should be speeded up as a matter of urgency, argue the authors from the ICMR-National Institute of Malaria Research and the Indian Council of Medical Research, New Delhi.

India is now reporting the largest daily number of COVID-19 infections in the world amid critical shortages of hospital beds, ICU beds, medicines, ventilators, oxygen and healthcare staff.

Despite international aid pouring into the country and emergency use authorisation for several vaccines, poor planning of home-grown vaccine production and deployment means that India doesn't have enough vaccines to go round, say the authors. Only around 3% of the population has been vaccinated.

While there are plans to significantly ramp up production of the Covaxin and Covishield vaccines, the target to vaccinate around 1 billion people may still not be reached this year, warn the authors.

"As any protection conferred by COVID-19 vaccine is expected to take at least 2 weeks after both doses, and with large demands, India will require many more sources of vaccines in the coming days and weeks to stem the current uptick in infections," they write.

Initially, Covid-19 vaccination was available only in government hospitals and centres, free of cost, but to expand coverage, the government has allowed private hospitals to vaccinate.

These charge anything from $3 to $15, meaning that very few people can afford this cost. "Therefore, for stemming COVID-19, vaccinations must be free for all in India," the authors insist.

A further complication is that when the Indian government decided to lower the age criteria for the jab it procured 50% of vaccines for its 36 states specifically for the over 45s, with the other half to be procured by state governments and private hospitals for those aged 18-44.

State governments have therefore been left to negotiate the costs themselves, which are higher than those negotiated by the government. For instance, one dose of Covaxin costs central government around $2, rising to around $5.4 for state governments, and to around $16 for private hospitals, they point out.

"This differential pricing....is likely to be detrimental to public health at this time of grave crisis in India," creating inequitable distribution and potentially sparking public mistrust, they argue.

"For India to stem Covid-19, the nation cannot allow any differential approach for its residents," they write.

And in an attempt to create a vaccination records infrastructure for adults and ensure that no one is missed, the Indian government has mandated pre-registration via a mobile app. But only around a third of people in rural areas have an internet connection, point out the authors. A simple vaccination card may be a better option, they suggest.

The Indian government has committed around $120 million for Covid-19 vaccine research, most of which is being used to scale up vaccine production, with the rest invested in new vaccine candidates, including those against variant strains.

"However, the funding pledged by the government is far from adequate," warn the authors. "This will be concerning in scenarios where a 3rd booster shot is required. Hence, India needs a corpus of funds for the above that covers all future eventualities of vaccine deployment," they argue.

"India may need to reset its vaccine strategies, enhance the competence level of pandemic management and spur the bureaucratic machinery so that vaccine equity can be achieved in a very short span of time," they conclude.

###

Externally peer reviewed? Yes

Evidence type: Opinion

Subjects: People

HINDU NATIONALIST -HINDUTVA- CULTURAL HEGEMONY

Most box office hit films suitable for children in India contain alcohol imagery

Much tighter controls needed to protect children and young people from potential harms

BMJ

Research News

 

Most box office hit films screened in India that are suitable for children contain alcohol imagery, finds research published in the online journal BMJ Open.

Much tighter controls are needed to protect children and young people from the potential avoidable harms of using alcohol, say the researchers.

In 2016 alcohol consumption led to 2.8 million deaths worldwide, and global alcohol consumption has increased by 38% in the past decade. Although rare among women, nearly one in three men in India now drinks alcohol, getting through an average of 18.3 litres every year.

The average age at which people start drinking it is 21, but 1.3% of 10-17 year olds say they drink alcohol, and research shows that starting early on this road in India is associated with chronic heavy drinking later in adult life.

And exposure to alcohol imagery in films is a significant factor driving uptake of alcohol consumption among young people, as well as the amount they drink, say the researchers.

But there's very little evidence on the content of alcohol imagery in films screened in low income and middle-income countries.

To try and plug this knowledge gap, the researchers coded each 5-minute interval in the 30 top 10 national box office hit films made in India and screened in 2015, 2016, and 2017, according to whether they contained alcohol imagery, defined as any use, actual use, implied use, other alcohol references--and alcohol brand appearances.

The 30 films included 22 (73%) Hindi films and 8 (27%) in regional languages (four Tamil, three Telugu, and one Malayalam).

Seven (23%) were rated suitable for viewing by all ages (U), and 23 (77%) were rated as suitable for viewing by children under 12 subject to parental guidance under 12 (UA).

Alcohol imagery was seen in nearly all (97%) the films, with 195 out of a total of 923 5-minute intervals, and actual alcohol use was seen in 25 (83%) films in 90 (10%) intervals.

The occurrence of these and other categories of alcohol imagery was similar in U rated (38 intervals, 17%) and UA rated films (157 intervals, 23%), and in Hindi (140 intervals, 21%) and local language (55 intervals, 21%) films.

Episodes of alcohol branding occurred in ten 5-minute intervals in five films, one of which was U-rated and one of which was in a regional language.

"This study, to our knowledge the first of its kind in India, demonstrates that alcohol imagery occurred in almost all of this sample of films popular in India, all of which were classified by the [Central Board of Film Certification] in India as suitable either for unrestricted viewing by children (U), or for by children under the age of 12 with parental guidance (UA)," write the researchers.

"Films represent an important source of exposure, not only in terms of the cinema audiences they generate, but also for the potentially wider audiences reached when films are shown on television," they add.

They conclude: "The prudent approach to avoidable risks is to avoid them, and since the inclusion of alcohol imagery in films aimed at children is entirely avoidable, protecting children from future alcohol use and consequent problems justifies more rigorous controls on the alcohol content of films aimed at children and young people in India."

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Externally peer reviewed? Yes

Evidence type: Observational

Subjects: Box office hit films

Parasites may accumulate in spleens of asymptomatic individuals infected with malaria

Study suggests immature red blood cells in spleen are targeted for invasion by P. vivax

PLOS

Research News

 

Malaria, a disease caused mainly by the parasites Plasmodium falciparum and Plasmodium vivax, (P. vivax) is associated with over 400,000 deaths each year. Previously, the spleen was assumed to mostly play a role in parasite destruction, as it eliminates malaria parasites after antimalarial treatment. A study published in the open access journal PLOS Medicine by Steven Kho and Nicholas Anstey at Menzies School of Health Research, Australia, and international colleagues, suggests that in chronic P. vivax infections, malaria parasites survive and replicate via a previously undetected lifecycle within the spleen.

A large biomass of intact asexual-stage malaria parasites accumulates in the spleen of asymptomatic human subjects infected with Plasmodium vivax (P. vivax). However, the mechanisms underlying this intense reaction are unknown. To better understand the accumulation of malaria parasites in the spleen, researchers examined the spleen tissue in twenty-two individuals naturally exposed to P. vivax and P. falciparum undergoing splenectomy in Papua, Indonesia between 2015-2017. The authors then analysed the density of infection, parasites and immature red blood cells, as well as their distribution throughout the spleen.

The researchers found that the human spleen is a reservoir for immature red blood cells that are targeted by P. vivax for invasion, and that the examined spleens contained a substantial hidden biomass of malaria parasites, with densities hundreds to thousands of times higher than in circulating peripheral blood, suggesting an undetectable endosplenic lifecycle in asymptomatic P. vivax infections. The study had several limitations, such as the small sample size and asymptomatic status of all individuals included in the study. Future research should include acute, symptomatic malaria cases.

According to the authors, "Our findings provide a major contribution to the understanding of malaria biology and pathology and provide insight into P. vivax specific adaptations that have evolved to maximise survival and replication in the spleen".

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Research Article

Peer reviewed; Observational study; Humans

In your coverage please use this URL to provide access to the freely available paper: http://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article?id=10.1371/journal.pmed.1003632

Funding: This work was supported by the Australian National Health and Medical Research Council (Program Grant #1037304, Fellowships to NA [#1042072 and #1135820], and 'Improving Health Outcomes in the Tropical North (HOTNORTH): A multidisciplinary collaboration [#1131932], and the Australian Centre of Research Excellence in Malaria Elimination), the Paris Ile-de-France Region under « DIM Thérapie génique » and « DIM Maladies Infectieuses » initiatives (awarded to PAB and BH), the French Institut National de la Santé Et de la Recherche Médicale (INSERM), the University of Paris, the Laboratory of excellence GREx, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF OPP1123683), and the « Sauver la Vie Foundation » (to PAB), the Wellcome Trust (Grant #099875 awarded to JRP and Senior Fellowship in Clinical Science awarded to RNP [#200909]), an Australian Government Postgraduate Award Scholarship and OzEMalaR Travel award (awarded to SK), a Royal Society Wolfson Research Merit award (awarded to MM), the Singapore National Medical Research Council (award to TWY [CSA INV 15nov007]), and the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.

Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Citation: Kho S, Qotrunnada L, Leonardo L, Andries B, Wardani PAI, Fricot A, et al. (2021) Evaluation of splenic accumulation and colocalization of immature reticulocytes and Plasmodium vivax in asymptomatic malaria: A prospective human splenectomy study. PLoS Med 18(5): e1003632. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pmed.1003632

Study finds that a firm's place in a supply chain influences lending and borrowing

University of Oregon and University of Rochester researchers examined supplier-customer relationships to better understand trade credit

UNIVERSITY OF OREGON

Research News

 

EUGENE, Ore. -- June 1, 2021 -- Businesses typically rely on banks and financial markets for financing, but credit provided by suppliers also can play an important role, especially in manufacturing. Yet why firms lend and borrow extensively from each other is still an open question.

In a paper online ahead of print in the Journal of Financial Economics, "Trade Credit and Profitability in Production Networks," Youchang Wu, an associate professor at the University of Oregon, and coauthor Michael Gofman, an assistant professor at the University of Rochester, examined trade credit from a new angle.

They noted that for an average nonfinancial firm in North America, the outstanding amount of trade credit it receives from suppliers is about 21 percent of annual production costs. Moreover, most firms simultaneously borrow from their suppliers and lend to their customers, with the average outstanding amount of trade credit provided to customers at around 15 percent of annual sales.

Previous studies on trade credit, they noted, have focused on a firm's role either as a lender or a borrower of trade credit, ignoring the fact that trade credit flows along supplier-customer links in complex production networks.

Using a comprehensive database of supplier-customer relationships from 2003 to 2018, Wu and Gofman analyzed more than 200,000 supply chains formed by more than 5,600 nonfinancial firms. By locating a firm in the supply chain, their study accounts for a firm's dual role as a supplier and a customer. This novel approach allowed the researchers to uncover new details about trade credit within and across supply chains.

In particular, they found that within the supply chain, more upstream firms borrow more from suppliers, lend more to customers and hold more net trade credit, despite appearing to have weaker financing capacity than more downstream firms.

The length of the supply chains they examined varies significantly.

An example of a longer supply chain is one in which Intermolecular Inc. supplies advanced materials to Micron Technology Inc., which creates computer memory and computer data storage that it provides to Nvidia Corp., which uses them to manufacture graphics cards it supplies to Tesla. In contrast, a short supply chain example is one in which Sensata Technology provides sensors directly to Tesla. In longer supply chains, firms tend to be more profitable, and the increase in trade credit provision from the lower to the upper level of the chain is more gradual.

Both within and across supply chains, the authors noted that there is an almost one-to-one correspondence between the variation in the trade credit a firm provides and the variation in the trade credit it receives. These findings are less consistent with the idea of financially strong firms lending to financially weak firms, an implication of the financing advantage theory.

"Our findings are more consistent with the recursive moral hazard theory of trade credit," said Wu, who teaches in the Department of Finance at the Lundquist College of Business and is the John B. Rogers Research Scholar and coordinator of the UO's finance doctoral program.

"This theory argues that more upstream firms have more severe incentive problems, especially when they are not that profitable, because the quality of their products is revealed only after a long delay," he said. "Thus, more net trade credit provided by upstream firms helps to align incentives."

The authors did, however, find evidence that a firm's provision of trade credit is related to its financial status during an economic downturn. For instance, during the 2008-2009 financial crisis, upstream firms experienced a larger decline in profit margins than did downstream firms, and net provision of trade credit dropped significantly, suggesting that financial strength plays a more important role in determining the provision and use of trade credit during a crisis period.

Overall, Wu and Gofman's systematic study highlights variations in trade credit practices across firms, which can help both researchers and practitioners better understand the role of trade credit in production networks as well as examine other economic and financial questions related to supply chains.

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Links:

Paper in Financial Economics: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2365995

About Youchang Wu: https://business.uoregon.edu/faculty/youchang-wu

Lundquist College of Business: https://business.uoregon.edu/

About Michael Gofman: https://simon.rochester.edu/programs/ptmba/academics/world-class-faculty/faculty-profile/index.aspx?Username=3113880