CONFEDERATE STATES OF AMERICA
White supremacist propaganda surged in 2020, report says

3/19/2021

NEW YORK — White supremacist propaganda reached alarming levels across the U.S. in 2020, according to a new report that the Anti-Defamation League provided to The Associated Press.© Provided by The Canadian Press

There were 5,125 cases of racist, anti-Semitic, anti-LGBTQ and other hateful messages spread through physical flyers, stickers, banners and posters, according to Wednesday's report. That’s nearly double the 2,724 instances reported in 2019. Online propaganda is much harder to quantify, and it's likely those cases reached into the millions, the anti-hate organization said.

The ADL, which was founded more than a century ago, said that last year marked the highest level of white supremacist propaganda seen in at least a decade. Its report comes as federal authorities investigate and prosecute those who stormed the U.S. Capitol in January, some of whom are accused of having ties to or expressing support for hate groups and antigovernment militias.

“As we try to understand and put in perspective the past four years, we will always have these bookends of Charlottesville and Capitol Hill,” group CEO Jonathan Greenblatt said.

“The reality is there’s a lot of things that happened in between those moments that set the stage,” he said.

Christian Picciolini, a former far-right extremist who founded the deradicalization group Free Radicals Project, said the surge in propaganda tracks with white supremacist and extremist recruiters seeing crises as periods of opportunity.

“They use the uncertainty and fear caused by crisis to win over new recruits to their ‘us vs. them’ narrative, painting the ‘other’ as the cause of their pain, grievances or loss,” Picciolini told the AP. "The current uncertainty caused by the pandemic, job loss, a heated election, protest over extrajudicial police killings of Black Americans, and a national reckoning sparked by our country’s long tradition of racism has created a perfect storm in which to recruit Americans who are fearful of change and progress."

Propaganda, often distributed with the intention of garnering media and online attention, helps white supremacists normalize their messaging and bolster recruitment efforts, the ADL said in its report. Language used in the propaganda is frequently veiled with a patriotic slant, making it seem benign to an untrained eye.

But some flyers, stickers and posters are explicitly racist and anti-Semitic. One piece of propaganda disseminated by the New Jersey European Heritage Association included the words “Black Crimes Matter,” a derisive reference to the Black Lives Matter movement, along with cherry-picked crime statistics about attacks on white victims by Black assailants.

A neo-Nazi group known as Folks Front distributed stickers that include the words “White Lives Matter.”

According to the report, at least 30 known white supremacist groups were behind hate propaganda. But three groups — NJEHA, Patriot Front and Nationalist Social Club — were responsible for 92% of the activity.

The propaganda appeared in every state except Hawaii. The highest levels were seen in Texas, Washington, California, New Jersey, New York, Massachusetts, Virginia and Pennsylvania, according to the report.

Despite the overall increase, the ADL reported a steep decline in distribution of white supremacist propaganda at colleges and universities, due in large part to the coronavirus pandemic and the lack of students living and studying on campus. There were 303 reports of propaganda on college campuses in 2020, down from 630 in 2019.

Greenblatt acknowledged that free speech rights allow for rhetoric that “we don’t like and we detest.” But when that speech spurs violence or creates conditions for normalizing extremism, it must be opposed, he said.

“There’s no pixie dust that you can sprinkle on this, like it’s all going to go away,” Greenblatt said. “We need to recognize that the roots of this problem run deep.”

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Morrison is a member of the AP’s Race and Ethnicity team. Follow him on Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/aaronlmorrison.

Aaron Morrison, The Associated Press

Officials: Violent extremists pose 'elevated threat' to US
3/18/2021

WASHINGTON — Violent extremists motivated by a range of political grievances and racial biases pose an “elevated threat” to the United States, officials said Wednesday in an unclassified intelligence report released more than two months after a mob of insurrectionists stormed the U.S. Capitol.

© Provided by The Canadian Press

The blunt assessment echoes warnings made in recent weeks by U.S. officials, including FBI Director Christopher Wray, who testified this month that the threat from domestic violent extremism was “metastasizing” across the country. Attorney General Merrick Garland has also described it as a top priority as his Justice Department works to prosecute hundreds of people who made their way into the Capitol as Congress was gathering on Jan. 6 to certify Joe Biden's election victory.


The riot laid bare the threat posed by domestic extremists and led Biden, weeks later, to assign his intelligence officials the task of studying the scope of the problems. A brief and unclassified summary of that threat assessment was made public Wednesday; a full classified report was presented to the White House and Congress.

“Today’s report underscores how we face the greatest threat from racially or ethnically motivated violent extremists, especially white supremacists, and militia violent extremists,” said Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff of California, chairman of the House Intelligence Committee.

Intelligence officials said in their assessment that extremists seen as risks for violence are motivated by a range of ideologies. Developments such as the anger over conditions related to the coronavirus pandemic and a belief in the debunked narrative that November's presidential election was fraudulent “will almost certainly” spur additional violence in 2021, the report said. Numerous courts and Donald Trump's own Justice Department upheld the integrity of the election.

The report says the most lethal threat is presented by racially motivated violent extremists, who officials say are most likely to conduct mass attacks against American civilians, and militia groups, who are seen as most likely to target law enforcement and government officials and buildings. The threat from militias increased in 2020 and is expected to increase again this year “because of contentious sociopolitical factors” motivating people to violence, according to the report's summary.

The report says white supremacists display what officials say is “the most persistent and concerning transnational connections.” A small number of them have travelled abroad to connect with people who share their ideology, according to the report, which does not say where they went or with whom they met.

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Follow Eric Tucker on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/etuckerAP

Eric Tucker, The Associated Press

CRIMINAL CAPITALI$M 

Peru's COVID-19 vaccine scandal shows the shady deals made with pharma companies

PUBLIC OWNERSHIP OF BIG PHARMA

Denisse Rodriguez-Olivari, PhD candidate in Political Science, Humboldt University of Berlin, 

Jorge H. Sanchez-Perez, Ph.D. Candidate - School of Humanities, Department of Philosophy, Instructor - Philosophy Department and Peace Studies Program, McMaster University, 

and Leanne Woodward, PhD Student, Research Ethics, University of Waterloo

 3/17/2021

The COVID-19 vaccination gap is evident, with 10 countries accounting for almost three-quarters of the vaccines administered globally.© (AP Photo/Martin Mejia) A woman who said she's a medical worker who works directly with COVID-19 patients is stopped by police outside of the public Rebagliati Hospital in Lima, Peru, in February 2021. She complained that some people getting vaccinated don't work directly with COVID-19 patients.

In the race to control the pandemic and reach herd immunity, countries in the Global South are being charged more than countries in the Global North. AstraZeneca, for example, charges US$5.25 per dose to South Africa compared to US$2.16 to the European Union.

Vaccine acquisition and distribution are also presenting different problems for different countries.

In Canada, managers of long-term care homes and their relatives allegedly queue-jumped to obtain early access to vaccines over more vulnerable people. In Germany, politicians were found to be skipping the vaccination line, while in Peru, a vaccination scandal dubbed VacunaGate has erupted.

It involves former president Martin Vizcarra and his wife, former ministers of health and foreign affairs, vice-ministers, negotiators, high-profile lobbyists and family members of those in charge of the clinical trial meant to test the efficacy of the Chinese Sinopharm vaccine.

Almost 500 people jumped the queue and obtained an early “courtesy” dose of the Sinopharm vaccine while still negotiating with the company. The Chinese firm provided more doses than those required for the trial and received a conditional sanitary registry under irregular circumstances.
Peruvian corruption

This episode is just the latest in a long history of corruption in Peru that has stirred public outrage. More than a million Peruvians have been infected with COVID-19 and almost 50,000 have died.

Some of the queue-jumpers — those directly implicated in the negotiation process with Sinopharm — may face three to eight years in jail. Public servants who obtained “courtesy” vaccines for themselves or others might be charged with corruption. If any of those officials requested or accepted something in return for those vaccines, their actions might qualify as bribery.

Civil servants who unduly favour one company over others and company officials acting as counterparts in these negotiations may be charged with collusion. Not everyone who obtained courtesy vaccines has the same degree of criminal responsibility and will face the same potential criminal repercussions, raising questions about how we determine what’s immoral conduct, illegal misconduct or both

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The legal questions are still up in the air, and currently a substantial investigation is underway. The scandal also raises concerns about Sinopharm’s practices because it’s the company that provided those extra shots to politicians, their family members, lobbyists and even the Pope’s representative in Peru.
The clinical trials

Clinical trials happen in multiple phases. Phase 1 tests safety. Participants in Phase 1 are usually given small doses of the vaccine and researchers will look for side-effects that occur.

Phase 2 looks for utility. Participants in Phase 2 are usually divided into groups who are given different doses of the vaccine, and researchers will determine which dose appears to provide the most protection, if any.

Phase 3 tests the optimal effectiveness of the final product. Participants in Phase 3 are given the most effective dose established in Phase 2 and researchers examine whether this dose is adequately effective on large populations.

Read more: Explainer: How clinical trials test COVID-19 vaccines

The trials that took place in Peru beginning in September were Phase 3 trials. Sinopharm had completed up to Phase 2 before then, but not Phase 3.

For both Canada and Peru, a critical part of research ethics is the principle known as equipoise. Equipoise states that trials are only ethical if there is genuine uncertainty that the intervention in question is more effective than the current standard of care for the target population.

For these Phase 3 Peruvian trials, the intervention in question is the Sinopharm vaccine, and the standard of care is nothing because Peru had not approved other vaccines at that time. Because there was no standard of care to compare it to, such as other vaccines, the Sinopharm vaccine was compared against a placebo.

If Sinopharm presented these “courtesy” vaccines as samples, it implies that they were known to be adequately effective even before Phase 3 trials were complete. If they were known to be adequately effective, it was unethical for Sinopharm to have conducted a trial to analyze their efficacy in Peru because that would violate equipoise principles.

On the other hand, this was a new Phase 3 trial that passed an ethics review. That means the more likely option is that Sinopharm did not know the vaccines were adequately effective when they offered them to politicians.

This suggests Sinopharm might have provided untested vaccines to people outside of the trial. This is also unethical because it is dangerous and can undermine the scientific integrity of the trial. Either way, the two acts of giving “courtesy” vaccinations while simultaneously conducting a clinical trial violate commonly upheld ethical guidelines.

The danger of confidentiality

It is common practice for pharmaceutical companies to demand confidentiality clauses in their contracts with governments. For this reason, countries like Canada and Peru are unable to release all relevant information about these contracts to the public.

But how these deals are reached and what pharmaceutical companies do to win them should worry us. Due to the world shortage of vaccines, some countries might be in a poor bargaining position compared to their peers or pharmaceutical companies© (AP Photo/Martin Mejia) An Air Force member closes her eyes while getting a shot of Pfizer’s vaccine for COVID-19 at a military base in Lima, Peru, in March 2021.

Simultaneously, some pharmaceutical companies might also take advantage of the inability of some governments to properly tackle corruption to win over those markets when competing with other pharmaceuticals. Vaccination queue-jumping and “courtesy” samples can lead to quid pro quo arrangements to the detriment of fair and transparent vaccination rollouts.

The Peruvian revelations have caused a massive uproar in the South American country. But they could also be a wake-up call for all nations to allow further investigations regarding Sinopharm’s business practices around the world.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Denisse Rodriguez-Olivari receives funding from DAAD (German Academic Exchange Service).

Jorge H. Sanchez-Perez and Leanne Woodward do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

NO COLLABORATION WITH AGENTS OF THE STATE

Collaboration with police divides social workers across US

© Provided by The Canadian Press

CHICAGO — Rayshard Brooks was killed last June when Atlanta police responding to a report of a man asleep in a car blocking a drive-thru shot him as he tried to run away. Later that summer, a similar situation in Eugene, Oregon, ended much differently: A man reported sleeping in a car was sent home in a cab.

The key? A mobile crisis intervention team designed to be an alternative to police in nonviolent crises responded to the parking lot, calmed the man, contacted his family and called the taxi.

“I think all the time about how that could've ended differently if police responded instead,” said social work master’s student Michelle Perin, an EMT and crisis worker for the team known as CAHOOTS, short for Crisis Assistance Helping Out On The Streets.


Social workers have long worked alongside law enforcement, often treating clients in prisons and jails, inpatient psychiatric facilities and immigration detention centres. A 2020 report on reimagining policing by the National Association of Social Workers suggests collaboration could strengthen public safety, reduce racist incidents and improve the relationship between law enforcement and communities of colour.

Perin said CAHOOTS works independently, but is fully funded by police with members dispatched through the Eugene police-fire-ambulance communications centre. Police and firefighters can call for CAHOOTS and, in some cases, CAHOOTS workers may call police if a person seems a danger to themselves or others.

Following high-profile police brutality cases, cities including Denver, New York City, Chicago and Seattle, are exploring similar programs with the philosophy that dispatching social workers and mental health professionals alongside — or in lieu of — law enforcement could prevent police brutality.

But as cities look to these alternatives in reimagining policing, many social workers are warning increased collaboration with law enforcement risks further harming communities of colour — and ignores the deep history of systemic racism within social work itself.

Leigh-Anne Francis, an associate professor of African American studies and women, gender and sexuality studies at The College of New Jersey, said offering social workers as a quick fix to systemic racism is flawed, considering the field’s own legacy, tied to its origins in the 1900s.

“The prevailing narrative was that Black people were genetically defective and couldn’t be helped through social work because they were morally corrupt, poisoned,” Francis said. “They were irredeemable.”

While she said many are quick to see social workers as inherently good, the ghosts of systemically racist policies — like the 1958 Indian Adoption Project to break up Indigenous families and the embrace of the eugenics movement to root out what social workers saw as undesirable traits, including being Black — linger in the predominantly white field today.

Social workers contribute to the criminalization and mass incarceration of people of colour, said Julia Lyon, a Pennsylvania social worker and member of Social Service Workers United. She sees racism almost every day in social workers’ evaluations of clients, saying they’re more likely to place blame on people of colour and advocate for their punishment.

“If you are a Black boy in Philadelphia who’s acting out, there are going to be very different explanations as to why you’re acting out compared to a white boy in the wealthy suburbs,” she said.

Social worker Deana Ayers from Minneapolis said, at its worst, a system in which social workers collaborate with police or replace them in certain situations would be policing with a different name.

“If we’re trying to have social workers solve all these societal problems and be some kind of Band-Aid, then we also have to be doing the work within social work to get rid of this deep-seated, baked-in racism,” Ayers said. “Otherwise, social workers are just going to be police without guns.”

But advocates of collaboration between social workers and police point to how ingrained law enforcement is into American society as evidence of the need for acting within that framework.

“I just think it’s difficult in the current society we live in to say we can’t work with police officers when they’re so embedded in our communities right now,” NASW North Carolina executive director Valerie Arendt said. “I think social workers can and do amazing work within these systems.”

Lucas Cooper, chief of Alexandria, Kentucky's police department, said the department hired its first social worker in 2016 and now employs two alongside 17 full-time officers. While Cooper at first opposed the plan, wanting more officers instead, he now sees the program as essential and a step in the right direction in confronting flaws within policing.

“They bring a different skillset to the table," he said. "We don't know the ins and outs of that world and what social services are available. They fill in a lot of gaps.”

But Leah Jacobs, an assistant professor at the University of Pittsburgh's School of Social Work, says there’s little research to suggest that collaboration between police and social workers is effective.

“In fact, there is some evidence saying that the opposite may be true, that when you have greater collaboration with police, it can lead to poorer outcomes and greater harm,” she said.

Instead of perpetuating what they see as punishment-based approaches, opponents of police and social workers recommend more investment in community-based intervention.

In her recent paper “Defund the Police: Moving Towards an Anti-Carceral Social Work,” Jacobs lists examples of these creative interventions, including restorative justice programs at schools that emphasize mediating conflict resolution and providing alternatives to detention and suspension.

Scott Roberts, senior director of criminal justice campaigns for Color Of Change — the nation’s largest digital racial justice advocacy group — said interventions should be tailored to the needs of individual communities and, as a result, may look completely different from one community to the next.

“When we say we want to change policing, we’re not saying to just plug in other institutions like social work,” he said. “We have to reimagine policing and public safety, including social work.”

Perin acknowledges she’s cautious when it comes to initiatives that are “pet projects within the police department with social workers tagging alongside,” but sees the need for immediate practical action.

“If we could tear down policing and build something different now, we should. But that’s not the reality," Perin said. “We need to work toward breaking down the system at the same time as preventing harm now.”

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Fernando is a member of The Associated Press’ Race and Ethnicity team. Follow her on Twitter at https://twitter.com/christinetfern.

Christine Fernando, The Associated Press

AMERICA'S DIRTY SECRET; THE CONFEDERACY WON

Four Tennessee Republicans vote against removing slavery from the state constitution

Swikar Oli 

3/19/2021

On the matter of removing ‘slavery’ as punishment from the state’s constitution, four Tennessee senate Republicans took exception

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© Provided by National Post Tennessee State Senator Brian Kelsey, R-Germantown, was one of four Republicans to vote against a bill that would remove 'slavery' as punishment for crimes from the state's constitution

Members Joey Hensley, Janice Bowling, Brian Kelsey, and Frank Nicely on March 15 voted against a bill put forward by Democrat Sen. Raumesh Akbari that would remove a constitutional clause allowing slavery as punishment for a crime.

“Slavery and involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime, whereof the party shall have been duly convicted , are forever prohibited in this state,” states Article I Section 33 of the Tennessee constitution.

With Akbari’s bill, voters will have the option to remove that section and instead amend the constitution to make clear that slavery and involuntary servitude is banned throughout Tennessee.

A line in the bill further states, at the request of the Department of Correction, that “nothing in this section shall prohibit an inmate from working when the inmate has been duly convicted of a crime”.

Vermont lawmakers seek to remove slavery from constitution

Iowa Republicans ponder changes to anti-slave amendment

To make changes to the Tennessee constitution, the bill must pass two general assemblies each in the house and senate, first by a majority, then by two-thirds. Tennesseans will then vote in a ballot measure to ultimately decide whether to ratify the proposed amendment in a gubernatorial election.

Kelsey, a white Republican from Memphis, told WREG news he decided to vote against the bill because it added no further restrictions on slavery to the law.

Hensley said, “I didn’t think it was necessary because the constitution already says slavery will be forever prohibited.”

Akbari, a black Democrat also from Memphis, said the bill “closes [a] loophole.”

“There’s a difference between working and slavery,” she explained . “I’ve worked, I’ve never been a slave.”

Curiously, the 13th amendment of the U.S. federal constitution, which abolished slavery, created a similar loophole.

The amendment, passed in 1865, proclaims, “neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.”

Tennessee seceded from the Union in 1861, during the American Civil War, and was the 20th state, on April 7, 1865, to ratify the 13th amendment of the federal constitution. In 1860, nearly 25 per cent of the state population, or 275,719 people, were held as slaves.

Akbari said the reason for her provision is because “it will make an impact.”

“It will close a loophole that will forever eliminate any exception for slavery in the state of Tennessee, and I think that’s what we want, and that’s a strong message we can send as a state.”

German archbishop offers to resign after abuse criticism
1 day ago

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COLOGNE, Germany — A report commissioned by Germany’s Cologne archdiocese on church officials’ handling of past cases of sexual abuse found 75 cases in which high-ranking officials neglected their duties. The findings on Thursday prompted the archbishop of Hamburg to offer his resignation to Pope Francis.

© Provided by The Canadian Press

The report commissioned by Cologne's archbishop, Cardinal Rainer Maria Woelki, absolved Woelki himself of any neglect of duty with respect to abuse victims

However, Woelki’s late predecessor, Cardinal Joachim Meisner, was accused of two dozen instances of wrongdoing such as failing to follow up on or report cases of abuse, not sanctioning perpetrators or not caring for victims. Meisner retired in 2014 and died in 2017.

Hamburg Archbishop Stefan Hesse, previously a senior church official in Cologne, was faulted for 11 cases of neglecting his duty.

Later Thursday, Hesse posted a video statement in which he conceded that he had made “mistakes” in the past, and said he very much regretted if he caused new suffering to victims or their relatives “through my action or omission.”

“I never participated in coverups,” he said. “I am nevertheless prepared to carry my part of the responsibility for the failure of the system.”

“To prevent damage to the office of the archbishop and to the Hamburg archdiocese, I am offering my resignation to Pope Francis, and I am asking him to relieve me of my duties immediately,” he said.

There was no immediate comment from the Vatican, and it was unlikely Francis would act quickly on Hesse’s offer. At 54 years old, Hesse is more than 20 years away from the normal retirement age for bishops. Francis has previously declined, at least initially, to accept resignations when they were offered to repent for mishandling sex abuse cases, though he has relented after time.

The lawyer in charge of the report, Bjoern Gercke, told reporters in Cologne that his investigation touched on the cases of 314 abuse victims — a majority of them boys under the age of 14 at the time of the abuse — and 202 people accused of abuse in the Cologne diocese since 1975.

The focus wasn’t so much on what the suspects did to the victims, but more on whether the church — former and current archbishops, vicars-general and other high-ranking church officials — responded correctly to accusations of abuse.

Altogether, the report found 75 cases in which eight high-ranking officials neglected their duties to either follow up on, report or sanction cases of alleged abuse by clergy and lay church employees, and failed to take care of the victims.

Woelki infuriated many local Catholics over recent months by citing legal concerns to keep under wraps a first report on how local church officials reacted when priests were accused of sexual abuse. He commissioned the new report — an 800-page investigation based on church files and put together by a German law firm.

Gercke said the first report, by a Munich law firm, also had concluded that the current archbishop wasn't guilty of any wrongdoing. The Cologne archdiocese has the most Catholics of any in Germany, some 1.9 million.

In a first response to the new report, Woelki said the investigation confirmed his fears that high-ranking officials were guilty of not having reported perpetrators and thereby preventing their prosecution.

“My predecessors, too, are guilty — as of today it is no longer possible to say 'We didn’t know,’” Woelki said, adding that he would send the report to the Holy See in Rome.

Woelki said he also would temporarily suspend two Cologne church officials based on the findings of the investigation. One of them, Auxiliary Bishop Dominikus Schwaderlapp, also said he had offered his resignation to the pope. The report found Schwaderlapp neglected his duty to inform and report abuse allegations in eight cases.

German Justice Minister Christine Lambrecht said the report demonstrated anew “what horrific sexual violence children and teenagers had to suffer in Catholic institutions.”

“Child abuse is not an internal church matter, but a crime that must be examined and decided by criminal courts,” the minister said.

Jens Windel, 46, the founder of a support group for clergy abuse survivors, watched a livestream of the news conference about the report on his laptop with other victims outside Cologne's landmark cathedral.

The report, he said, “trivializes the severity of the coverups that took place.”

There has been fierce criticism of Woelki's handing of the previous report. The head of the German Bishops’ Conference, Limburg Bishop Georg Baetzing, last month described the crisis management in Cologne as a “disaster.”

A Cologne court last month announced that it was raising the number of appointments available for people seeking to formally leave the church to 1,500 per month from 1,000 starting in March, amid strong demand.

Revelations about past sexual abuse have dogged the church in Germany and elsewhere for years.

In 2018, a church-commissioned report concluded that at least 3,677 people were abused by clergy in Germany between 1946 and 2014. More than half of the victims were 13 or younger when the abuse took place, and nearly a third of them were altar boys.

In January, a new system drawn up by the church to compensate abuse victims took effect. It provides for payments of up to about 50,000 euros (nearly $60,000) to each person. Under a previous system in place since 2011, payments averaged about 5,000 euros.

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Kirsten Grieshaber reported from Berlin. Geir Moulson in Berlin and Nicole Winfield in Rome contributed to this report.

Kirsten Grieshaber And Daniel Niemann, The Associated Press

#NOTOKYOOLYMPICS

Tokyo Olympics: Yet another scandal over sexist comments

A University of Oxford study says Tokyo is the most expensive Olympics on record.

3/19/2021


TOKYO — In yet another setback for the postponed Tokyo Olympics — and another involving comments about women — games' creative director Hiroshi Sasaki resigned on Thursday after making demeaning comments about a well-known female celebrity in Japan.

© Provided by The Canadian Press

The Tokyo Olympics are scheduled to open in just over four months, dogged by the coronavirus pandemic, record costs, and numerous scandals. And all of this converges as the Olympic torch relay starts next week from northeastern Japan, a risky venture with 10,000 runners set to crisscross Japan for four months.

When the International Olympic Committee awarded Japan the games 7 1/2 years ago, Tokyo billed itself as “a safe pair of hands.” It has evolved into anything but that.

Japanese organizers did well with initial planning and organization. But they have been buffeted by the pandemic and seem snake-bitten with the Olympics causing new problems and more expenses almost daily. Support has plummeted with various polls suggesting about 80% of Japanese want the Olympics cancelled or postponed again. They cite the costs and the risks of holding the mega-event during a pandemic.

“The IOC and Japanese politics are male-dominated territories,” Dr. Barbara Holthus, deputy director of the German Institute for Japanese Studies in Tokyo, told The Associated Press. “Japanese politicians have a long history of furthering gender inequalities — besides many other inequalities.”

In February, the president of the organizing committee Yoshiro Mori was forced to resign after making sexist comments, saying women talk too much in meetings.

Two years ago, the head of the Japanese Olympic Committee Tsunekazu Takeda was also forced to step down in a bribery scandal connected to vote-buying involving IOC members.

Sasaki was in charge of the opening and closing ceremonies for the Olympics, which are scheduled to begin on July 23. He also designed the Tokyo handover ceremony at the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, and arranged a one-year-to-go event in July at Tokyo's new National Stadium.

Last year he suggested to planning staff members in online “brainstorming exchanges” that well-known entertainer Naomi Watanabe could perform in the ceremony as an “Olympig.”

Watanabe is a heavy-set young woman, a fashion icon, and very famous in Japan. Sasaki's “Olympig” reference was an obvious play on the word “Olympic.”

The story was first reported by the weekly magazine Bunshun, and the corresponding controversy took off almost instantly.

Tokyo Governor Yuriko Koike called Sasaki's comments "extremely embarrassing,”

“When we are talking about what we deliver from Tokyo, or from Japan, we shouldn’t be sending a negative message," Koike said Thursday.

Sasaki released a statement saying he was stepping down. He said he had also called Seiko Hashimoto, the president of the organizing committee, and tendered his resignation.

“For Ms. Naomi Watanabe, my idea and comments are a big insult. And it is unforgivable," Sasaki said. "I offer my deepest regrets and apologize from the depth of my heart to her, and those who may have been offended by this.”

“It is truly regrettable, and I apologize from the bottom of my heart,"

Hashimoto said in a Thursday news conference that she had accepted his resignation. She said a replacement would come quickly, and also indicated she had tried to persuade him to stay.

“I did feel that way but he explained, and his intention was very strong,” Hashimoto said. “That is how I felt. For those reasons I decided to accept his resignation.”

Hashimoto also said she talked with IOC member John Coates, who oversees preparations for Tokyo.

“The IOC also received the (magazine) article and they were quite concerned," Hashimoto said.

Hashimoto, who has appeared in seven Olympics and won a bronze medal in 1992, took over a month ago when Mori made similar sexist comments and was forced out. Hashimoto has acted quickly and appointed 12 women to the organizing committee's executive board, increasing female membership to 42%. It had been 20%.

Sasaki formerly worked for the giant Japanese advertising company Dentsu Inc., which has been a key supporter of these Olympics. It is the official marketing partner and has helped to raise a record of $3.5 billion in local sponsorship, almost three times as much as any previous Olympics.

The torch relay for the Olympics kicks off next week from northeastern Japan and will be a severe test with 10,000 runners crisscrossing Japan for four months, heading to the opening ceremony and trying to avoid spreading COVID-19. Japan has controlled the virus better than most countries and has attributed about 8,700 deaths to the virus.

Organizers and the IOC insist the Olympics will go forward during the pandemic with 11,000 Olympic and 4,400 Paralympic athletes entering Japan. Official costs for Tokyo are $15.4 billion but several government audits show the real cost might be twice that much.

A University of Oxford study says Tokyo is the most expensive Olympics on record.

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AP reporter Mari Yamaguchi also contributed to this story.

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P Olympics: https://apnews.com/hub/olympic-games and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports

Stephen Wade And Yuri Kageyama, The Associated Press

NATIONALIZE BIG PHARMA

Pfizer CFO hints at raising COVID-19 vaccine price, but company says ‘too early’ to tell
A high-ranking Pfizer official touted "significant opportunity" for the pharmaceutical giant to increase the price of its COVID-19 vaccine once the spread of the virus shifts from pandemic to endemic, but Pfizer says it's "too early to speculate."

© Provided by Global News SLOVENIA - 2021/02/15: In this photo illustration vials containing Pfizer-BioNtech, Moderna and AstraZeneca covid-19 vaccines that are currently available in Slovenia. (Photo Illustration by Luka Dakskobler/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)

Speaking to investors during the virtual Barclays Global Healthcare Conference last week, Frank A. D'Amelio, Pfizer's CFO and executive vice-president of global supply, said the pharmaceutical giant was selling its vaccines at "pandemic pricing," indicating that could change once most of the world had received its first dose.

“So the one price that we published is the price with the U.S. of $19.50 per dose. Obviously, that’s not a normal price like we typically get for a vaccine, $150, $175 per dose,” he said.

Read more: Federal government to pay for COVID-19 vaccine costs as Canada’s death toll surpasses 13K

According to D'Amelio, current demand and current pricing has so far been driven by the "pandemic state that we've been in and the needs of governments to really secure doses from the various vaccine suppliers."

But once that demand dies down, he said factors like efficacy, booster ability and clinical utility will become "very important" and "normal market conditions will start to kick in."

"We view that as, quite frankly, a significant opportunity for our vaccine from a demand perspective, from a pricing perspective, given the clinical profile of our vaccine," D'Amelio said.

However, Pfizer has said that it's too soon to tell what the price of the vaccine could be once the spread of the virus was no longer labelled a pandemic, adding that they were "committed to the principle of equitable and affordable access" of its COVID-19 vaccine around the world.

"We have clearly stated in our public disclosures that we anticipate a pandemic phase that could last into 2022, where governments will be the primary purchasers of our vaccine," they said in an emailed statement to Global News.

Canada to receive 1M Pfizer vaccine doses per week until early May

"We recognize the urgent need for people all over the world to receive this vaccine and have accordingly set the price of our vaccine for the pandemic period to encourage broad access, rather than using traditional value-based pricing frameworks."

The pharmaceutical company's comments come as countries across the globe ramp up their vaccination campaigns and COVAX, a vaccine alliance initiative backed by the World Health Organization, works to deliver vaccines to low-income countries.

Read more: COVAX donates first AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccines to Nicaragua

In Canada, the cost of the vaccines is covered by the federal government. Even if the price of the vaccine increases, Health Canada told Global News "COVID-19 vaccines will be free."

"As more vaccines are made and distributed, we expect to be able to offer free vaccination to every Canadian who wants one," the agency said in an emailed statement to Global News.

"We know that we live in a global community, so we have committed to making sure low and middle-income economies around the world will also have access to safe and effective COVID-19 vaccine(s). Until we're all protected, we're still at risk of a resurgence of illness from COVID-19."

Read more: Moderna begins testing its COVID-19 vaccine on young children

The federal government has an agreement with Pfizer-BioNtech for up to 76 million COVID-19 vaccines. On Friday, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced that Canada would begin receiving at least one million doses from Pfizer per week between March 22 and May 10.

Kerry Bowman, a professor of bioethics and global health at the University of Toronto, told Global News that D'Amelio's comments raise some ethical questions.

"Can we really distinguish between what's an emergency and what's not? Is that going to be a clear definition or is that always going to be debatable and an element of struggle?" he said.





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When asked if there was any point in which it would be ethical to increase the price of a COVID-19 vaccine, Bowman replied "not during a pandemic."

He said lower-income countries who aren't able to keep up with rising costs would be at the mercy of the virus, while higher-income countries footing the bill for vaccinations could be forced to make citizens pay for their shots.

"If the price were to really, really take off, we run the risk of some significant global inequalities," he said.

CULTURAL GENOCIDE THE REAL CANCEL CULTURE

Arizona Democrat reintroduces bill to protect sacred Apache site from planned copper mine

"It's like Mount Sinai for us. If it's destroyed the way it will be, a people and a religion will forever be destroyed," 

By Sahar Akbarzai, CNN 3/18/2021

An Arizona House Democrat reintroduced legislation this week to permanently protect a sacred Apache site in the state from a mining company that's planning to build a copper mine there

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© Kevin Cassadore Oak Flat in Superior, Arizona. A sacred site to the San Carlos Apache and several other Native American tribes, Oak Flat is threatened due to a land exchange provision included in the National Defense Authorization Act of 2015 that would open the site up to mining.

Rep. Raúl Grijalva introduced the Save Oak Flat Act on Monday to provide permanent protection for Oak Flat, or Chi'chil Bildagoteel, in the Tonto National Forest in Arizona. The congressman also introduced the act in 2015, 2017 and 2019; it's never made it to a House floor vote.

Oak Flat, utilized for religious and traditional ceremonies, is considered a sacred place for many Apache tribes, including the San Carlos Apache, which has been fighting the Resolution Copper project for years. Led by mining companies Rio Tinto and BHP, Resolution Copper would use Oak Flat land for an underground mine.

"I will work to move this bill forward, this land is going to be protected, and we're going to establish that you don't get to push around Native American communities just because you can make a profit," Grijalva, the chairman of the House Natural Resources Committee, said in a statement on Monday.

The reintroduction of the bill comes two weeks after the Biden administration, facing mounting pressure from activists, put the brakes on a plan to transfer more than 2,400 acres of Oak Flat to Resolution Copper as part of a land exchange that was completed during the waning days of the Trump administration.

The land exchange was paused by the US Forest Service at the direction of the US Department of Agriculture, which said it wanted more time to review the concerns raised by tribes and the public, as well as to determine the mining project's impacts on environmental resources and to "ensure the agency's compliance with federal law."

© Anna Jeffery Wendsler Nosie Sr. and his daughter Vanessa Nosie

 in Oak Flat at the sixth annual march to protect the site, in 2020.

The department also cited President Joe Biden's recent "Memorandum on Tribal Consultation and Strengthening Nation-to-Nation Relationships," which, it says, "counsels in favor of ensuring the Forest Service has complied with the environmental, cultural, and archaeological analyses required," according to the USDA.

The land transfer was initially authorized under a late-night rider to the National Defense Authorization Act of 2015. Grijalva's bill would repeal the section of that law that authorized the land transfer.

The legislation would withdraw Oak Flat from being affected by public land laws and all laws pertaining to mining or mineral materials. It aims to ensure Oak Flat is preserved forever and to secure the land from any mining or digging. The bill highlights that Oak Flat is a place of worship for Native tribes in the region, and that Oak Flat is listed in the National Register of Historic Places.

The planned mining on Oak Flat would be conducted through an underground method called block caving. Through this method, a section of ore is undercut, causing it to collapse under its weight, according to a spokesperson for Resolution Copper. The copper deposits range from 5,000 to 7,000 feet below the surface, according to Andrew Lye, Resolution Copper project director. The project is estimated to produce as much as 40 billion pounds of copper over 40 years.

But the project would come with significant negative environmental impacts, according to Grijalva's bill, which says the mining would destroy the sacred site.

The legislation says the project would also deplete and contaminate "precious water resources; and require significant quantities of water, which will likely affect the local hydrology, including the underlying aquifer; and result in polluted water that will seep into drinking water supplies."

In response, a Resolution Copper spokesperson said, "Resolution Copper has been monitoring surface and groundwater for more than a decade, and we will comply with all groundwater and surface water quality standards." The company didn't comment as to whether the mining would destroy the sacred site.

The spokesperson told CNN the company recognizes "the importance of balancing these outcomes with ongoing consultation with local communities and Native American Tribes to guide further shaping of the project, minimize impacts and build on the benefits it will deliver."

The Apache believe Oak Flat is holy ground because it's where angels and deities in their religion live. Sacred water, plants and ingredients that can't be reconstructed or replaced are also on the land, according to Apaches.

"It's really our identity, our religious identity, before we were exiled out of these areas (out of Oak Flat)," said Wendsler Nosie Sr., a former chairman of the San Carlos Apache tribe.

"It's like Mount Sinai for us. If it's destroyed the way it will be, a people and a religion will forever be destroyed," he added.

Apache groups have taken their fight to protect Oak Flat to the courts, filing three suits against the federal government earlier this year. All are still being litigated.

"This isn't the United States' land to give away. This is a great opportunity for us to begin reconciliation, which is the theme of the Biden administration," Michael Nixon, an attorney for Apache Stronghold, one of the groups that filed a lawsuit, told CNN.

There are "unresolved reconciliations to be made with Native Americans; this is an opportunity for leaders in Congress and for President Biden, his administration, to change and reconcile the inhumane and immoral treatment of Apaches and all Native Americans," he said. "This is a golden opportunity, not a copper one."

Apache Stronghold's lawsuit, filed in January, argues the US doesn't have the power to transfer Oak Flat because the federal government doesn't own the land, under the 1852 Treaty of Santa Fe, which guarantees land, property and rights in Oak Flat to Apache nations.

Nixon applauded the congressman's legislation, saying: "There's a justice endeavor to Rep. Grijalva's act and it is welcomed, and it's admirable."

Lebanon: Specter of civil conflict looms as economic meltdown gives way to violence

By Tamara Qiblawi, 

CNN 2 hrs ago


In Lebanon, fistfights break out in supermarkets on a nearly daily basis. Long lines snake out of the few gas stations that remain open. Pharmacies have threatened to shutter. Gunfights inexplicably erupt in various parts of the capital. Angry demonstrators have blocked roads around the country, tightening an already stifling economic stranglehold

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© ANWAR AMRO/AFP/Getty Images A makeshift roadblock set up by anti-government protesters next to the Mohammed al-Amin Mosque in Beirut's Martyrs' Square on March 8.

The infernal scenes threaten to take a turn for the worse.

Increasingly, Lebanon's officials and politicians raise the specter of internal conflict. This comes just 31 years after the end of the country's gruesome 15-year civil war. That black chapter was drawn to a close by a modus vivendi that critics say systematized government corruption, culminating in a financial meltdown that has brought Lebanon, once again, to the brink.

In a statement to CNN this week, Lebanon's caretaker interior minister Mohammed Fahmi said there was a heightened probability of "security breaches such as explosions and assassination attempts" in the country.

That fear is echoed by many high-profile politicians who cite conversations with intelligence agents. In a televised speech on Wednesday, Iran-backed Hezbollah's secretary general Hassan Nasrallah also warned of civil war, drawing a bleak prognosis of the security situation, and calling on the country's fractured political class to band together to stymy the financial tailspin.

But on Lebanon's streets, that same political elite is overwhelmingly unpopular. Even ardent supporters of mainstream parties call for an overhaul of the country's confessional power sharing system, which allots seats by sectarian group. MPs publicly admit their failures, and some of them say that they, too, ought to step down. Leftist groups, such as the communist party, have called for an "escalation" in the country's popular uprising, which began in October 2019 with the aim of overthrowing the ruling class.

But there is little to no agreement about the future of governance in the country. A cabinet formation process has been in deadlock for four months over disputes between Prime Minister-designate Saad Hariri and President Michel Aoun. Hariri has promised that his future government would stop Lebanon's collapse and reengage with the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which last year stopped negotiations with the government over a bailout.

But Hariri faces the grueling task of ushering in stinging economic reforms at a time when his popular mandate has greatly diminished. The fledgling parties that have cropped up in recent years in a bid to replace the elite also appear to lack the political clout needed to dislodge the status quo.

That crisis of leadership has exacerbated Lebanon's financial woes on a spectacular scale. In its Fall 2020 report, the World Bank described Lebanon's economic depression as "deliberate."

The report details exactly what that means: A rapid deceleration of economic growth, a tanking currency, small depositors bearing the lion's share of economic losses, a stunning depletion of the country's resources including its human capital, and a poverty rate surpassing 50% in 2021.

The catastrophe could have been largely avoided, the World Bank says. Lebanon's leaders have -- to the shock of even some of the most cynical observers -- steered clear of enacting policies that could mitigate the financial decline.

The state has done little to nothing to alleviate poverty. Formal capital controls have not been implemented, nearly a year and a half after banks began to limit cash withdrawals to depositors on a discretionary basis. That practice that prompted the capital flight of the super-rich, while the working and middle classes helplessly watched their deposits lost most of their real value.

© Bilal Hussein/AP Protesters in Beirut climb a wall installed to prevent them from reaching parliament on March 13.

The country also does not have an official exchange rate platform, leaving the plummeting lira at the mercy of shadowy black markets and the ever-present possibility of currency manipulation.

The economic outlook gets bleaker on a nearly daily basis. The country's currency on the black market has now lost 90% of its October 2019 value. As Lebanon burns through its foreign reserves, caretaker energy minister Raymond Ghajar raised the possibility of 24/7 power cuts during a presser this month, immersing the country in "total darkness."

The food, fuel, and medicine subsidies that served as the country's lifeboat may also soon disappear. This week, caretaker prime minister Hassan Diab said Lebanon would scale back those subsidies and added that most of them could only be maintained until June.

The loss of subsidies could be the watershed moment that threatens to tip Lebanon over to Venezuela-like scenarios, exacerbating the existing food, fuel and medical shortages.

Families living on a minimum wage -- now less than $50 a month -- will be unable to afford basic food staples as inflation skyrockets. Already strained security forces, which must contend with the frustrations of its newly pauperized rank and file, will have to deal with growing crime rates and the possibility of long-simmering political tensions coming to a head.

The only glimmer of hope is the possibility of an imminent political resolution which in turn produces an efficient an