Finnish astrophotographer spends 1,000 hours over 12 years creating mosaic of the Milky Waymosaic of the Milky Way

By Eoin McSweeney, CNN 

3/21/2021

Capturing panoramas of the Milky Way, the galaxy in which we reside, might seem like a daunting task considering it is, according to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, about 100,000 light-years across.

© Courtesy JP Metsavainio An photo of the Sharpless 132 nebula which makes up a small part of JP Metsavainio's Milky Way mosaic completed on March 16 after 12 years of work.

But Finnish astrophotographer JP Metsavainio has spent almost 12 years stitching together 234 frames to create a mosaic of 125 degrees of sky. The panorama, which shows 20 million stars, captures the space between the Taurus and Cygnus constellations and was completed on March 16.

"Astronomical photography is one of the most difficult forms of nature photography," Metsavainio, a professional artist, told CNN Friday. "My mosaic image is generally very deep, meaning that it shows extremely dim targets and formations in gas clouds of our home galaxy, the Milky Way."

Each image in the mosaic is an independent artwork and available to see on Metsavainio's blog. He claims an image like this has never existed before, which is one of the reasons he decided to dedicate thousands of hours to the project.

Clear, dark skies away from the light pollution of cities are vital to astrophotography, the photography of astronomical objects, an activity that happens worldwide. Patience is also key, as it can take hours or even days to capture just one photo over a long exposure.

Metsavainio used a range of modified camera lenses and telescopes at his observatory in northern Finland, near the Arctic Circle. He first uses image processing software to adjust levels and color before stitching the separate panels together on Adobe PhotoShop, using stars as indicators to match the correct frames.

The astrophotographer said his favorite images are of supernova remnants, a phenomenon that forms after a star explodes. Several of them are visible in his panorama and the Cygnus Shell, a particularly dim supernova remnant which can be seen as a pale blue ring near the North America nebula, took the astrophotographer 100 hours alone to create.

His blog has had 750,000 visitors since the photo was published, up from an average of about 1,000 a day.

"The reason I keep doing my slow work is basically an endless curiosity, I love to see and show how wonderful our world really is," he told CNN. "This is lonely and slow work but every time I see the results, I'm as thrilled as the first time."

Alongside Queen guitarist and astrophysicist Brian May, Metsavainio participated in a live virtual broadcast in September hosted by the Science Museum of London. At the time he was publishing a 3-D book about cosmic clouds with the musician and Astronomy Magazine editor David J Eicher.

A devoted lover of the night sky, Metsavainio plans to continue his work but with a different lens.

"I have shot the night sky with relatively short focal length optics for the last few years," said Metsavainio. "In the future, I'll go back to a longer focal length instrument."

© Courtesy JP Metsavainio Another photo of the Sharpless 132 

nebula which makes up a small part of JP Metsavainio's Milky Way mosaic

© Studio Timo Heikkala Oy JP Metsavainio, the Finnish 

astrophotographer who created the stunning mosaic of the Milky Way.

Europe presses Turkey to rethink ditching violence-on-women pact

By Jonathan Spicer 

3/21/2021

© Reuters/UMIT BEKTAS Protest against Turkey's withdrawal from Istanbul Convention

ISTANBUL (Reuters) - European leaders criticised what they called Turkey's baffling and concerning decision to pull out of an international accord designed to protect women from violence, and urged President Tayyip Erdogan to reconsider.

Erdogan's government on Saturday withdrew from the Istanbul Convention, which it signed onto in 2011 after it was forged in Turkey's biggest city. Turkey said domestic laws, not outside fixes, would protect women's rights.

The Council of Europe accord pledged to prevent, prosecute and eliminate domestic violence and promote equality. Killings of women have surged in Turkey in recent years and thousands of women protested on Saturday against the government's move in Istanbul and other cities.

Germany, France and the European Union responded with dismay - marking the second time in four days Europe's leaders have criticised Ankara over rights issues, after a Turkish prosecutor moved to close down a pro-Kurdish political party.

"We cannot but regret deeply and express incomprehension towards the decision of the Turkish government," EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said late on Saturday.

It "risks compromising the protection and fundamental rights of women and girls in Turkey (and) sends a dangerous message across the world," he said. "We therefore cannot but urge Turkey to reverse its decision."

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen - who spoke with Erdogan a day before Turkey ditched the pact - tweeted on Sunday: "Women deserve a strong legal framework to protect them," and she called on all signatories to ratify it.

The convention had split Erdogan's ruling AK Party (AKP) and even his family. Officials floated pulling out last year amid a dispute over how to curb domestic violence in Turkey, where femicide has tripled in 10 years according to one monitoring group.

But many conservatives in Turkey and in Erdogan's Islamist-rooted AKP say the pact undermines family structures, encouraging violence. Some are also hostile to its stance against discrimination on grounds of sexual orientation.

Paris said Turkey's withdrawal marked a new regression in respect for human rights, while Berlin said neither culture, religion nor tradition could "serve as an excuse for ignoring violence against women".

The diplomatic strain comes after Europe and the United States this past week said the move to close down parliament's third-largest party, the pro-Kurdish Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP), undermined democracy in Turkey.

In their video call on Friday, Erdogan, Von der Leyen and European Council President Charles Michel discussed a dispute, which has cooled, over offshore resources in the eastern Mediterranean.

An EU summit this week will address relations with Ankara.

(Reporting by Jonathan Spicer; Editing by Frances Kerry)

Brazil coronavirus: No vaccines, 

no leadership, no end in sight. 

How nation has become a global threat

by Matt Rivers, CNN

3/21/2021

LONG READ 

The temperature read 95 degrees Fahrenheit on Tuesday, but the humidity made it feel worse. Amid the stifling late summer Rio de Janeiro heat, Silvia Silva Santos steadied her 77-year-old mother as they walked toward the clinic gate.

© Alexandre Schneider/Getty Images Medical staff transport 

a patient on a stretcher at a field hospital as coronavirus cases

 soar on March 11, 2021 in Santo Andre, Brazil.

© Provided by CNN Brazil Covid-19 crisis overwhelmed ICU 

vaccine shortage Rivers 

"We've already come here twice but she hasn't managed to get a vaccine," said Silva Santos. "She just stands in line and then there's no more vaccines and we have to leave."

At the gate, Silva Santos asked the guard if she could get her mother a vaccine. Keenly aware of CNN cameras watching, he quickly ushered her in.

About five minutes later, the pair came back out, bad news written on their faces.

"I think this is very wrong," said Silva Santos, clearly angry and frustrated. "Now we'll have to find out again when they'll have vaccines and you never know when."

That frustration rippled through the elderly crowd as person after person was denied a first dose of a vaccine, after the state of Rio de Janeiro suspended its vaccination campaign because it had run out of vaccine supplies.

"This is a disaster, a total disaster," a woman told CNN after being denied her vaccine. "Who is to blame for all this? I think our leaders, our politicians suck."


The growing perfect storm

The Covid-19 crisis in Brazil has never been worse. Nearly every Brazilian state has an ICU occupancy of 80% or higher, according to a CNN analysis of state data. As of Friday, 16 of 26 states were at or above 90%, meaning those health systems have collapsed or are at imminent risk of doing so.

The seven-day averages of both new cases and new deaths are higher than they have ever been.

In the last 10 days, about a quarter of all coronavirus deaths worldwide have been recorded in Brazil, according to CNN analysis.

"They are clear signs that we are in a phase of very critical acceleration of the epidemic and it is unprecedented," said Jesem Orellana, a Brazilian epidemiologist.

If vaccines are the ultimate way out from this global pandemic, Brazil has a long way to go to seeing this through.

As of Friday, less than 10 million people in the country of about 220 million had received at least one dose, according to federal health data. Only 1.57% of the population had been fully vaccinated.

That is the result of a slow rollout program that has been plagued by delays. During the announcement of its distribution plan in early February, the government promised some 46 million vaccine doses to be available in March. It's been repeatedly forced to lower that number, now estimating only 26 million by month's end.

In-country production of what the governments says will eventually be hundreds of millions of doses of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine only just got off the ground. The first 500,000 doses were delivered and celebrated by top Ministry of Health officials in Rio de Janeiro this week, despite being months behind schedule.

"[There are] no vaccines in an amount that would really make an impact right now," said Natalia Pasternak, a Brazilian microbiologist, who said it won't be until well into the second half of the year before enough vaccines are available to make a substantive impact on the epidemic.

If vaccines are to remain in short supply for the foreseeable future, the only remaining ways to control the epidemic's exponential growth in Brazil are the methods the world has heard ad nauseam -- social distancing, no large crowds, restricted movements and good hygiene.

But in many places throughout Brazil, that is just not happening. In bustling Rio de Janeiro, it is easy to find maskless crowds walking the streets, conversing in close quarters.

Though the city's famed beaches are closed this weekend, restaurants and bars can still be open until 9 p.m., many likely to be filled to capacity.

Many states have imposed much harsher restrictions including nighttime curfews, but local leaders are fighting against federal leadership, or a lack thereof, determined to keep things open.

President Jair Bolsonaro, a Covid-19 skeptic who has mocked the efficacy of vaccines and hasn't publicly taken one himself, announced Thursday that he would be taking legal action against certain states in the country's Supreme Court, claiming the only person who can decree curfews is him -- something he has promised never to do.

Despite thousands of people dying from the virus each day, he claims the real threat is from the economic harm virus-prompted restrictions can impose.

Millions of his supporters are following his lead, openly flaunting local regulations of social distancing and mask wearing.

All of this would be concerning enough on its own, but it is exacerbated by a deeply concerning reality -- the spread of Covid-19 variants.

'People don't realize how much worse P.1 is'

The P.1 variant was first discovered in Japan. Health authorities detected the viral mutation in multiple travelers that were returning from Amazonas state, an isolated region in Brazil's north replete with rainforest.

CNN reported from the region in late January, where a brutal second wave of Covid-19 was decimating the city of Manaus.

Nearly two months later, more and more research points to the P.1 variant as a crucial factor not only in the Manaus outbreak but in the nationwide crisis Brazil faces today.

A study from Brazil's top medical research foundation, Fiocruz, from early March found that of eight Brazilian states studied, Covid-19 variants including P.1 were prevalent in at least 50% of new cases.

The variant is widely agreed to be more easily transmissible, up to 2.2 times so according to a recent study. That is more transmissible than the widely discussed B.1.1.7 variant first identified in the United Kingdom, which is up to 1.7 times more transmissible, according to a December study.

That same study also found that people are 25% to 65% more likely to evade existing protective immunity from previous non-P.1 infections.

Finally, there remain concerns the different vaccines might not be as effective against the P.1 variant.

Though a recent study from the UK did find that the "existing vaccines may protect against the Brazilian coronavirus variant," CNN spoke to several epidemiologists who remain concerned.

"The world has not awoken the dire potential reality that P1 variant could represent," said Dr. Eric Feigl-Ding, an epidemiologist. "People don't realize how much worse P1 is."


Brazil is becoming a global hazard

Amidst Brazil's unmitigated viral spread lies two additional, distinct threats.

One, the easier export of the existing P.1 variant abroad. It's already in at least two dozen countries and counting and international travel to and from Brazil is still open to for most countries.

Two, if the P.1 variant was created here, so can others.

"The pandemic being out of control in Brazil caused the variant," said Pasternak, the Brazilian microbiologist. "And it's going to cause more variants. It's going to cause more mutations because this is what happens when you let the virus replicate freely."

Under the laws of viral evolution, new variants are created to try and allow the virus to spread more easily. Along the way, more dangerous iterations can be created.

"More variants mean that there is a greater probability that one of these variants can really escape all vaccines, for instance," said Pasternak. "It's rare, but it could happen."

That, she says, makes Brazil a global hazard, not just to its neighboring countries but to others around the world.

"All of this together should raise the alarms in every country around the world that we must help Brazil contain P1, lest we all suffer the same fate of the collapsing Brazilian hospital system," said Dr. Feigl-Ding.

With a lack of a vaccines and a government unwilling to take the steps necessary to prevent that from happening, it is unclear how things get better in Brazil anytime soon.

Peru government, transport unions make deal to end strike

The Peruvian government and transport unions, striking since Monday over fuel price increases, have reached an agreement to end the protests, authorities announced Saturday

© Diego Ramos A blockade on the road linking the Peruvian

 cities of Puno and Arequipa on March 17, 2021

"After a long day of dialogue, leaders of the transport unions reached an agreement with the government and signed an act benefitting the sector and are committed to lifting their strike," the Ministry of Transport said on Twitter.

As part of the agreement, state-owned Petroperu will reduce the price of diesel and fuel will be subsidized by a special fund protecting against price volatility.

The unions agreed to clear roadblocks, including barricades made of rocks, burning tires and tree trunks, which had snarled traffic on main roads in several regions.

Police on Friday broke up several protests and roadblocks, resulting in 71 arrests.

The strike had forced police to deliver medical oxygen tanks meant for coronavirus patients by helicopter. Local media also said the roadblocks caused delays for some people going to vaccination appointments at hospitals.

According to the unions, a gallon (3.8 liters) of diesel had jumped in price to $4.00 in December from $2.90.

The protests came just weeks before April 11 presidential and parliamentary elections.

In neighboring Ecuador, an end to fuel subsidies in 2019 triggered the country's worst unrest in decades, with 10 dead and more than 1,300 injured in anti-government protests led by poor and indigenous communities.

AFP 

3/20/2021

ljc/mls/acb/mdl

Protesters march in Spain demanding rapper's release

lèse-majesté & lèse-poli

cia 

Hundreds of demonstrators on Saturday rallied in cities across Spain, including Madrid and Barcelona, calling for the release of a controversial rapper, jailed in mid-February for tweets criticising the royal family and the security forces.

© OSCAR DEL POZO The march in Madrid on Saturday passed off peacefully before the crowds dispersed at the request of the police

© J. Martin Known for his hard-left views, rapper Pablo Hasel was handed a nine-month sentence over tweets glorifying terrorism and videos inciting violence

Shouting slogans such as "Freedom for Pablo Hasel" and "We are the anti-fascists", several hundreds of people took to the streets in the Spanish capital in an unregistered demonstration, according to an AFP reporter.

© OSCAR DEL POZO Rallies were also planned in other Spanish cities such as Barcelona and Palma de Majorca

AFP

3/20/2021 

The march passed off peacefully before the crowds dispersed at the request of the police.

In Barcelona, the main focal point of protests last month, around 100 people marched, waving banners demanding "complete amnesty for Pablo Hasel".

Here, too, the march remained peaceful, in contrast to the demonstrations last month when protesters and police clashed violently.

Rallies were also planned in other Spanish cities such as Palma de Majorca on Saturday.

Known for his hard-left views, Hasel was handed a nine-month sentence over tweets glorifying terrorism and videos inciting violence.

The court ruling said freedom of expression could not be used "as a 'blank cheque' to praise the perpetrators of terrorism".

The rapper was also fined about 30,000 euros ($36,000) for insults, libel and slander for tweets likening former king Juan Carlos I to a mafia boss and accusing police of torturing and killing demonstrators and migrants.

So far, more than 100 people were arrested in the protests, and scores more injured in the clashes, among them many police officers and a young woman who lost an eye after being hit by a foam round fired by police.

The clashes have also sparked a political row that has exacerbated a divide within Spain's leftwing coalition, which groups the Socialists of Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez and the hard-left Podemos.

While the Socialists have firmly opposed the violence, Podemos' leadership has backed the protesters.

The party emerged from the anti-austerity "Indignados" protest movement that occupied squares across Spain in 2011. Their position is that the Hasel case exposes Spain's "democratic shortcoming

Striking Myanmar rail workers move out as protests continue
3/20/2021

MANDALAY, Myanmar — Residents of Myanmar’s second-biggest city helped striking railway workers move out of their state-supplied housing Saturday after the authorities said they would have to leave if they kept supporting the protest movement against last month’s military coup.

© Provided by The Canadian Press
Mandalay residents carried the workers' furniture and other household items to trucks, van and pickup trucks.

The state railway workers last month went on strike as key and early supporters of the civil disobedience movement against the Feb. 1 coup that toppled the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi. The military regime has sought to force them back to work through intimidation, which included a nighttime, gun-firing patrol last month through their housing area in Mandalay and a raid in the railway workers' housing area in Yangon.

Protests against the coup continued Saturday in cities and town across the country, including in Mandalay and Yangon.

The coup reversed years of slow progress toward democracy in Myanmar after five decades of military rule. In the face of persistent strikes and protests against the takeover, the junta has responded with an increasingly violent crackdown and efforts to severely limit the information reaching the outside world.

Internet access has been severely restricted, private newspapers have been barred from publishing, and protesters, journalists and politicians have been arrested in large numbers.

The independent Assistance Association for Political Prisoners has verified 235 deaths and has said the actual total — including ones where verification has been difficult —“is likely much higher.” It said it has confirmed that 2,330 people have been arrested or charged since the coup, with 1,980 still detained or remaining charged.

In addition to using lethal force to try to break up demonstrations, the security forces have been carrying out a campaign of harassment, stealing from homes they raid, said the group, which also charged that security forces have used people they arrested as human shields as they sought to break up demonstrations.

Numerous reports on social media, including videos, have shown security forces vandalizing cars parked on the street.

The U.N. agencies UNICEF and UNESCO, along with the private humanitarian group Save the Children, on Friday issued a statement criticizing the occupation of education facilities across Myanmar by security forces as a serious violation of children’s rights.

It said security forces have reportedly occupied more than 60 schools and university campuses in 13 states and regions.

“It will exacerbate the learning crisis for almost 12 million children and youth in Myanmar, which was already under tremendous pressure as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic and ensuing widespread school closures,” said the statement. "Save the Children, UNESCO and UNICEF call on security forces to vacate occupied premises immediately and ensure that schools and educational facilities are not used by military or security personnel.

“Schools must be not used by security forces under any circumstances," it declared.

Calls for international action to halt the violence continue to mount.

"The junta can’t defeat the people of Myanmar united in peaceful opposition,” Tom Andrews, the U.N.’s independent expert on human rights for Myanmar, wrote on Twitter on Friday. “Desperate, it launches ruthless attacks to provoke a violent response to try and justify even more violence. It’s not working. The world must respond by cutting their access to money & weapons. Now.”

Unexpectedly strong statements were issued Friday by two of Myanmar’s fellow countries in the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations.

Indonesian President Joko Widodo urged a halt to violence and asked other regional leaders to hold a summit on the crisis.

Widodo’s move came after ASEAN foreign ministers held a March 2 meeting that reached no consensus on the crisis.

Malaysia’s Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin issued a statement supporting Widodo’s call for as ASEAN summit, saying he was “appalled by the persistent use of lethal violence against unarmed civilians which has resulted in a high number of deaths and injuries, as well as suffering across the nation.”

The Associate

CRIMINAL CRYPTO CAPITALI$M

COINBASE SETTLES $6.5M WITH CFTC FOR FALSE REPORTING AND WASH TRADING

MARCH 20, 2021, RICK STEVES

Reporting firms such as Crypto Facilities Ltd., which publishes the CME Bitcoin Real Time Index, and CoinMarketCap OpCo, LLC, used the misleading trading data from Coinbase for price discovery and potentially resulted in a perceived volume and level of liquidity of digital assets, including Bitcoin, that was false, misleading, or inaccurate.

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission has settled charges against Coinbase Inc. for “reckless false, misleading, or inaccurate reporting” as well as “wash trading by a former employee on Coinbase’s GDAX platform”.

The digital asset exchange operator will pay a civil monetary penalty of $6.5 million in order to settle the charges.

Vincent McGonagle, Acting Director of Enforcement of the CFTC, commented: “Reporting false, misleading, or inaccurate transaction information undermines the integrity of digital asset pricing. This enforcement action sends the message that the Commission will act to safeguard the integrity and transparency of such information.”

The CFTC alleged that Coinbase delivered false, misleading, or inaccurate reports concerning transactions in digital assets on the GDAX trading platform between January 2015 and September 2018.

Coinbase automated trading programs, Hedger and Replicator, generated orders that at times matched with one another. The GDAX Trading Rules failed to disclose that Coinbase was operating more than one trading program and trading through multiple accounts.

As Hedger and Replicator matched orders with one another in certain trading pairs and then provided the information for these transactions on its website and to reporting services, Coinbase misled the market.

Reporting firms such as Crypto Facilities Ltd., which publishes the CME Bitcoin Real Time Index, and CoinMarketCap OpCo, LLC, used the misleading trading data from Coinbase for price discovery and potentially resulted in a perceived volume and level of liquidity of digital assets, including Bitcoin, that was false, misleading, or inaccurate.

The CFTC order also charged Coinbase for being “vicariously liable as a principal” for a former employee’s conduct. Over a six-week period—August through September 2016, the former employee used a manipulative or deceptive device by intentionally placing buy and sell orders in the Litecoin/Bitcoin trading pair on GDAX that matched each other as wash trades.

This practice, also known as “wash trading”, misleads the market in regard to liquidity and trading interest in Litecoin.

Parov Stelar at Sziget 2018 (Full Show)

 - Live Parov Stelar

Subscribe to our channel and click the bell to activate notifications: http://goo.gl/qYgqDF​

Shop/Listen/Follow here: https://backl.ink/parovstelar​

Tracklist Live at Sziget Festival 2018:

00:00:00​ Intro

00:04:29​ Hit Me Like A Drum

00:08:17​ Clap Your Hands

00:12:18​ Josephine

00:16:08​ Cuba Libre

00:20:51​ Catgroove

00:24:57​ Berlin Shuffle / Django's Revenge

00:32:07​ Speed Demon

00:41:17​ Mama Talking

00:44:28​ The Burning Spider

00:49:14​ Invisible Girl

00:54:12​ Grandpa's Groove

00:59:01​ Mojo Radio Gang

01:05:18​ All Night

-------------------------

01:12:12​ Nosferatu

01:16:20​ Booty Swing

01:21:20​ Step Two

Follow us: 

http://parovstelar.com​

https://www.facebook.com/parovstelar​

https://www.instagram.com/parovstelar...​

https://twitter.com/parov_stelar

'Shadow Pandemic': Domestic abuse reports soar amid COVID


Earlier this month, the World Health Organization reported that an estimated 641 million women had faced physical or sexual violence by an intimate partner over the course of their lifetime. Another 95 million were subjected to sexual violence from a non-partner, meaning that 1 in 3 women face such treatment at least once in their lives.

Advocates say COVID-19 has made life riskier for domestic violence victims

While the data, collected between 2000 and 2018, is shocking, the scale of the problem amid the coronavirus pandemic may be even larger, women's organizations in Europe and the UN told ABC News.

That’s because over the past year, women around the world have had to stay at home with their potential abusers, unable to seek help in some cases, in what the U.N. has described as a “shadow pandemic” of domestic violence.

Data is still incomplete, but advocates in several countries have reported dramatic increases in requests for domestic abuse services. In the U.S., the National Commission on COVID-19 and Criminal Justice reported an 8.1% increase in incidents after lockdown orders.

And advocates and others have developed creative ways to empower women to report abusers and seek help amid the trying circumstances of the pandemic.
‘Shadow pandemic’

At one point in April last year, an Agence France-Presse database suggested that over 3.9 billion people, around half of the global population, had been asked to stay at home to combat the spread of COVID-19 either through mandatory lockdowns or voluntary restrictions.

While global infection rates reduced towards the end of summer, the coronavirus “second wave” saw a number of countries, particularly in Europe, re-enter lockdowns to halt the spread.

According to Anita Bhatia, the deputy executive director of UN Women, those circumstances have played a role in increasing the rates of domestic abuse globally.

“What the pandemic simply did was to create conditions for abuse that are ideal for abusers because it forced people into lockdown,” she told ABC News in a recent interview. “It provided institutional cover for people not being able to leave the house. And so it just was, if you will, the perfect set of circumstances for a perpetrator of abuse.”

With reports emerging last April of increasing rates of violence against women around the world, the UN called the situation a “shadow pandemic.” Yet by September, only 1 in 8 countries had measures in place to protect women from the economic and social impacts of the pandemic, they said, including to tackle violence against women and girls.

Experts on domestic abuse say that the stay-at-home orders ushered in by the pandemic have exacerbated the problem. By having movement so heavily restricted, abusers have had more opportunities to exert control, and the economic crisis has placed an even greater strain on abusive relationships, they say.

A preliminary overview from the EU on the issue of intimate partner violence during the pandemic published this month said that the full scale of the problem is not yet calculable, but “no government can deny the gravity and urgency of the situation in the light of the wave of violence we saw in 2020.”

The British Charity Refuge, the U.K.’s largest provider of specialist domestic abuse services, received an average of 63% more calls and contacts this year, while the French women’s organizations received 70% more calls

© Francois Mori/AP, FILE Posters of women victims of domestic 

violence are pictured at the Saint Michel fountain, Nov. 25, 2020, in Paris.

Two women in England and Wales are killed each week by a current or former partner, according to Refuge, the police receive a call about domestic abuse related call every 30 seconds. Those stats, Lisa King, Refuge’s Director of Communications, told ABC News, are “horrific.” She described the national lockdowns seen at various points across the U.K. as a “bit of a perpetrator’s playground.”

“Women are controlled financially, sexually, psychologically and increasingly technologically as well,” she told ABC News. “A huge, huge issue that has definitely been compounded by the pandemic. We would not say that COVID had caused domestic abuse, but it's certainly exacerbated pre-existing behaviors. And those who certainly experienced domestic abuse will most likely have experienced it more frequently and more severely.”

In France, the National Federation of Women’s Solidarity, which manages a major domestic abuse hotline, saw their shelters completely fill up during the first lockdown. They were forced to open more shelters for women seeking to escape abuse as callouts escalated. After the first lockdown, there were many cases of women and their children experiencing post-traumatic stress disorder, Françoise Brié, the organization’s director, told ABC News.

“When you are just like in jail with your perpetrator, it’s more difficult for you to find help,” Brié said. “It’s more easy for the perpetrator to control your activity.”

During the second national lockdown in France, which was less severe, women were “able to go to work, their children are going to school, so it was less difficult for them to reach the calling centers, or the shelters,” she said.

Economic loss and unemployment have exacerbated the issue, Joanna Gzyra, director of communications at the Center for Women’s Rights in Warsaw (CWR) told ABC News.

© Alessandra Tarantino/AP, FILE A woman show a banner reading "alive, free and without debts" during a demonstration on the occasion of International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, in Rome, Nov. 25, 2020.

"Most abusers are good manipulators, so they are often pleading for forgiveness and promising to do better in the future,” she told ABC News, noting that a problem like job loss is an issue even in the best of times. "It causes tension even in most stable relations. In an abusive relationship, such a problem is a pretext, for an illegitimate behavior. The victim often justifies the abuser, because he is really stressed but would never do it otherwise."
Creativity in crisis

The novelty of the extent of the domestic abuse crisis has led people to develop creative ways to report suspected abuse.

In Poland, Krystyna Paszko, a high school student, won a prize this year from the European Union for setting up a fake cosmetic website which allows women to report domestic abuse in a discreet way. When the user places a skin care item into their online basket, a series of coded questions are prompted from psychologists specializing in crisis intervention. They ask, for instance, how long the problem has been going on for, whether it is impacted by alcohol, if the problem also affects your children. Lawyers are also involved, and based on the responses, the authorities will be called to check in.

“I thought I would help one person, maybe two,” she told ABC News. “I am also shocked there was a need for me to create [the website] and that it wasn’t a government initiative, and that so many people need it… it was because of the increase in domestic violence cases due to the COVID-19 pandemic, because of that I decided to face this problem and try to help these people.”

To date, her Facebook page -- named “Chamomiles and Pansies” -- has helped around 350 women report cases of abuse, Paszko told ABC News.

Paszko was inspired after reading reports in France of inventive ways of reporting domestic violence. This month, the French feminist campaign #NousToutes (equivalent of #MeToo in France) will distribute 615,000 bread bags to bakeries around the country. The bags are plastered with information on hotlines to call, as well as educational messages to help identify what domestic abuse actually is. Their reasoning is that the country's bakeries are some of the most accessible places for vulnerable women, even for the isolated amongst them, in France go out to get bread – and they hope the initiative will raise awareness.

And in the U.K. the government has supported the “Ask for Ani” campaign, a domestic abuse codeword that will signal to pharmacies that you are a victim.

“There's a lot of creativity unleashed in times of crisis,” Bhatia said. “And we need to see as many creative initiatives as possible because the standard ways of reporting just don't cut it.”

Similarly, more governments have addressed the issue in coronavirus daily briefings, something unheard of in the past.

“I think that's been a real turning point, in the kind of that that the public and women's understanding of what domestic abuse is,” King said. “You can only do something about a problem if you know what it is and you're experiencing it. So that's helped. And then government, too, has not been able to turn a blind eye to the problem.”

Forced to stay at home, more women have come to recognize the relationships they are in as abusive, according to Brié.

“We also noticed that some women said that they understood at the beginning of the pandemic that they were victims of violence, because they were confronted to the perpetrator every day,” she said. “They didn’t speak about it before.”

Despite this awareness and creative new ways to report violence under trying conditions, there seem to be troubling signs that the reported increase in violence may outlast lockdowns.

“I wish I could say that those countries which have opened up actually have seen declines in violence,” Bhatia said. “We are tracking the data… We see that the levels of violence against women remain fairly consistent. They go up in lockdown, but conversely, they do not necessarily go down when countries open up.”

Opinion: Black-Asian solidarity has a long and storied history in America

Opinion by Van Jones 10 hrs ago

On Friday, President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris traveled to Atlanta to confront the racial hatred that is forcing millions of people of Asian descent to live in daily fear. The trip comes on the heels of Tuesday's carnage -- in which a White man in Atlanta killed eight people, including six Asian women. Though the motive has not yet been established, this shooting spree follows a pattern of increasing violence against Asian Americans, particularly women and elders.

© Ringo Chiu/AFP/Getty Images A demonstrator wearing a face mask and holding a sign calling for "Black Asian Solidarity" takes part in a rally "Love Our Communities: Build Collective Power" to raise awareness of anti-Asian violence, at the Japanese American National Museum in Little Tokyo in Los Angeles, California, on March 13, 2021. - Reports of attacks, primarily against Asian-American elders, have spiked in recent months -- fuelled, activists believe, by talk of the "Chinese virus" by former president Donald Trump and others.

Harris herself is of South Asian descent and has long been a champion of racial justice. Meanwhile, Biden has continually reinforced his commitment to racial justice through his speeches, interviews and statements. And earlier this month, both the White House and Department of Justice hosted listening sessions with leaders in the Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) community.


As the new Democratic administration acts, it fortunately will have the strong support of the Democratic Party's base -- especially a growing number of African American leaders who are forcefully stepping up in solidarity with the AAPI community.

Black talk show hosts, civil rights icons, faith leaders, recording artists, athletes, directors, writers, entertainers, producers, fashion designers, academics and even a Black former President are taking a stand against anti-Asian hate.

This massive display of solidarity is no surprise to those who know the long history of America's struggle for racial equality. Today's actions build on a centuries-long tradition of Black and Asian American solidarity when it has mattered the most.


Frederick Douglass advocated for Chinese and Japanese immigration (1869): Legendary civil rights icon Frederick Douglass gave a speech about immigration in 1869 at a moment when restricting Chinese and Japanese migration to the United States was central to the political debate. Douglass took a strong stand for a "composite nation" with free migration as a fundamental human right. He declared, "It is this great right that I assert for the Chinese and Japanese, and for all other varieties of men equally with yourselves, now and forever. I know of no rights of race superior to the rights of humanity, and when there is a supposed conflict between human and national rights, it is safe to go to the side of humanity."


During the Philippine-American War, Black leaders and soldiers opposed US colonization (1899-1902): When Filipinos decided to fight for their country's independence instead of accepting US colonial rule, the US launched a war against them. That war created a crisis of conscience for some African American soldiers. Many rejected the idea of subjugating another group of non-White people on behalf of the same country that oppressed and exploited them. In addition, prominent African American figures like Henry M. Turner and Ida B. Wells empathized with the Filipino freedom fighters and spoke out on their behalf.


African Americans protested against the Vietnam War (1965-1975): African American opposition to the Vietnam War was widespread. Leaders like Malcolm X, Muhammad Ali and Martin Luther King Jr. spoke out. Protesters carried signs reading "Black men should fight white racism, not Vietnamese freedom fighters." That response was driven by racial injustices showing up at every turn -- from Black people getting drafted at vastly disproportionate rates, to White soldiers mistreating Black soldiers on the battleground, to the White supremacist assumptions at the heart of the war itself.


The Emergency Detention Act was repealed due to joint Black and Japanese American activism (1967-1971): In the late 1960s -- 20 years after Japanese Americans were released from the World War II internment camps -- rumors began circulating about a government-led roundup of African American radicals. Their fear was driven by the Emergency Detention Act of 1950, a law that gave the federal government power to incarcerate anyone suspected of engaging in espionage or sabotage if the President declared an "internal security emergency." When African American activists were unsuccessful in having the law repealed, the Japanese American Citizen League (JACL) leaned in and helped coordinate a campaign that focused on their experiences in the internment camps. The combined effort succeeded in getting former President Richard Nixon to repeal the law.


The unlikely bond between Malcolm X and Yuri Kochiyama changed both their perspectives (1963-1965): Near the end of his life, an embattled Malcolm X was isolated from his original base of support in the Nation of Islam. As he struggled to forge a new path for himself, Yuri Kochiyama, a Japanese American human rights activist, stood by his side. The two became friends and helped each other develop global perspectives on human rights. When assassins gunned Malcolm X down, it was Kochiyama who famously cradled his head as he lay dying on the floor of the Audubon Ballroom.

PART OF THE NEWS & LETTERS MARXIST HUMANIST CIRCLE

Grace Lee Boggs dedicated seven decades of her 100 year-long life to revolutionary justice and civil rights (1915-2015): Grace Lee Boggs was a Chinese American activist who focused much of her work on labor and tenants' rights. She was married to the deeply-respected Black leader, James Boggs; the two made a powerful, iconic pair. Long after his death, she worked on the front lines of the struggles for justice in Detroit, Michigan -- mentoring generations of young leaders, especially African American ones.


After Vincent Chin's murder, Jesse Jackson joined forces with Asian American activists to demand justice (1982): Vincent Chin was a Chinese American man who was beaten to death in Detroit by two White autoworkers who mistook him for Japanese and blamed Japan for the decline of the US automotive market. The year after the racist murder, Black civil rights champions like Rev. Jesse Jackson and leaders of the NAACP played a critical role in bringing attention to his case. The multicultural coalition that came together in that fight helped form the basis of the "Rainbow Coalition," which was central to Jackson's 1984 presidential campaign.


Asian Americans support Black Lives Matter (2020): Many AAPI organizations (including prominent ones like the Asian Pacific Environmental Network and CAAAV: Organizing Asian Communities) have long histories of working in multi-racial solidarity with African Americans. During the summer of 2020, many Asian Americans made deep commitments to standing up for Black lives. While some Asian Americans made it a point to support Black Lives Matter in protest, some of the most impactful work has been behind the scenes -- within their own families and communities. For example, Letters for Black Lives provides multilingual resources to help Asian Americans talk about BLM with their families. And more than a dozen AAPI organizations came together recently to produce a toolkit that includes ways to support the Movement for Black Lives. Now, the Black community is coming together to support their Asian American neighbors.


It goes without saying that there also have often been tensions between Black and Asian communities; there are examples of intolerance in both directions. But those low moments do not erase the fact that -- at our best -- both communities have come together repeatedly to advance the cause of justice. And today's crisis is no exception.

Of course, all Americans (not just African Americans) should support AAPI organizations, learn about the issues and get active. Major Asian American organizations and leaders are justly calling for more funding for their work, physical protection, inclusion, justice and care. Their demands should be met.

Collectively, our choices today will define what our great great grandkids will learn in history class. By continuing our noblest traditions of coming together against hatred, all Americans can leave a legacy that all of our progeny will be proud of.