CANADIAN SOCIAL DEMOCRATS APPROPRIATE ANARCHIST SLOGAN #EATTHERICH

It’s also a platform where hashtags like #eattherich and #abolishbillionaires proliferate, and those posters and viewers would seem to be receptive to the NDP’s policies.


The federal NDP are heading into the next election betting their strategy to target the “ultra-rich” will resonate with younger voters. But whether Millennial and Gen Z’s online posts to “abolish billionaires” will translate into votes remains to be seen.

© Provided by National Post Federal NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh:

A part of that game plan to target youth rests on social media and leader Jagmeet Singh himself, whose embrace of TikTok grabbed attention in the last election campaign, and who has been using the video platform and its memes since to promote his party’s ideas.


Singh said in an interview the NDP is working on “building a big team” around social media. “People want to be reached out to and spoken to where they are, and young people are on social media, and they are frustrated with the injustice going on,” he said.

Singh said he took it as a “personal initiative” to double down on social media as a way to reach voters. The effort extends to other platforms popular with younger Canadians. In November, he streamed a game of “Among Us” with U.S. congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Twitch.





How much of the social media content is posted by Singh and how much is by his team depends on the platform. Singh said he is behind most of his TikTok videos, since “it’s a platform I really understand.”

It’s also a platform where hashtags like #eattherich and #abolishbillionaires proliferate, and those posters and viewers would seem to be receptive to the NDP’s policies.

At its policy convention two weeks ago, the party voted in favour of a marginal tax rate of 80 per cent for personal incomes over $1 million, a one per cent tax on “fortunes over $20 million,” and a tax on “pandemic and disaster excess profit.”

Singh’s line of attack on the Liberals has been to paint the party as being in bed with billionaires, in contrast to the NDP, which would make the “ultra-rich” pay “their fair share.”

To what extent hashtags translate into political support isn’t exactly quantifiable, but that kind of messaging is more likely to resonate with younger voters, pollsters say.

“I wish we had specific data saying X per cent of young Canadians say ‘eat the rich,’ ” said Angus Reid Institute president Shachi Kurl.

There is a trend where younger people are “definitely” — though not exclusively — “of the view that either increasing taxes on high-income earners, like $250K-plus, or on corporations or on businesses, is the way to pay for things,” she said.

“These types of eat-the-rich statements have always been popular with youth,” noted Christian Bourque, executive vice-president at Leger.

But what is new is that younger Canadians are more concerned about fairness, he said. “I believe that the way people frame this issue of the ultra-rich needs to be about some form of fairness,” he said, giving the example of the government’s recent Air Canada bailout that caps compensation for executives.

Singh said the notion of making the ultra-wealthy pay resonates among all voters, but youth are more open to it because they’re facing a more difficult reality than their parents did.



“They are the first generation ever that has less opportunities than the previous generation,” he said. They saw their parents be able to buy homes and have jobs that supported families and now “young people don’t have that same opportunity,” given how much housing costs have increased in proportion to income, he said.

“There is very clearly an extra burden on young people, that they’re feeling that the system is really rigged. They’re feeling even more frustrated, so young people are certainly even more open to this message, because they’re feeling the impact in their lives right now, that this rigged system means that they can’t find a good job that will help them earn a good living, start a family, find a place to live.”

Singh noted Millenials and younger voters make up a large portion of the electorate and said they could “make history” in the next election.

“I see the frustration that they’re feeling. I see how engaged they are politically, how engaged they are on social media platforms, and how engaged they have been” in organizing big protests in real life, he said.




The COVID-19 pandemic has also played a role, Kurl said. She noted it has “stressed younger Canadians in a way that it hasn’t necessarily stressed older Canadians.”

One of the reasons the NDP plans to double its campaign spending in the next election is Singh’s polling numbers. Mainstreet Research president Quito Maggi said Singh’s performance in the last election, in which he came across as authentic and likeable, is the reason the party didn’t get nearly wiped out.

Of course, things could shift. The Liberal government outlined more than $100 billion in new spending in this week’s federal budget, which extends pandemic supports and includes a promise to implement $10-a-day child care.

A post-budget Leger poll also found voter intention for the Liberals and Conservatives remained the same, while the NDP’s inched up from 18 to 19 per cent. But Maggi noted, “the budget would appear to address most of those economic anxieties that could increase support for those NDP policies.”

The next election will also come at a time when younger voters may be less enamoured with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. “Young people haven’t completely abandoned Justin Trudeau but, he’s not the bright young thing that he was six years ago,” Kurl said. “Jagmeet Singh does have appeal among young voters.”

Bourque said there are opportunities for the NDP to target that demographic, given that the “Conservatives are in trouble with younger voters in Canada,” and Trudeau no longer has that “newness” and “freshness” element he did in 2015.

But while there is an opening for the NDP, that spot could also get taken up by the Green Party, he warned.

Gaza militants fire rockets after clashes flare in Jerusalem

Violence in Jerusalem spiked on Thursday night as hundreds of far-right Jewish Israelis marched down city streets chanting “death to Arabs” and confronted Palestinians.

Oliver Holmes in Jerusalem 

4/24/2021

Militants in Gaza have fired at least 35 rockets into Israel in one of the most intense flare-ups in months, seemingly triggered by days of tensions in Jerusalem in which far-right Jewish groups and the Israeli police have clashed with Palestinians.

Hours of sustained rocket launches early on Saturday – and Israel’s retaliatory strikes on the strip using fighter jets and attack helicopters – broke a months-long lull along the frontier with the coastal enclave.

The rockets, some of which were claimed by a small military group affiliated with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, caused no injuries. They appeared to be a response to several nights of unrest in mostly Palestinian east Jerusalem as well as protest across towns in the occupied West Bank.

Violence in Jerusalem spiked on Thursday night as hundreds of far-right Jewish Israelis marched down city streets chanting “death to Arabs” and confronted Palestinians. Mounted police in riot gear attempted to keep the two sides apart but Palestinian medics said that by the end of the night 100 people had been injured, with 21 taken to hospital. Israeli police said they had made 50 arrests without specifying if they were Israelis or Palestinians.

© Provided by The Guardian Smoke and flames rise after Israeli war planes carried out airstrikes over Gaza city. Photograph: Anadolu Agency/Getty Images

One video shared on social media showed what appeared to be several Jewish boys throwing stones at an Arab house as children screamed. Another filmed a group of Palestinian youths kicking a person on the ground as a voice off-camera shouts “break the settler”, a reference to Israelis who have taken land in the Palestinian territories.

Meanwhile, Palestinians have accused Israeli police of brutality in their handling of nightly protests, which erupted in response to restrictions on gatherings during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.

Fears of a further crackdown were raised on Friday after Israel’s public security minister, Amir Ohana, posted on Facebook that police forces had his “complete backing to use all means, force and the necessary power to restore law and order”.

Later that night, police again used stun grenades to disperse Palestinian crowds, including young men who hurled stones and firecrackers at officers and set fire to rubbish bins. However, due to the weekly Jewish Sabbath, most of the far-right Israelis from the night before were at home.

In an unusually strong rebuke, Ned Price, the US state department spokesperson, seemed to condemn the anti-Arab chanting without mentioning it specifically. “We are deeply concerned by the escalation of violence in Jerusalem,” he tweeted. “The rhetoric of extremist protesters chanting hateful and violent slogans must be firmly rejected,” adding that Israeli authorities should ensure the “rights of all in Jerusalem”.

In his Friday sermon, Sheikh Muhammad Hussein, the grand mufti of Jerusalem, condemned the “police and settlers’ attack on Palestinians in Jerusalem” but called on worshippers to remain calm.

Neighbouring Jordan blamed Israel for the violence. “We strongly condemn the racist attacks on Palestinians in occupied Jerusalem and urge prompt international action to protect Jerusalemites,” foreign minister Ayman Safadi tweeted.

Since Ramadan began on 13 April, Palestinians have complained that police have prevented them from gathering on the steps near Damascus Gate in the Old City following night-time prayers, a long but unofficial tradition. Authorities have blocked access by erecting metal barriers in the plaza.

At the same time, videos of street harassment and several attacks between Jews and Palestinians during the past two weeks have inflamed the situation. One photo, taken in the coastal port area of Jaffa in Israel and widely shared domestically, showed an Arab man kicking a rabbi who local media reported was in his 60s.

Jerusalem has always been the centre of the Israeli-Palestinian crisis, with its holy sites revered by both Jews and Muslims. The Old City’s Western Wall forms part of the holiest site in Judaism – the Temple Mount. It is equally part of the al-Haram al-Sharif, or the Noble Sanctuary, however, with the Dome of the Rock and al-Aqsa mosque above it, where ten of thousands of Muslims pray nightly during Ramadan.

The unique sensitivity of the complex has been a focal point of previous violent episodes. A period of intense Israeli-Palestinian violence, known as the second intifada, began in 2000 when Israeli politician Ariel Sharon made a provocative visit to the site. In 2017 the installation of security cameras and metal detectors there led to days of clashes and fatal incidents.

Related: The US media is touting Israel's Covid recovery. But occupied Palestinians are left out | Yara M Asi

Israeli forces captured the whole of Jerusalem in 1967 and later annexed it, claiming the entire area as its “undivided” capital. Palestinians hope the eastern parts of the city will become the capital of a future state to include the occupied West Bank and Gaza, although a decades-long effort to end the Israeli occupation has floundered.

An increase in clashes is common during the annual Ramadan month of fasting, usually at night but calming down in the daytime. Incidents in Jerusalem are often closely linked to Gaza, which is about 40 miles away but whose roughly 2 million Palestinian inhabitants cannot travel freely to the holy city due to a crippling Israeli blockade.

On Saturday, Hamas, the Islamist group that rules inside Gaza, did not claim it fired any rockets, but its armed wing voiced support for east Jerusalem Palestinians. “The spark you light today will be the wick of the explosion to come in the face of the enemy,” it said in a statement.

Israel said its air force had bombed several “military targets in the Gaza Strip” belonging to Hamas. The country has fought three wars with Hamas and holds it responsible for all rockets fired out of the enclave.

Crown, OPP fail to stop $16.5M lawsuit by former brewery owner

The former owners of the Molson brewery property in Barrie — where the country’s largest indoor marijuana grow operation was discovered in 2004 — have the go-ahead to move forward with their $16.5-million lawsuit against the federal government and Ontario Provincial Police (OPP).

In the latest twist following a decade of legal wrangling, an Ontario Court of Appeal panel has unanimously upheld a lower court’s finding that the limitation period had not expired for the malicious prosecution lawsuit filed by Fercan Developments Inc. and GRVN Group Inc., dismissing the Crown’s attempt to put an end to the case.

Lawyer Brian Greenspan says it’s no longer about Fercan and its owner’s insistence that he had nothing to do with the illegal grow-op in which his brother and others were convicted.

“It’s not just our claim anymore. There’s been a determinative finding that the Crown engaged in prosecutorial misconduct, (and) should never have brought the application for forfeiture,” Greenspan, one of the lawyers representing Fercan, said shortly after the appeal court released the decision Thursday.

On Jan. 10, 2004, police uncovered “one of the largest and most sophisticated indoor marijuana-growing operations in Canadian history" in the 450,000-square-foot former brewery alongside Highway 400 in Barrie's south end.

Inside they found 20,000 plants, 300 pounds of cannabis and extensive growing equipment located behind concrete block walls, which was all protected by a series of locked doors and surveillance equipment. Nine people were arrested.

Fercan had purchased the 35-acre site three years earlier and was developing a coffee and a bottled water business on the site and renting out sections of the building to small businesses. The former brewery building has since been demolished.

The series of lawsuits began with the federal government’s attempt to take ownership of the property through a lengthy criminal forfeiture hearing under the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act.

When that failed eight years ago, the investigator took it to the provincial government, which then launched its own forfeiture proceedings under the Civil Remedies Act. That also failed, as did an attempt to revive it in appeal.

Fercan and GRVN were awarded $570,000 in costs, which the Crown also tried to appeal, after winning the forfeiture case.

They now want the government to make up for the earnings lost through that process which they say amounted to civil conspiracy, claiming malicious prosecution, negligent investigation and misfeasance in public office.

“It’s become a rather strange approach. You can’t prove your case criminally, so you then try to seize assets civilly,” said Greenspan. “It’s bizarre that these two pieces of legislation can live together. But they tried both here.

“What more decisive conclusion can you reach than Fercan, the owners of the property, were absolutely blameless," he added.

Marg. Bruineman, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, barrietoday.com

CANADA

'A landmark decision': Sinixt First Nation react to Supreme Court ruling confirming existence

 "We're not going back to the museum and standing next to the dinosaurs."

© Submitted by Mark Underhill Richard Desautel went to the Supreme Court of Canada with the goal of proving the Sinixt First Nation's existence in Canada.

"We're not going back to the museum and standing next to the dinosaurs."

That's how Richard Desautel of the Sinixt Nation reacted Friday morning after Canada's highest court upended the federal government's 65-year-old claim that his Indigenous nation from southeastern British Columbia was extinct.

Desautel, the man at the centre of the case, is a member of the Lakes Tribe of the Colville Confederated Tribes based in Washington state, a successor group of the Sinixt people..

In 2010, he purposely shot and killed an elk in the traditional territory of the Sinixt in the Arrow Lakes region in B.C.'s Kootenay region in order to challenge the extinction claim. Desautel phoned the B.C. Conservation Officer Service after his successful hunt to report himself and was charged with hunting without a licence.

Lawyer Mark Underhill, who represented Desautel and the Sinixt, said it's been a long journey for him.

"He was the one willing to step up and get charged to bring Sinixt rights to the forefront. So he was very emotional this morning," Underhill said.

"I welcomed him home."© Rob Easton/CBC The majority of the Sinixt's traditional territory is in British Columbia.

The Sinixt live on both sides of the U.S.-Canada border, Underhill said, and many Sinixt people are now members of other bands in Canada, principally the Okanagan, and the Colville Tribes in the U.S.

Underhill said it's been illegal for members in the U.S. to come up and practice their culture in British Columbia since 1896. The ruling — which only focuses on hunting rights — sets up the Sinixt as rights holders, no matter where they live.

"This is about reclaiming their identity," said Underhill. "It really, really, really means everything to them."

Rodney Cawston, chairman of the Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation and the Sinixt Confederacy, said the ruling is a first step.

"We're going to continue that work of addressing our aboriginal title again back in Canada and also recognition of all of those areas for our people of where they once lived that are very sacred to us still today.

"This is a landmark decision."

Supreme Court affirms American Indigenous man's right to hunt in Canada

The Supreme Court's recognition that rights are rooted in historical ties to a region has implications for other First Nations who have been forced from traditional lands

OTTAWA — An American Indigenous man has a constitutionally protected right to hunt in British Columbia given his people's historic ties to the region, the Supreme Court of Canada has ruled.

© Provided by The Canadian Press

The top court's 7-2 decision Friday upheld the acquittal of Richard Lee Desautel, a U.S. citizen who was charged with hunting without a licence and hunting big game while not a resident of B.C. after shooting an elk near Castlegar in 2010.

Desautel defended his actions on the basis he had an Aboriginal right to hunt protected by section 35(1) of Canada's Constitution Act of 1982.

Desautel is a member of the Lakes Tribe of the Colville Confederated Tribes of Washington state, a successor of the Sinixt people, whose ancestral territory extended into what is now B.C.

The trial judge found the sections of B.C.'s Wildlife Act under which Desautel was charged had infringed his constitutional right to hunt in the province.

The decision was upheld by the B.C. Supreme Court and the province's Court of Appeal, prompting the Crown to take its case to the Supreme Court of Canada.

A central issue in the case was the interpretation of the Constitution Act's affirmation of the rights of "the aboriginal peoples of Canada," namely whether the phrase includes only Indigenous Peoples who are resident or citizens of Canada, or also those whose ancestors occupied territory that became Canada.

In writing for a majority of the high court, Justice Malcolm Rowe said the scope includes the modern-day successors of Aboriginal societies that occupied Canadian territory at the time of European contact.

"As a result, groups whose members are neither citizens nor residents of Canada can be Aboriginal peoples of Canada."

Rowe cautioned that, beyond this central issue, he would say little more about what that means for the exercise of rights protected under section 35(1).

"First, questions of law are better resolved in cases where there is a dispute that requires the answering of those questions," Rowe wrote. "And, second, the defence of a prosecution for a provincial regulatory offence, while it may serve as a test case (as here), is not well-suited to deal with such broader issues."

When Europeans first made contact in the early 1800s, the Sinixt were engaged in hunting, fishing and gathering in their ancestral territory, which extended into what later became Washington state to the south and B.C. to the north.

Due to a variety of reasons, the Sinixt moved to the United States, though not voluntarily.

Until 1930, members of the Lakes Tribe continued to hunt in B.C. despite living in the U.S. Periods followed when no hunting took place in the province, but the tribe maintained a connection to the land.

Meanwhile, by the early 1900s, only 21 Sinixt still lived on their traditional territory in Canada, in the Arrow Lakes Band reserve. The band was declared extinct after the death of the last member in 1956, and the reserve lands reverted back to the Crown.

The Crown had argued the Lakes Tribe might be able to establish common law Aboriginal rights in B.C., but this would not include the right to cross the international border into Canada.

In his arguments, Desautel stressed the Sinixt people's long-standing ties to the West Kootenay region of B.C.

"The Sinixt were here in Canada first, long before the assertion of sovereignty and the imposition of an international border which artificially divided their traditional territory in a manner foreign to their Indigenous perspective," said his written submission to the high court.

"The honour of the Crown requires that their prior occupation be reconciled with the assertion of sovereignty through the constitutional protection of their hunting rights in Canada."

Desautel travelled to Kettle Falls in Washington state, in the southern portion of the traditional territory, where he received word of the Supreme Court decision Friday through a video call from his lawyer Mark Underhill.

"I am at the end of my own journey through the court system, and at the beginning of the new journey of reconciliation for our people," Desautel said in a statement.

"I am grateful to the ancestors for their guidance and in helping our rights, traditions and natural laws prevail. I look forward to the hard work ahead together with the people of British Columbia."

The Supreme Court's recognition that rights are rooted in historical ties to a region has implications for other First Nations who have been forced from traditional lands, Underhill said Friday.

"It's a really important decision in that way, to affirm where rights come from and that they're not going to be lost by various forces of colonialism."

This report by The Canadian Press was first published April 23, 2021.

Jim Bronskill, The Canadian Press

Kids of those exposed to Chernobyl nuclear disaster show no genetic damage

By HealthDay News

A sign declaring "Halt! Prohibited Zone" is seen in the exclusion zone around the closed Chernobyl nuclear power plant in the Ilinci village, April 5, 2006. File Photo by Sergey Starostenko/UPI | License Photo

There's no evidence of genetic damage in the children of parents who were exposed to radiation from the 1986 Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant disaster in Ukraine, researchers say.

Several previous studies have examined the risks across generations of radiation exposure from events such as this, but have yielded inconclusive results.

In this study, the investigators analyzed the genomes of 130 children and parents from families where one or both parents were exposed to radiation due to the Chernobyl accident, and where children were conceived afterward and born between 1987 and 2002.





There was no increase in gene changes in reproductive cells of study participants, and rates of new germline mutations were similar to those in the general population, according to a team led by Meredith Yeager of the U.S. National Cancer Institute, in Rockville, Md.

RELATED Researchers: NYC cancer cases may be tied to Chernobyl disaster

"This is one of the first studies to systematically evaluate alterations in human mutation rates in response to a man-made disaster, such as accidental radiation exposure," the authors wrote.

The "study does not provide support for a transgenerational effect of ionizing radiation on germline DNA in humans," the researchers concluded.

The study is one of two related to the Chernobyl disaster published Thursday in the journal Science.

RELATED Health effects of Hiroshima, Nagasaki bombs not as dire as thought

In the second, a team led by Lindsay Morton of the U.S. National Cancer Institute sought to learn more about the development of radiation-induced papillary thyroid cancers in Chernobyl survivors. These are among the most common cancers seen after the disaster.

The researchers compared thyroid tumors, normal thyroid tissue, and blood from hundreds of survivors to those of people who weren't exposed to radiation.

No unique radiation-related biomarker was identified, according to the report.

But the researchers did find radiation-related increases in DNA damage in human thyroid cancers of Chernobyl survivors. Radiation-related genomic changes were more pronounced in those who were younger when they were exposed to radiation.

The findings suggest that thyroid tumors that follow radiation exposure result from DNA double-strand breaks in the genome, the researchers said in a news release from the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

The study findings have implications for radiation protection and public health, particularly for low-dose exposure, the authors said.More information

The U.S. National Library of Medicine has more on radiation exposure.

Copyright 2021 HealthDay. All rights reserved.

Study Reveals Rapid Melting of Glaciers Has Shifted Earth's Axis

"Faster ice melting under global warming was the most likely cause of the directional change of the polar drift in the 1990s."

by Kenny Stancil, staff writer

A piece of the Perito Moreno glacier, part of the Southern Patagonian Ice Field, breaks off and crashes into Lake Argentina in the Los Glaciares National Park on April 5, 2019 in Santa Cruz province, Argentina. (Photo: David Silverman via Getty Images)

Since 1980, the planet's north and south poles have moved roughly four meters in distance, and new research shows that shifts in the Earth's rotational axis have accelerated since the 1990s as a result of the widespread melting of glaciers—a clear manifestation, scientists say, of the climate emergency.

"Faster ice melting under global warming was the most likely cause of the directional change of the polar drift in the 1990s," Shanshan Deng—a researcher from the Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research at the Chinese Academy of Sciences—told the American Geophysical Union (AGU) Thursday.

In a study published last month in the peer-reviewed journal Geophysical Research Letter, Deng and her co-authors found that changes in terrestrial water storage—particularly the accelerated loss of water stored on land due to melting glaciers—redistributed enough of the world's mass to drive "the rapid polar drift toward the east after the 1990s."

As The Guardian explained Friday:


The planet's geographic north and south poles are the point where its axis of rotation intersects the surface, but they are not fixed. Changes in how the Earth's mass is distributed around the planet cause the axis, and therefore the poles, to move.

In the past, only natural factors such as ocean currents and the convection of hot rock in the deep Earth contributed to the drifting position of the poles. But the new research shows that since the 1990s, the loss of hundreds of billions of tons of ice a year into the oceans resulting from the climate crisis has caused the poles to move in new directions.

The scientists found the direction of polar drift shifted from southward to eastward in 1995 and that the average speed of drift from 1995 to 2020 was 17 times faster than from 1981 to 1995.


The AGU noted that "researchers have been able to determine the causes of polar drifts starting from 2002 based on data from the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE), a joint mission by NASA and the German Aerospace Center, launched with twin satellites that year and a follow-up mission in 2018."

Data from the GRACE satellites has enabled scientists to "link glacial melting to movements of the pole in 2005 and 2012, both following increases in ice losses," The Guardian reported. "But Deng's research breaks new ground by extending the link to before the satellite's launch, showing human activities have been shifting the poles since the 1990s, almost three decades ago."

While Deng's team showed that the accelerated decline in water stored on land stemming from glacial losses "is the main driver" of polar drift since the 1990s, the researchers wrote that groundwater depletion in non-glacial regions has also contributed to the movements.

"Groundwater is stored under land but, once pumped up for drinking or agriculture, most eventually flows to sea, redistributing its weight around the world," The Guardian noted. "In the past 50 years, humanity has removed 18 trillion tons of water from deep underground reservoirs without it being replaced."

Vincent Humphrey, a climate scientist at the University of Zurich who was not involved in the study, told AGU that the new research "tells you how strong this mass change is—it's so big that it can change the axis of the Earth."

This shift in the Earth's axis, however, is too small to affect daily life, Humphrey added. It could change the length of day, but only by milliseconds.

Nonetheless, other climate experts such as Jonathan Overpeck of the University of Arizona, have said before that the mere fact that the climate crisis is driving polar movements demonstrates "how real and profoundly large an impact humans are having on the planet."

 

The rare black panther not seen in Africa for 100 years: Sony World Photography Awards 2021 - BBC Science Focus Magazine

An incredibly rare black panther (Panthera pardus) photographed in Laikipia Country, Kenya. The photographer spent more than a year photographing leopards in this location using a high-quality camera trap system that was developed to snap elusive and nocturnal wildlife. Prior to this project, a black panther had not been scientifically documented in Africa for more than 100 years.

 Will Burrard-Lucas/Sony World Photo Awards

 

Biden puts Erdogan under high pressure

Erdogan, who is besieged by crises, faces the prospect of Biden recognising the Armenian genocide after having excluded Turkey from the F-35 programme.

Friday 23/04/2021

A file picture shows a demonstrator holding a sign during a rally to commemorate the 1915 Turkish massacre of Armenians in Times Square in New York City. (AFP)

WASHINGTON/ ANKARA – The administration of President Joe Biden has dashed Turkey’s hopes for calmer days with the US, putting it under high pressure by officially removing it from a project to manufacture F-35 fighter planes, while expectations grow that Biden will announce Saturday formal US recognition of the historical responsibility of the Turks for the Armenian genocide.

This step that is likely to infuriate Turkey and exacerbate tensions between the two countries.

A US Defence Department official announced Washington has notified Turkey it is officially excluded from the F-35 fighter jet production programme.

The official said the US and eight other countries had cancelled a 2006 memorandum of understanding and signed a new one, but did not go into further details.

Ankara had ordered and manufactured parts of more than 100 F-35s. But it was removed from the programme in 2019 after it purchased Russian S-400 ground-to-air missile systems, which Washington says constitute a security threat for the F-35 fighters.

Analysts say the Biden administration took a serious second look at its relations with Turkey, which wants to be a member of NATO and at the same time an ally of Russia.

Washington is now telling Ankara that the new administration is different from the previous one and that Turkey will be forced to reassess its ambiguous policy of pursuing strategic military cooperation with Moscow and Washington at the same time.

Observers pointed out that the exclusion of Ankara from the stealth fighter project and the recognition of the Armenian genocide narrative are two steps that personally challenge the Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who finds himself besieged by crises and unable to push his usual brinkmanship any further.

Erdogan has pledged to continue defending the case against those who, he maintains, for political reasons promote the “slander and lies” of the “Armenian genocide”, in reference to the US President’s decision to be announced on Saturday.

Washington’s resolve to remove Ankara from the F-35 project is likely to push Turkey closer  to Russia and further strain its relationship with NATO, especially considering the tensions shaking its ties with member countries, over a number of issues, including gas exploration in the eastern Mediterranean and the stance on Libya.

Before his confirmation as US secretary of state, Anthony Blinken described Ankara last January as a ” so–called strategic partner”.

And he  indicated that more sanctions could be imposed on Ankara for its purchase of Russian missile systems.

” “The idea that a strategic – so-called strategic – partner of ours would actually be in line with one of our biggest strategic competitors in Russia is not acceptable,” he said.

 

The firm American stance towards Turkey’s acquisition of the S-400 system coincides with a new escalation, that is unrelated the issue of military alliances.

It has to do instead with Biden’s intention to recognise that the massacre of Armenians at the hands of the Ottoman Empire during the First World War was an act of genocide.

.

Three US sources familiar with the matter said that Biden is likely to use the phrase “genocide” in a statement he will make on April 24 on the occasion of annual events commemorating the victims of the massacres.

“My understanding is that he took the decision and will use the word genocide in his statement on Saturday,” said a source familiar with the matter.

However, the sources cautioned that Biden may decide at the last minute not to use this term in light of the importance of bilateral relations with Turkey.

“I expect we will have more to say about Remembrance Day on Saturday,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Wednesday when asked about Biden’s commitment. “But I don’t have anything to get ahead of that at this point in time.”

“The recognition by the United States will be a moral beacon for many countries,” said Armenian Foreign Minister Ara Ayvazyan.

“This is not about Armenia and Turkey, this is about our commitment to recognise and condemn genocide in the past, present and future,” he added.

Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said that any move by

Biden to recognise the 1915 mass killings of Armenians by the Ottomans as a genocide will further harm already strained ties between the NATO allies.

A year ago, when Biden was still a presidential candidate, he commemorated the anniversary of the 1.5 million Armenian men, women and children who lost their lives in the final days of the Ottoman Empire.

He pledged to support efforts to describe these killings as genocide.

The “New York Times” and “The Wall Street Journal” reported that Biden is scheduled to declare the massacres classified as “genocide” on Saturday on the occasion of the 106th anniversary of the mass killings that began in 1915 when the Ottoman Empire was fighting Tsarist Russia during World War I in the region known now as Armenia.

More than 100 members of Congress, led by the Democratic member Adam Schiff, the House Intelligence Committee chairman, have sent a letter to Biden urging him to fulfil his pledge to recognise genocide during his election campaign.

“For decades, as leaders around the world recognised the first genocide of the twentieth century, the president of the United States maintained his silence,” the letter said.

“Mr President, as you said last year in your statement of the 24th of April, silence is complicity. And the shameful silence of the United States Government on the historic fact of the Armenian Genocide has gone on for too long, and it must end.”

The massacres were already officially recognised by the US Congress as an act of genocide in December 2019 in an essentially symbolic vote.

Ian Bremmer, president and founder of the Eurasia Group, said Biden’s expected move reflects the deteriorating relationship between the two countries, but that Erdogan’s options will be limited.

“It is unlikely that Erdogan will provoke the United States with actions that could further undermine Turkey’s weak economy,” he added.

Turkey alarmed over Biden’s intent to recognise Armenian ‘genocide’

This formal recognition of the World War One killing of some 1.5 million Armenians is expected from Biden Saturday at the marking of the 106th anniversary of the start of the mass-killings and deportations. Ankara has limited option in this regard.

Thursday 22/04/2021

Demonstrators march towards the Turkish Consulate during a rally commemorating the anniversary of the Armenian genocide on in Los Angeles, California. (AFP)

WASHINGTON--US President Joe Biden is expected to honour a campaign pledge and become the first occupant of the White House to describe the wartime massacre of Ottoman Turkey’s Armenians as “genocide”.

This formal recognition of the World War One “genocidal” killing of some 1.5 million Armenians which started in 1915 on orders from the then Ottoman Turkish government, is expected from Biden Saturday at the marking of the 106th anniversary of the start of the mass-killings and deportations.

Successive Turkish governments, while admitting that many Armenians died in eastern Turkey, have always angrily denied that the massacres were planned and ordered by the Ottoman military from the  country’s then-capital Istanbul. Turks also point out that there had been an Armenian uprising behind the lines when Ottoman troops were fighting a losing campaign against Tsarist Russian forces driving out of the Caucasus.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is likely to furiously push back at Biden’s formal use of the word “genocide”. Clearly anticipating the development, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu warned on Tuesday that it will further harm already strained ties between the NATO allies.

“Statements that have no legal binding will have no benefit, but they will harm ties,” Cavusoglu warned. “If the United States wants to worsen ties, the decision is theirs,” he said, adding “ the US needs to respect international law”.

Biden’s move would be largely symbolic but would mean breaking away from decades of carefully-calibrated language from the White House and comes at a time when Ankara and Washington are already at loggerheads over a string of issues.

Biden is expected to use the word “genocide” as part of a statement on April 24 when annual commemorations for the victims are held around the world, three sources familiar with the matter said.

“My understanding is that he took the decision and will use the word genocide in his statement on Saturday,” said a source familiar with the matter. Sources cautioned that given the importance of bilateral ties with Turkey, Biden may still choose not to use the term at the last minute.

White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki on Wednesday told reporters the White House would likely have “more to say” about the issue on Saturday, but declined to elaborate.

The State Department referred queries on the issue to the White House and National Security Council had no comment beyond what Psaki said.

A year ago, while still a presidential candidate, Biden commemorated the 1.5 million Armenian men, women, and children who lost their lives in the final years of the Ottoman Empire and said he would back efforts to recognise those killings as a genocide.

“Today, we remember the atrocities faced by the Armenian people in the Metz Yeghern (Great Calamity) the Armenian Genocide. If elected, I pledge to support a resolution recognising the Armenian Genocide and will make universal human rights a top priority,” he said on Twitter at the time.

Turkey accepts that many Armenians living in the Ottoman Empire were killed in clashes with Ottoman forces during World War One, but contests the figures and denies the killings were systematically orchestrated and constitute a genocide.

At the time, one of the loudest protests over the Armenian massacres and forced death marches into Syria and Iraq came from the then US ambassador to Turkey, Henry Morgenthau.

For decades, measures recognising the Armenian genocide stalled in the US Congress and US presidents have refrained from calling it that, stymied by concerns about relations with Turkey and intense lobbying by Ankara.

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan had established a close bond with former US President Donald Trump, but he has yet to speak to Biden since he became president in January

While Turkish and American officials have held talks since then, the Biden administration has stepped up pressure on Turkey by frequently expressing its discontent over Ankara’s human rights track record and the gap between the two sides over a host of issues including Turkey’s purchase of Russian weapons systems and policy differences in Syria remains.

Ian Bremmer, founder of the Eurasia Group research and consulting firm, said Biden’s expected move reflected the deteriorating relationship between the NATO allies, but Erdogan’s response would be likely limited.

“Erdogan is … unlikely to provoke the US with actions that could further undermine Turkey’s weak economy,” he said.

In 2019, the US Senate passed a non-binding resolution recognising the killings as a genocide, in a historic move that deeply angered Turkey.

Bi-partisan pressure 

Representative Adam Schiff and a group of 100 bipartisan lawmakers sent a letter to Biden this week urging him to follow through on his campaign pledge and “right decades of wrongs.”

“For decades, while leaders around the world recognise the first genocide of the 20th century, the president of the United States has remained silent,” the letter said, continuing ” ‘Silence is complicity.’ The shameful silence of the United States government on the historic fact of the Armenian Genocide has gone on for too long, and it must end”.

Dozens of other countries including France and Russia have already designated the Armenian killings as genocide. After the Dutch parliament passed a motion in February urging the government to recognise the genocide, Turkey said the move was “aimed at rewriting history based on political motives.”

Aram Hamparian, executive director of the Armenian National Committee of America has been prominent in the campaign to have Biden abandon long-standing US ambivalence and call the massacres a genocide.

“In the past, the arm twisting from Turkey was, ‘Well we’re such a good friend that you should remain solid with us on this,'” he said, “But they’re proving to be not such a good friend.”

Hamparian said he is hopeful that Biden will follow through. He noted that the stinging disappointment, when former President Barack Obama failed to honour  his own campaign pledge in 2008 to recognise the Armenian genocide, still lingers for many in the Armenian diaspora.

Samantha Power, who served as Obama’s United Nations ambassador and has been nominated by Biden to serve as USAID administrator along with deputy national security adviser Ben Rhodes both publicly expressed disappointment that Obama didn’t act on the matter. Obama was concerned about straining the relationship with Turkey, a NATO member whose cooperation was needed on military and diplomatic efforts in Afghanistan, Iran and Syria.

Power said in a 2018 interview with Pod Save the World that the administration was “played a little bit” by Erdogan and others invested in delaying a genocide declaration.

CEO Salaries for the Top 20 Pharma Companies by Market Cap


Published: Apr 23, 2021 By Alex Keown
https://www.biospace.com/


Executives at pharmaceutical companies are known for receiving large salaries. When bonuses and stock options are factored into the picture, their annual compensation can jump into the range of tens of millions of dollars, like Pfizer’s Albert Bourla, Alex Gorsky from Johnson & Johnson, and AstraZeneca’s Pascal Soriot.

Over the past several weeks, life sciences and biopharma companies have been filing year-end reports that include the total compensation for CEOs and other members of the executive teams received for 2020. As BioSpace reported earlier this month, CEOs of companies that have developed vaccines for the COVID-19 pandemic saw boosts in their annual compensation.

The bulk of the increases have come in the form of bonuses and stock options. For example, Ugur Sahin, CEO of Germany’s BioNTech, earned the majority of his $7.4 million compensation through stock options. Sahin is the sole shareholder of a German firm that controls an 18% stake in BioNTech.

After the vaccine developed by his company and Pfizer was authorized across the globe against COVID-19, Sahin became one of the world’s 500 richest people in the world. Sahin’s net worth increased to $5.1 billion after inking a developmental deal with Pfizer and vaccine distribution deals, making him the 493rd-richest person on the planet.

The BioSpace editorial team collected the most recent base salary information for CEOs of the top 20 biopharma companies based on market cap. The salaries ranged from a low of $591,710 for Vertex CEO David DeStefano to the $3,785,000 base salary for Severin Schwan, CEO of Swiss pharma giant Roche.

The chart below shows the change in base salary from the previous year in addition to the base salary. Some of the CEOs saw a slight increase of only a few percentage points. However, Novartis CEO Vas Narasimhan and Gilead Sciences CEO Daniel O’Day, whose company jumped due to early success with Remdesivir against COVID-19, saw significant boosts in their base salary, 29.8%, and 34.4%, respectively.

Two CEOs saw a decline in their base salary. Roche’s Schwan, who posted the highest base salary, saw a 12.5% decrease from 2019, and Illumina CEO Francis deSouza saw his base salary fall 2.1%.

J&J CEO Alex Gorsky is actually in line for a boost in his total compensation to $30 million if approved by shareholders later this month. However, several stakeholders in the company are opposed to that boost, mainly because of ongoing litigation related to the company’s opioid business. Those who oppose the CEO pay raise say Gorsky’s pay increases should not be shielded from billions of dollars lost in litigation.

Israel-based Teva is not in the top 20 for market cap, but its CEO Kåre Schultz is set for a significant boost in his annual compensation. His $2 million base salary remains the same as in 2019, but he is set to receive a $4 million boost in his stock holdings, a 35% increase. According to the company’s SEC filing, Schultz is set to receive total compensation of $15,724,518. This is despite the continued litigation the company faces over its role in the opioid crisis, as well as for manipulating generic drug prices.

Below is the base salary chart for the top 20 biopharma companies based on market cap.
COMPANY MARKET CAP (IN BILLIONS)**Market Cap as of April 21, 2021 CEO 2020 BASE SALARY (USD) BASE SALARY CHANGE FROM 2019
Johnson & Johnson $438.29 Alex Gorsky $1,650,000 0%
Roche $289.07 Severin Schwan $3,785,000 -12.5%
Pfizer $217.72 Albert Bourla $1,700,000 6.3%
Novartis $215.70 Vas Narisimhan $1,886,000 29.8%
Abbott $212.58 Robert B. Ford $1,298,462 6.3%
Merck & Co. $198.88 Kenneth C. Frazier $1,702,006 1.8%
AbbVie $192.42 Richard Gonzales $1,688,462 2.3%
Eli Lilly $182.76 David A. Ricks $1,483,333 7.0%
Amgen $148.67 Robert A. Bradway $1,647,538 2.9%
Bristol Myers Squibb $148.27 Giovanni Caforio $1,687,115 2.2%
AstraZeneca $139.15 Pascal Soriot $1,767,000 0%
Novo Nordisk $133.17 Lars Fruergaard Jørgensen $2,256,324 1.4%
Sanofi $131.30 Paul Hudson $6,707,717 Hired in 2019
GlaxoSmithKline $94.30 Emma Walmsley $1,648,677 8%
Gilead Sciences $83.76 Daniel O’Day $1,702,885 34.4%
Bayer $65.92 Werner Baumann $1,992,301 1.1%
Illumina $58.97 Francis deSouza $1,028,462 -2.1%
Moderna $67.16 Stéphane Bancel $950,000 2.7%
Vertex $56.57 David DeStefano $591,710 11.6%
Regeneron $54.20 Leonard Schleifer $1,425,300 3.5%

Justin Trudeau and wife Sophie receive AstraZeneca vaccine in wake of damning newspaper story

by Charlie Smith on April 23rd, 2021 

GEORGIA STRAIGHT



Media captured the moment when the Trudeaus received their first COVID-19 vaccinations.CPAC

The prime minister of Canada has taken what one health writer derided last month as the Edsel of pandemic age.

The decision of Justin Trudeau and his wife, Sophie Grégoire Trudeau, to receive the AstraZeneca vaccine today came as the vaccine's Baltimore manufacturer is under fire.

The National Post reported that more than half of Canada's AstraZeneca vaccine supply came from a plant that had quality-control problems, according to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

That prompted University of Ottawa health and legal specialist Amir Attaran to declare that the doses must be recalled and not used.

In March, the Globe and Mail's Andre Picard described the AstraZeneca as a "good vaccine".

However, Picard also compared its rollout and the company's missteps to that of the infamous Ford car that was sold from 1958 to 1960.

In B.C., Premier John Horgan took the AstraZeneca vaccine when it was only available in pharmacies to those between 55 and 65 years old.

At that time, there were vaccines sitting in pharmacies unused, but demand has spiked sharply since the age limit was lowered to 40 in B.C.

Here's what Trudeau said last night over Twitter.

He followed it up this morning with another call for people to get vaccinated.

“If you’re eligible for your vaccine like we are, make sure you get your dose as soon as possible,” Trudeau told reporters today.

You can see him receiving his shot in the video below.

The Trudeau's appear at 6:15 of this video.

Meanwhile, Ontario has reported first case of an AstraZeneca vaccine–based blood clot.

Also known as vaccine-induced immune thrombotic thrombocytopenia, it occurred in an Ontario man in his 60s who received the AstraZeneca/COVIDSHIELD vaccine, which was manufactured in India.

“The patient has received treatment and is recovering at home," Ontario's chief medical officer of health, David Williams, said. "Additional details will not be publicly released to protect the patient’s privacy.”

It's the fourth such case in Canada from more than 1.1 million doses that have been given.

The chance of a blood clot from COVID-19 vastly exceeds the change of a blood clot from the AtraZeneca vaccine, as the tweet below indicates.