It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
Tuesday, May 11, 2021
CIA's misleading inoculation drive led to vaccine decline in Pakistan
A new paper in the Journal of the European Economic Association, published by Oxford University Press, indicates that distrust generated by a 2011 CIA-led vaccination campaign ruse designed to catch Osama Bin Laden resulted in a significant vaccination rate decline in Pakistan.
Using a local doctor, the US Central Intelligence Organization planned an immunization plan in Pakistan to obtain DNA samples of children living in a compound in Abbottabad where American authorities suspected Bin Laden was hiding in order to obtain proof of Bin Laden's location (because the presence of close relatives would be a likely indication of Bin Laden's presence). Without consent from the Pakistani health authorities, the doctor began to administer hepatitis B vaccines to children in Abbottabad. The Guardian published an article revealing the vaccine project shortly after a United States military special operations unit killed Bin Laden on May 2, 2011.
Even prior to this campaign extremist groups in Pakistan have worked to discredit formal medicine and vaccines. By discrediting such services (which are provided by the state) extremist groups may increase the credibility of non-state actors such as the Taliban.
The Taliban increased propaganda efforts against vaccines in the aftermath of the publication of the Guardian article. In particular, the Taliban issued several religious edicts linking vaccination campaigns to CIA espionage activities and later used violent action against vaccination workers.
Using data from the Pakistan Social and Living Standards Measurement on children born between January 2010 and July 2012, researchers have investigated the effects of the disclosure of this vaccination ruse on the extent to which children in Pakistan received doses of the polio, DPT, or measles vaccine. Their estimates indicate that the vaccination rate declined between 23% and 39% in districts with higher levels of electoral support for an alliance of parties espousing political extremism relative to districts with lower levels of electoral support for such groups. The researchers' investigation also revealed that the decline in girls' vaccination rates is larger than the decline in the vaccination rate of boys.
"The empirical evidence highlights that events which cast doubt on the integrity of health workers or vaccines can have severe consequences for the acceptance of health products such as vaccines," said Andreas Stegmann, one of the paper's authors. "This seems particularly relevant today as public acceptance of the new vaccines against Covid-19 is crucial to address the pandemic."
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Direct correspondence to:
Andreas Stegmann, Assistant Professor of Economics Department of Economics, University of Warwick Coventry, CV4 7AL, UNITED KINGDOM University of Warwick Andreas.Stegmann@warwick.ac.uk
IMAGE: A DIAMOND ENCAPSULATING TINY BITS OF FLUID FROM THE DEEP EARTH, HELD HERE BY FINE TWEEZERS, WAS PART OF A STUDY DELVING INTO THE AGE AND ORIGINS OF SOUTH AFRICAN... view more
CREDIT: YAAKOV WEISS
Diamonds are sometimes described as messengers from the deep earth; scientists study them closely for insights into the otherwise inaccessible depths from which they come. But the messages are often hard to read. Now, a team has come up with a way to solve two longstanding puzzles: the ages of individual fluid-bearing diamonds, and the chemistry of their parent material. The research has allowed them to sketch out geologic events going back more than a billion years--a potential breakthrough not only in the study of diamonds, but of planetary evolution.
Gem-quality diamonds are nearly pure lattices of carbon. This elemental purity gives them them their luster; but it also means they carry very little information about their ages and origins. However, some lower-grade specimens harbor imperfections in the form of tiny pockets of liquid--remnants of the more complex fluids from which the crystals evolved. By analyzing these fluids , the scientists in the new study worked out the times when different diamonds formed, and the shifting chemical conditions around them.
"It opens a window--well, let's say, even a door--to some of the really big questions" about the evolution of the deep earth and the continents, said lead author Yaakov Weiss, an adjunct scientist at Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, where the analyses were done, and senior lecturer at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. "This is the first time we can get reliable ages for these fluids." The study was published this week in the journal Nature Communications.
Most diamonds are thought to form some 150 to 200 kilometers under the surface, in relatively cool masses of rock beneath the continents. The process may go back as far as 3.5 billion years, and probably continues today. Occasionally, they are carried upward by powerful, deep-seated volcanic eruptions called kimberlites. (Don't expect to see one erupt today; the youngest known kimberlite deposits are tens of millions of years old.)
Much of what we know about diamonds comes from lab experiments, and studies of other minerals and rocks that come up with the diamonds, or are sometimes even encased within them. The 10 diamonds the team studied came from mines founded by the De Beers company in and around Kimberley, South Africa. "We like the ones that no one else really wants," said Weiss--fibrous, dirty-looking specimens containing solid or liquid impurities that disqualify them as jewelry, but carry potentially valuable chemical information. Up to now, most researchers have concentrated on solid inclusions, such as tiny bits of garnet, to determine the ages of diamonds. But the ages that solid inclusions indicate can be debatable, because the inclusions may or may not have formed at the same time as the diamond itself. Encapsulated fluids, on the other hand, are the real thing, the stuff from which the diamond itself formed.
CAPTION
A diamond used in the study.
CREDIT
Yaakov Weiss
What Weiss and his colleagues did was find a way to date the fluids. They did this by measuring traces of radioactive thorium and uranium, and their ratios to helium-4, a rare isotope that results from their decay. The scientists also figured out the maximum rate at which the nimble little helium molecules can leak out of the diamond--without which data, conclusions about ages based on the abundance of the isotope could be thrown far off. (As it turns out, diamonds are very good at containing helium.)
The team identified three distinct periods of diamond formation. These all took place within separate rock masses that eventually coalesced into present-day Africa. The oldest took place between 2.6 billion and 700 million years ago. Fluid inclusions from that time show a distinct composition, extremely rich in carbonate minerals. The period also coincided with the buildup of great mountain ranges on the surface, apparently from the collisions and squishing together of the rocks. These collisions may have had something to do with production of the carbonate-rich fluids below, although exactly how is vague, the researchers say.
The next diamond-formation phase spanned a possible time frame of 550 million to 300 million years ago, as the proto-African continent continued to rearrange itself. At this time, the liquid inclusions show, the fluids were high in silica minerals, indicating a shift in subterranean conditions. The period also coincided with another major mountain-building episode.
The most recent known phase took place between 130 million years and 85 million years ago. Again, the fluid composition switched: Now, it was high in saline compounds containing sodium and potassium. This suggests that the carbon from which these diamonds formed did not come directly from the deep earth, but rather from an ocean floor that was dragged under a continental mass by subduction. This idea, that some diamonds' carbon may be recycled from the surface, was once considered improbable, but recent research by Weiss and others has increased its currency.
One intriguing find: At least one diamond encapsulated fluid from both the oldest and youngest eras. The shows that new layers can be added to old crystals, allowing individual diamonds to evolve over vast periods of time.
It was at the end of this most recent period, when Africa had largely assumed its current shape, that a great bloom of kimberlite eruptions carried all the diamonds the team studied to the surface. The solidified remains of these eruptions were discovered in the 1870s, and became the famous De Beers mines. Exactly what caused them to erupt is still part of the puzzle.
The tiny diamond-encased droplets provide a rare way to link events that took place long ago on the surface with what was going on at the same time far below, say the scientists. "What is fascinating is, you can constrain all these different episodes from the fluids," said Cornelia Class, a geochemist at Lamont-Doherty and coauthor of the paper. "Southern Africa is one of the best-studied places in the world, but we've very rarely been able to see beyond the indirect indications of what happened there in the past."
When asked whether the findings could help geologists find new diamond deposits, Weiss just laughed. "Probably not," he said. But, he said, the method could be applied to other diamond-producing areas of the world, including Australia, Brazil, and northern Canada and Russia, to disentangle the deep histories of those regions, and develop new insights into how continents evolve.
"These are really big questions, and it's going to take people a long time to get at them," he said. "I will go to pension, and still not have finished that walk. But at least this gives us some new ideas about how to find out how things work."
CAPTION
Lead author Yaakov Weiss in the lab at Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, where the analyses were done.
CREDIT
Kevin Krajick/Earth Institute
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The other authors of the study are Yael Kiro of Israel's Weizmann Institute of Science; Gisela Winckler and Steven Goldstein of Lamont-Doherty; and Jeff Harris of Scotland's University of Glasgow.
Scientist contacts:
The Earth Institute, Columbia University mobilizes the sciences, education and public policy to achieve a sustainable earth. http://www.earth.columbia.edu.
Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory is Columbia University's home for Earth science research. Its scientists develop fundamental knowledge about the origin, evolution and future of the natural world, from the planet's deepest interior to the outer reaches of its atmosphere, on every continent and in every ocean, providing a rational basis for the difficult choices facing humanity. http://www.ldeo.columbia.edu | @LamontEarth
Muti: Pandemic year silenced culture, leaving world stunned
RAVENNA, Italy — Maestro Riccardo Muti has once again reopened the Italian musical season in his adopted hometown of Ravenna after another — and if all goes well perhaps final — round of pandemic closures.
With a purposeful nod and flick of his baton, the 79-year-old conductor on Sunday ended what has been an unexpectedly long silence in Italian theatres, enrapturing a socially distanced and masked audience with the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra’s first live performances since the fall — back-to-back evening concerts of Mendelssohn, Schumann and Brahms.
The concerts launched a three-stop Italian tour by the Vienna Philharmonic to celebrate 50 years of ties with the conductor and served as a precursor to the summertime Ravenna Festival, this year celebrating the 700th anniversary of Dante’s death.
“The emotion is above all one of rebirth, which is a positive word, but it means that something died before. So, within the positivity, there is the regret over something lost. And we, for a year, lost the possibility of life, in the complete sense of the word,” Muti told The Associated Press before the concert.
“This fact, that in nearly the whole world, theatres have remained empty, orchestras were reduced to silence, is something that has never been seen before.” After World War II, Muti said, U.S. soldiers made it a priority to reopen the San Carlo Theater in his native Naples, and in Milan city fathers rebuilt La Scala, destroyed bombs, reopening it on May 11, 1946 with a concert conducted by Arturo Toscanini.
DURING WWII THE LENINGRAD ORCHESTRA PLAYED EVERY DAY OF THE NAZI SEIGE
La Scala reopened to the public on Monday after a six-month COVID-19 closure, with Riccardo Chailly conducting Verdi and Wagner for the 75th anniversary of the reconstruction. The orchestra performed from risers built over the platea, while the chorus was spaced on stage.
During this year, Muti has been unable to return to the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, where he has been music director for a decade. His last European performance, the traditional Vienna New Year’s Day concert, was a triumph but was performed to an empty concert hall. In his closing remarks, he urged governments to fund culture, as a salve to mental health that suffered during the pandemic closures. “Music helps,” he said.
Nearly a year ago, Muti reopened the European musical season after Italy’s draconian spring 2020 lockdown with an outdoor concert of the Luigi Cherubini Youth Orchestra he founded. Then, the hope was that the summer music festivals would flow smoothly into the fall concert calendar, and cultural life would resume. The fall virus spike and variants doomed that trajectory. Musicians around the world have been deprived of playing for an audience, not to mention income, and audiences the comfort of a live performance.
Muti called the experience of the past year “an unnatural global experiment” that had “stunned” the world.
“If we truly took into account how we are living, we would all go crazy. We try to maintain the illusion that we are living a normal life. It is the only way to reach the end of this absurd path,’’ he said.
Muti is plunging back into concert life. He is conducting his much-curtailed 50th anniversary tour with the Vienna Philharmonic in Florence on Monday and at Milan’s La Scala on Tuesday, before returning to Ravenna to prepare for festival appearances of his Luigi Cherubini Youth Orchestra and for the debut of a piece of music written for the Dante anniversary based on the Divine Comedy's Purgatory canticle.
The world premiere of “Purgatory” by Armenian composer Tigran Mansurian will be held in the Armenian capital, Yerevan, on July 4, part of Muti’s series of Paths of Friendship concerts in their 25th year in cities recovering from war, hatred and conflicts. It will be repeated in Ravenna for the 700th anniversary celebrations of Dante’s death in September. It is one of three, along with Inferno and Paradise, commissioned for this year’s festival.
Muti plans to be back in Chicago by the fall.
The Ravenna Festival, founded 30 years ago by Muti’s wife, Cristina Mazzavillani, reopens June 2 with an ambitious program of 120 musical, dance and theatrical performances and runs through July 31, despite uncertainty in the pace of reopening and the return of tourism. Optimistically, the program calls for 9:30 p.m. curtain times, even though a 10 p.m. curfew remains in place nationwide.
“It is a return of hope,” said general manager Antonio De Rosa. “We want to restore dignity to audiences with the possibility of listening live.”
With a regime of daily virus testing, the Vienna Philharmonic played without masks, spaced at least a meter a part. The audience was spread out across the four tiers of balconies, and every other row was removed from the floor seats, with government rules limiting seating in the 800-seat theatre to 250 people.
In between the shows, orchestra members in their gray pinstriped stage garb wandered over to see Dante’s tomb across the street, or to sit at an outdoor café next to the Alighieri Theater, named for the famed poet who died in Ravenna on Sept. 13, 1321.
“Starting again to make music means starting to live again. Starting to live again means starting to be together again,’’ Muti said. “What has not been able to happen for a year, has been a real tragedy.”
Muti has appealed to Italy’s culture minister to fund more orchestras, encouraged by the commitment he saw working in cities like Turin and Palermo this pandemic year bound largely to Italy, after decades spent mostly conducting abroad if not with his youth orchestra. “Their response was excellent, and this gives me hope,” he said.
The city of Tokyo, where Muti just spent a few weeks with his Italian opera academy, has 17 orchestras, he noted. Italy, the birthplace of lyric opera, has fewer than 30.
A cultural life, he said, is essential for healing from the pandemic year, especially for young people whose social contacts have been dramatically limited at a critical age. “What future will they have? Will they overcome this trauma? They can overcome this shock only with trust in life, which comes through socializing, living together and sharing above all culture,” Muti said. “I have said it before, and I will say it again. It still seems that culture is not at the top of the priority list, but at nearly the bottom.”
Colleen Barry, The Associated Press
REAL ART NOT NFT Leonardo da Vinci bear sketch could fetch over $16M
Megan C. Hills, CNN
A tiny sketch of a bear by Leonardo da Vinci is expected to sell for over $16 million at auction.
The item is one of only eight Leonardo drawings left in private hands, according Christie's, the auction house organizing the sale.
Measuring less than 8 square inches, the drawing was made on pale pink-beige paper using silverpoint -- a technique, taught to Leonardo by his master Andrea del Verrocchio, that involves marking chemically treated paper with silver rods or wire.
The sketch has changed hands several times over the centuries -- in fact, it was once sold by Christie's for just £2.50 (about £312, or $439, in today's money) in 1860. Titled "Head of a Bear," it has since been displayed at major institutions including the National Gallery in London, Louvre Abu Dhabi and Saint Petersburg's State Hermitage Museum.
In a press release, the chairman of Old Master paintings at Christie's New York, Ben Hall, called the sketch "one of the most important works from the Renaissance still in private hands," adding that it had "been owned by some of the most distinguished collectors in the field of Old Masters across many centuries." Notable previous owners include painter Sir Thomas Lawrence and art collector Captain Norman Robert Colville.
The drawing, which includes the artist's signature, will go on display in Hong Kong later this month. It will then move on to London, where it is expected to fetch between £8 million and £12 million ($11.21 million to $16.82 million) at a July sale.
Master of anatomy
The most expensive Leonardo sketch ever to appear at auction is "Horse and Rider," which sold for £8 million (over $11.2 million) in 2001. Stijn Alsteens, international head of the Old Masters department at Christie's Paris, said he had "every reason to believe we will achieve a new record in July for 'Head of a Bear,'" describing it in a press statement as "one of the last drawings by Leonardo that can be expected to come onto the market."
The sale price is, however, likely to fall short of the current auction record for an Old Master drawing. In 2009, Raphael's "Head of a Muse," a study for a fresco commissioned by Pope Julius II for the Stanza della Segnatura in the Vatican, netted almost $49 million at Christie's in London.
Though Leonardo is best known for oil paintings like the "Mona Lisa" and "The Last Supper," the Renaissance master was also celebrated for his anatomical sketches. His drawing "The Vitruvian Man," a mathematically precise rendering of a nude male, is often hailed as one of his greatest accomplishments.
Leonardo was fascinated by the natural world, and he completed many other animal sketches in his lifetime. His drawings of cats and dogs, as well as one of a bear walking, are among those on display at institutions including the British Museum and Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Other Leonardo sketches depicted religious figures and biblical scenes. In 2016, a drawing titled "The Martyred Saint Sebastian" was set to fetch 15 million euros ($16 million at the time) at auction, though the sale was blocked after the French government declared the item to be a national treasure.
Other notable lots at the Christie's auction in July, titled "The Exceptional Sale," include an orrery clock designed by Jacques-Thomas Castel and an amethyst ormolu-mounted potpourri vase by Jean-Claude Chambellan Duplessis.
Investors chide Toyota's Toyoda for questioning combustion car ban
TOKYO (Reuters) - Some Toyota Motor shareholders have criticized its President Akio Toyoda for questioning Japan's plans to ban conventional cars only days after the firm said it was reviewing its climate lobbying and aimed for carbon neutrality by 2050.
The five investors, who collectively have around $500 billion in assets under management and spoke exclusively to Reuters, said the carmaker risks falling behind competitors that are rolling out electric vehicles, while giving cover for other companies seeking to avoid big changes to meet climate goals.
Japan's Toyota signalled a shift in its climate change stance last month when it said it would review its lobbying and be more transparent on what steps it was taking as it responded to increased activist and investor pressure.
Three days later though, in his capacity as head of the Japanese automobile Manufacturers Association, Toyoda questioned the country's decision to ban new internal combustion engined vehicles by 2035 in its quest for carbon neutrality.
"What Japan needs to do now is to expand its options for technology. I think regulations and legislations should follow after," Toyoda said.
"Policy that bans gasoline-powered or diesel cars from the very beginning would limit such options, and could also cause Japan to lose its strengths," he added.
Investors who had welcomed the earlier Toyota statement on lobbying said they were worried that Toyoda may not be on board with the plans.
"We're genuinely concerned that Mr. Toyoda does not seem to realize what is at stake here," said Jens Munch Holst, CEO of AkademikerPension.
The Danish fund told Reuters last month that it would consider a shareholder resolution or sell its holding in Toyota if there was no change after "intense" engagement with the company.
A Toyota spokeswoman told Reuters the company could not immediately comment on the investors' criticism but would be addressing climate issues later in the week when it announces earnings.
The company in recent years has said that electric vehicles will play a greater role in reducing emissions but other solutions should be used, like its successful hybrid or slow-selling hydrogen vehicles.
With pressure growing on carmakers to slash emissions, Toyota is scrambling to produce electric vehicles that can compete with models from the likes of Tesla, Volkswagen, General Motors and Renault, plus Chinese startups like Nio and Xpeng.
The five investors who spoke about Toyoda's comments - also including Norway's Storebrand Asset Management, Nordic investor Nordea Asset Management, the Church of England Pensions Board and KLP, Norway's biggest pension fund - said Toyota was in danger of blunting its competitiveness.
"As a shareholder in Toyota, we actively engaged with the company and received reassurances that all of its lobbying activities, including with industry associations, would be reviewed and reported on this year," said Jan Erik Saugestad, CEO of Storebrand Asset Management.
"Full electrification of transport is vital if we are to meet our climate targets and Toyota should be leading the charge on this rather than prolonging the production of new combustion engines and giving away their market share to other companies," he added.
(Reporting by Aaron Sheldrick; Editing by Pravin Char)
New electric vehicle charging research could allow drivers to power their cars as they drive on the highway
Khurram Afridi, an associate professor of electrical and computer engineering at Cornell, is honing technology that would allow drivers to charge their electric vehicle while they are in motion. He has been working on a project for the past seven years that would implant wireless charging infrastructure into US roads.
"Highways would have a charging lane, sort of like a high occupancy lane," Afridi told Insider. "If you were running out of battery you would move into the charging lane. It would be able to identify which car went into the lane and it would later send you a bill."
While it will be about five to 10 years before the project could be ready to be rolled out to major roadways, Afridi sees wireless charging as the best way to eliminate driver's fears related to finding charging stations and running out of battery.
Currently, there are about 1.8 million battery-powered cars on US roads, but there are only about 100,000 charging plugs for them at around 41,000 public station locations. President Joe Biden has pledged to build 500,000 new plugs over the next decade, a goal some experts say could be difficult to reach.
A recent study from University of California Davis found that one in five electric car owners switched back to a gas-powered car due to the hassle of needing EV charging stations. Data from JD Power found that anxiety related to an electric car's battery range is a primary limiting factor in the commercial viability of the vehicles.
"The only way people are going to buy electric cars is if they're just as easy to refuel as combustion engines," Afridi said. "If we had this [wireless charging] technology the electric vehicles would have even less limitations than traditional ones." Wireless charging is not a new phenomenon
The science behind Afridi's project goes back over 100 years to Nikola Tesla, the inventor who used alternating electric fields to power lights without plugging them in. Afridi's technology would embed special metal plates in the road that are connected to a powerline and a high frequency inverter. The plates will create alternating electric fields that attract and repel a pair of matching plates attached to the bottom of the EV.
In 1986, California tested a wireless charging option with roadway powered cars for its Partners for Advanced Transit and Highways (PATH) program. In recent years, wireless charging for phones has also seen a push from companies like Apple and Samsung. But, overall, wireless charging efforts have fallen flat as the hardware has proven expensive and often unwieldy.
Wireless charging has failed to take off because tech companies have been focusing on magnetic fields, instead of electric ones, Afridi told Insider. Alternating magnetic fields require bulky, expensive hardware and use more energy than they provides.
Charging via electric fields has been mostly overlooked due to the high frequencies it would require and magnetic fields are also easier to generate, according to Afridi. But, the professor has long been interested in pushing technology to its highest potential frequencies, dating back to his work at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in 1987.
"They thought it was not feasible because they did not think of going to the high level of frequencies that I was thinking of," Afridi said. "But, that has always been my area of research. It is really my passion to go to very high frequencies and push the technology to its highest potential frequency."
Afridi's team, a group of fellows and researchers at Cornell, has already made several advances and can power vehicles with up to 18 centimeters of clearance from the road, which accounts for most EVs. The group has also created technology that allows the vehicle to gain full power when passing over the charging plates (which would be embedded several meters apart) even if they are not fully aligned.
The biggest hurdles for the project has been finding and creating the components that would be able to conduct the high levels of electricity needed to power the vehicles, as well as electric switches that would be able to operate at the high frequencies required for efficient charging. To date the charging process takes about 4-5 hours for a full charge of a smaller vehicle like a Nissan Leaf, while larger Teslas would require an even longer charge time, Afridi said.
The infrastructure necessary for the charging lanes would require a massive overhaul of major US roadways, but Afridi told Insider one approach would be to electrify busy highways and major cities first. The metal plates would also be useful for charging at stop signs and traffic lights.
Afridi's group is already working on using its technology to power autonomous forklifts through a partnership with Toyota. While it will be several years before the technology is ready for major roadways, he told Insider the tech will likely first power the forklifts and autonomous robots in manufacturing warehouses.
Jewish group 'extremely disturbed' by reports of Hitler Youth flags in Alberta town
A prominent Jewish organization says it is “extremely disturbed” by reports of Hitler Youth flags being displayed in two Alberta towns within days of each other.
The Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Center for Holocaust Studies says it filed a criminal complaint with RCMP after being alerted on the weekend to Hitler Youth and Confederate flags by a resident of Breton, Alta., about 100 kilometres southwest of Edmonton.
The Toronto-based organization says in a release that the RCMP confirmed that officers spoke to the property owner, who has refused to take down the flags.
The report came less than a week after the Jewish group filed a complaint to the RCMP about a Hitler Youth flag at a property in Boyle, Alta., about 125 kilometres north of Edmonton.
In a recent interview, RCMP spokeswoman Const. Chantelle Kelly said that property owner removed a flag after speaking with officers.
Mounties were not immediately available for comment on the Breton flag, but have said they were investigating whether hate was a factor in the Boyle case.
“Technically, flying a flag is not illegal in itself, so (investigators) have to determine whether there is motivation or something else behind it that is criminal in nature,” Kelly said in an interview last week.
The Simon Wiesenthal Center said Tuesday that “it is extremely disturbing and quite disheartening to once again see a Hitler Youth flag, as well as the Confederate flag, on display.”
The organization said it has written to Breton's mayor and village council to ask that they work with police to ensure the flags are removed.
"These displays of hate go against the values that Canada stands for and are an attack on not only the Jewish and Black communities, but also on our veterans and fallen soldiers who made unspeakable sacrifices to defeat the Nazis and preserve our freedoms,” Jaime Kirzner-Roberts, the group's policy director, said in the release.
"We urge police to investigate this incident as a hate crime and for community leaders to send a message loud and clear that hate will not be tolerated in their community.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published May 11, 2021.
Daniela Germano, The Canadian Press
Alberta government knew bighorn sheep contaminated with coal mine selenium: scientist
EDMONTON — Some herds of Alberta's provincial animal are heavily contaminated with selenium from old coal mines, says research from a retired senior government biologist.
Jeff Kneteman said Alberta Environment has known about the problem in bighorn sheep for years. But it has yet to commission any studies about the effects on the three herds and how far the contamination has spread through the local ecosystem.
"There was no interest," said Kneteman, who left government in March 2020. "Why wasn't any of this stuff ever followed up?" The research comes to light as the United Conservative government attempts to convince Albertans the province's regulatory and monitoring systems are capable of ensuring an expansion of coal mining in the Rocky Mountains can be done safely.
The government did not respond to a request for comment. Kneteman's work dates from 2015. It was his thesis for a master's degree and not provincially funded.
He was investigating selenium, a naturally occurring element associated with coal mines that is healthy in small doses but toxic in excess. Kneteman's study looked at what levels of selenium were normal for animals such as bighorns, deer, elk and caribou by considering 85 different herds from across North America.
Two herds in northwest Alberta stood out — those on the sites of the Smoky River, Gregg River and Luscar coal mines.
"(Levels in) bighorn that occupied coal mines were miles away from everybody," he said.
Both herds averaged well outside the safe range for selenium. One of them almost doubled that level.
"They're getting it from the coal mines," Kneteman said. "We found no evidence of elevated selenium in Alberta in any of the other populations that we sampled."
The Rockies are naturally low in selenium. As well, when bighorns from one of the coal-affected herds were transferred to Nevada, their selenium levels dropped to normal within a year.
Selenium is known to damage reproduction. That effect was present, said Kneteman.
"The sheep on the mines have the lowest reproductive potential and reproductive output that we've ever measured in Canada."
The province's 2015 draft management plan for bighorns found that the ratio of lambs to ewes was lower on coal mines than native range every year from 2008-2013.
Referring to unpublished government data, that plan says: "High selenium levels in blood samples from bighorns feeding in reclamation areas associated with a coal minesite ... are of concern to sheep managers.
"No examination of possible populations effects attributed exclusively to selenium toxicity has been undertaken to date."
Research suggests selenium is widespread in the local ecosystem.
Kneteman previously found elevated levels in dippers, small birds that feed on aquatic insects. Other studies have found excessive selenium in at least three area waterways.
"(Selenium) is throughout the system," Kneteman said.
Although his data is years old, Kneteman said there's little reason to believe things have improved.
"(Selenium) hasn't declined at all since the first measurements in the late '90s," he said.
"The assumption could be made it's the same today as it was in 2015. Why would we expect it to have changed?" Meanwhile, the province's 2019 five-year monitoring plan mothballed all the area's water monitoring stations. Since last spring, Alberta has sold tens of thousands of hectares of exploration leases for new coal mines along the summits and eastern slopes of the Rockies.
In response to public concern, Energy Minister Sonya Savage has paused all work on the most sensitive landscapes, stopped further lease sales and struck a panel to hear concerns from Albertans.
Still, she has asked Albertans to have faith in the province's regulatory agency and monitoring programs, referring to Alberta Environment's "stringent environmental protections." Kneteman said he tried repeatedly to get his former department to study a toxin from resource development contaminating the animal that is supposed to symbolize the province. "No one's made any measurements, which is maybe dereliction," he said. "The only reason we've got any measurements is that I went and got them. There wasn't any effort to find out what was going on."
This report by The Canadian Press was first published May 11, 2021.
— Follow Bob Weber on Twitter at @row1960
Bob Weber, The Canadian Press
Judge dismisses NRA bankruptcy case in blow to gun group
DALLAS (AP) — A federal judge on Tuesday dismissed the National Rifle Association’s bankruptcy case, leaving the powerful gun-rights group to face a New York state lawsuit that accuses it of financial abuses and aims to put it out of business.
The case was over whether the NRA should be allowed to incorporate in Texas instead of New York, where the state is suing in an effort to disband the group. Though headquartered in Virginia, the NRA was chartered as a nonprofit in New York in 1871 and is incorporated in the state.
Judge Harlin Hale said in a written order that he was dismissing the case because he found the bankruptcy was not filed in good faith.
“The Court believes the NRA’s purpose in filing bankruptcy is less like a traditional bankruptcy case in which a debtor is faced with financial difficulties or a judgment that it cannot satisfy and more like cases in which courts have found bankruptcy was filed to gain an unfair advantage in litigation or to avoid a regulatory scheme," Hale wrote.
His decision followed 11 days of testimony and arguments. Lawyers for New York and the NRA’s former advertising agency grilled the group’s embattled top executive, Wayne LaPierre, who acknowledged putting the NRA into Chapter 11 bankruptcy without the knowledge or assent of most of its board and other top officers.
“Excluding so many people from the process of deciding to file for bankruptcy, including the vast majority of the board of directors, the chief financial officer, and the general counsel, is nothing less than shocking,” the judge added.
Phillip Journey, an NRA board member and Kansas judge who had sought to have an examiner appointed to investigate the group’s leadership, was concise about Hale's judgment: “1 word, disappointed,” he wrote in a text message.
Lawyers for New York Attorney General Letitia James argued that the case was an attempt by NRA leadership to escape accountability for using the group’s coffers as their personal piggybank. But the NRA’s attorneys said it was a legitimate effort to avoid a political attack by the Democrat.
LaPierre testified that he kept the bankruptcy largely secret to prevent leaks from the group’s 76-member board, which is divided in its support for him.
The NRA declared bankruptcy in January, five months after James’ office sued seeking its dissolution following allegations that executives illegally diverted tens of millions of dollars for lavish personal trips, no-show contracts and other questionable expenditures.
“The NRA does not get to dictate if and where it will answer for its actions, and our case will continue in New York court,” James tweeted after the ruing was made. “No one is above the law.”
Shannon Watts, who founded Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America, said in a serious of tweets that the bankruptcy dismissal “comes at the worst possible time for the NRA: right as background checks are being debated in the Senate.”
“It will be onerous if not impossible for the NRA to effectively oppose gun safety and lobby lawmakers while simultaneously fighting court battles and mounting debt,” said Watts, whose organization is part of the Michael Bloomberg-backed Everytown for Gun Safety.
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Sisak reported from New York.
Jake Bleiberg And Michael R. Sisak, The Associated Press
B.C. pledges to introduce permanent paid sick leave program in January
VICTORIA — Workers affected by COVID-19 in British Columbia will qualify for up to three days of paid sick leave under proposed legislation that Premier John Horgan says will plug holes in a federal plan and lay the groundwork for a permanent program.
Provided by The Canadian Press
Horgan said Tuesday that the program would bridge the gap for workers between the time they first feel sick and when they can access the federal benefit, a pledge that some critics say doesn't go far enough.
"No one should have to make the difficult decision between staying home when they're sick and going into work because they have an economic imperative to do so," Horgan said.
"Today we're making that choice a little bit easier."
Labour Minister Harry Bains introduced the legislation Tuesday, saying it would be effective until Dec. 31 and apply to anyone who shows COVID-19 symptoms, self-isolates or gets tested.
Employers will be required to pay workers their full wages and those without an existing sick leave program will be reimbursed by the government $200 per day for each worker.
WorkSafeBC, the provincial injury prevention and safety agency, will begin administering the program next month and employers will be required to cover the difference for those workers who earn more than $200 a day.
Bains also said a permanent entitlement to paid personal injury and illness leave would take effect in January, although the number of entitlement days would be determined through consultation in the coming months.
"Having paid sick leave is good for businesses, good for workers, good for our communities and will help our economy recover faster," Bains said in the legislature on Tuesday.
About half of B.C. employees do not currently have access to paid sick leave, according to government estimates.
British Columbia's proposed legislation closely matches the program introduced in Ontario, which has come under heavy criticism for falling short of what's needed to curb the spread of COVID-19.
Horgan said last month the province was considering its own sick-leave program after the federal government failed to bring in a national plan that would fill in the gaps of the Canada Recovery Sickness Benefit.
The federal program covers lost wages of $450 a week after taxes, which is less than B.C.'s minimum wage.
Critics have said workers who qualify for the federal benefit have faced delays getting the money and often get a pay cut, obstacles that push people to go to work even when they're not feeling well.
Horgan said he's been disappointed that the federal government has allocated $2.6 billion to the program but only managed to get $400 million out the door.
"That doesn't speak to the lack of need for the program, that speaks to the inadequacy of construction," he said.
Neither he nor Bains could say how quickly the provincial funds would reach employees, but they said WorkSafeBC's existing relationship with employers will make it flow more quickly than programs created from scratch, such as some of the province's lagging pandemic relief for businesses. Two major unions welcomed the news of a permanent paid sick leave program on the horizon, while saying the temporary COVID-19 measure is lacking.
"Although three days per calendar year is inadequate, today's announcement opens the door for future expansion," Jerry Dias, national president of Unifor, said in a statement.
The B.C. Federation of Labour said it will advocate for up to 10 days of paid leave per year, as a basic public health protection and employment right for all. At the same time, it expressed concern with the limited temporary COVID-19 measure. "Workers struggling with a COVID-19 illness face far greater than three days of lost pay, they face potential economic devastation,” president Laird Cronk said in a statement.
“Ensuring workers don’t have to make the untenable decision between staying home with symptoms or working sick to put food on the table and pay the rent is critical during this deadly race between variants and vaccines.”
Horgan defended three days as enough time for workers to access other programs.
"I do believe it's going to be sufficient to get that test done and get the result from that test and then to access the other programs available," he said, pointing to both the federal benefit and workers' compensation for those people who catch COVID-19 at work.
The Surrey Board of Trade issued a statement saying it was pleased with the proposed legislation.
"Businesses in the hardest hit industries will finally get the support that they need," president Anita Huberman said in the statement. "Paid sick leave is about reducing transmission and getting on the other side of this pandemic."
— By Amy Smart in Vancouver.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published May 11, 2021.
