WORTH REPEATING
Lotteries, prizes don't boost COVID-19 vaccination numbers, study shows

By HealthDay News


A health care worker administers the coronavirus vaccine to a school staff member in Medina, Ohio, in February. File Photo by Aaron Josefczyk/UPI | License Photo

Lotteries that pay cash and prizes to Americans who get vaccinated sound like a sure-fire recipe for success, but a new study finds they don't actually boost vaccination rates.

After media reports suggested that Ohio's "Vax-a-Million" lottery increased vaccination rates, other states decided to use lotteries to reinvigorate slowing vaccination rates.

"However, prior evaluations of the Ohio vaccine incentive lottery did not account for other changes in COVID-19 vaccination rates in the United States, such as those that may have been due to expansion of vaccination to ages 12 to 15," said study corresponding author Dr. Allan Walkey, a professor of medicine at Boston University School of Medicine.

Using U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data on trends in vaccination rates among adults aged 18 and older, Walkey and colleagues compared vaccination rates before and after Ohio launched its lottery.

Other states that did not yet have vaccine lottery programs were used as a control group to enable the researchers to account for other factors -- such as expanding vaccine eligibility to teens -- that might influence vaccination rates.

"Our results suggest that state-based lotteries are of limited value in increasing vaccine uptake. Therefore, the resources devoted to vaccine lotteries may be more successfully invested in programs that target underlying reasons for vaccine hesitancy and low vaccine uptake," Walkey said in a university news release.

The study was published online this month in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

It's crucial to identify programs that are effective in increasing vaccination rates to combat the pandemic, the researchers noted.

"It is important to rigorously evaluate strategies designed to increase vaccine uptake, rapidly deploy successful strategies, and phase out those that do not work," Walkey said.

The team said it hopes the findings will shift emphasis away from expensive and ineffective lotteries and to creating programs that actually work.

More information

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has more on COVID-19 vaccines.
Copyright © 2021 HealthDay. All rights reserved.

France abandons referendum to add climate concerns to Constitution


France on Tuesday abandoned plans to amend its Constitution to address climate change concerns following a disagreement by the houses of Parliament over the language in the statement. File Photo by Eco Clement/UPI | License Photo

July 6 (UPI) -- The French government on Tuesday announced it would halt its efforts to alter the Constitution to recognize the fight against climate change.

Prime Minister Jean Castex announced the decision to ditch plans for a referendum to add environmental protection to the Constitution citing a disagreement between the lower and upper houses of Parliament.

"It's deeply regrettable, but the fight goes on," Castex said.

A 150-person "Citizen's Climate Convention" conceived the idea of amending the Constitution and French President Emmanuel Macron adopted the idea in December, calling for the referendum.

However, French law requires both houses of Parliament to agree on a common version of a proposed constitutional amendment before it can be passed by a three-fifths majority or referendum.

Members of Macron's La Republique en Marche Party, which dominates the lower house of parliament, the National Assembly, proposed amending the Constitution to include a line stating France would "guarantee environmental protection and biological diversity and combat climate change."

Members of the Senate, led by the right-wing Les Republicains Party, lodged an objection to the inclusion of the word "guarantee" suggesting it risked introducing "the virus of growth decline in our Constitution" as environmental concerns could provide an obstacle to business interests.

A group of centrist lawmakers linked to the LREM Party said the decision to abandon the referendum "illustrates the irresponsibility of the senatorial right on environmental issues."

"The conservatives in the Senate fail to understand the importance of environmental issues," they said.

Green Party lawmaker Matthieu Orphelin joined climate activists and other members of his party in dismissing the debate over the amendment's language as a political stunt.

"It was easy to see through, it was an acting game for months," Orphelin said.

Environmental group Our Ecological Constitution described the referendum as "a constitutional reform that has been hijacked and undermined by political maneuvering from the start."

Can French green party turn local gains into national springboard?


Issued on: 07/07/2021

As well as overhauling building regulations, Lyon mayor Gregory Doucet has his eyes set on other classic green priorities: building up cycling lane capacity, improving public transport, and reducing space for cars PHILIPPE DESMAZES AFP/File


Lyon (AFP)

In France's third-biggest city Lyon, real estate developers have noticed big changes since the EELV green party swept to power in June last year and took control of the mayor's office for the first time.

"This project has been scrapped... and another... and another one too," local developer Didier Caudard-Breille says as he ticks off his abandoned schemes.

He found out about one planned high-rise building being blocked in the local media, he says, while another he managed to save only by agreeing to replace a private swimming pool and sports area with social housing.


A major redevelopment of the area around the city's main train station, a traffic-clogged district in the centre, has also been radically remodelled by Mayor Gregory Doucet's staff to remove all of the planned high-rise office space.

Even a trendy and newly developed district at the confluence of the rivers Saone and Rhone in central Lyon is in the firing line for employing "bling-bling" architects with questionable environmental credentials.

"I don't want to sign a construction permit for any building that will need to be knocked down in less than 40 years," the deputy mayor in charge of urbanisation, Raphael Michaud, told AFP.

- National ambitions -

Local elections in France last year saw France's EELV (Europe-Ecologie-Les Verts) make major progress nationally, mirroring a continent-wide trend that has seen environmental parties capitalise on concern about climate change and pollution among urban voters.

Although nearby Grenoble in the foothills of the Alps has been run by a green mayor since 2014 and Paris has been governed by a socialist-green alliance since 2001, capturing Lyon was a major coup for the movement.

Bordeaux, another of France's major cities, also went green in the same elections that spelled disappointment for President Emmanuel Macron's centrist Republic on the Move and the far-right National Rally.

"The last elections were a major, major advance in France," Evelyne Huytebroeck, vice-chair of the European Greens, a federation of European environmental groups, told AFP.

The central Lyon area is home to around 500,000 people, but the wider region has a population of around 1.5 million and is the biggest industrial centre in the country outside of the Paris region.

"There used to be questions about whether we could be trusted to run a budget and an administration," Huytebroeck said. "We've managed to show in several cities that we're responsable and capable, that people can have confidence in us."

She believes other green-run cities like Amsterdam, Dublin and Bonn have helped the cause.

And while expectations for EELV are low in next year's French presidential elections, there is hope further down the line as the greens extend their influence.

"Why not a chancellory, a presidency or a prime ministership?" Huytebroeck asked. "We're not always destined to be on the lower levels of the podium."

- Beyond cycling -

As well as overhauling building regulations, Lyon mayor Doucet has his eyes set on other classic green priorities: building up cycling lane capacity, improving public transport, and reducing space for cars.

Helped by the Covid-19 pandemic that has led to a cycling boom, the number of people logged on bikes in the city jumped 35 percent to 15.7 million in 2020 while the cycling lane network grew by 10 percent in the same period.

"We are not trying to make cars invisible, but we want fewer of them," the deputy mayor in charge of transport, Valentin Lungenstrass, told AFP.

Not all cyclists are welcome, however: Doucet said last year that the Tour de France race was not welcome back in the city until it was "environmentally responsible" and called the national sporting event "macho and polluting".

Another eye-catching proposal includes building an urban cable car system capable of transporting 20,000-25,000 people a day between the west of the city and the south.

But controversy came in February when Doucet announced that meat would be temporarily taken off the menu in school canteens in order to simplify the feeding of 27,000 children daily while respecting social distancing.

The move was seen as sacrilegious by some in a city that prides itself on its meat-heavy gastronomy, while Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin attacked it as an "unacceptable insult" to French farmers and butchers.

Meat has since returned to schools, but a vegetarian option will be on the menu every day from September for the first time, giving children an alternative to the traditionally animal protein-rich school fare.

ppy-ag-fga-adp/sjw/mbx

Taliban launch assault on Afghan provincial capital as US ramps up withdrawal



Issued on: 07/07/2021 - 14:18

Contested Afghanistan John SAEKI AFP



Herat (Afghanistan) (AFP)

The Taliban launched a major assault on a provincial capital in Afghanistan on Wednesday, the first since the US military began its final drawdown of troops from the country, as insurgents press on with a blistering offensive.

Fierce fighting erupted in the western city of Qala-i-Naw, the capital of Badghis, with the militants seizing police headquarters and offices of the country's spy agency.

As news of the morning assault spread, social media was flooded with videos of clashes -- with some showing armed Taliban fighters on motorbikes entering the city as onlookers cheered.

Afghanistan's Defence Minister Bismillah Mohammadi said government forces were in a "very sensitive military situation", adding that "the war is raging" with the Taliban.

The onslaught came hours after Washington announced US forces had completed more than 90 percent of their withdrawal from Afghanistan, and as the Kabul government held talks with Taliban representatives in neighbouring Iran.

The militants have waged a dizzying campaign across Afghanistan since US and NATO forces announced the final withdrawal from the country in early May, seizing dozens of districts and stirring fears that the government is in crisis.

"The enemy has entered the city, all the districts have fallen," Badghis governor Hessamuddin Shams told reporters in a text message.

He attempted to calm the residents later in another video message, appearing with a rifle -- with gunfire rattling in the distance.

"I assure you that we will, all of us, together defend the city," he said.

Provincial council chief Abdul Aziz Bek said some security officials had surrendered to the Taliban, while council member Zia Gul Habibi said the insurgents had entered the city's police headquarters and the local office of the country's spy agency.

- Iran talks -

Habibi said later the situation was stabilising, but fighting continued.

"The city is not falling, but the Taliban are still in the city and airplanes are hitting their positions," she said, adding that the military had deployed drones to strike the insurgents.

"Everybody was terrified when they heard the Taliban had entered the city," said Aziz Tawakil, a resident of Qala-i-Naw.

"We could hear sounds of gunfire and explosions... Helicopters and planes are flying over the city and we can see they are sometimes hitting some areas of the city."

Hours after the attack, the defence ministry said its troops had cleared "most parts" of the city.

"In the next few hours all parts of the city will be cleared," ministry spokesman Fawad Aman said on Twitter.

Afghan vice-president Amrullah Saleh tweeted that the bodies of "tens" of Taliban fighters were lying in the streets.

"I demand the respected ICRC (Red Cross) and other organizations to transfer the bodies... The weather is hot, and we do not support disrespecting the bodies," he said.

Video also showed the Taliban releasing prisoners from a city prison, but governor Shams said later most of them had been recaptured.

The fight for the city coincided with a high-level summit across the border in Iran, where an Afghan delegation met with Taliban representatives in Tehran, according to the Iranian foreign ministry.

Opening the Tehran talks, Iran's Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif welcomed the US departure from its eastern neighbour but warned: "Today the people and political leaders of Afghanistan must make difficult decisions for the future of their country."

Last week, all US and NATO forces left Bagram Air Base near Kabul -- the command centre for anti-Taliban operations -- effectively wrapping up their exit after 20 years of military involvement that began in the wake of the September 11 attacks.

Vital US air support for the Afghan forces has been massively curtailed by the handover.

For months the Taliban have been effectively surrounding provincial capitals, with observers predicting the militants were waiting for the complete withdrawal of foreign forces before ordering an onslaught.

After they took much of the north in recent weeks, the fall of Badghis would further tighten the Taliban's grip on western Afghanistan. Their forces have also inched closer to the nearby city of Herat, near the border with Iran.

If the Taliban capture Qala-i-Naw it will be of "strategic value as it creates a psychological effect of Afghan forces rapidly losing territory like dominoes against an unstoppable force", said Afghanistan expert Nishank Motwani.

Over the years, the Taliban have launched periodic assaults on provincial capitals across the country, briefly holding urban areas before being dislodged by US airstrikes and Afghan ground forces.

An armed man fighting against the Taliban at a checkpost in Ghorband district, Parwan province, Afghanistan on June 29, 2021. © Reuters

str-us-emh-jds/fox/leg

© 2021 AFP

Taliban seize key Kandahar district after fierce fighting
AFP

Published July 4, 2021 - 

Afghans walk home at sunset near the village of Salavat in the Panjwaii

 district of Kandahar province — Reuters/File

The Taliban have captured a key district in their former bastion of Kandahar — the latest area to be seized since US troops began their final withdrawal — after fierce night-time fighting with Afghan government forces, officials said on Sunday.

The insurgents have pressed on with their campaign to capture territories across Afghanistan's rural areas since early May when the US military began the pullout.

The fall of Panjwai district in the southern province of Kandahar comes just two days after US and North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (Nato) forces vacated their main Bagram Air Base near Kabul, from where they led operations for two decades against the Taliban and their Al Qaeda allies.

Over the years, the Taliban and Afghan forces have regularly clashed in and around Panjwai, with the insurgents aiming to seize it, given its proximity to the Kandahar city, the provincial capital.

The province of Kandahar is the birthplace of the Taliban, who went on to rule Afghanistan with a harsh version of the Sharia law until being overthrown by a US-led invasion in 2001.

Panjwai Governor Hasti Mohammad said Afghan forces and the Taliban clashed during the night, resulting in government forces retreating from the area.

“The Taliban have captured the district police headquarters and governor's office building,” he told AFP.

Kandahar provincial council head Sayed Jan Khakriwal confirmed the fall of Panjwai, but accused government forces of “intentionally withdrawing”.

Fighting has raged across several provinces of Afghanistan in recent weeks and the Taliban claim to have seized more than 100 out of nearly 400 districts in the country.

Afghan officials dispute the claims but acknowledge that government troops have retreated from some districts. It is difficult to independently verify the situation.

The exit of foreign troops from Bagram Air Base, north of Kabul, has fuelled concerns the insurgents will ramp up their campaign to capture new territory.

Bagram Air Base has great military and symbolic significance, with foreign forces previously stationed there offering vital air support in the fight against the insurgents.

Afghan authorities who have taken control of the base say they will use it to fight terrorism, and have already re-activated its radar system.

Death of 84-year-old Christian priest in custody stirs outcry in India

Reuters

Published July 6, 2021 -

People hold posters outside the church holding memorial mass for the Indian rights activist and Jesuit priest Father Stan Swamy in Mumbai on Wednesday. — AFP

Activists of Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) shout slogans as they burn an effigy of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi during a protest demonstration a day after the death of Father Stan Swamy, in Kolkata, India on Wednesday — AP

A top United Nations human rights official has deplored the death in custody of an 84-year-old Indian Christian priest who campaigned for the rights of tribal people and was denied bail after being detained under an anti-terrorism law.

Father Stan Swamy was arrested last year on suspicion, which he denied, of ties to a banned radical leftist group that police accused of having instigated violence in Maharashtra state in 2018.

His death will revive criticism of the increasing use of the anti-terrorism statute under nationalist Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government. Opponents of the law say it is used to hound people critical of the government.

Swamy, who suffered from Parkinson's disease and also contracted Covid-19 while in prison, died in a Mumbai hospital on Monday. More than a dozen people gathered outside the St Peter's Church in Mumbai, where his funeral service was being held, to protest his death.

“The news from India today is devastating. Human Rights Defender & Jesuit priest Fr Stan Swamy has died in custody, nine months after his arrest on false charges of terrorism,” said the UN special rapporteur for human rights defenders, Mary Lawlor.

“Jailing HRDs is inexcusable,” she added in a Twitter post, referring to human rights defenders.

At a briefing in Geneva, UN human rights commission spokeswoman Liz Throssell said the agency had repeatedly urged India's government to protect a robust civil society. “We are very concerned with the way he was treated,” she said, calling for the release of people detained without proper legal basis.

India's National Investigation Agency, which was pursuing the case against Swamy, did not respond to requests for comment. The federal home ministry and the foreign ministry also did not respond to a request for comment.

In previous court hearings, the government denied accusations of mistreatment of Swamy, and said the law must be allowed to take its course.

Supporters of Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) said there could be no tolerance of violence by Maoist guerrillas, some of whom operate in remote areas where tribal people live.

Swamy was the oldest of a dozen people, most of them academics and human rights activists, accused of violence in 2018 and imprisoned under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act, which allows for prolonged detention for questioning.

“The government should have done something earlier ... They took too long and didn't do anything for (Swamy),” said Karen D'mello, a former local government official present at the Mumbai protest.

“I don't think he needed to be in (prison) first of all, he was wrongly accused.”

Swamy denied links to outlawed groups and repeatedly asked for bail, recently telling court in a video conference that his health had worsened in prison and he would soon die.

He had said he had difficulty eating and drinking because of his Parkinson's and asked the court to allow him to use a straw and sipper. The court had agreed after nearly three weeks.

As humanity bubbled in prison

Jawed Naqvi

Published July 6, 2021 -

The writer is Dawn’s correspondent in Delhi.


“THEY killed Stan Swamy.” Fellow journalist John Dayal’s Facebook message startled me. The 84-year-old Jesuit priest was put on the ventilator two days ago after weeks of fighting Covid at a private hospital in Mumbai. Although denied bail, a judge permitted him to be treated for the virus contracted in prison.

Swamy was suffering from Parkinson’s when he was thrown into prison in October last year, and was slapped with outrageous terror charges. Nothing better can be expected, of course, from India’s palpably communal rulers. They thrive on a blend of hate and ignorance. It was early in Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s innings that a Hindutva fanatic murdered an Australian missionary and his two young sons in an Orissa village by setting their jeep on fire. Vajpayee was at least contrite and condemned the crime publicly. That was a different stage in the steady journey of Hindutva.

Acknowledged to be a member of the saffron family, the killer of Graham Staines and his sons is serving a life sentence. Who is responsible for Swamy’s needless and cruel death, which his supporters say is nothing short of murder?

Hindutva’s hatred of Muslims and fear of Christian missionaries is legendary. But the 1950s movie that L.K. Advani screened on Doordarshan in his avatar as information minister soon after the defeat of Indira Gandhi in 1977 takes the cake. A helpless Hindu woman in an Indian village approaches the temple priest to cure her mute husband. The priest prescribes an amazing cure — to throw out Christian missionaries from the village. The woman musters support and violently evicts the missionaries thereby finding that her husband is miraculously cured of his ailment. Difficult to forget watching Swayamsiddha on a stunned neighbour’s black-and-white TV set in Delhi.

India’s palpably communal rulers thrive on a blend of hate and ignorance.

Much like the Staines family who were selflessly devoted to the treatment of leprosy stalking a village, Indian Jesuit and Catholic priests have worked among the poor for over a century. Swamy lived and worked for around six decades with the most marginalised tribal communities in the Bihar and Jharkhand belt. A social worker, activist and educator, his life is what legends are made of.

Swamy’s arrest by the National Investigation Agency was always suspicious, but it acquired a more dubious ring after an NIA court last week released Akhil Gogoi, a social activist and recently elected MLA in Assam. Gogoi told the media that instead of pressing charges against him, the NIA seemed more interested in recruiting him as a member of the BJP and its sister organisations. The claim deserves to be probed, of course, but Gogoi was lucky to get away. Others have not been as lucky.

Swamy’s arrest did mobilise opposition parties to demand that the draconian Unlawful Activities Prevention Act, which is being liberally used by the NIA, be repealed. Recently, the Delhi High Court also raised questions about the use of the law.

Pope Francis on his part questioned the arrest. Human rights groups, Catholic and Jesuit associations across the world, the UN’s human rights wing, students, intellectuals and the Adivasi communities Swamy worked with have been protesting against the arrest in several countries. However, when did anyone see the Modi government rowing back from its mission to wipe out critics and ordinary opponents?

Father Swamy was always at loggerheads with the government over tribal rights. His focus on empowering exploited Adivasis was a thorn in the flesh for a government wanting private companies to exploit the virgin forests and abundant natural resources of Jharkhand. Evidently, the government decided to deal with the man they saw as blocking ‘development’ in the region.

Read: Furore after Modi critic quits top Indian university 'under political pressure'

After arresting him on Oct 8 last year, alleging he had links with banned Maoist groups, the NIA brought Swamy to Mumbai. His name was included in the NIA’s 10,000-page charge sheet along with 15 activists it accuses of involvement in what has come to be known as the Elgar Parishad/Bhima Koregaon incident. ‘Elgar’ here appears to be a corruption of ‘yalghaar’, Urdu for attack, expressing Dalit anger.

The case relates to caste violence on Jan 1, 2018, at Bhima Koregaon in Maharashtra. The Elgar Parishad was an event held the previous evening to commemorate 200 years of the Battle of Koregaon Bhima in which Dalit soldiers jointly with the British forces defeated the Brahmin peshwa’s army.

Named as an accomplice with another person who was arrested, Swamy was bracketed with other intellectual activists, including radical poet Varavara Rao. Other idealists and activists languishing in prison include Gautam Navlakha, Anand Teltumbde, Shoma Sen, Sudha Bharadwaj, Vernon Gonsalves, Arun Ferreira, Sudhir Dhawale, Surendra Gadling, Mahesh Raut, Rona Wilson, Hany Babu Tharayil, Sagar Gorkhe, Ramesh Gaichor and Jyoti Jagtap. Wheelchair-bound Prof Saibaba, a 90 per cent paralysed teacher from Delhi University is rotting in solitary confinement in Nagpur.

Susan Abraham, Swamy’s defence lawyer, said the priest could barely stand and could not sign documents clearly when he was arrested. His supporters say the issues Stan Swamy was involved in were the reason why the government found him a threat. For one, he relentlessly pressed for the implementation of panchayati rights for the tribespeople under the Fifth Schedule of the constitution, which protects tribal interests. He always crossed swords with the state over the lack of action on the Forest Rights Act. But Father Swamy bore no grudge against his tormentors.

In a letter from prison, the octogenarian priest already troubled by Parkinson’s disease, described Mumbai’s Taloja prison in indelibly affectionate words.

In his letter, Swamy lauded Ferreira for helping him eat his meals and Gonsalves for bathing him. “My two inmates help out during supper, in washing my clothes and giving massage to my knee joints,” he wrote. “They are from very poor families. Please remember my inmates and my colleagues in your prayers. Despite all odds, humanity is bubbling in Taloja prison.”

The writer is Dawn’s correspondent in Delhi.

jawednaqvi@gmail.com

Published in Dawn, July 6th, 2021

Anger grows over Indian priest's death in detention

Issued on: 07/07/2021 

Students protest in New Delhi over the death of rights activist and priest Stan Swamy Sajjad HUSSAIN AFP

New Delhi (AFP)

Anger over the death in custody of an 84-year-old Indian priest who had been charged with terrorism offences grew Wednesday as 10 activists arrested in the same case went on hunger strike.

Stan Swamy, who suffered from Parkinson's disease and had multiple bail applications rejected, died in hospital on Monday nine months after being arrested under anti-terrorism legislation.

In a statement released through family members, 10 people in prison over the same case blamed his death on "systematic torture" by India's National Investigation Agency (NIA) and the former head of the jail where Swamy was held.


The 10 are mainly academics and activists.

The priest, who campaigned for marginalised tribal communities, and the others were arrested for allegedly inciting violence between different Indian castes in 2018.

He was accused by authorities of having links to Maoist militants, an allegation he had denied.

Swamy was detained under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act, which allows people to be held without trial indefinitely and where bail applications are hard.

On Tuesday the office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights -- which had pressed for Swamy's release -- said it was "deeply saddened and disturbed" by his death.

India's government responded by saying Swamy's bail was rejected because of the "specific nature of charges against him".

"India remains committed to promotion and protection of human rights of all its citizens," foreign ministry spokesperson Arindam Bagchi said.

But Human Rights Watch's South Asia director Meenakshi Ganguly told AFP that the death "has exposed the extreme failure of the criminal justice system in India to ensure impartial free speech rights protections".

"Whether it is the investigations, the arrests, allegations filed under draconian laws, the mistreatment in jail or repeatedly opposing bail, the authorities seemed determined to target peaceful dissent," she added.

The Times of India said in an editorial that Swamy's death was an "entirely avoidable tragedy", slamming the "freewheeling way serious charges like terrorism are being filed".

On Tuesday, 10 opposition leaders including Sonia Gandhi from the Congress party and three state premiers implored President Ram Nath Kovind to direct the government to take action against those responsible for Swamy's "inhuman treatment".

Sri Lanka marks Chinese party century with costliest gold coin

Issued on: 07/07/2021 - 

The commemorative coin will be sold for 222,000 rupees - SRI LANKAN PRESIDENT'S OFFICE/AFP

Colombo (AFP)

Sri Lanka on Wednesday issued its most expensive gold coin ever to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Chinese Communist Party, underscoring the close ties between the countries.

The commemorative 1,000-rupee ($5) coin will be sold for 222,000 rupees from Monday, the Central Bank of Sri Lanka said.

"The coins have been issued at the request of the government of Sri Lanka as an accolade for long-standing friendship and mutual trust between the two countries," the bank said.

Sri Lanka has increasingly turned to China for financing and diplomatic support in recent years, prompting India and the United States to express concern.

One side of the 12-gram (0.42 ounces) coin marks the Chinese party's anniversary while the other celebrates 65 years of diplomatic ties between the two nations and depicts a Colombo theatre built with Chinese financing.

Sri Lanka released its last gold coin to mark 50 years of independence from Britain in 1998, but that one was only two thirds the weight of the Chinese anniversary coin.

Colombo had also never before issued a coin to commemorate a political party.

Beijing has made increasing trade and diplomatic inroads in South Asia in recent years.

In 2017, unable to repay a huge Chinese loan, Sri Lanka allowed China Merchants Port Holdings to take over Hambantota port, which straddles the world's busiest east-west shipping route, on a 99-year lease.

© 2021 AFP

‘It shakes you to your core’: the anti-abortion extremists gaining ground on the right

A member Operation Save America protests against abortion outside Camelback Family Planning in Phoenix on 24 June. Photograph: Caitlin O'Hara/The Guardian

Operation Save America opposes Covid vaccination, women in power and same-sex marriage – and allies are making inroads among legislators


Jessica Glenza in Phoenix, Arizona
@JessicaGlenza

THE GUARDIAN
Tue 6 Jul 2021 08.30 BST

Hundreds of anti-abortion protesters lined blocks along a four-lane thoroughfare called Indian School Road in Phoenix, Arizona, enduring the suck of whooshing cars and blistering late June desert heat to advocate for their cause – effectively, theocracy in America.

Rising temperatures promised a sweaty, nauseous apex of 104F for the protest in front of Camelback Family Planning and abortion clinic. Their ranks were defined by gruesome and bloody signs, some taller than the protesters who held them, a microphone and an amplifier.

Anti-abortion movement bullish as legal campaign reaches US supreme court


“This is a slaughterhouse!” a man’s voice growled. Some protesters leaned into car windows going into the clinic parking lot. “This is unnatural for a mother to do this to a child!” one cried.

This is the national conference for Operation Save America (OSA), one in a network of extreme anti-abortion groups gaining increasing sway with rightwing lawmakers. In some sense, they’re not news – their homophobic, transphobic, Islamophobic, misogynist leadership has harassed abortion providers for decades.

But, like the world around them, they’ve evolved.

New millennial leadership built a social media infrastructure on YouTube, Facebook and Gab. Their protests have moved from streets to city council chambers and state capitols. A book published by one of their leaders has become an underground hit. And the government response to Covid-19 has provided a new form of “tyranny” against which to lobby.

Members of the pro-choice group We Engage argue with members of Operation Save America outside Camelback Family Planning. Photograph: Caitlin O'Hara/The Guardian

“All murderers forfeit their right to live,” said a protester. He gives his name only as “preacher man”, but he is easy to identify. He is Ante Pavkovic, a Charlotte, North Carolina-based protester whose antics have led to arrests.

A woman’s right to choose is “Marxist cliche sloganeering”, Pavkovic said. In 2018, Pavkovic was convicted of resisting arrest while breaking Charlotte’s noise ordinance outside an abortion clinic. Although the noise ordinance charge was dropped, an appellate court affirmed an order that barred him from protesting within 1,500 feet of a clinic.

“This group is very close to each other,” said Shawn Cox, a 19-year-old protester with glasses and a DSLR camera with a colorful strap. Her family goes to an OSA event “at least once a year”.

The supreme court legalized abortion in 1973 in the landmark case Roe v Wade, and the majority of Americans still support the ruling in remarkably stable public opinion polls. But in the decades since, as evangelical Christians and Catholics gained increasing power in the Republican party, lawmakers have worked to obstruct that right.

Those efforts have accelerated in the last decade, as anti-abortion fundraising fueled an entire cottage industry of lawyers, lobbyists and single-issue alternative news sources devoted to advancing secular arguments to obstruct abortion access.


‘Unique problem’: Catholic bishops split over Biden’s support for abortion rights

Once at the fringes, but moving into legislative efforts are protesters like these, abortion “abolitionists” who advocate for women and doctors to be prosecuted under murder statutes. Their name is an appropriation of a term used by anti-slavery organizers before the American civil war.

Their views are extreme. Anyone who has an abortion “should be prosecuted for murder”, Cox said. And she adds about the case that is the foundation of abortion rights in America: “Roe v Wade is not law.”

Their guiding texts, such as the Doctrine of Lesser Magistrates, by the leader of the affiliated group Defy Tyrants, Matt Trewhella, argues “Christians” should defy laws with which zealots disagree. Trewhella was among a notorious group of anti-abortion advocates who, in the 1990s, signed a letter declaring the murder of abortion providers “justifiable homicide”. The letter was also joined by a man convicted of firebombing a Cincinnati, Ohio, abortion clinic and planning an attack on another in Florida, John Brockhoeft.

Far-right groups display literature and shirts for sale at the Operation Save America Conference at Desert Hills Bible church in Phoenix. Photograph: Caitlin O'Hara/The Guardian

Here in Arizona, OSA has just crowned a new leader, Jason Storms. “What the abolitionists have done is bring clarity to the [anti-abortion] movement,” said Storms. Storms and OSA’s followers want their Christian ideology to be the basis of American law. Otherwise, Storms argued, “we are heading for cultural suicide”.

A tall man with a pinched gait, thick black glasses and an Operation Save America shirt walked up to Storms: “God bless you as you transition to leadership.” He shook Storms’s hand, turned to the wind and wetly uttered, “Where’s the mill?” referring to the clinic. His red shirt read “Abortion is murder”.

Across the gauntlet of cars from the anti-abortion protests, Storms mocked a counter-protester. “Tough guy,” said Storms, as he mimicked her stance and derided her silence.

This woman, however, is part of a counter-protest organized by Abortion Access Front (AAF), a female-led comedy group who have become the unlikely antagonists of these extremists.

On another day and in another part of town, clinic escorts, legal observers, nurses and volunteers gather under the high ceilings of the Duce, a warehouse turned bar where a rainbow of color seems to ricochet around the room. Abortion Access Front has gathered this crowd for a moment of joy, hosting a happy hour.

“It shakes you to your core,” said Lizz Winstead, the founder of AAF, about Operation Save America’s protests, and perhaps its ideology writ large. “It’s hard to explain to people until you see it.”

OSA’s leaders and adherents oppose not only abortion, but homosexuality and same-sex marriage, in vitro fertilization, Islam, Covid-19 vaccines and masks. At times, they appear to be opposed to the modern world, railing against public school, women in positions of power, sex before marriage and birth control.

Lizz Winstead and Sarah Silverman bang on pots and pans in New York in May 2020, after Silverman said abortion providers were ‘essential frontline workers who get harassed every day’. Photograph: Startraks Photo/Rex/Shutterstock

Opposing them is the AAF, which started as a traveling standup comedy show in 2015 led by Winstead, a former writer at Comedy Central’s The Daily Show. Initially, it was called the Lady Parts Justice League. But it quickly became a mutual aid, counter-protest and intelligence gathering organization. It describes itself as a “media hub” that uses “humor to bust stigma”.

Anti-abortion protesters had made it impossible for clinics to get even basic maintenance done on their buildings. Protesters would call and harass contractors who showed up to work. AAF organized local supporters to plant bushes, paint or provide basic supplies like heating pads to clinics.
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Following events organized by OSA, AAF believed someone needed to show people that the majority of Americans support the right to abortion. They started protests meant to disrupt and frustrate street preachers. In Arizona, one AAF organizer repeatedly interrupted a street preacher, following him with a camera and ridiculing his shorts.

“Witch!” he snorted at the AAF organizer, prompting the entire AAF group to break into a chant: “Witch! Witch! You’re a witch!”

Most notably, they have also developed detailed knowledge of the anti-abortion protesters themselves, tracking their whereabouts with a camera once devoted to making television.

The AAF managing director, Kat Green, said she began “recreationally” tracking extremists, sharing intel with local escorts and clinic security teams. AAF identified and collected evidence of at least 15 anti-abortion leaders among those at the Capitol insurrection, including Storms and the Arizona-based pastor Jeff Durbin, who runs the “abolitionist” social media presence.

In a three-minute video posted to Facebook, Storms shows himself astride scaffolding surrounding the Capitol, woooo!-ing and calling the insurrection “Revolution 2.0”. Another person in the crowd calls out “hang ’em high!” in reference to members of Congress.

A counter-protest truck displays photos of members of Operation Save America as the group protests outside Camelback Family Planning. Photograph: Caitlin O'Hara/The Guardian



Nevertheless, at the protest, Storms said: “January 6th was a non-issue,” and added: “There was no insurrection.” He called the insurrection “1 million unarmed people”.

AAF also began to understand the connections between groups like Operation Save America and other militant religious groups. Operation Save America leaders appeared on the podcast of the former Washington state representative Matt Shea, and Shea appeared at protests in support of “abolitionists”.

Shea opted not to run for re-election after it was revealed he had “participated in an act of domestic of terrorism” and distributed a document that outlined abortion and same-sex marriage as justification for a “Biblical basis for war”.

“The reason they’re different – and it’s important – is they are not interested in incremental change. They’re not interested in using regulations. They’re not even that interested in Roe,” said Anu Kumar, president and CEO of Ipas, an international non-profit that works to expand abortion access. “What they’re militant about is defying the courts, defying the constitution, and defying the rule of law.”


At least 10 states divert federal welfare funding to anti-abortion clinics

They are pro-gun, and though they did not appear to be carrying weapons at the Arizona protest, they advertise their armaments and argue Christians should be trained in “trench warfare”. They want to save “our constitutional republic” by making American law “Mirror the Law and Justice of God”. They support Donald Trump.

“What’s hard for Americans to understand is the actions by these extremists seem very hyperlocal,” said Kumar. “These are connected movements and the rightwing extremism is actually transnational.”

Pro-choice activists talk with members of Operation Save America in Phoenix. Photograph: Caitlin O'Hara/The Guardian


At the same time, they have seen increasing success introducing legislation to prosecute abortion as murder, as they did in Oklahoma, Texas and most recently Arizona.

These state efforts to narrow legal access to abortion threaten to make America an outlier. The past 50 years have been defined by “an unmistakable trend toward the liberalization of abortion laws”, the Council on Foreign Relations wrote. Twenty-eight countries have liberalized abortion access since 2000, and only one has legally restricted abortion – Nicaragua.

“Yes, they are definitely anti-abortion, they are misogynist, they are anti-immigrant as well. But fundamentally, they are about democracy,” said Kumar. “They are anti-democratic zealots,” she added, and in that sense, “this is not about abortion at all”.

At a later OSA-sponsored worship service, a man named Ken greeted outsiders at the edge of the Desert Hills Bible church and ambled slowly to the entrance as he described the joy he felt that reporters would “hear the word of God”. Certainly, he emphasized, he would not want anyone to be cast into hell.

Inside, a crowd probably vulnerable to Covid-19 filled the hall’s stuffy still air with song and inestimable respiratory droplets. Trewhella, one of the leaders of the affiliated group Defy Tyrants, has repeatedly urged congregants to “never” get vaccinated, claiming the life-saving drugs are government “tyranny”.

Durbin, who also leads the local Apologia church, said he chose not to attend the evening because he and his daughter contracted “the rona” at the Southern Baptist Convention about a week prior.

The outgoing leader of OSA and a longtime menace to abortion clinics, Rusty Thomas, stepped to the dais to rally the flock. He called abortion a “pagan nightmare” that “assaulted the nation”. He illustrated his points with a story of how he hit his children.

Rusty Thomas rallies attendees at Desert Hills Bible church on 24 June. Photograph: Caitlin O'Hara/The Guardian

Shirts for sale at the OSA Conference at Desert Hills Bible church. Photograph: Caitlin O'Hara/The Guardian

“All that anger, all that frustration, and I pummeled my own children,” he said. Then he begged for their forgiveness. “And I said, let me get on my knees in front of my kids and said, ‘Would you please forgive your father?’ And I tell you that won them over more than any of my teachings.”

OSA was a family, leaders said, a “rock” in its members’ lives, the way a church “should work”. And they believe their efforts, no matter how extreme, are altering the fabric of American society.

On this point, experts agree.

“Most Americans do not actually support these radical extreme points of view and yet we have elected officials who do,” said Kumar. “Our politics have become extreme, and these groups are responsible.”