CULTURE WAR OVER MATH BOOK

Uproar in China over textbook images ‘not suitable for children’

Alyssa Chen and Dylan Duan and Livia Liu and Dawn Liu - Yesterday

HONG KONG — China’s education ministry has ordered a nationwide review of all primary, secondary and university textbooks after illustrations in widely used mathematics textbooks for primary school students were criticized online as ugly, sexually suggestive and anti-China.

The textbooks, published by the state-run People’s Education Press, have been in use for about a decade, according to Chinese news reports. But there has been an outcry on Chinese social media since last week, when illustrations from the books were posted on Weibo, China’s equivalent of Twitter.

Some Chinese internet users criticized what they said were racist depictions of people with small, wide-set eyes, while others objected to scenes that appear to show girls being groped or boys with bulging pants. An inaccurate rendering of the Chinese flag and a drawing of a boy wearing the U.S. flag colors of red, white and blue also drew accusations that the publisher was sending a pro-Western, anti-China message.

“This is not a problem of art, this is a problem of ideology. Do they really not know the seriousness of the problem of ideology infiltrating education?” one Weibo user commented.

The publisher has apologized and said it will revise the illustrations before the start of the next academic year in the fall. But that failed to stem the public uproar, and the Ministry of Education promised a wider review.


Math textbook

 (Sheldon Cooper / SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)

“The problems found will be rectified immediately,” it said in a statement on Monday. “Those who violated the disciplines and regulations will be held accountable, and will be dealt with seriously in accordance with laws and regulations.”


Cristina Du, the mother of a fourth grader in Henan Province, said she had never looked closely at the illustrations until they were posted on social media.

“My daughter said she has always thought the illustrations are ugly since her first year in elementary school,” Du said. “She also told me there are illustrations that are not suitable for children.”

Under Chinese leader Xi Jinping, there has been greater scrutiny of textbooks and similar materials as the government moves to center education around the ruling Communist Party and its ideology. Foreign textbooks have been banned in primary and middle schools.

Anger over the illustrations in the math textbooks has quickly spread to other Chinese materials designed for children and teenagers, leading other books to be pulled from the shelves.


Math textbook

 (Sheldon Cooper / SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)

Others pushed back against the online furor. Wuheqilin, a prominent nationalist artist, argued that the low pay offered to illustrators resulted in poor-quality work.

One Weibo user criticized the textbook illustrations as ugly but said she was more concerned about greater censorship.

“If you look hard with a magnifying glass, you will find something wrong with everything,” she said.

Amazon employees call on Amazon to stop selling books deemed as anti-trans

Mariella Moon - 

In 2021, a handful of Amazon employees quit the company over its decision to sell books that suggest kids who identify as transgender are mentally ill. Now, a group of employees is protesting its continued sale of those books by disrupting a Pride event at its headquarters in Seattle. According to The Washington Post, around 30 members of the organization No Hate at Amazon laid on the ground wrapped in trans flags to stop the company's annual Pride flag-raising tradition. An organizer said: "Amazon does have standing policies against hate speech in its content and technically they say we don't sell it." But in truth, those contentious books are still listed on its website.



Transgender flag in the LGTB Pride Parade in Valencia, Spain

In a petition the group previously circulated to get Amazon to stop selling anti-trans books, it specifically named two titles: Irreversible Damage: The Transgender Craze Seducing Our Daughters by Abigail Shrier and Johnny the Walrus by American conservative political commentator Matt Walsh. "By continuing to sell and promote anti-trans books and repeating the rhetoric of the anti-trans hate movement, Amazon upper management has allowed the store that we build and operate to be complicit in [the anti-trans] hate movement," the petition reads.

At least one employee who participated in the event quit the company this week. Senior software engineer Lina Jodoin explained that it's more than just about the sale of those books, but also about the response they've gotten from management when they tried to escalate their concerns. And based on the company's response to the protest, it will keep on selling those titles.

Amazon spokesperson Brad Glasser told The Post in a statement:

"As a company, we believe strongly in diversity, equity, and inclusion. As a bookseller, we’ve chosen to offer a very broad range of viewpoints, including books that conflict with our company values and corporate positions. We believe that it’s possible to do both – to offer a broad range of viewpoints in our bookstore, and support diversity, equity, and inclusion."

How Abortion Decisions Could Impact IVF, According To A Fertility Doctor Who’s Done It

Courtney Shea - Yesterday - R29

Welcome to Refinery29’s Fertility Diaries, where people chronicle their joyous, painful, and sometimes complicated paths to parenthood. Today, we hear from Roohi Jeelani, MD, FACOG, a 39-year-old reproductive endocrinologist in Chicago, IL.

Here, Dr. Jeelani shares her story of going through fertility treatments as a fertility doctor, and her thoughts on the leaked Supreme Court draft document that would overturn Roe v. Wade, and, in many states, criminalize the discarding of frozen embryos.

Working as a fertility specialist, babies are what I do. In my profession, we are always paying close attention to changes around reproductive healthcare: what states are anti-abortion, new regulations around birth control, and so on. Even still, I was stunned the day of the Supreme Court draft opinion leak. For the majority of my life, reproductive rights felt immutable, and now here we are. I want to say that I am still hopeful that this won’t happen — that the outrage will have an impact and Roe v. Wade will stand. But given the work I do, I have to prepare for a worst-case scenario. And that scenario is terrifying.

Within an hour of the leak, I was getting calls from patients asking what this means or could mean for their embryos. Should they consider pausing in vitro fertilization [IVF] treatments? If Roe v. Wade does get overturned, abortion would be outlawed in more than 20 states. Thirteen states currently have trigger laws in place, many of which include language that defines life as beginning at the moment of fertilization. Other states aren’t even waiting, using “vigilante laws” like S.B. 8 in Texas to get around the courts. In Oklahoma, for example, the governor just signed a bill into law that defines life as beginning at the moment of fertilization (“the fusion of a human spermatozoon with a human ovum”). This seems to give a frozen embryo in a lab the same “personhood” as a 30-week-old fetus. The state is circumventing what are still federally protected abortion rights by empowering private citizens to sue a doctor, or anyone who “aids and abets” an abortion, including someone driving a pregnant person to a clinic. The pregnant person can’t be sued, but, of course, that could change. [Editor’s note: The legislator who initially sponsored the Oklahoma bill that’s now law told Politico Nightly that they didn’t discuss the fertility treatment IVF in regards to the bill, and that Republicans in the state currently don’t have interest in limiting IVF. This may not be the case in other states in the future, though.]

Just to clarify, if it eventually becomes illegal to discard frozen embryos, so much of the amazing advancement we have made around in vitro fertilization goes out the window. Treatments are essentially a numbers game — a certain amount of superfluous material (i.e., frozen embryos that don’t get used) is part of the equation for success. When we do a round of IVF, we retrieve as many eggs as possible. Even if the person is just wanting to have one child, you never know how many quality eggs you will end up with, and then, how many viable frozen embryos (fertilized eggs) will come from that. Statistically, we say it takes three quality embryos to result in a live birth, but the reality is that every individual is different. Freezing extra embryos means that if a first — or second or third or eighth — attempt is not successful, we can try again without having to go through another round of IVF, which is physically and emotionally draining and may not even be an option depending on age. IVF is also incredibly expensive in states that don’t have coverage — at least $10,000 per round on the low end — and that is true whether you are creating a single embryo or 10.

The problem is, if new laws come into play and are implemented to criminalize IVF, they would punish anyone disposing of any “leftovers” (or even donating them to science, which is another option). Both the clinician who is performing the procedure and the patient who has their eggs frozen could someday face legal ramifications. That’s not a road most people would want to go down, but the only alternative — creating a single embryo per round of IVF — would make fertility treatments less effective, less safe (for mother and baby because the likelihood of miscarriage would become far greater, and due to laws’ potential implications on genetic testing), less affordable, and largely unviable for women who are fighting against the clock, which is something I know about first hand.

I was diagnosed with polycystic ovarian syndrome when I was 14 years old. My mom was concerned because I wasn’t getting my period. We went to one specialist after another who said I probably had an eating disorder, that I just needed to gain weight, which was so frustrating because I knew that wasn’t the case. Finally, my uncle suggested that I should see a reproductive endocrinologist, which was a turning point for me in so many ways. I got my diagnosis, yes, but even before that, I remember sitting in the waiting room and feeling overwhelmed by the joy and intensity in the space. Even before the doctor asked me about my health, I asked her, What is this place? What do you do? I still remember her answer perfectly: “I’m a fertility doctor, I help to make babies.” From that moment on, I knew what I wanted to do. I went to med school and launched my private practice in 2016.

By that time, I had already dealt with my own reproductive challenges. My husband and I met at school and we were already trying to get pregnant when I was a resident. I did a round of IVF in 2010 and experienced recurrent miscarriages before finally giving birth to my son in 2013. Even though this is what I do, being on the other side of infertility was an emotional rollercoaster. I was just about to start a second round of IVF when we found out that I was pregnant with my daughter in 2015 — a shock, of course, and a joy. I banked embryos again in 2017 and was ready to start implantation in 2020. I had seven viable embryos and none of them worked, which meant another round of IVF and, finally, success. I am currently 32 weeks pregnant — hurray! — but it took an additional seven implantations to get here.

To say my journey to motherhood would not be possible if new laws take effect goes without saying. But I will say it to anyone who will listen because it is so important that we fight to preserve the progress we have made and to protect the bodily autonomy of people who require fertility assistance. I say this as a pregnant person and a doctor. I am lucky to practice in Illinois, but I know that in some of the more conservative parts of the country people are being advised to move their embryos now, just to be safe.

There is a bitter irony to watching this group of politicians argue for the “sanctity of life,” meanwhile these new laws could mean the exact opposite in my field. I’m a fertility doctor. I help to make babies. Babies for people who desperately want to be pregnant. What kind of backwards reality are we living in that would deny me the ability to do what I do?

As told to Courtney Shea.

This interview has been condensed for length and clarity.

CRIMINAL CAPITALI$M
A GOP congressional candidate used Covid relief funds meant for his employees to pay for his car and political campaign

mloh@businessinsider.com (Matthew Loh) - Yesterday 


A GOP congressional candidate pleaded guilty to misusing Covid relief funds meant for his employees.
He told employees at his small business that they would get paid if they worked for his campaign.
The Idaho candidate also omitted the time his employees put into his campaign in an FEC report.

A GOP congressional candidate in Idaho pleaded guilty on Wednesday to taking COVID-19 relief funds meant for his employees and using them for personal expenses like his car payments and a 2020 political campaign.

According to the Department of Justice, Nicholas Jones, 36, also pleaded guilty to falsifying records to conceal the time and work his employees put into his campaign in a report to the Federal Elections Commission.

Insider understands that Jones' small business in Boise, Idaho, is a store selling puzzles and tabletop and board games.

Jones told employees who worked at his store that he would pay them if they worked on his congressional campaign, the DOJ wrote in a press release.

In 2020, he applied for and received $753,600 from Covid-related assistance packages such as the Paycheck Protection Program and Economic Injury Disaster Loans.

He certified that the money would be put into his business but instead used a "significant portion" to pay for his car, life insurance policies, and political ads for his campaign, per the DOJ.

Jones' employees would show up to work on behalf of his campaign and were paid thousands of dollars in wages through his small business, partially with the money he received from the Covid relief packages, the department wrote.

When he lost the primary election, Jones filed a campaign finance report with the FEC. However, he omitted the contributions of anyone who worked on his campaign other than him, including the thousands of dollars worth of time and work that his employees spent, according to the DOJ.

Jones pleaded guilty to wire fraud and falsification of records in the District Court of Idaho and will be sentenced at a later date. He faces a maximum total sentence of 40 years in prison.

Jones did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Insider.

Jones' case isn't the first time that fraud and politics have crossed paths this year. On May 18, the creator of a fake political action committee admitted in federal court that he scammed donors by pretending to support former President Donald Trump's reelection and be a part of his campaign, as Insider's Grace Panetta reported.

CRIMINAL CAPITALI$M

Biden's Education Department just wiped out $5.8 billion in student debt for all remaining borrowers defrauded by Corinthian Colleges

asheffey@businessinsider.com (Ayelet Sheffey) - Yesterday 

© Provided by Business InsiderPresident Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris. Jim Watson/AFP via Getty Images

The Education Department canceled $5.8 billion in student debt for 560,000 former Corinthian College students.

Corinthian shut down in 2015 following accusations of predatory behavior that misled students.

This is Biden's latest action providing relief for borrowers defrauded by for-profit schools.

On Wednesday, President Joe Biden's Education Department announced all remaining student-loan borrowers who attended now-defunct, for-profit Corinthian Colleges are getting their debt balances wiped out.

The announcement approved $5.8 billion for a group student-loan forgiveness claim that covers 560,000 former Corinthian students.

Corinthian shut down in 2015 following a number of investigations that found the school engaged in predatory behavior that pushed students to take out loans when that was not the best option for them. Since then, the department has approved borrower defense to repayment claims — a type of loan relief for borrowers defrauded by for-profit schools — for some groups of students who went to Corinthian.

Wednesday's announcement is the biggest group approval the department has acted on to date, and it will include borrowers who did not submit relief claims themselves.

"As of today, every student deceived, defrauded, and driven into debt by Corinthian Colleges can rest assured that the Biden-Harris Administration has their back and will discharge their federal student loans," Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona said in a statement. "For far too long, Corinthian engaged in the wholesale financial exploitation of students, misleading them into taking on more and more debt to pay for promises they would never keep."

According to the press release, the Education Department will begin notifying impacted students of this relief, and borrowers will not have to take any additional action on their own.


So far, Cardona has approved more than $2 billion in borrower defense claims for former for-profit students, including some from Corinthian, ITT Technical Institutes, and Marinello Schools of Beauty. But those actions have still left many borrowers who submitted claims waiting for relief.

In March, Insider reported that 16 Democratic lawmakers, including Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, urged Cardona to act on the remaining claims for Corinthian students, saying that the Education Department has processed those claims in "a complex and piecemeal fashion" that has "delayed relief for thousands of borrowers while seemingly denying thousands of others any relief at all."

"For the estimated 350,000 students defrauded by Corinthian, which closed its campuses in 2015, the wait for debt cancellation has spanned three presidential administrations," the lawmakers wrote.

Since Corinthian shut down following investigations of predatory behavior, like misleading students into taking out unaffordable debt, former students have been fighting for the relief themselves. A group of borrowers known as the Corinthian 15 met with the Debt Collective — the nation's first debtor's union — and prepared for a debt strike that has now turned into 200 students and counting fighting for their borrower defense claims to be approved.

"This has been a long time coming and it's something that we've wanted for ever," Nathan Hornes, one of the original 15 strikers, said during a Wednesday press call. "It's a powerful moment, and it's a moment that I don't take for granted," Hornes added. "But there's so much more work to be done. This it doesn't stop here. The buck does not stop with us."

During her time as attorney general in California, Vice President Kamala Harris also took action against Corinthian. In 2016, she secured a $1.1 billion judgment against Corinthian, providing restitution payments for former students defrauded by the for-profit chain.

Along with student-loan relief, some of Biden's top officials have vowed to ensure for-profit schools are held accountable for bad behavior. At the end of last year, Federal Student Aid head Richard Cordray said that "more needs to be done to prevent people from abusing these student aid programs, from cheating taxpayers, from cheating students."

Wednesday's widespread relief also comes as Biden is working toward making a decision on broad student-loan forgiveness for federal borrowers. While Biden himself has not confirmed a specific relief amount, recent reports have suggested he is looking at $10,000 in forgiveness for borrowers making under $150,000 a year.

CRIMINAL CRYPTO CAPITALI$M
NFT insider trading scheme charges are a 1st, feds say

Yesterday 

NEW YORK (AP) — A former product manager at an online marketplace was arrested Wednesday in what federal authorities called the first ever digital asset insider trading scheme involving NFTs.

Nathaniel Chastain, a former employee of a company that does business as OpenSea, was arrested in Manhattan. He was later released on $100,000 bail after entering a not guilty plea to wire fraud and money laundering charges.

Chastain, 31, and his lawyers declined comment immediately after the Manhattan federal court hearing.

U.S. Attorney Damian Williams said the charges were a first because they pertained to NFTs, or non-fungible tokens, that provide digital ownership of art and other content.

Michael J. Driscoll, head of New York's FBI office, said Chastain used his knowledge of confidential information to buy dozens of NFTs in advance of them being featured on OpenSea's homepage. OpenSea is the largest online marketplace for the purchase and sale of NFTs, authorities noted.


Driscoll said the emergence of any new investment tool such as “blockchain supported non-fungible tokens” will lead some to exploit its vulnerabilities for illegal profits.

“NFTs might be new, but this type of criminal scheme is not," Williams said. "Nathaniel Chastain betrayed OpenSea by using its confidential business information to make money for himself. Today’s charges demonstrate the commitment of this Office to stamping out insider trading — whether it occurs on the stock market or the blockchain.”

Chastain, as part of his job, was responsible for selecting NFTs to be featured on OpenSea's homepage, authorities said. They added that price buyers were usually willing to pay more for an NFT once it was featured on OpenSea's homepage, enabling Chastain to sell them at two- to five-times his initial purchase price.

He concealed the fraud by conducting the purchases and sales through anonymous digital currency wallets and anonymous accounts at OpenSea, authorities said.

Larry Neumeister, The Associated Press

Ex-OpenSea employee charged in first NFT insider trading case

"A Single Number That Has 10,000,086 Digits" by Ryoji Ikeda is on display along with other NFT art at Sotheby's first physical exhibition of NFTs, featuring the first NFT ever minted presented in partnership with Samsung on, June 4, 2021, in New York City. On Wednesday, federal prosecutors announced the United States first insider trading case involving NFTs. 

Photo by John Angelillo/UPI | License Photo

June 1 (UPI) -- Federal prosecutors have arrested a former employee of the largest online marketplace for non-fungible tokens on charges of using company information for personal financial gain, making it the United States' first insider trading case involving digital assets.

The Justice Department announced in a statement that prosecutors in New York on Wednesday unsealed an indictment charging Nathaniel Chastain, 31, with one count of wire fraud and one count of money laundering, each of which carry a 20-year maximum prison sentence.

The New York resident was arrested Wednesday morning before making his first appearance at the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.

"NFTs might be new, but this type of criminal scheme is not," U.S. Attorney Damian Williams said.

According to a February Treasury report on money laundering and terror finance through the trade of artworks, NFTs are publicly verifiable blockchain-based digital tokens representing ownership of images, videos and audio files as well as other forms of media.

These digital tokens are sold online, with the market for NFTs producing more than $1.5 billion in trading during the first three months of last year, the report said.

Federal prosecutors charged Chastain, a former employee of OpenSea, the largest NFT marketplace, with exploiting his advanced knowledge of which NFTs would be featured on the company's homepage for personal again.

The charging document states that information about which NFTs would be selected for the website was kept secret as after the digital tokens were featured the price consumers were would pay for them "typically increased substantially."

Chastain was responsible for selecting which NFTs would be featured on OpenSea's homepage, and he secretly purchased dozens of these digital assets and sold them at a profit shortly after they were featured on his company's website, prosecutors said, adding the scheme ran from from June to September of last year.

To conceal his identity, Chastain is accused of using anonymous digital currency wallets and anonymous accounts on OpenSea to buy and sell the NFTs, prosecutors said.

"With the emergence of any new investment tool, such as blockchain-supported non-fungible tokens, there are those who will exploit vulnerabilities for their own gain," FBI Assistant Director-in-Charge Michael Driscoll said. "The FBI will continue to aggressively pursue actors who choose to manipulate the market in this way."

Paraguay's slow slide into a state held hostage to drug trafficking

AFP - Yesterday 


Two Paraguayan officials murdered in as many weeks: an anti-drug prosecutor executed while on honeymoon in Colombia and a mayor gunned down outside his office.


© NORBERTO DUARTEParaguayan security forces destroy a drug factory in Pedro Juan Caballero in May 2022

These incidents have sent a disturbing signal that parts of the South American country are falling under the influence -- and bullets -- of organized crime and drug traffickers.

A few months ago, the mayor of Pedro Juan Caballero, a northeastern city on the border with Brazil, complained bitterly that mafia groups "walk around armed and no-one does anything.

"How can you walk around the streets armed with an AR-15 or AK-47?" asked Jose Carlos Acevedo, 51.

"The citizenry knows what happens here but (apparently) the police don't know and the public prosecutor's office doesn't know."

It was one of the last interviews the mayor would give before being struck on May 17 by a hail of bullets as he left town hall.

A week earlier, Marcelo Pecci, a leading prosecutor in Paraguay's fight against drug trafficking and money laundering, was shot dead execution-style on a Colombian island in front of his wife.

One line of inquiry, according to sources close to the investigation, has pointed to the suspected crime boss Sergio de Arruda Quintiliano Neto, known as "The Minotaur", who has been detained since 2019 in Brazil.

The alleged leader of the Brazilian First Capital Command (PCC) gang was arrested as part of a probe led by Pecci.

At the time of his death, the 45-year-old Pecci was compiling evidence against captured criminals belonging to the PCC and Red Command (CV), groups that originated in Brazil but now also operate in Paraguay.

A small, landlocked country of 7.3 million between Argentina, Bolivia and Brazil, Paraguay has traditionally been known as a marijuana producer.

But "we have become the regional distribution center for Andean cocaine. From Paraguay, shipments are sent through the ports of Buenos Aires and Montevideo to Europe," criminologist Juan Martens from the National University of Asuncion told AFP.


The country "is located in a strategic region for smuggling and drug-trafficking," said Arnaldo Giuzzio, a former interior minister and anti-drugs chief.

- 'Big fish starting to fall' -

In Pedro Juan Caballero, the capital of northeastern Amambay province, there is a volatile mix of anti-drug trafficking operations, score settling between rival organized crime groups and murders of officials who try to tackle the scourge.

Even family members can be targeted: the niece of former mayor Acevedo was killed in 2021.

The province, a hub for transporting drugs into neighboring Brazil, had a murder rate in 2020 of 70 per 100,000 inhabitants -- 10 times the national average.

Just last week, police in that region destroyed 600 tons of marijuana in a highly publicized operation following Pecci's murder.

Over the course of this year, more than 1,000 hectares of marijuana crops have been destroyed, while 3,400 tons of the plant has been taken off the market, "causing drug traffickers to lose $103 million," Paraguay's anti-drugs spokesman Francisco Ayala told AFP.

On top of that, 2.2 tons of cocaine have been seized.

President Mario Abdo Benitez, who has faced harsh criticism for a perceived lack of success against the drug traffickers, trumpeted the "record" figures and the fact that "big fish are starting to fall."

But he also painted a bleak picture of a country where "organized crime pays politicians, pays parliamentarians, pays prosecutors, magistrates and various authorities," without naming any.

Martens says crime gangs have been "progressively taking control of various institutions" in the country.

"Here in Paraguay we have drug-breeding, drug-soyabean, drug-sport (through club owners), drug-religion, drug-universities."

Abdo says there is "a war" being waged against drug trafficking that "will be tough and will last."

Paraguay's Congress recently began debating new legislation aimed at better controlling the nation's airspace, which Martens has described as the "open sky."

Some members of Congress hope to give the Air Force more authority to shoot down non-identified or "hostile" tourist planes frequently used by drug traffickers.

But the military has said that to tackle the problem it prefers improved radar systems and airplanes over new legislation.

hro-pbl/lab/ybl/bc/des

WORLD BICYCLE DAY

Will the bicycle help us address pressing social issues?

The Conversation

JUNE 3,2022

World Bicycle Day is celebrated on June 3 in support of the idea that bicycles “contribute to cleaner air and less congestion and makes education, health care and other social services more accessible to the most vulnerable populations.”

The bicycle plays a massive role in physical activity. This was especially evident during the pandemic, as bicycle purchases skyrocketed. Amid lockdown measures, cycling remained a crucial alternative to public transportation, while offering the benefit of outdoor and socially distanced physical activity. But even before the pandemic started, people’s interest in bikes was growing.

Cycling could be the answer to more than just our physical activity and pandemic woes. It could offer public officials a way to address convergent crises in public health, transportation and climate. At the same time, increased bicycle use can generate new economic opportunities, like offering low-cost bicycles for sustainable transport and mechanical training to local communities to create jobs.

And as gas prices continue to rise due to the ongoing invasion of Ukraine, governments are urging citizens to consider the bicycle. What’s clear is that the bicycle’s capacity to respond to pressing social issues has inspired both intrigue and optimism, especially in the context of COVID-19.
Bicycles for development

We are a group of researchers interested in the social and environmental dimensions of sport, physical activity and health with a focus — for the work described here — on the perceived role of development in the emergent cycling boom.

So far our research has attempted to map out the bicycles for development movement, which considers the bicycle a powerful technology that holds notable implications for social change and development objectives.

Our research shows that this movement is driven largely by the work of non-governmental organizations delivering bicycles to communities across the globe.

These initiatives can be entirely local, although they often cross international lines — organizations collecting used bicycles in one place sometimes ship them elsewhere. Bicycles that are delivered to communities often come from donations, micro-financing initiatives or social entrepreneurial ventures, like those led by women in rural Uganda.

Over the past six years our research in Canada, Nicaragua and Uganda has highlighted key ways that bicycles for development initiatives seem to have positive effects. For example, bicycle access can foster mobility, which can lead to various opportunities (like accessing educational opportunities and local markets to sell goods), and may help promote a sense of social inclusion or economic development.

In Canada, we conducted research with communities in Toronto and Vancouver. Our studies in Toronto showed how bicycles are being taken up by mutual aid organizations to respond to increasing food insecurity during the pandemic. Through focusing on the experiences of 2SLGBTQ+ and racialized cyclists, we highlighted the ways in which diverse cyclists challenge systems of racialized and gendered oppression using the bicycle to dismantle stereotypes about who can participate in cycling.

However, while the bicycle has positive potential, our research also demonstrated that providing bicycles to women and girls is, in some ways, filled with tensions and challenges. For example, in our most recent research in Uganda, some women explained that prior to receiving the bicycle, they were mainly responsible for caregiving and other domestic tasks like cooking.

Upon receiving the bicycle, they now also have to engage in economic activities — meaning more labour-focused expectations for women in rural communities. This often leads to an extension of existing inequalities between men and women.

There was also a concern over the quality of bicycles donated. For example some of the bicycles donated required specific unavailable spare parts meaning they were of little use once they broke down. But programs like World Bicycle Relief’s “Buffalo Bicycle” are geared towards addressing this problem.

The fact that bicycle-driven aid may have unintended and sometimes negative consequences aligns with a wealth of research in the sport for development field, and in development studies more broadly.

We refer to these unintended negative outcomes of development-focused interventions as forms of “ironic activism.”

While our research revealed the positive potential of bicycle access, our findings also steered us in other directions: bicycles might empower people and communities but they may also reflect or exacerbate existing problems and inequalities. Bicycle-based development programs can have both intended and unintended consequences.

While the optimism for World Bicycle Day is welcome, it is important to remember that with all of their potential, bicycles cannot solve our overlapping contemporary crises on their own.

Janet Otte, Patrick Eyul and Lidieth del Soccorro Cruz Centeno co-authored this article. Janet has experience managing development projects on refugees, women’s rights and clinical research in Uganda. Patrick is a social scientist who works with development and research organizations in Uganda. Lidieth is the director of the Asociación Movimiento de Jóvenes de Ometepe in Nicaragua.

This article is republished from The Conversation, a nonprofit news site dedicated to sharing ideas from academic experts.

Read more:
COVID-19 cyclists: Expanding bike lane network can lead to more inclusive cities

Bike share programs are on the rise, yet the gender gap persists

Lyndsay Hayhurst receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, Canadian Heritage and the Canadian Foundation for Innovation.

Brad Millington receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.

Brian Wilson receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.

Jeanette Steinmann receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada and MITACS.

Jessica Nachman receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, the Ontario Graduate Scholarship program, and MITACS.

Mitchell McSweeney receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.

China's Tencent revises pay rise policy in memo, amid cost savings pressures

By Josh Ye - Yesterday 

HONG KONG (Reuters) - China's Tencent Holdings has told staff it will no longer guarantee them a pay raise upon promotion, according to an internal letter seen by Reuters, as it reviews its salary policy amid a wider cost-cutting drive.

The Chinese social media and gaming giant told its employees of the policy change on Tuesday, saying the decision was taken as part of a yearly review in consideration of the "company's operation plan and the external environment."

But it said the company would still conduct an annual salary review to consider an individual's contribution and performance.

Tencent, which declined to comment on Wednesday, told staff in 2020 it would no longer guarantee an annual salary rise.

Related video: US labels China a currency manipulator as Beijing allows yuan to sink to lowest level in 11 years

Its latest policy change reflects the changing circumstances of China's technology giants, once among the fastest growing Chinese firms and sought after employers but now hit hard by a bruising regulatory crackdown and a slowing economy.

Tencent, China's most valuable company, reported quarterly earnings last month showing profit halved from a year earlier and revenues stagnated, its worst performance since it went public in 2004.

Founder and Chief Executive Pony Ma told analysts the company had implemented cost control measures and scaled back non-core businesses in the first quarter. He said it was looking to "achieve a more optimised cost structure going forward".

It has shut its Penguin Esports unit. Reuters reported earlier this year that Tencent and peer Alibaba Group planned to make numerous job cuts.

The latest Tencent salary policy change, first reported by local media on Wednesday, was one of the most discussed topics on the Maimai career portal, China's equivalent of Linkedin.

"Quality candidates will now weigh the stability of a Tencent job," said one user on Maimai, who used a pseudonym and said he was a Tencent employee.

Ma caused a stir on Chinese social media recently after he reposted an article on China's economy, breaking his usual silence on an increasingly sensitive topic.

(Reporting by Josh Ye; Editing by Brenda Goh and Edmund Blair)

Green still grey area for ESG investors despite mounting scrutiny by watchdogs in U.S. and Canada

Barbara Shecter - Yesterday 

© Provided by Financial PostIdentifying

Regulators in Canada and the United States are pushing ESG funds to disclose more information to weed out “greenwashing” and other misleading practices, but a lack of standardized terms and metrics mean those buying the funds must still be wary, investor advocates say.

The latest attempt to separate marketing pitches from strategies that truly fulfill environmental objectives come via the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, which last week proposed rules that, among other things, crack down on whether fund names accurately reflect the underlying strategy.

Those marketing their funds with a focus on environmental, social or governance objectives would have to invest at least 80 per cent of their assets to that end, according to the proposal. Funds would also have to disclose information about the emissions of companies they hold, and how they measure their progress against stated goals, in their communication with investors through fund prospectuses, annual reports and adviser brochures.

Canadian regulators, too, have been focused on identifying greenwashing in the fund business. Last year, the Canadian Securities Administrators, an umbrella organization for the country’s provincial and territorial market watchdogs, oversaw a wide-ranging review of the marketing, regulatory disclosure and sales communications of funds whose investment objectives reference ESG strategies.

Following the review, which found that more than half the funds scrutinized “lacked detailed disclosure in their investment strategies about the specific ESG factors considered by the fund,” the CSA issued fresh guidance to the industry in January.

The CSA review also uncovered a widespread failure to disclose how ESG factors were evaluated, and more than a third of the funds reviewed held investments in industries that should not have been permitted by their exclusionary investment strategies. Further, about one-fifth of the funds reviewed had portfolio holdings that appeared to be inconsistent with the fund’s name, investment objectives or investment strategies.

The guidance introduced this year “aims to bring greater clarity to ESG-related fund disclosure and sales communications to enable investors to make more informed investment decisions,” said Ilana Kelemen, a spokesperson for the CSA.

Still, with a growing number of ESG-marketed funds and no strict or uniform criteria for what they must accomplish on social, environmental or governance issues, investment advocates and environmental groups don’t expect a one-size-fits-all solution.

“The essential problem is that the world still lacks accepted, standardized metrics for ESG — so for the time being, ‘green’ is grey,” said Neil Gross, a veteran securities lawyer and investor advocate.

The responses from regulators on both sides of the Canada-U.S. border seem to back up the notion that they have a limited role to play for now, putting the emphasis on beefing up and policing disclosure requirements rather than writing new rules and enforcing a specific code.

“Regulators can and should help us to separate the meaningful from the marketing, by requiring more complete disclosure from fund managers about the elements and depth of their approach,” said Kevin Thomas, chief executive officer of the Shareholder Association for Research and Education (SHARE).

“What they can’t do is to regulate what constitutes the one, true, ESG strategy, because those strategies vary widely and are regularly being tested and updated as we learn more about what’s needed and what works.”

With no new rules on the books in Canada, it will be up to individual provincial and territorial regulators to determine when and where enforcement action is warranted, according to Gross.

The CSA noted that its review of 32 funds, managed by 23 different investment fund managers, was intended to gauge how existing disclosure standards including “full, true and plain disclosure of all material facts” were being applied to funds that referenced ESG in their investment objectives or strategies or marketed themselves in online sales communications as ESG-related funds.

The umbrella group also noted that some of its findings were observational, rather than strictly related to compliance with disclosure requirements.

The SEC rules on ESG-related disclosure proposed last week are open for a 60-day comment period and aren’t expected to be finalized for several months, but that hasn’t stopped regulators from taking action in specific cases.

Earlier this month, the SEC imposed a first-of-its-kind fine of US$1.5 million on the investment advisory arm of BNY Mellon in a settlement over allegations of misstatements and omissions related to information about ESG investment criteria for its mutual funds between July 2018 and September 2021. Before the settlement, the regulator had alleged that while various fund statements suggested all investments in the funds had undergone an ESG quality review, this was not always the case.

Regulators aren’t alone in pushing for greater transparency and uniformity when it comes to climate-related activity, and funds aren’t the only target. In Canada’s spring budget, for example, Justin Trudeau’s Liberal government pledged to require big banks to disclose climate-related financial risks.

The Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions (OSFI) is now consulting with banks and other federally regulated financial institutions on climate disclosure guidelines that will adhere to the global Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures framework.

And separate from the review that led to fresh guidance for the fund industry in January, the CSA has sought input on how a wider range of companies should disclose climate-related risks, opportunities and financial impacts to address concerns disclosure is not complete, consistent, or comparable. The regulator said tackling these issues would improve access to global capital markets in part “by aligning Canadian disclosure standards with expectations of international investors.”

Canadian climate activists ask bankers to close ESG debt loopholes

Green investing: The risk of a new misselling scandal

Emerging ESG bond boom puts world on path to sell US$1.8 trillion

The comment period ended in February, and the CSA’s Kelemen said staff are reviewing the comments received, as well as rules proposed by the SEC and disclosure standards proposed by the International Sustainability Standards Board. They will then make recommendations for “a final form of rule” to the provincial and territorial securities regulators that are members of the CSA.

Some, including the Ontario Securities Commission, already appear to be preparing to beef up requirements, Gross said.

“A year ago, OSC and BCSC (British Columbia Securities Commission) staff began sweeps to assess the general accuracy of ESG claims,” he said, adding that the OSC laid out plans to further consult and develop rules for companies on climate-change disclosure in the regulator’s statement of priorities for 2022-23.

• Email: bshecter@postmedia.com | Twitter: BatPost