Russia to investigate removal and demolition of Soviet monuments in Europe
Daniel Stewart - Yesterday 

The Russian Investigative Committee has reported that it will look into cases of removal and demolition of Soviet monuments in several European countries, especially in recent months after the outbreak of the war in Ukraine.


Statue of Lenin in Grutas Park, in the Lithuanian capital of Vilnius - 

HANS VAN RHOON / ZUMA PRESS / CONTACTOPHOTO

In the last week, the removal of a Red Army monument in Mariemburg, Denmark; a Soviet-era tank in Narva, Estonia; or a peace monument in Helsinki donated by the Soviet Union to Finland in the late 1980s has been publicized.

Also, the chairman of the Investigative Committee, Alexander Bastrikin, has urged the body to investigate the causes of the desecration of a Soviet military cemetery in Weneuchen, Germany, allegedly by a neo-Nazi fanatic, according to the Russian news agency TASS.

"These illegal actions are directed against Russia's interests in the field of preserving the historical memory of the Soviet Union's activities during World War II and the decisive role in the victory over fascism," the Investigative Committee has stressed.

Since the outbreak of the war in Ukraine at the end of February, several Soviet monuments and memorials throughout Europe, especially in the former Soviet republics and in Germany, have been vandalized in protest against the invasion or directly removed or demolished by the authorities

Cancelling Batgirl Isn’t Just Baffling — It’s A Crushing Blow To Women Like Me

Amanda Alcantara - Yesterday 

Refinery29

When I heard the news in 2021 that Afro-Dominican actor Leslie Grace was cast as Batgirl in the Warner Bros. superhero film of the same name, I was ecstatic. Amid ongoing news of Covid-19 variants and Capitol insurrection developments, this story coming from the entertainment world felt like a breath of fresh air — a cause for celebration during a chaotic moment in time. With the conversation of representation in Hollywood taking center stage after the #OscarSoWhite hashtag, it also felt very intentional, like maybe the film production company was finally saying what I’ve always known: Black Latinas are worthy and capable of being leading ladies in hit movies. Then Warner Bros. changed its mind, about the film and, apparently, about women like me.


NEW YORK, NEW YORK – SEPTEMBER 13: Leslie Grace attends The 2021 Met Gala Celebrating In America: A Lexicon Of Fashion at Metropolitan Museum of Art on September 13, 2021 in New York City. (Photo by Arturo Holmes/MG21/Getty Images)

On August 2, the New York Post reported that “Batgirl,” which was then in the final stages of post-production, would not be released on any platform. At that point, directors Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah had finished shooting the project, and its star, Grace, was giving interviews about what landing the superheroine role meant to her. Nearly complete, the film, which was slated to premiere on HBO Max, had cost Warner Bros. Discovery $90 million total. According to The Guardian, it now ranks among “the most expensive canceled cinematic projects ever.”

Understandably, the death of the film confused Hollywood and fans alike, with media outlets asking, “Why would Warner Bros. throw all this away?” Some have suggested tax write-downs, while others have pointed to a change in the company’s vision with new CEO David Zaslav. On Thursday, Zaslav explained that he shelved “Batgirl” simply because he didn’t think it was very good. “We’re not going to release a movie unless we believe in it,” he said, adding that the company is “focusing on quality” and “Batgirl” did not live up to that standard.

Reading this, I feel like there are bigger, more important, questions that need to be asked: Will Hollywood ever find value in Black and Brown women, and should we even keep waiting on them to see our inherent worth and brilliance

While Latines make up 18% of the population, we only accounted for 4.6% of movie roles in 2019. Within that number, it is difficult to calculate how many of those roles even go to Latina women, particularly Afro-Latinas, and even more so dark-skinned Afro-Latinas who face colorism within the community. Our absence has dire consequences. The world of television and entertainment is a mirror of society, defining beauty standards and influencing our perception of self. I know this personally. When I was a kid, the underrepresentation of Black women in TV and film affected my self-esteem. I often felt that I was ugly and wished to have green eyes or straight hair. This was the image that I saw on the screen. This is what I learned was beautiful, what had star potential. I’m not alone. Research has consistently shown that a lack of representation “can lead to negative psychological outcomes for those with identities that are underrepresented or negatively portrayed.”

Filming a movie that pushed back on this narrative and then canceling it feels deliberate — like a slap in the face.

Related video: ‘Batgirl’ Star Leslie Grace Calls Herself “My Own Damn Hero” After Film Is Shelved | THR News  View on Watch

My heart breaks for all the young Black and Brown girls, including the numerous DC Comics fans, who won’t watch the film they’ve been anticipating and gushing about on forums for months. Most of all, my heart aches for Grace, who allegedly found out about the cancellation after the story broke, together with the general public. Still, she released a graceful message on Instagram, saying she’s proud of the work she and the team did together. She wrote: “To every ‘Batgirl’ fan, thank you for the love and belief, allowing me to take on the cape and become, as Babs said best, ‘my own damn hero!’”

I hurt for Grace because she is yet another woman of color who has put in the work to be excellent, but whose near and deserved accolades were stolen by a system that refuses to hold us up. From the chart-topping queen Beyoncé’s 2017 snub at the Grammys to the cancellation of Cristela Alonzo’s primetime show after becoming the first Latina to create and star in one, the entertainment industry seems to snatch opportunities from Black and Brown women left and right. This month, HBO Max also canceled “Gordita Chronicles” after one season, even after a stellar performance by newcomer Olivia Goncalves and rave reviews.

But impeccable talent and endless excitement about a project won’t save Black and Brown women. If we’re talking about quality, as Zaslav suggested, there are few actors more equipped for the role of Batgirl than Grace. Gotham is allegedly modeled after New York City, the city where the actor-singer is from — the city where countless Black and Brown girls hold each other down, walking along the streets laughing, arms locked, creating a shield from the evil and harms of a world that has never loved us. Grace’s quote from the character of “Batgirl” rings true: We are our own damn superheroines.

Black and Brown girls have seen our women be superhuman in a world where we have had to fight for our survival for so long. Our mothers often raise us as single parents who make less than non-Latine white women. Our nurses put their lives on the line at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020 to protect us. Our educators navigate meager budgets to provide us with educational tools to succeed. Black and Brown women have also been on the front lines of our social justice movements and struggles, including Indigenous women who fought to stop the construction of the Keystone XL Pipelines, Black women leading the Black Lives Matter movement, and Latinas on the frontlines of the immigration justice fight. The moment we were finally going to see our superpower reflected on the screen, it was ripped away from us, another struggle in our fight for proper representation of our own humanity.

View this post on Instagram

As a multi-billion-dollar production and studio company creating the DC Universe, Warner Bros. is building an entire world that impacts the global imagination. Thus, it has a responsibility to viewers to paint one where they can see themselves, even with evil villains, imperfect heroes, and gloomy cities. A complex character with a difficult backstory like Batgirl, who fights crime all while overcoming personal struggles, can show young girls of color that they are worthy of being celebrated, even while struggling with issues at home. Furthermore, showing an Afro-Latina with superpowers has the exciting potential to enrich the imagination of young girls, empowering them to become the leaders of tomorrow. Perhaps most importantly, it reminds them that they do not need to change anything about themselves in order to do so.

But Hollywood has, once again, proven to be irresponsible and unaccountable. In slashing “Batgirl,” Warner Bros. refuses to recognize the value in our stories. In Zaslav’s own words, our narratives don’t live up to his standards, the same benchmarks set across the white male elite entertainment industry.

Still, we continue to be our own heroes — as we always have been. We have taken to social media to increase representation, creating movements like #BlackGirlMagic to uplift and validate ourselves and our beauty, producing our own series after facing constant erasure, and making space for ourselves everywhere we go. While we don’t need Hollywood, I still do hope for the day that gatekeepers treat our stories with the love and respect that they deserve — not because we need their validation, but because we are more than worthy of it.

Plastics producers ask court to quash planned federal ban on single-use straws, cups


OTTAWA — More than two dozen plastic makers are asking the Federal Court to put an end to Ottawa's plan to ban several single-use plastic items but Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault says he’s confident the attempt will fail.



Under regulations Guilbeault finalized in June, the ban is set to be phased in starting this December with an end to the manufacture, sale and import of takeout containers, stir sticks, retail carry-out bags, cutlery and most straws.

The six-pack rings used to package beverage cans and bottles together will be added to the ban for manufacturing and import in June 2023, and their sale banned in June 2024. Exports of all the products have to end in December 2025.

In a court filing July 15, a group of plastic makers calling itself the Responsible Plastic Use Coalition asked the Federal Court for a judicial review of the ban. It hopes to tear up the regulations enacting the ban and prevent the government from further regulating single-use plastics through the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, or CEPA.

It is the second lawsuit brought by the coalition related to the government's plastics ban. The first, filed in 2021, sought to overturn the government's decision to list plastic pollution as "toxic" under CEPA. That lawsuit remains before the courts.

The toxic designation, which came in May 2021 after a scientific assessment of plastic waste, is needed for the government to ban substances believed to be harmful to human, animal or environmental health.

CEPA defines a substance as "toxic" if it can have "immediate or long-term harmful effect on the environment or its biological diversity."

In its legal filing in the latest case, the coalition argues the government doesn't have real evidence plastics are toxic.

"In fact there is no credible evidence that any of the (single-use plastics) are 'toxic,’” the court document reads.

"Accordingly the ban cannot be justified as an exercise of the criminal law power conferred upon Parliament."

The coalition asked the court to put the brakes on implementing any parts of the ban until the decision is made whether or not to kill it completely.

In a written statement, Guilbeault said the plastics coalition can do whatever it wants in court but that he thinks they're going to lose.

"We’re going to stick to the facts, which show very clearly that plastic pollution is harming our environment and we need to act," he said.

"And we’re confident the courts will agree with our position."

The government’s scientific assessment published in 2020 concluded that plastic is "ubiquitous" in the environment, estimating about 29,000 tonnes of plastic waste ended up in the environment in 2016 alone.

"Since plastics degrade very slowly and are persistent in the environment, the frequency of occurrence of plastic pollution in the environment is expected to increase," the assessment concluded.

The assessment said macroplastics, which are pieces bigger than five millimetres, can cause physical harm to natural areas. Animals frequently eat or become entangled in plastic waste, causing injury and death.

Turtles, whales and seabirds are among the most commonly affected. A dead baby turtle in Florida in 2019 was found to have more than 100 pieces of plastic in its stomach. In 2018 a dead sperm whale found in Indonesia had six kilograms of plastic garbage in its belly, including two flip-flops, plastic ropes, four plastic bottles, 25 plastic bags and 115 plastic cups.

However, the assessment said the impact of microplastics, pieces of broken down plastic items that are smaller than five millimetres, was less clear, with scientists divided about whether microplastics can kill people or animals, or cause developmental or reproductive problems.

"The current literature on the human health effects of microplastics is limited, although a concern for human health has not been identified at this time," the assessment said.

It called for further research.

A 2019 Deloitte study found less than one-tenth of the plastic waste Canadians produce is recycled. That meant 3.3 million tonnes of plastic was being thrown out annually, almost half of it plastic packaging.

Federal data show that in 2019, 15.5 billion plastic grocery bags, 4.5 billion pieces of plastic cutlery, three billion stir sticks, 5.8 billion straws, 183 million six-pack rings and 805 million takeout containers were sold in Canada.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Aug. 10, 2022.

Mia Rabson, The Canadian Press

BC
‘We are inseparable from our land’: Gitxsan Nation house group declares 170,000 hectares of territory protected

In early August, at a feast hall near the confluence of the Skeena and Bulkley Rivers in northwest B.C., Wilps Gwininitxw, a Gitxsan Nation house group, declared the entirety of its 1,700 square kilometre laxyip (territory) protected.

The Gwininitxw Indigenous Protected Area, which is in the upper Skeena River watershed, is relatively undisturbed by industrial influence and vital habitat for the likes of mountain goats, wolverines, grizzlies and wild salmon.

“As Gitxsan we are inseparable from our land,” Simogyet Gwininitxw Yvonne Lattie, house chief, said in a press release. “This is the source of our strength, and our vision is of a continuing and renewed relationship between our people and our lands, intact and whole.”

While intact now, the newly protected area isn’t without threats.

Wilps Gwininitxw is just upstream from the proposed routes of Enbridge’s Westcoast Connector Gas Transmission pipeline and TC Energy’s Prince Rupert Gas Transmission pipeline. Both projects were first proposed in 2012 and approved in 2014 by former B.C. premier Christy Clark’s Liberal government, on the same timeline as the contentious Coastal GasLink pipeline

Like Coastal GasLink, which is also owned by TC Energy, both projects would move fracked gas from B.C.’s northeast to liquefaction and export facilities on the Pacific coast. Ultimately, the fossil fuels extracted from and transported across B.C. would be shipped to buyers in Asia and burned to produce energy. While both projects received approval through B.C.’s environmental assessment process, neither has started construction.

The pair of pipelines would “directly affect Wilps Gwininitxw by crossing our salmon-bearing rivers and streams,” the press release noted. “In the absence of meaningful provincial or federal government action to protect the Skeena watershed from industrial development, Wilps Gwininitxw is unilaterally declaring their territories protected.”

By establishing Gwininitxw Indigenous Protected Area, the house group is asserting its sovereignty and jurisdiction. In 1997, the Supreme Court of Canada famously ruled the Gitxsan and neighbouring Wet’suwet’en nations had never ceded that authority over the combined 55,000 square kilometres of territories. While it isn’t immediately clear what impact the protected area will have on the proposed projects or other industrial development, Indigenous Protected Areas and related Indigenous guardian programs received $340 million in federal support last year and are cited as an important part of Canada’s commitment to conserve 30 per cent of the country’s lands and waters by 2030.

Decisions about the area will be guided by gwalx yee’insxw, the Gitxsan principle of passing down an intact ecosystem to future generations.

“All activities on Wilps Gwininitxw territories must prioritize food and cultural security, the transference of knowledge based on the land to Indigenous youth and future generations, and must ensure the conservation of land, air, water, animals, fish and ecosystem functioning in the upper Skeena watershed in perpetuity,” Simogyet Gwininitxw said at a feast to celebrate the declaration.

Protecting lands and waters through the declaration of Indigenous Protected and Conserved Areas is increasing.

Last year, Gitanyow Hereditary Chiefs gathered on the banks of T’aam Mats’iiaadin (Meziadin River) to unilaterally declare 54,000 hectares protected as the Wilp Wii Litsxw Meziadin Indigenous Protected Area, after trying for years to work with the province to address threats to declining salmon populations. In late April, sməlqmíx leaders announced protection of the nʔaysnúlaʔxʷ snxaʔcnitkʷ (Ashnola Watershed) and on National Indigenous Peoples Day in June, the Kitasoo Xai’xais Nation established a 33.5 square kilometre marine protected area in an attempt to stem the tide of declining marine biodiversity.

The Ministry of Land, Water and Resource Stewardship — B.C.’s newest ministry — told The Narwhal in an emailed statement the province “respects and acknowledges the efforts of First Nations to protect ecosystems within their territories and care for the water, land, wildlife, and other natural resources that their communities have relied on for millennia.”

“Meaningful reconciliation includes respecting and engaging with First Nations on stewardship objectives in their territories, including the declaration of Indigenous Protected and Conserved Areas,” the statement noted. “IPCAs are sometimes developed collaboratively with other orders of government and stakeholders, and at other times independently by First Nations. However, our preferred approach for creating IPCAs is through the land use planning process, as this ensures that economic, environmental, social, and cultural objectives are met and that robust consultations with Indigenous peoples, stakeholders and the public are included.”

In a previous interview Minister Josie Osborne told The Narwhal she is committed to working with nations across the province on Indigenous-led conservation initiatives.

“The current concept of Indigenous Protected and Conserved Areas and what that means for First Nations, and for British Columbians, is something I think we’re all coming to understand more and getting a greater awareness of the opportunities there,” she said at the time.

“I think the opportunity that IPCAs bring us is sort of redefining that relationship between what a protected and conserved area is and how we can still allow for human use and human relationships to the landscape and to the resources that that landscape provides.”

Kris Statnyk, a lawyer and member of the Vuntut Gwitchin First Nation who lives on Gitxsan territory, was at the feast to witness the declaration.

“I think Indigenous people are just getting tired of waiting for [government action] and we really can’t wait much longer when we look at the changes that are happening on all of our territories and the state of the world that our children are inheriting right now,” he told The Narwhal in an interview.

He said non-Indigenous conservation often perpetuates colonialism by placing restrictions and restraints on how Indigenous people use the land and resources such as fish and wildlife and noted how protecting one area under federal or provincial laws can lead to “opening up the remainder of areas for continued extraction.”

He said the new protected area is a good example of what Indigenous sovereignty looks like.

“Indigenous people don’t need the Crown authority to do this. What Gwininitxw did was based on laws that are way older than Canada.”

“It’s a good reckoning in the sense that Indigenous people seem to be awakening and rising and doing it in a way that’s honouring their own laws and their own knowledge about what’s happening.”

“Wilps Gwininitxw protected territories will ensure the current and future health of our land, culture and people,” Simogyet Gwininitxw said at the feast. “The protected territories will foster healthy relationships to the land and will enable emotional and spiritual healing of our people from the enduring trauma from colonial practices such as residential schools, land and resource development and climate change.”

Matt Simmons, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, The Narwhal

Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates, and other billionaires are backing an exploration for rare minerals buried beneath Greenland's ice

bnguyen@insider.com (Britney Nguyen) - Yesterday 

A drop of water falls off an iceberg melting in the Nuup Kangerlua Fjord in southwestern Greenland, August 1, 2017. David Goldman/AP Photo

Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates are among a group of billionaires backing a mineral exploration startup.

KoBold Metals wants to mine minerals in Greenland that can be used to power electric car batteries.

Greenland's ice is melting due to climate change, and it's providing access to precious minerals.

Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates are among a group of billionaires backing a company they hope will find resources for clean energy under melting ice in the western part of Greenland.

KoBold Metals, a mineral exploration startup powered by AI, is looking for rare and precious metals and minerals beneath Greenland's melting ice that can be used to build electric cars and renewable batteries.

"We are looking for a discovery that will be one of the largest, most significant nickel and cobalt deposits in the world, potentially capable of powering 100 million EVs," a spokesperson for KoBold Metals, told Insider.

A team of 30 people, including geologists, geophysicists, and pilots, is exploring Disko Island and Nuussuaq Peninsula, where the minerals and metals for the batteries and electric vehicles are believed to be in the hills and valleys.

KoBold is working with Bluejay Mining on the exploration. CNN reported it was the first media outlet with video of the team's work in Greenland.

"Fully electrifying the global economy is our generation's greatest challenge," the KoBold spokesperson said. "Partnering with this broad set of world-class investors will accelerate our efforts to find the key materials for the EV revolution."

The team in Greenland is using AI to find areas for drilling that can start next summer, according to CNN. In addition, the team is taking soil samples and using drones and helicopters to scope out the layers below the surface.

"It is a concern to witness the consequences and impacts from the climate changes in Greenland," Bo Møller Stensgaard, CEO of Bluejay Mining, told CNN. "But, generally speaking, climate changes overall have made exploration and mining in Greenland easier and more accessible."

Kobold - Wikipedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kobold

A kobold (occasionally cobold) is a mythical sprite. Having spread into Europe with various spellings including "goblin" and "hobgoblin", and later taking root and stemming from Germanic mythology, the concept survived into modern times in German folklore. Although usually invisible, a kobold can … See more

Origins and etymology

The kobold's origins are obscure. Sources equate the domestic kobold with creatures such as the English boggart, hobgoblin and pixy, the Scottish brownie, and the Scandinavian nisse or tomte; while they align the … See more

House spirits

Domestic kobolds are linked to a specific household. Some legends claim that every house has a resident kobold, regardless of its owners' desires … See more

Water spirits

The Klabautermann (also spelt Klaboterman and Klabotermann) is a creature from the beliefs of fishermen and sailors of Germany's north coast, the Netherlands, and the Baltic Sea, and may represent a third type of kobold or possibly a different spirit that … See more

See also

• Kobold (Dungeons & Dragons)
• Niß Puk, the kobold of Northern Germany See more

Monkeypox vaccine now available in nine Alberta cities for those who meet criteria: AHS

The monkeypox vaccine is now available in nine cities across the province for those who meet the immunization criteria, Alberta Health Services announced Wednesday.

This 2003 electron microscope image made available by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows mature, oval-shaped monkeypox virions, left, and spherical immature virions, right, obtained from a sample of human skin associated with the 2003 prairie dog outbreak.

Beginning immediately, Albertans aged 18 and older can book an appointment to receive the monkeypox vaccine in Edmonton, Calgary, Edson, Fort McMurray, Grande Prairie, Lethbridge, Medicine Hat, Red Deer and St. Paul.

Those who are eligible for the vaccine in Alberta include transgender, cisgender or two-spirit individuals who self-identify as belonging to the gay, bisexual and other men who have sex with men (gbMSM) community and meet at least one of the following criteria:

Have received a recent (in the last six months) diagnosis of a sexually transmitted infection.

Are planning to have, or in the past 90 days had, sex outside of a mutually monogamous relationship.

Have attended venues for sexual contact within the past 90 days (e.g., bathhouses, sex clubs) or may be planning to.

Any sexual contacts of the individuals described above

.
Staff and volunteers in a social setting or venue or event where sexual activities between men

 (individuals described above) may take place.

Monkeypox is a pox-like disease that can be spread by contact with body fluids, monkeypox sores, or items that have recently been contaminated with fluids or sores such as clothing or bedding. Sickness may also occur from respiratory droplets after spending a long time close to someone who is infected.

Imvamune, the vaccine for smallpox and monkeypox, has been provided to close contacts of a confirmed monkeypox case after exposure since June 7 in Alberta. Since July 29, vaccine administration was only provided in Edmonton and Calgary for those who are at higher risk of being exposed.

“By expanding availability beyond these two cities, AHS is further enhancing the opportunity for more eligible people in Alberta to receive the vaccine,” the health authority said in a news release.

Anyone who believes they are eligible and interested in receiving the monkeypox vaccine must call Health Link at 1-866-301-2668 to book an appointment.

As of Wednesday afternoon, there had been 2,404 appointments booked to receive the vaccine, AHS said. To date, there are 19 confirmed isolated cases in the province.

Close contacts of individuals suspected or confirmed to have a monkeypox infection may also be eligible for a post-exposure vaccine. Immunization is recommended up to 14 days, and ideally within four days, after exposure to help prevent illness.

“Close contacts are also advised to self-monitor for 21 days after their last exposure. If symptoms 

develop, they should self-isolate, seek care and get tested. Call 811 for further information,” AHS said.

More information about the disease can be found at ahs.ca/monkeypox.

Edmonton Journal

Polio largely vanished thanks to vaccines. So why is it now back in more countries?

Lauren Pelley - 


Polio, a potentially disabling virus that's long been forgotten in many parts of the world, is now circulating in parts of the U.S. and U.K., on the heels of an outbreak in Israel — prompting health officials to launch vaccination campaigns to ensure the public is protected.


© Ahmad Al-Basha/AFP/Getty Images

A Yemeni child receives an oral polio vaccination during a home visit by health workers as part of an immunization campaign in February 2022.

Even in Canada, a country free of polio for the last two decades, medical experts say it's a wake-up call that the virus still poses a threat to anyone who remains unvaccinated, given polio's ability to spread through global travel networks and wastewater systems.

On Wednesday, British health authorities announced they will offer a polio booster dose to children aged one to nine in London, after finding evidence the virus has been spreading in multiple regions of the capital. Britain's Health Security Agency said polio virus samples were found in sewage water from eight boroughs of London, but there were no confirmed infections.

Still, the agency's analysis showed transmission has likely "gone beyond a close network of a few individuals."

"We know the areas in London where the poliovirus is being transmitted have some of the lowest vaccination rates," said Dr. Vanessa Saliba, a consultant epidemiologist at the U.K. Health Security Agency.

The agency said it was working closely with health authorities in the U.S. and Israel, as well as the World Health Organization, to investigate the links between polio viruses detected in those two countries.

In July, Israel announced a recent outbreak of polio infections appeared to be under control, after multiple people became infected, including a Jerusalem girl who was paralyzed and now requires rehabilitation, according to the Jerusalem Post.

More recently, in the state of New York, one unvaccinated young adult suffered paralysis after a polio infection in Rockland County — an area known for low vaccination rates — which marked the first case reported in the U.S. in nearly a decade.

Vaccination campaigns are now underway as samples of the virus were also detected in the wastewater of both Rockland and another county, just north of New York City. Officials also say hundreds more people may already be infected.

"The scope may be even much larger than we can even fathom or imagine," said New York-based immunologist Dr. Purvi Parikh.

"Because vaccines have become the victim of their own success, we don't see it — so we may not even realize what the spread of polio is, because for the majority of us who are vaccinated, it doesn't really [affect] us."

Outbreaks do still happen in certain countries

Before mass vaccination campaigns largely wiped out polio from circulation in higher-income countries like Canada between the 1950s and early 1990s, the virus was known for sparking outbreaks and striking children, causing paralysis or death in some cases.

Even now, war, poverty, and social unrest make it difficult to achieve eradication in many countries around the world. Outbreaks remain common in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and parts of Africa.

Parikh said polio cases aren't entirely a surprise in any community where vaccination rates are lower, either due to anti-vaccine sentiments or disruptions to routine immunizations during the COVID-19 pandemic.

"Now the concern is, some of these infectious diseases that we haven't seen in nearly decades may actually come back and pose to be a problem," she said.

Part of the challenge in wiping polio out around the world actually comes from the vaccination approach used in certain regions. While higher-income countries now use an inactivated poliovirus vaccine given as a traditional shot, others rely on a weakened poliovirus that's easy to administer by mouth.

Both types of vaccines helped curb global transmission and, crucially, neither one is capable of giving someone a case of symptomatic polio.

However, since the oral version winds up in the stomach, it's eventually flushed out of the body into wastewater systems — where, over time, the virus can evolve back into a form that's able to cause disease.

"So if you have a shedding of that particular virus and transmission of that in a community, it can cause a polio outbreak," said Dr. Isaac Bogoch, an infectious diseases specialist with the University Health Network in Toronto.

"And in fact, if you look at many parts of the world, there have been small outbreaks of vaccine-derived polio."

'Polio is only a plane trip away'

Lab testing conducted on the case in New York, for instance, linked the virus samples to transmission from someone who'd received the oral vaccine, which hasn't been used in the U.S. since 2000. "This suggests that the virus may have originated in a location outside of the U.S. where [the oral vaccine] is administered," officials said.

In London, out of more than 100 polio samples identified in sewage, most were vaccine-like virus, according to the UK Health Security Agency, while others had enough mutations to be more like "wild" polio that can cause serious health impacts.

Global travel between countries with high rates of polio transmission and regions with lagging vaccination rates could pose a problem going forward, said Wes Hazlitt, a Winnipeg polio survivor, advocate, and president of the Post-Polio Network in Manitoba.

"Polio," he added, "is only a plane trip away."

Another challenge in tackling outbreaks stems from this virus's ability to spread undetected, experts say, with most people unaware they're even infected — leaving countries vulnerable to slow-growing outbreaks before any patients show up with major disease and paralysis.

"Most people will have no symptoms or mild symptoms, but about one in 200 or so will have significant symptoms," Bogoch said.

Under-vaccinated communities remain at risk

So when it comes to experiencing a future polio outbreak, how at risk is Canada? That all depends on vaccination rates both now and in the future, multiple medical experts said.

"If you start not vaccinating the kids from the primary series — like the measles, mumps, rubella, diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis, polio — then you risk those diseases coming back," warned Dr. Anna Banerji, a pediatrician and infectious disease specialist in Toronto.

A vast majority of the Canadian public has been vaccinated against polio, and while immunization rates among children ebb and flow, the latest available federal data from 2017 shows roughly 90 per cent of toddlers had all three required polio shots.

But that coverage isn't uniform across the country. Polio vaccination rates were below 90 per cent in British Columbia and Manitoba, and close to just 80 per cent in Nunavut, while uptake in specific communities can vary and may have been disrupted by COVID-19 school closures.

"We do have our issues in Canada, with under-vaccinated communities for a variety of reasons, and a lot of this predates COVID-19," said Bogoch, adding many public health teams across the country did offer immunization programs throughout the pandemic to get children caught up.

While pockets of the population could remain vulnerable to polio infection, Fatima Tokhmafshan, a researcher and geneticist at the Research Institute of the McGill University Health Centre, said most Canadians shouldn't be overly concerned.

"If you see something circulating, it's good to be on your guard, but not panicking," she said.

"So it's important to keep an eye out. And reach out to your network, to your friends, your family — make sure everybody's vaccinated."

BC

Commercial fishermen’s union ‘deeply troubled’ with DFO’s decision to close Prince Rupert sockeye fishery

Unnecessary and irresponsible is how the United Fishermen and Allied Workers’ Union (UFAWU-Unifor) described Fisheries and Oceans Canada’s (DFO) decision to close some salmon harvesting around Prince Rupert on August 7.

Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO) announced their decision to close the commercial marine sockeye fisheries around the Northcoast city, in a media release on Aug. 5,

As of Aug. 1, the Skeena run size was at 4.1 million fish, which UFAWU-Unifor calls one of the largest in decades. Yet economic fisheries will have caught fewer than 900,000 sockeye by the time of the closure, the union stated.

Commercial marine fishermen have a total allowable catch of 40 per cent. To date, they have only caught 20 per cent, Mitch Dudoward, member of UFAWU-Unifor said on Aug. 8.

The decision is not based on science, and it follows a trend of “irresponsible decision-making” by Joyce Murray, the Minister of Fisheries, Oceans and the Canadian Coast Guard, which is “deeply troubling”, the release stated.

“It’s not just a closure, they got us started a month late, so now there’s over three million fish going to go to waste in Babine Lake because we don’t have the catching capacity to slow them down,” Calvin Siider, UFAWU-Unifor member said.

Regulations put in place by DFO also restricted commercial fishermen to a half a net and a maximum of 20-minute sets, the latter referring to the amount of time they are allowed to have their nets in the water from the time it is completely set to the time it begins to be retrieved.

“That reduces our efficiency by half,” Siider said.

The numbers of fishing boats dropped by half, with only 150 boats showing up this year when there would usually be closer to 300, he estimated, blaming the low attendance on the Minister’s “wishy-washy” decisions.

“There are concerns for late-run Skeena stocks, which we understand, and we can take a closure for reasons like that,” he said. “But when it doesn’t open because of ministerial interference, I mean, somebody should pay.”

The union stated in its press release the closure is unnecessary and will result in lost economic opportunities for fishers.

A side effect of the stricter regulations and closures is that Prince Rupert no longer has the capacity to process the fish.

“Now that we have a whole bunch of fish, we have no processing capacity. Just about all of the fish that’s been caught and passed through Canadian fishers hands in Prince Rupert here goes to Alaska to be processed,” Siider said.

He added that labour costs have also contributed to the change in the processing location.

“We used to be able to process every fish we caught.”

Kaitlyn Bailey, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, Prince Rupert Northern View

Commercial fishers and wild salmon advocates cheer large returns to B.C. waters

Yesterday 

VICTORIA — The summer of 2022 is shaping up to be a bumper season for both pink and sockeye salmon in British Columbia rivers, with one veteran Indigenous fisherman reporting the biggest catches of sockeye in decades.



Mitch Dudoward has worked in the salmon industry for more than 40 years and says fishing on the Skeena River in northwest B.C. has never been better.

"This is the best season I can recall in my lifetime with the numbers we are catching," said Dudoward, who recently completely a big sockeye haul aboard his gillnetter Irenda.

Bob Chamberlin, chairman of the Indigenous-led First Nations Wild Salmon Alliance, meanwhile said that thousands of pink salmon are in Central Coast rivers after years of minimal returns.

The strong run comes two years after the closure of two open-net Atlantic salmon farms in the area.

"We had targeted those farms," said Chamberlin, whose group wants open-net farms removed from B.C.'s waters. "We got them removed and two years later we went from 200 fish in the river to where we have several thousand to date. In our mind and knowledge that is a really clear indicator."

But Bernie Taekema, a salmon expert who consults for several B.C. salmon farming companies, said data for pink salmon returns on the Central Coast and Broughton Archipelago shows numbers in the area were much higher two years ago.

"Mr. Chamberlin is not recognizing that salmon return trends are not based on one year of returns but are based on several years of returns, and the trends are not associated with only one factor when it comes to salmon returns," he said.

Ocean survival, habitat destruction, over-fishing and "potentially, maybe fish farms," could all be factors in low salmon returns, Taekema said.

Fisheries and Oceans Canada spokeswoman Lara Sloan said departmental observations indicated big returns of sockeye to the Skeena River.

"Test fisheries currently indicate that Skeena sockeye returns are tracking at the upper end of the forecast, with an in-season estimate of approximately four million sockeye," said Sloan in a statement. "Sockeye populations returning to a number of areas in British Columbia, Washington and Alaska are returning better than forecast in 2022."

The five-year average return of sockeye to the Skeena is 1.4 million and the 10-year average is 1.7 million, Sloan said.

Dudoward said the Skeena sockeye season ended this week, but it could have gone on longer.


"We should be fishing until the end of August when the sockeye stop running," he said. "There's plenty of them to take."

The union that represents the commercial fishers on the Skeena agrees the season was cut short, resulting in crews losing out on potentially more lucrative financial returns.

"We absolutely could have continued to harvest them and we were just told, 'No,'" said UFAWU-Unifor organizer Dawn Webb in an interview. "One hundred per cent we could still be fishing. There's tons of fish going through there right now."

But Sloan said the Fisheries Department was being careful about salmon stocks.

"For 2022, the department is taking a more precautionary approach toward managing impacts of commercial fisheries on stocks of conservation concern including smaller wild sockeye populations, chum and steelhead returning to the Skeena River," she said.

The Fisheries Department also expects a large sockeye run for the Fraser River and its tributariesthis summer, but returns of chinook, coho and chum to northern and Central Coast rivers and streams are expected to be low.

"The forecast range for Fraser River sockeye in 2022 is 2.3 million to 41.7 million, with a median forecast of 9.7 million," said Sloan. "The median forecast means there is a 50 per cent chance returns will come in below that level."

That is well above the estimated 2.5 million sockeye returns in 2021, according to Fisheries and Oceans Canada data.

Sockeye are the most sought after of the Pacific salmon species for their superior flesh, colour and quality, says the Fisheries Department.

Abundant sockeye returns occur once every four years during a phenomenon called cyclic dominance, the department said.

The strong returns come amid debate over the future of open-net salmon farming in B.C. waters.

In 2018, the B.C. government, First Nations and the salmon farming industry reached an agreement to phase out 17 open-net farms in the Broughton Archipelago between 2019 and 2023.

The agreement was negotiated to establish a farm-free migration corridor to help reduce harm to wild salmon.

In June, federal Fisheries Minister Joyce Murray said the government will consult with First Nations communities and salmon farm operators in the Discovery Islands, near Campbell River on Vancouver Island, about the future of open-net farming in the area.

A final decision on the future of the farms is expected in January 2023, the minister said.

"That is such a key migratory route of all Fraser River salmon, in particular coho and chinook," Chamberlin said. "If we are going to see Fraser runs return, we need to see removal of impediments."

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Aug. 10, 2022.

Dirk Meissner, The Canadian Press

Planned drag night at Calgary kangaroo petting zoo spurs hateful messages, threats

Michael Rodriguez - Yesterday 

A Calgary petting zoo and theme park has received hateful and threatening messages online after advertising its planned drag night on social media.


Mike Sheppard, owner of Cobb's Adventure Park in Calgary, poses at the attraction on Wednesday, August 10, 2022. The park will be hosting an adults-only drag night and has received threats.

Cobb’s Adventure Park owner and president Mike Sheppard says the adults-only drag event, planned for Saturday evening, has prompted multiple emails and comments from people accusing the business of “sexualizing children” and claiming they will no longer visit the park — some inferring violence in their messages.

One comment on the event on Facebook reads: “Only way anyone should go is if they get to bring guns to the show.” Others called the event “disgusting” and “woke stupidity,” among multiple other negative comments.


© Provided by Calgary HeraldPlanned drag night at Calgary kangaroo petting zoo spurs hateful messages, threats

Sheppard noted his business has long supported the LGBTQ community and this is the third year he’s hosted a drag night, but this is the first time it’s been met with such severe disdain. Typically, he said the annual event would feature other entertainers such as contortionists or hula-hoopers alongside the drag queens, but this year they had to turf some acts to bolster safety. He also filed a police report.

“Those other performers we had to cancel. We had a budget of $1,000 for that, but we’re putting that $1,000 into security guards now because of that message,” he said.

One of the performers, Jesse Postma , who goes by the drag name Angelina Starchild on stage, said the rhetoric is unfortunately nothing out of the ordinary.

“It’s not really anything new. It’s just something that’s always been there and kind of festering,” said Postma, who also hosts a weekly drag brunch at local gay bar Twisted Element every weekend.

“But with the end of the (peak of the) pandemic and kind of the restrictions all loosening up, I feel like everyone just started to feel really brave. So I feel like it’s gotten a lot worse.”

Postma said the messages do make him slightly uncomfortable, but said he thinks the threats are empty and Sheppard’s promise of additional security put him more at ease.

“We shouldn’t have to be going through this; it’s 2022,” he said. “Part of me is a little nervous. But the other part of me is — I just want to go out there and do what I’ve been doing for the past almost decade.”

Both Sheppard and Postma said it seems people have been emboldened to more brazenly showcase their bigotry as of late, especially under the veil of online anonymity.

“Everybody just needs to chill out a bit. The intolerance has gotten to level 11 out of 10,” said Sheppard.

“With everything going on in the world — from inflation to jobs; we just got over two years of COVID — I think people are afraid. I don’t know why that gives them power for hate, but it does.”

Despite the vitriol and threats of lost business, Sheppard said he’s not reconsidering hosting the drag night, saying it’s important for him, his staff and the roughly 300 people that will attend the show that they don’t back down.

“Personally, it’s very important for us,” he said. “I also think publicly, people have to stand up to it.

“If we’re gonna lose a few customers over that, I’m OK with that.”

For more information on Cobbs Adventure Park and the drag night this weekend, visit cobbsadventurepark.com .

mrodriguez@postmedia.com
Twitter: @michaelrdrguez