Far-Right Italian Leader Tweets Video of Woman Being Raped Ahead of Election

Giorgia Meloni has been called "immoral" and her campaign "horrendous" after she shared the video in an apparent bid to capitalize on fear of immigrants.

By
Lauren Tousignant
17 minutes ago

Giorgia Meloni, a far-right leader in Italy campaigning to be the country’s next leader, opposes abortion rights, has spoken out against same-sex marriage, and recently recorded a statement, in three languages, trying to convince the world that she is not a threat to democracy. And now, she’s exploited a rape victim for votes.

Meloni, who could become the country’s first female prime minister, tweeted out a video on Monday of a Ukrainian woman being raped by an asylum seeker from Guinea. “One cannot remain silent in the face of this atrocious episode of sexual violence against a Ukrainian woman carried out in daytime in Piacenza by an asylum seeker,” Meloni, a member of the Brothers of Italy party, which reportedly has roots in neo-fascism, posted with the video. “A hug to this woman. I will do everything I can to restore security to our cities.”

The video, which was filmed in the city of Piacenza on Sunday morning by a person in an overhead apartment, was originally posted on a newspaper’s website—with the image blurred, but the 55-year-old woman’s screams audible.

The backlash was, obviously, immediate. Igiaba Scego, a prominent Italian writer of Somali heritage, wrote that Meloni’s tweet was “clickbait voyeurism” and that her campaign is “horrendous.” Carlo Calenda, another Italian politician, called the tweet “immoral” and said, “Reporting a rape is one thing. Using the video for election purposes is simply unworthy.” And Enrico Letta, who served as the country’s prime minister from April 2013 to February 2014, tweeted, “Respect for people and victims always comes first.”

Meloni, however, has doubled down. She wrote on Facebook that her rivals were attacking her instead of focusing on the “immigration emergency”—she recently said that the navy should set up a block of North Africa to prevent migrants from entering Italy. But I can only imagine the “emergency” is as fear-mongering and fake as anything that former president Donald Trump ever said about migrants to the U.S. Following the backlash, she also tweeted that “The delusional mystifications of the left against me continue.” This all sounds painfully familiar...

Italy’s general elections take place on September 25, and unfortunately, Meloni is currently favored to win.

Lima Becomes First Latin American Capital to Back Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty

"This leadership is a welcome push for positive change in Peru and the region to a just energy transition away from fossil fuels."


A demonstrator holds up a sign reading "There Is No Planet B" 

during a September 24, 2021 climate protest in Lima, Peru. 

(Photo: Carlos Garcia Granthon/Fotoholica Press/LightRocket via Getty Images)

BRETT WILKINS

August 22, 2022

City lawmakers in Lima, Peru on Monday unanimously passed a motion calling for a Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty, a proposed global mechanism for tackling the source of most of the greenhouse gas emissions that are fueling the climate emergency.

"It is necessary to take firm action on one of our principal threats, the proliferation of fossil fuels."

Lima councilors voted 39-0 in favor of a FFNPT, making the city the first Latin American capital to endorse the proposed treaty.

Carlo André Ángeles Manturano, the Lima council member who introduced the motion, said the measure shows his "commitment to continue promoting the necessary actions at the local, national, and international level to combat climate change."

"As we face the climate emergency as a society, the lack of firm commitments to action by our authorities and our governments is what brings us ever closer to irreversible damage," he explained. "It is necessary to take firm action on one of our principal threats, the proliferation of fossil fuels, an industry that is projected to produce 110% more emissions than what is required to limit warming to 1.5°C by 2030."

"That is why," added Ángeles, "on behalf of the metropolitan government of Lima, I presented the motion to join this crusade and call for the non-proliferation of fossil fuels in the city of Lima, and requesting the Peruvian national government to replicate this action and endorse the Fossil Fuel Treaty."



Launched in 2020 and backed by hundreds of groups, thousands of scientists, and people around the world from youth to grandparents, the FFNTP is based on three pillars:Preventing the proliferation of coal, oil, and gas by ending all new exploration and production;
Phasing out existing fossil fuel production in line with the Paris agreement's 1.5°C global climate goal; and
Fast-tracking real solutions and a just transition for every worker, community, and country.

Scores of cities and subnational governments have endorsed the FFNTP, including London, Paris, Los Angeles, Sydney, Toronto, and the Hawaiian Legislature. Last month, Vatican City became the world's first nation to back the treaty.

"Enough is enough," said Cardinal Michael Czerny in announcing the Vatican endorsement. "All new exploration and production of coal, oil, and gas must immediately end, and existing production of fossil fuels must be urgently phased out. This must be a just transition for impacted workers into environmentally sound alternatives. The proposed Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty holds great promise to complement and enhance the Paris Agreement."

Related Content
Hawaii Legislature Calls For Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty
Andrea Germanos

In a statement responding to the Lima council's move, FFNTP partnerships coordinator Claudia Campero Arena, said "we are thrilled that Lima has become the first capital in Latin America to endorse the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty."

"Given that Lima is the capital of a diverse country that has suffered the harms of fossil fuel extraction," she added, "this leadership is a welcome push for positive change in Peru and the region to a just energy transition away from fossil fuels."

Coastal communities northwest of Lima are reeling from Peru's worst-ever environmental disaster. An oil spill in February spewed more than 10,000 barrels of crude petroleum into the Pacific Ocean from a tanker at a refinery operated by the Spanish firm Repsol, sending poison black waves washing over 27 miles of coastline.

Peruvian climate campaigner Augusto Duran said the Lima council's motion "has a vindictive character since the coast of Lima and Callao has witnessed the greatest ecological disaster in recent times."

"As such, it will initially put pressure on the executive and the legislature regarding the need for policies that strengthen the climate and environmental struggle," he added. "Although the motion as such is a symbolic element, it strengthens these advocacy processes. That is why we want more cities to be able to make the call to the treaty."

Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.

New Research Examines How People Conform to Their Pets’ Stereotypical Traits

You know the stereotypes — dog owners take more risks, cat owners are more cautious.

The Conversation

Published 22 August 2022

Image via Getty Images/Stock photo

The Research Brief is a short take about interesting academic work.

The Big Idea

Dog owners tend to take bigger risks and respond more to reward-oriented advertisements. Cat owners, on the other hand, are more cautious and more likely to react to ads emphasizing risk aversion. Those are the two main findings from new peer-reviewed research I co-authored.

My dog Midoo is always eager to join me in various activities and is never hesitant to show her excitement when people appear at the doorstep. By contrast, my cat Mipom is more alert and suspicious when she is around strangers, keeping a comfortable distance from people. I wondered, do their general dispositions have any impact on my own behavior or the decisions I make?

These are the questions I hoped to answer over a series of 11 studies I conducted with fellow marketing professors Xiaojing Yang and Yuwei Jiang.

Our first pair of studies looked at pet ownership data in U.S. states and compared that with several crude measures of risk-taking. For example, we found that people in states with a higher share of dog owners, such as North Dakota, had a greater prevalence of COVID-19 infections in 2020 than states with more cat owners, such as Vermont. Although we controlled for political orientation and other variables, our results show only a correlation. The reason dog ownership seems associated with more COVID-19 cases, for example, could be that dog owners take more risks – or they simply have to take their pets out for walks more often, which means greater exposure.

In another study, we wanted to get individual-level data, so we used an online survey tool to recruit 145 owners of either a cat or a dog – not both. We gave participants an imaginary US$2,000 and asked them to invest any portion of it in either a risky stock fund or a more conservative mutual fund. Dog owners, who made up 53% of participants, were significantly more likely to invest in stocks and also put more money at risk than cat owners.

The results of this study were also correlational in nature. So in the other studies we sought to document causality.

For example, we asked 225 people to view four print ads featuring either a cat or a dog and then decide how to allocate a $2,000 investment, as in the previous study. We found that exposure to dogs led participants to be more likely to invest more money in stocks.

Cats are said to be more cautious by nature. 

Jodie Griggs/The Image Bank via Getty Images

Another study recruited 283 undergrads and asked them to recall a past experience involving a cat or dog. They then randomly read an ad for a massage business that either emphasized how massages increase metabolism, boost immunity and rejuvenate the body – messages psychologists have found appeal to people seeking rewards – or how they soothe body aches, relieve tension and reduce stress – phrases that tend to work better on cautious people. We told them that the company was offering $50 gift cards to several participants based on how much they were willing to bid.

Students who recalled an interaction with a dog offered bids significantly higher when they were exposed to the reward-oriented rather than risk-aversion ads. In contrast, those who recalled a cat offered much higher bids when they saw ads focused on risk aversion.

We believe these effects occur because people form mental associations of pets’ stereotypical temperaments and personalities – dogs like Midoo are eager, cats like Mipom are cautious. As a result, upon exposure to dogs or cats, these associations rise to the top of the mind and influence decisions and behaviors, an effect confirmed by our studies.

Why It Matters

Pets, especially dogs and cats, are prevalent and play important roles in the lives of tens of millions of people.

In the U.S., 70% of households own at least one pet. And 50% say they own at least one dog, while 40% have a cat.

Because pets provide a sense of companionship, many people treat dogs and cats as friends and family members. So it’s only natural to wonder if our furry friends exert an influence on us, just as our human friends and family members do.

Our research suggests they do.

What Still Isn’t Known

We plan to examine other possible effects of pets on people’s decisions and behaviors. For example, it is possible that interactions with dogs or cats can make people more or less willing to engage in conspicuous consumption. We also want to examine whether interactions with pets could affect people’s tendency to donate to charitable causes and engage in other activities meant to benefit others.

Lei Jia, Assistant Professor of Marketing, Kent State University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

The Conversation

Published 22 August 2022

‘Mind boggling’: ERs big and small across Canada struggle amid staffing crisis

Berni Wood was in the throes of a COVID-19 infection and was struggling to breathe when she was told she would have to wait upwards of 20 hours in a Prince Edward Island emergency room to receive medical care.

A health-care worker pushes a patient across a connecting bridge at a hospital in Montreal, Thursday, July 14, 2022, as the COVID-19 pandemic continues in the province. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Graham Hughes© GMH

The Charlottetown resident tested positive for the coronavirus just before the July 1 long weekend, and a few days into her illness, she began wheezing and couldn’t breathe.

When she arrived by ambulance at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital (QEH) in Charlottetown — P.E.I.'s largest hospital — paramedics had planned to take her into a back room, as she was sick with COVID-19. But there was no room. So she was told to sit in the main waiting room. It was crammed with people.

She sat down next to a woman who believed she’d had a stroke. Nearby was a man with pains in his chest.

“I'm sitting around with all these people knowing I am COVID positive, and that really concerned me,” she said.

After three hours, Wood asked a nurse how much longer she would have to wait.

“I was quickly told that the wait would be probably 16 to 20 hours or longer.”

Wood left the ER and called a pharmacist, who was able to prescribe her a puffer to help her breathe.

Wood is just one of millions of Canadians who are increasingly faced with fewer options for medical care, thanks to staffing shortages in health care across Canada, which have led to a cascade of ER closures, extended waiting times and even several deaths of patients who died waiting for medical care.

At least 15 per cent of P.E.I. residents don’t have a family doctor, according to Health P.E.I. data, and when they get sick they often find it impossible to access walk-in clinics because they fill up within minutes of opening. They are left with no option but to go to an emergency room and wait several hours, whether their medical needs are urgent or not.

The problem has become exacerbated by the intermittent closures and reduced hours of some of the province’s smaller rural emergency departments.

Western Hospital's Collaborative Emergency Centre, an overnight urgent care centre in western P.E.I., located about 125 kilometres from Charlottetown, was closed earlier this month for the remainder of August, due to a lack of available staff.

Health worker shortages have also closed the emergency room at Western Hospital multiple times this summer, most often during weekends, leaving the thousands of people who live west of Summerside with no option but to drive to Summerside or Charlottetown if they need urgent medical care or hope an ambulance is staffed and available to respond.

Jason Woodbury, president of the union that represents paramedics in P.E.I., says call volumes have increased in the wake of Western’s frequent ER closures and the long-term closure of the urgent care centre.

This is putting additional pressure on ground ambulance services that are “already in a critical state,” Woodbury said.

“It is not uncommon for vehicles to go unstaffed,” he said. “We're facing our own staffing crisis within our organization.”

Patients are now faced with longer wait times when they call 911 in western P.E.I. — a situation that has a domino effect on the larger hospitals in Charlottetown and Summerside that must now take diverted patients, Woodbury said.

In July, the QEH was forced to activate Code Orange protocols — normally activated after a major disaster or unexpected influx of patients — after a single-car crash involving just four people, due to the high number of patients already in the hospital’s emergency department at the time.

Health P.E.I. CEO Dr. Michael Gardam says the health authority has been forced to prioritize the province's three larger emergency departments.

“Like every health-care system in Canada, we've been struggling with staffing this summer,” he said.

“In circumstances where we simply can't find staff to work at Western, we're not going to transfer staff from our larger centres because it makes more sense to make sure those larger centres are still running.”

To keep urban ERs operating, the province also recently withdrew a financial incentive that was previously offered to physicians who filled shifts at Western Hospital.

With only a limited pool of emergency room doctors in the province, it did not make sense to give bonuses to physicians to leave a busier emergency department in the city for the smallest emergency department on the Island, Gardam said.

He noted that this was a program brought in by the provincial government, not Health P.E.I.

“I don't want to incentivize people to work in a place where, from a population perspective, we need them the least,” Gardam said.

Read more:
Health workers to premiers: find solutions to ‘crisis,’ don’t just ask Ottawa for funds

The situation in P.E.I. is not unique.

Health-care staffing shortages are plaguing emergency departments in small, rural hospitals from coast to coast, triggering temporary ER closures and reduction of services across Canada.

Repeated closures of the emergency room in Clearwater, B.C., this year prompted the community's mayor, Merlin Blackwell, to raise concerns publicly about the health and safety of his residents.

But the local hospital was just one of a number of small, rural ERs in B.C. that have experienced temporary closures and diversions, including those in Oliver, Port Hardy, Port MacNeill and Ashcroft.

Two patients who suffered heart attacks in Ashcroft died within the last month while waiting for ambulances. In at least one of these cases, the temporary closure of the local ER played a role in the ambulance’s delayed response.

In New Brunswick, three patients have died in three different hospital emergency departments in the last month-and-a-half.

Read more:

Ashcroft, B.C. senior dies while waiting for ambulance

Video: Ashcroft senior’s death raises concerns about health care access

In July, six emergency rooms, including one in Montreal, were temporarily shut in Quebec; at least three were closed In New Brunswick; 14 hospitals in Ontario closed ERs, beds and ICU units; and a third of rural Manitoba ERs closed due to staffing shortages.

There were also ER and bed closures and service reductions in multiple towns and cities in Alberta, Saskatchewan, Nova Scotia, Newfoundland and Labrador, and all three territories have experienced interruptions to urgent health services.

The culprit? Burnout and heavy workloads, which is leading many health workers to reduce their hours, retire early or simply quit, says the Canadian Medical Association.

Nurses and doctors, exhausted after two relentless years of working through a public health emergency, are now treating patients who delayed medical care during pandemic lockdowns and are now sicker. This means there are more critically ill patients who need more care, but fewer people to care for them, as health workers continue to leave or downsize their jobs.

Read more:
Health workers face burnout, even as COVID levels ease (June 5, 2022)

The Perth and Smiths Falls District Hospital, located an hour outside Ottawa, is among the many smaller hospitals affected by the staffing crisis.

The emergency department there was closed for three weeks earlier this summer after COVID-19 outbreaks among ER staff led to critical staffing shortages.

But the pandemic is only part of the problem.

Michael Cohen, the hospital’s president and CEO, says for many months prior to the recent closure, the hospital had been losing nurses and was unable to recruit enough people to replace them.

In some cases, nurses were leaving their jobs at the hospital to take lower-paying jobs in the community, Cohen said.

The only reason the Perth hospital was able to reopen in late July is that it brought in temporary nurses through a private agency at a significant additional cost for the hospital. But Cohen says this is only a “temporary stop-gap.”

Most agency nurses came to Perth only temporarily and live in areas far outside the Perth region, such as Toronto, Oakville and Mississauga.

“We're very concerned about the fall. We have vacant positions that, unfortunately, we're not getting any applicants for,” Cohen said.

“We're really grateful to (agency nurses) to have them leave their families and their home to come and help us out. But we know that it's not a long-term solution,” Cohen said.

Read more:
Ontario Health wants public-private integration as hospitals struggle with staffing

Even big-city hospitals in areas like Toronto, Vancouver and Montreal are struggling.

But the outcomes for these hospitals play out differently. In a large, urban hospital, emergency rooms are staffed with more nurses and doctors during a given shift, which means if several nurses leave or become sick with COVID-19 — an ongoing and persistent problem in hospitals across the country — there is still enough staff to keep the ER open.

But increasingly, even hospitals in urban centres are being forced to reduce services.

The Lachine Hospital emergency room, which is part of the McGill University Health Centre network and has been rated one of Canada’s top hospitals, experienced service reductions earlier this year, including having to divert ambulance patients from the ER overnight.

After significant public outcry, the services were eventually restored.

Video: Lachine Hospital physicians pitching in to pay premium to keep staff

“It's really mind-boggling that this can happen to a hospital right close to the downtown,” said Dr. Paul Saba, president of the council of physicians at Lachine.

The fact that Lachine has been designated by the Quebec National Assembly as the only francophone hospital in West Island serving a predominantly francophone community made the service disruptions even more surprising, given the Francois Legault government’s strong championing of francophone services, Saba added.

Closures of beds and emergency care in at least 10 other hospitals in Quebec over the last year have placed further strain on downtown hospitals, Saba said.

And while COVID-19 has played a big role in Canada’s health staffing crisis, it’s not the only reason hospitals across Canada are experiencing unprecedented pressures.

“The problem is, our system hasn't had any maneuverability or margin to allow for any excessive strain,” Saba said.

“When there's a strain on the system, like a surge because of COVID, there's no surge capacity. And we've allowed that to happen because of poor health care policy-making decisions."

- with files from Global News reporter Jamie Mauracher

Hyundai supplier accused of child labor violations by U.S. authorities

REUTERS

August 23, 2022 at 12:35 JST

Hyundai logo (Asahi Shimbun file photo)

NEW YORK--The U.S. Department of Labor on Monday accused a Korean-owned auto parts maker and supplier of Hyundai Motor Co. of violating federal child labor laws at an Alabama factory, federal court filings reviewed by Reuters show.

The Department of Labor (DOL) said that SL Alabama LLC, a subsidiary of South Korea’s SL Corp., employed underage workers at its Alexander City, Alabama factory, according to filings on Monday with the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Alabama.

Since last November, SL Alabama “repeatedly violated” labor regulations by “employing oppressive child labor” and “minors under the age of 16,” the DOL said in a six-page complaint.

In a statement to Reuters, SL Alabama admitted children had worked at the plant, which makes headlights, rear lights and other components for companies including Hyundai and its Kia affiliate. SL said the minors had been hired by an outside labor recruitment firm, which it didn’t identify.

The revelations come one month after Reuters reported the use of child labor at another Alabama auto parts plant operated by Hyundai subsidiary SMART Alabama LLC. The Alabama Department of Labor at the time said it would coordinate with federal authorities to probe labor practices at that plant.

The discovery of child workers at a second Hyundai supplier signals widening scrutiny of labor practices in the automaker’s U.S. supply chain. In an emailed statement late Monday, Hyundai said “it does not tolerate illegal employment practices in any Hyundai entity.”

“We have policies and procedures in place that require compliance with all local, state, and federal laws,” it added.

Along with the complaint against SL Alabama, a proposed settlement agreement between the government and the parts manufacturer was filed with the court. Under the terms of that agreement, SL Alabama agreed to stop hiring minors, punish any managers aware of the use of underage employees, and suspend any relationship with any recruiters who supply child workers.

The proposed agreement was signed Aug 18 by an SL Alabama attorney and a Department of Labor lawyer. It hasn’t yet been signed by a judge.

The filings didn’t detail how many minors worked at SL Alabama or what type of jobs they performed. It isn’t clear whether the company or the labor contractors it works with face any fines or other penalties.

The DOL didn’t respond to requests for comment.

In its statement to Reuters, SL Alabama said “we fully cooperated with the investigation by the Department of Labor, and we are in the process of complementing our verification system so that minors will not work going forward.”

Both federal and Alabama law prohibit teens and children under the age of sixteen from working in most industrial factory settings because they can be dangerous for minors.

SL Alabama employs about 650 people at the Alabama facility, according to its website. Parent company SL Corp also operates a factory in Tennessee and research facility in Michigan.

Previous Reuters reporting has shown how some minors, often immigrants, get hired for Alabama factory jobs through recruitment agencies.

Although staffing firms help fill industrial jobs nationwide, they have been criticized by labor advocates because they enable employers to outsource responsibility for vetting employees and their eligibility to work.

BOLSONARO TRUMPISTA

The Question Menacing Brazil’s Elections: Coup or No Coup?

President Bolsonaro has warned of voter fraud and suggested he would dispute a loss in October’s vote, but the political establishment believes he lacks support to stage a coup.

President Jair Bolsonaro greeting supporters last month in Salvador, Brazil. Mr. Bolsonaro has consistently attacked voting machines in the country as susceptible to fraud, leading to questions about his willingness to accept an election loss.

By Jack Nicas and André Spigariol
Jack Nicas and André Spigariol, correspondents in Brazil, spoke to more than 35 judges, generals, diplomats and government officials to understand the risk to Brazil’s election.
Aug. 22, 2022

BRASÍLIA — A simple but alarming question is dominating political discourse in Brazil with just six weeks left until national elections: Will President Jair Bolsonaro accept the results?

For months, Mr. Bolsonaro has attacked Brazil’s electronic voting machines as rife with fraud — despite virtually no evidence — and Brazil’s election officials as aligned against him. He has suggested that he would dispute any loss unless changes are made in election procedures. He has enlisted Brazil’s military in his battle. And he has told his tens of millions of supporters to prepare for a fight.

“If need be,” he said in a recent speech, “we will go to war.”

With its vote on Oct. 2, Brazil is now at the forefront of the growing global threats to democracy, fueled by populist leaders, extremism, highly polarized electorates and internet disinformation. The world’s fourth-largest democracy is bracing for the possibility of its president refusing to step down because of fraud allegations that could be difficult to disprove.

Yet, according to interviews with more than 35 Bolsonaro administration officials, military generals, federal judges, election authorities, members of Congress and foreign diplomats, the people in power in Brazil feel confident that while Mr. Bolsonaro could dispute the election’s results, he lacks the institutional support to stage a successful coup.

Brazil’s last coup, in 1964, led to a brutal 21-year military dictatorship. “The middle class supported it. Business people supported it. The press supported it. And the U.S. supported it,” said Luís Robert Barroso, a Supreme Court justice and Brazil’s former elections chief. “Well, none of these players support a coup now.”

People preparing for a motorcycle ride in Salvador, Brazil, held in support of Mr. Bolsonaro. 

Instead, the officials worry about lasting damage to Brazil’s democratic institutions — polls show a fifth of the country has lost faith in the election systems — and about violence in the streets. Mr. Bolsonaro’s claims of fraud and potential refusal to accept a loss echo those of his ally Donald J. Trump, and Brazilian officials repeatedly cited the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol as an example of what could happen.

“How do we have any control over this?” Flávio Bolsonaro, a senator and Mr. Bolsonaro’s son, said in an interview with the Brazilian newspaper Estadão in reference to potential violence. In the United States, he said, “people followed the problems in the electoral system, were outraged and did what they did. There was no command from President Trump, and there will be no command from President Bolsonaro.”

Last week, more than one million Brazilians, including former presidents, top academics, lawyers and pop stars, signed a letter defending the country’s voting systems. Brazil’s top business groups also released a similar letter.

On Tuesday, at an event with nearly every major Brazilian political figure present, another Supreme Court justice, Alexandre de Moraes, took office as the nation’s new elections chief and warned that he would punish attacks on the electoral process.

“Freedom of expression is not freedom to destroy democracy, to destroy institutions,” he said. His reaction, he added, “will be swift, firm and relentless.”

The crowd stood and applauded. Mr. Bolsonaro sat and scowled.

Mr. Bolsonaro, whose representatives declined requests for an interview, has said that he is trying to protect Brazil’s democracy by strengthening its voting systems.

Among the officials interviewed, there was broad disagreement over whether the right-wing president was driven by genuine concern about fraud or just fear of losing. Mr. Bolsonaro has consistently trailed former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, a leftist, in opinion surveys; if no one wins a majority of the vote on Oct. 2, a runoff is scheduled for Oct. 30.

Mr. Bolsonaro trails the former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in the polls.

Credit...Dado Galdieri for The New York Times

Yet there are increasing hopes for a smooth transition of power if Mr. Bolsonaro loses — because he now appears open to a truce.

His allies, including top officials in the armed forces, are about to begin negotiations with Mr. de Moraes about changes to Brazil’s election system designed to address the president’s security critiques, according to three federal judges and one senior administration official close to the planned talks, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they are confidential.

The idea is that Mr. Bolsonaro would back off his attacks on the voting machines, these people said, if election officials agreed to some changes requested by Brazil’s military.

“I have full confidence in Brazil’s election system. That also doesn’t mean it’s infallible,” said Ciro Nogueira, Mr. Bolsonaro’s chief of staff. “I’m sure, as the president says, the people will have their say.” And on Saturday, Mr. Bolsonaro seemed to suggest at a rally that he would accept the results of the election.

Yet Mr. Bolsonaro has made similar comments in the past and agreed to similar a truce last year — and then continued his attacks.

Those attacks have had an effect. Since June, Brazilian Twitter users have mentioned Brazil’s voting machines more than inflation or social-welfare programs in relation to the election, and roughly as much as gas prices, which have been a major point of political debate, according to an analysis by researchers at the Getúlio Vargas Foundation Communications School requested by The New York Times.

Supporters of Mr. Bolsonaro in Salvador, Brazil.

A poll last month showed that 32 percent of Brazilians trusted the voting machines “a little” and 20 percent did not trust them at all.

At the same time that many of Mr. Bolsonaro’s supporters are convinced that the vote can be rigged, many more also have guns. Mr. Bolsonaro made it much easier for civilians to purchase firearms under looser restrictions for hunters, and now more than 670,000 Brazilians own guns under such rules, 10 times as many as five years ago.

Inside his administration, Mr. Bolsonaro has been increasingly pulled between two factions.

One side has encouraged the president to stop attacking the voting machines because they believe the issue is unpopular with the more moderate voters he needs to win over and because Brazil’s economy is rebounding, helping his chances of re-election, according to two senior advisers to the president.

They said the other group, led by former military generals, has fed the president misinformation and urged him to keep warning of potential fraud.

Election officials last year invited the military to join a committee to improve the election systems. The military suggested a series of changes, but election officials said they could not be implemented in time for October’s vote.

But military leaders are still pushing for one specific change: for the voting machines’ integrity tests to happen with real voters, instead of in simulations.

For months, Mr. Bolsonaro has attacked Brazil’s election officials 

as aligned against him. 

The military is concerned that a hacker could implant malicious software in the voting machines that would recognize simulations and stay dormant during such tests, allowing it to evade detection.

An election-security expert said such a hack is conceivable but unlikely.

Mr. de Moraes, the new elections chief, has signaled that he would be open to changes in the voting systems, though what might be achievable by Oct. 2 is unclear.

Mr. Bolsonaro has long been at odds with Mr. de Moraes, who has led investigations into allegations of disinformation and leaks of classified material that implicate the president and his allies. Mr. Bolsonaro has criticized Mr. de Moraes as politically motivated, and said at a rally last year that he would no longer abide by his rulings, a statement he later walked back.

So Mr. de Moraes’s ascent to lead Brazil’s electoral court was expected to further aggravate tensions.

But in recent weeks, he and Mr. Bolsonaro have begun chatting on WhatsApp in an effort to mend their relationship, according to a person close to the president. When Mr. de Moraes hand-delivered an invitation to his inauguration as elections chief this month, Mr. Bolsonaro gave him a jersey for Corinthians, Mr. de Moraes’s favorite soccer team. (Corinthians is the archrival of Mr. Bolsonaro’s favorite squad, Palmeiras.)

With tensions running high, Brazil’s leadership decided to make Mr. de Moraes’s inauguration on Tuesday — usually a procedural event — a demonstration of the strength of the Brazilian democracy.

Motorcycle caravans have become common at events in support of the president across the country.

In a modernist, underground amphitheater, the heads of the Brazilian Congress, Supreme Court and military joined five of Brazil’s six living presidents for the ceremony, including Mr. Bolsonaro and Mr. Lula da Silva.

Cameras zoomed in on Mr. Bolsonaro next to Mr. de Moraes at the head table, a rare sight. They whispered to one another, sometimes chuckling, throughout the event. Then Mr. de Moraes got up for his speech. Before the event, he had warned Mr. Bolsonaro that he wouldn’t enjoy it, according to a person close to the president.

“We are the only democracy in the world that calculates and publishes election results on the same day, with agility, security, competence and transparency,” he said. “Democracy is not an easy, exact or predictable path. But it’s the only path.”

The room gave him a 40-second standing ovation. Mr. Bolsonaro was among the first to stop applauding.

Afterward, the two men posed for a photo. They did not smile.

Photo Credit...Victor Moriyama for The New York Times

Number of Websites Blocked by Russian Authorities Continues to Rise and Now Exceeds 5300

Number of Websites Blocked by Russian Authorities Continues to Rise and Now Exceeds 5300

 August 22,2022– The Russian Communications Freedom NGO, which since 2012 has maintained a list of websites closed by the Russian authorities, says that the number of such sites, both Russian and non-Russian which have been blocked by military censorship since the start of Putin’s war in Ukraine now exceeds 5300.

            Many of the 1500 closures in the first month of the war attracted attention because they involved high-profile sites (roskomsvoboda.org/post/ban-1500-ssylok), but attention has fallen off, an unfortunate development because Moscow is using this method to close sites that have little or nothing to do with military issues (roskomsvoboda.org/post/voen-cenzura-5300-saytov/).

            Another reason both for the decline in attention but a justification for an increase in concern is that many of the decisions affect sites of regional importance and are being taken not by the central authorities but by regional and municipal ones, thus making what RosKomSvoboda does especially important and meriting continued checking. 

Receding water levels of Yangtze in China reveal three Buddhist statues as heatwave continues

Forecasters have warned the sweltering conditions could last well into September amid fears of a "grave situation" in the Sichuan province over the loss of water to the hydropower system.

Monday 22 August 2022 

A once submerged Buddhist statue sits on top of Foyeliang island reef in the Yangtze


Falling water levels of the Yangtze River in China has revealed a submerged island with three Buddhist statues believed to be 600 years old.

Parts of the Yangtze - the world's third longest river - has been drying up amid a severe heatwave which has led to the issuing of a nationwide drought alert.

The three statues were found on the highest part of the island reef in China's southwestern city of Chongqing.

One of the statues on the island - called Foyeliang - depicts a monk sitting on a lotus pedestal.

The heatwave is the most extreme in six decades and has seen temperatures regularly exceed 40C (104F) in a number of cities.

Forecasters have warned the sweltering conditions could last well into September amid fears of a "grave situation" in the Sichuan province over the loss of water to the hydropower system.

Authorities have been working to maintain power and find fresh water to irrigate crops ahead of the autumn harvest.

The severe heatwave across the Yangtze basin has been caused by a larger-than-usual Western Pacific subtropical high.

It has lasted for over two months, reducing hydropower supplies and parching large expanses of arable land.

The Yangtze River supports about a third of the country's population.



Officials in Beijing have warned of the increasing risk of extreme weather in China as a result of climate change - while heavy rainfall has continued to take its toll in other parts of the country.

Water levels on the main trunk of the Yangtze and the flood basin lakes of Dongting and Poyang are now at least 4.85 metres (16ft) shallower than normal - and the lowest on record for the period, officials have said.

Rainfall in the basin has been around 45% lower than normal since July, according to forecasters.

Factories shut down as heatwave hits hydropower in China’s Sichuan province

Tesla, Toyota and Foxconn are among the multinational companies affected by a cascading water and energy crisis


The Three Gorges Dam, downriver from drought-hit Sichuan in Hubei province, China (Pic: Kyla Duhamel/Flickr)

By Alok Gupta
Published on 22/08/2022

From May to July, heavy rainfall flooded Sichuan, China’s hydropower hub resulting in surplus power production. A month later, the region is drought-stricken, with reservoirs dried up, power generation disrupted and factories ordered to shut down.

Hundreds of industries including component suppliers for Toyota, Foxconn and Tesla closed for six days last week. Next, provincial authorities restricted household electricity use.

Drying up the rivers and reservoirs are the heatwaves that began in mid-June and continue to sweep through southern China. Such a prolonged period of heatwave stretching for more than 60 days is happening for the first time since 1961, ramping up household demand for electricity.

“The extreme long lasting heatwaves have driven up cooling demand by 20% combined with low hydropower output due to 50% lower than normal precipitation,” said Yan Qin, an analyst with Refinitiv.

Temperatures have reached 40C in more than 10 provinces, including Sichuan, Henan, Zhejiang, Jiangsu and Anhui. In a few places, the mercury touched 45C.

Sichuan, China’s largest and most reliable hydropower producer, with around 90 GW of installed hydropower capacity, fulfills 80% of the province’s power demand. It also supplied uninterrupted power when the country faced a coal shortage last year that caused outages in a few provinces.

This year’s hydropower shortage might prompt the government to rethink its energy policy. With a 16% share in the country’s energy mix, hydropower is a crucial pillar in China’s efforts to achieve carbon neutrality by 2060. In response to the latest crunch, the government is boosting coal generation as an alternative.

The crisis hasn’t come without warning. “We had predicted that climate change, in the current case, causing an extreme weather event, will affect hydropower potential in China,” Qiuhong Tang, a Chinese Academy of Sciences professor, told Climate Home.

Tang and his colleagues, in a study in 2016, estimated that climate change could reduce hydropower potential by 2% in China during 2020-2070. “But in Sichuan, the loss would be up to 10%.”

Rising temperatures are changing rainfall and evaporation patterns in China. As a result, models project a decrease in annual average runoff for most river basins, particularly in the southern areas.

In the recent weeks, “the heatwave also led to fast evaporation of the river and reservoirs,” Qin added, leading to a sharp drop in water levels.

Can China capture excess rainwater during March-June in its dams to generate hydropower in the lean season? Even if the country stores the excess water during the wet season and transfers it for the dry season, said another study, hydropower generation in the Yalong basin “would be reduced by 4 to 6% compared to the baseline period”.

“This change will largely affect the energy generation in Chongqing and Sichuan, which rely heavily on the Yalong River for hydropower generation,” said the authors.


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Urgent adaptation measures are required to deal with the loss of hydropower potential, Tang added. “Government needs to engage more climate scientists and policymakers to deal with the situation, else a source of clean energy that could help the country meet its climate goals will face serious loss.”

“For hydropower, storage management is crucial. Store water when demand is low and generate power from it when demand is high. Climate change affects both electricity demand and inflow into the reservoirs, potentially creating a demand and supply gap,” said Nathalie Voisin, Chief Scientist at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, US.

“In some regions, inflows are happening earlier than before, which might be difficult to store until the peak summer months, cascading a water crisis into a power crisis,” she said.

Weather data shows the flood season in southern China began two weeks earlier than usual, and average rainfall hit levels that have not been seen since 1961. And when the heatwave began in mid-June, the water level in Sichuan’s reservoirs started declining, unable to meet the peak summer demand.

“Climate change is challenging hydropower reservoir management worldwide,” added Voisin.

Meanwhile, companies facing significant production losses due to frequent lockdowns imposed as a part of China’s zero-covid-19 policy are getting desperate. Shanghai officials sought priority power access for Tesla suppliers in Sichuan province, sparking a backlash on social media from residents suffering from the power outages.

PAKISTAN

Sindh, Hindu health worker risks lynching after (false) blasphemy charge

by Shafique Khokhar

Ashok Kumar accused of desecrating the Koran to mask personal issues with the person who denounced him. When word spread, a mob tried to kill the man, who was picked up by the police and then arrested. New call by activists against norm-related abuses.



Hyderabad (AsiaNews) - Ashok Kumar, a Pakistani health worker of the Hindu religion has risked being lynched on a (false) charge of blasphemy, for having profaned the Koran. The incident was triggered by a complaint lodged at the police station in Hyderabad, Sindh, by a resident of the area, Dandu Khan, who had allegedly had a heated argument with the accused beforehand.

Investigators opened a file under Section 295B of the Penal Code. Local sources explain that Khan heard from a customer named Nabeel about a desecration of the Koran that had taken place in the nearby Rabbi Centre. Upon arriving at the scene, he questioned Kumar and, not receiving a satisfactory answer, held him responsible for the act against the holy book.

When word of the alleged act of blasphemy spread, a crowd gathered in the area with the aim of taking justice into their own hands and killing the man, who was saved thanks to the intervention of the police who arrested him. At the time of the arrest, the officers explained that initial investigations revealed that the health worker was the victim of a personal dispute with a local resident.

In the past, Pakistan has been the scene of attacks, violence and killings of people accused - even unjustly and without proof - of blasphemy: last year a Sri Lankan citizen was burnt alive in Sialkot; a few years earlier a Christian couple died at the hands of an angry mob in Kasur.

Interviewed by AsiaNews Naveed Walter, president of Human Rights Focus Pakistan (Hrfp), condemned the incident, which was once again linked to the use of blasphemy laws to settle personal disputes. He hoped that the perpetrators would be brought to justice and appealed to the authorities to stop the practice of abuse linked to the controversial regulations, including in the workplace and against underpaid, exploited and disenfranchised minorities.

He says 'there is a reason that most health workers are subject to numerous health problems. Moreover, there is an open question of security in prison for Ashok Kumar and also for his family, who should be guaranteed protection' by the state. Samson Salamat, president of Rwadari Tehreek, calls for strict measures against those who 'spread hatred and terror' against the Hindu community.

'The latest incident in Hyderabad is a crystal-clear example of attempts to target religious minorities under the pretext of blasphemy accusations, when the real culprit in this case too was a Muslim,' he concludes.

The Afro-Italians shaking up Italy's rigid notions of national identity

By Rebecca Ann Hughes • Updated: 22/08/2022 - 

Aida Diouf Mbengue. - Copyright Provided by Mbengu

After moving to Italy from Senegal at four years old, Aida Diouf Mbengue struggled to be accepted both for her hijab and her skin colour.

She was excluded by classmates and belittled by teachers.

Now Mbengue is a rising internet star with one million followers on TikTok thanks to light-hearted, cheeky videos of herself flaunting an array of veils. Her content, she says, aims to fight against the mindsets that beset her childhood.

She is far from alone. Mbengue is part of a burgeoning movement of Afro-Italian influencers and creatives helping to spur a rethink of the Italian identity.
Black Italians erased from history

African Italians are frequently cast as outsiders in Italian society even though their history goes back decades -- the country had been experiencing waves of arrivals from Africa long before the refugee crisis.

Yet, according to sociologist Mauro Valeri, this is “a history that still needs to be written". In a lecture for NYU Florence, Valeri presents notable Black Italians that have fallen into obscurity after 1930s Fascism redefined Italians as Arian and Catholic.

Since then, Valeri argues, Italian identity has been tied to whiteness.

But as geography would have it, Italy has been among the European countries bearing the brunt of refugees and migrants' arrivals over the past few years and the political narrative surrounding the refugee crisis has deepened the struggle for acceptance for Afro-Italians.

Matteo Salvini, leader of the right-wing League party and former deputy prime minister, is notorious for advocating hard-line anti-immigration policies.

In 2018, the United Nations accused him and other right-wing politicians of “unashamedly embracing racist and xenophobic anti-immigrant and anti-foreigner rhetoric” to help push through their policies.
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This has strengthened a connection in public consciousness between skin colour, illegal immigration and a physical and cultural threat to Italian society.

For young Afro-Italians, this has meant growing up in an environment of hostility and societal rejection.

A study conducted by Milan's Instituto Cattaneo in 2018 found that Italians are also prone to overestimate the number of non-EU immigrants in Italy with those who identified as right-wing likely to inflate the number the most.
The rise of Afro-Italian voices

But a backlash against anti-immigrant sentiment in Italian society has also been growing in parallel and protests erupted across the country after the killing of George Floyd in the US.

Campaigners then not only expressed solidarity with those suffering racial abuse in the US but also brandished banners reading "I am Italian too" or listing names of victims of racism in the country to draw attention to the rampant home-grown racism.

Italian media has also come under fire from activists for programmes that make use of blackface and the n-word.

This growing disillusionment with the traditional Italian identity has led to the emergence of several Afro-Italian creatives.

The Afro Influencers agency -- created by Moustapha Thiam, an IT analyst, actor and comedian to "give a voice to these young people, to this community that is rarely listened to" -- is making waves in the world of social media.

One of its members is TikTok star Mbengue who has been dubbed “the first Italian TikTokker with a veil” for her sassy videos aiming to dispel assumptions that her skin colour, religion or hijab are obstacles or limitations.

“My videos are changing the mindset of people who will become parents in the future and will pass on these values to their children,” Mbengue explains.

“Being Afro-Italian means fighting and giving a voice to all those who don’t have one because of discrimination and prejudice.”

Singer Samuel Afriyie Artist's own.

Samuel Afriyie, also part of the Afro Influencers collective, arrived in Italy from Ghana at the age of 4. He found fame with his satirical music videos that comment on how he is viewed as an immigrant.

“I’m an immigrant in Italy, I eat rice with chicken, this is the top, Salvini is a flop,” is one line from his song Sono Sono Samuel.

“To combat racism in Italy we need to display strength and the beauty of our ethnicities,” Afriyie says. “We need to display our talent until people believe there is always something to learn from a different culture.”
Embracing dual origins

The continued reluctance of some Italians to accept the non-white Italian identity has also prompted some Afro-Italian creatives to consciously celebrate their dual origins.

Awa Fall Mirone, a reggae singer born in Bergamo to an Italian mother and Senegalese father, travelled to her father's native country to learn more about her roots.

“I went because I didn’t feel I had a foundation on which I could build my own identity,” she says. The journey of self-discovery inspired her song Roots and Culture. The song emphasises the importance of origins and identity and encourages others to value their roots.

Mirone describes being Afro-Italian as “like a bridge between two cities” and sings in multiple languages — Italian, English, Spanish, French, Wolof and Yoruba — to express the co-existing cultures creating her identity.

For her, singing about hybrid identities is also a way of reaching out to others experiencing similar struggles. “The biggest challenge for me was not finding a person who could help me grow up as Afro-Italian,” she says.

She hopes her music will provide that helping hand for future generations of Afro-Italians.

These creatives are finding an increasingly receptive audience for their work.

Mbengue has 80,000 Instagram followers on top of her million fans on TikTok. Mirone’s music video for Roots and Culture has over one million views on Youtube.

Importantly, Mbengue says most of her fans are Italian, and many are not black, so she feels she is having a real impact on wider society.

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Italians without citizenship

This growing cultural reckoning is putting pressure on the political system to help this demographic cement its place in Italian society.

Mbengue is one of over one million second-generation migrants who do not have citizenship. Those born in Italy or who arrive at a young age and do not have at least one Italian parent must wait to be 18 to apply for citizenship.

Now there are calls for changes in citizenship legislation that would see it granted on the basis of jus soli, birthright, or jus culturae, cultural right.

The latter would see citizenship bestowed on children who were born in Italy or moved there before the age of 12 and have completed at least 5 years of schooling.

Heather Merrill, a professor of Africana Studies notes however that while changing citizenship laws is fundamental, it doesn’t mean a sudden eradication of racism necessarily follows.

“There are all sorts of complexities to being a citizen,” she says, and seeing oneself reflected in the media and culture of one’s country is also essential.

Greater representation in Italian culture is key to the normalisation of the Afro-Italian identity, Merrill says, and creative expression and social media are crucial for igniting conversations and interacting with young audiences.

“The creative areas are the way you reach people and the way you do politics in some ways,” she says. “In Italy, I see the effort and the promise of change.”