Canada launches review of cannabis legalization four years on

Issued on: 22/09/2022 - 

Canada has launched a review of its cannabis act, four years after legalizing its recreational use -- which was celebrated by thousands including this man pictured smoking a joint in Trinity Bellwoods Park in Toronto in October 2018 

Geoff Robins AFP/File


Ottawa (AFP) – Canada on Thursday launched a long-awaited review of its cannabis regulations, four years after becoming the first major economy to legalize its recreational use.

An expert panel led by Morris Rosenberg, a former deputy minister of justice, is to measure the impact of legalization on youth, Indigenous peoples and others, as well as the economy and an illicit market that the new regime was meant to displace.

The panel is also to examine regulatory burdens on the industry and determine if a separate framework for medical marijuana -- which has been legal since 2001 -- needed to be maintained in order to provide access to patients.

The mandated review, coming one year late due to the pandemic, is expected to take 18 months.

The industry has complained about what it calls exceptionally high taxes on cannabis, a glut of stores -- both licensed and unlicensed -- and restrictions on advertising and marketing that have made it harder to compete with the black market.

At a news conference, Health Minister Jean-Yves Duclos said preliminary data this year showed 69 percent of the cannabis market has moved from illicit sources to legal, regulated suppliers.

The review, he said, will help the government "strengthen the (cannabis) act so that it meets the needs of all Canadians while continuing to displace the illicit market."

Addictions Minister Carolyn Bennett said, "We knew that young people are at increased risk of experiencing harms from cannabis, such as mental health problems including dependence and disorders related to anxiety and depression."

Public awareness campaigns, she said, have made "young people more aware of the harms of consuming cannabis," but their level of consumption has not fallen since legalization, as hoped.

Rather, it has remained relatively stable, she said.

According to government data, 25 percent of the population, or 9.5 million Canadians, used cannabis in 2021, down slightly from the previous year.

They spent an average of Can$69 (US$51) on pot per month.

© 2022 AFP

IN THE TWENTIES AND THIRTIES OF LAST CENTURY 

A JOINT, BLUNT, SPLIFF,DOOBBIE, ETC. WAS KNOWN AS A 'VIPER'

 

Football disorder on the rise in England and Wales

Issued on: 22/09/2022 -

Pitch invasions became a common occurrence at English football matches last season 

Oli SCARFF AFP/File


London (AFP) – Football arrests in England and Wales reached their highest level for eight years last season, while pitch invasions more than doubled compared to pre-pandemic levels, according to data from the British Home Office.

A series of matches towards the end of the campaign were marred by players being assaulted by pitch-invading fans.

Premier League clubs this week agreed to give pitch invaders and supporters using smoke bombs or pyrotechnics a minimum one-year ban.

A pitch invasion of some kind was recorded at 441 matches last season, a 127 percent increase on the figure for the 2018-19 season, the last full campaign to be played without any Covid-19 restrictions.

The 2,198 football-related arrests recorded last season was the highest figure since 2013-14.

Chief Constable Mark Roberts, the National Police Chiefs' Council lead for football policing, said there needed to be "collective responsibility" from fans to stamp out criminal behaviour.

"Once there are several hundred people on the pitch it's impossible to separate those people who just want to enjoy themselves from those who want to assault players, threaten players and aggravate the opposition fans, and then it gets difficult to manage," said Roberts.

Chief Constable Roberts added alcohol was a "perennial driver" of poor behaviour in football, but said cocaine was a rising cause for concern.

"When we do operations on the rail network and when we do operations at grounds, we are consistently finding the presence of cocaine," he said.

"Clearly it's a prevalent thing to take at football and we need to clamp down on that. There is ample evidence that cocaine, particularly with alcohol, in a heightened state of emotion which you often get with football, leads to aggressive and violent behaviour."

That cocktail of drink and drugs was blamed as the root cause for the disorder which marred the Euro 2020 final at Wembley in July last year.

Football banning orders have recently been extended to cover convictions for online hate crime linked to the sport and convictions for selling or taking Class A drugs will also come under the banning order regime from October.

© 2022 AFP

WHO chief says end of Covid pandemic ‘still a long way off’

"being able to see the end, doesn't mean we are at the end."

Issued on: 22/09/2022 - 

World Health Organization chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus delivers a speech during the 72nd session of the WHO Regional Committee for Europe on September 12, 2022 in the Israeli city of Tel Aviv. © Jack Guez, AFP

Text by: NEWS WIRES

The head of the World Health Organization on Thursday tempered his assertion that the end of the Covid-19 pandemic was near, warning that declaring the crisis over was "still a long way off".

Last week, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told reporters that the world had "never been in a better position to end the pandemic... The end is in sight."

And US President Joe Biden went further in an interview broadcast Sunday, declaring that the pandemic in the United States "is over".

But speaking to the media again Thursday from the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York, Tedros appeared less upbeat, making clear that "being able to see the end, doesn't mean we are at the end."

He reiterated that the world was in the best position it had ever been in to end the pandemic, with the number of weekly deaths continuing to drop -- and now just 10 percent of what they were at the peak in January 2021.

Tedros pointed out that two-thirds of the world's population has been vaccinated, including three-quarters of health workers and older people.

"We have spent two-and-a-half years in a long, dark tunnel, and we are just beginning to glimpse the light at the end of that tunnel," he said.

But, he stressed, "it is still a long way off, and the tunnel is still dark, with many obstacles that could trip us up if we don't take care."

"We're still in the tunnel."

In its latest epidemiological update, the WHO said over 9,800 fatalities were reported last week, down 17 percent from a week earlier, while 3.2 million new cases were reported.

The UN health agency has warned that the falling number of reported cases is deceptive, since many countries have cut back on testing and may not be detecting less serious cases.

Maria Van Kerkhove, the WHO's technical lead on Covid, told reporters the virus is still "circulating at an intense level," although the situation varied in different countries.

But she pointed out that the world has the tools needed to rein in the spread.

"Our goal is to end the emergency in all countries. And we will keep at this until we reach that goal," she said.

Since the start of the pandemic, the WHO has tallied more than 609 million cases and some 6.5 million deaths, though the true toll is believed to be substantially higher.

A WHO study published in May based on excess mortality seen in various countries during the pandemic estimated that up to 17 million people may have died from Covid in 2020 and 2021.

(AFP)

Fossil fuels make up 90% of Middle East air pollution: study

Issued on: 22/09/2022 -

An aerial view of the Tigris river and the old western side of Iraq's northern city of Mosul Zaid AL-OBEIDI AFP/File


Paris (AFP) – More than 90 percent of harmful air pollution in the Middle East and parts of North Africa comes from fossil fuels, according to research Thursday that showed the region "permanently exceeded" dangerous air quality levels.

The World Health Organization this year said the MENA region had some of the poorest air quality on Earth.

The long-standing assumption was that the smog choking most of the region's cities was primarily composed of desert sand, given their location on the world's "dust belt" where there are frequently more than 20 major sand storms each year.

In 2017, an international team of researchers set off on an epic voyage across the eastern Mediterranean, through the Suez Canal and around the Gulf, using specialised equipment to analyse air quality and particulate matter on shore.

They found that the vast majority of small particles -- which can penetrate deep into the lungs, resulting in greater health risk -- were manmade, mainly from the production and use of fossil fuels.

Writing in the journal Communications Earth & Environment, they showed how the region is blanketed in particularly harmful compounds such as sulphur dioxide, which is a direct result of oil extraction.

Emissions from container vessels in one of the busiest shipping lanes in the world also contributed to the smog.

"We have refineries such as those in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates that are a big source of air pollution as well as ships on the Red Sea, and in the Suez Canal region," said Jos Lelieveld, lead study author from Germany's Max Planck Institute for Chemistry.

"So the combination of all of these means that the air is much more polluted than what most people hope it to be."

The team used health and mortality metrics to calculate the number of excess deaths caused by air pollution in the MENA region annually.

The percentage of fossil-fuel driven mortality varied between nations, with 5.9 percent of deaths in Cyprus attributable to air pollution versus 15.9 in Kuwait.

This is a far higher mortality rate than in other industrialised regions. The US and Germany, for example, have 3 percent and 3.7 percent mortality due to air pollution, respectively.

Region-wide, the team calculated that air pollution from fossil fuel use caused one in eight deaths, noting that air quality there "permanently exceeded" WHO guidelines.

"It is very comparable with things that are really of great concern, for example, tobacco smoking and high cholesterol, which are major health risks in the region," Lelieveld told AFP.

"And the realisation of this in the region is practically zero."

He said that while governments in the region counted on fossil fuel production for the majority of their income, the time would come when the health costs due to pollution compounded growing pressure to decarbonise their economies.

"They're not stupid, they know that fossil fuels will end at some point," said Lelieveld.

"I'm hoping this is an additional incentive."

S.Africa teens build solar train as power

cuts haunt commuters

For years, students in a South African township have seen their parents struggle to use trains for daily commutes, the railways frequently hobbled by power outages and cable thefts.

To respond to the crisis, a group of 20 teenagers invented South Africa's first fully solar-powered train.

Photovoltaic panels fitted to the roof, the angular blue-and-white test train moves on an 18-metre-long (60 feet) test track in Soshanguve township north of the capital Pretoria.

Trains are the cheapest mode of transport in South Africa, used mostly by the poor and working class.

"Our parents... no longer use trains (because of) cable theft... and load shedding," said Ronnie Masindi, 18, referring to rolling blackouts caused by failures at old and poorly maintained coal-powered plants.

The state power company Eskom started imposing on-and-off power rationing 15 years ago to prevent a total national blackout.

The power outages, known locally as load-shedding, have worsened over the years disrupting commerce and industry, including rail services.

Infrastructure operator Transnet has struggled to keep rail traffic flowing smoothly since the economic challenges of the pandemic fuelled a surge in cable theft.

By 2020, rail use among public transport users was down almost two-thirds compared to 2013, according to the National Households Travel Survey with many commuters turning to more expensive minibus taxis.

Masindi said they decided to "create and build a solar-powered train that uses solar to move instead of (mains) electricity".

The journey has not been without its challenges.

A lack of funding delayed production of the prototype locomotive, and the government later chipped in.

"It was not a straight line," said another student, Lethabo Nkadimeng, 17. "It was like taking a hike to the highest peak of the mountain."

The train, which can run at 30 kilometres (20 miles) per hour, was showcased at a recent universities innovation event.

For now, the prototype can run for 10 return trips on the track installed on the grounds of a school.

It will be used for further research, and eventually presented as a model the government could adopt.

Fitted with car seats and a flat-screen TV to entertain passengers, it took the students two years to build.

"What we have realised is, if we you give township learners space, resources and a little mentorship they can do anything that any learner can do around the world," said Kgomotso Maimane, the project's supervising teacher.

vid-zam/sn/gw

GRIFTER CAPITALI$T

Latin America bank directors urge firing Trump-nominated chief

Mauricio Claver-Carone, president of Latin America's largest development bank, was found to have violated ethics rules by investigators. US President Joe Biden's administration has been pushing for his removal.

Claver-Carone has been president of the IDB since October 2020

The 14 directors on the board of the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) have voted unanimously to recommend firing President Mauricio Claver-Carone, sources said on Thursday. 

The move comes after an independent investigation confirmed misconduct allegations against Claver-Carone, who was nominated for the job in 2020 by then-US President Donald Trump.

His fate now lies in the hands of the governing board of the IDB representing all 48 of the bank's member nations.

US Treasury Department wants him out

A US Treasury spokesperson said Washington backed Claver-Carone's removal from office and urged "swift resolution" by the IDB's governors. 

"His creation of a climate of fear of retaliation among staff and borrowing countries has forfeited the confidence of the [IDB's] staff and shareholders and necessitates a change in leadership,'' the spokesperson said.

The US is the bank's largest shareholder, with 30% of its voting shares.

An independent probe was set up against Claver-Carone after a complaint that he allegedly had an intimate relationship with an employee in violation of the bank's rules.

According to a report cited by The Associated Press, the investigation found that he had favored this top aide with whom he had had a romantic relationship.

In a statement, Claver-Carone slammed the US Treasury's comments. "It's shameful the US commented to the press before notifying me and that it is not defending two Americans against what is clearly fabricated information," he said.

He also claimed that Washington was "handing" the IDB to China by backing his removal from office.

The Claver-Carone affair comes as World Bank President David Malpass is also under pressure to resign after he failed to state that he accepts the scientific consensus on climate change.

fb/aw (AP, EFE, Reuters) 

CRIMINAL CAPITALI$M

Boeing to pay $200 million over misleading investors on 737 MAX

US authorities said Boeing and its former leader, Dennis Muilenburg, had "put profits over people" and misled investors about the safety of its 737 MAX planes after the 2018 and 2019 crashes.

The crashes led regulators around the world to ground the plane for nearly 

two years until Boeing made fixes

Aviation giant Boeing has agreed to pay $200 million (€203 million) to settle charges it misled investors over the safety of its 737 MAX planes, US authorities said on Thursday. 

The model has come under intense criticism for years after two crashes involving the 737 MAX 8 killed 346 people. Both planes, in Indonesia and Ethiopia, had been in service for just a few months when they crashed.

Dennis Muilenburg, Boeing's former CEO, is set to pay $1 million to settle the same charges.

Muilenburg had been ousted in December 2019, nine months after the second 737 MAX 8 crash. 

What charges is Boeing paying to settle? 

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) said in a statement that Boeing "negligently violated the antifraud provisions" of US securities laws.

The SEC charged the company and its former leader with making misleading statements about the safety of the planes involved in the 2018 and 2019 crashes.

Boeing and Muilenburg "put profits over people by misleading investors about the safety of the 737 MAX all in an effort to rehabilitate Boeing's image" after the crashes," the SEC said.  

What did Boeing say?

The company said that it had made "broad and deep changes" since the two accidents to improve the safety and quality of its models.

"Today's settlement is part of the company's broader effort to responsibly resolve outstanding legal matters related to the 737 MAX accidents in a manner that serves the best interests of our shareholders, employees and other stakeholders,'' Boeing said in a statement. 

fb/aw (AFP, AP) 

CRIMINAL CAPITALI$M
'Fat Leonard' fugitive in US Navy scandal captured in Venezuela

Issued on: 22/09/2022

An undated handout picture released on September 21, 2022 by the Instagram account of Interpol Venezuela shows Malaysian fugitive Leonard Francis, known as "Fat Leonard," after his capture in Venezuela - Interpol Venezuela Instagram account/AFP

Caracas (AFP) – A military contractor known as "Fat Leonard" who pleaded guilty in the US Navy's worst ever corruption scandal has been captured in Venezuela after fleeing the United States, the Interpol office in Caracas said.

Leonard Francis cut off his GPS monitor and escaped house arrest in California in early September.

"The fugitive was arrested at the Simon Bolivar de Maiquetia International Airport when he was about to leave the country," a post shared on Instagram Wednesday by the Caracas Interpol office said.

Leonard "entered the country coming from Mexico with a stop in Cuba" and aimed to travel to Russia, the post said, adding that he was the subject of an Interpol red notice.

Francis, a Malaysian national who ran a military contracting company out of Singapore, pleaded guilty in 2015 to offering some $500,000 in bribes to Navy officers to steer official work to his shipyards, carrying out work on US vessels that prosecutors say he overcharged the Navy for, to the tune of $35 million.

Police were sent to his San Diego residence on September 4 after the agency monitoring his ankle bracelet reported a problem with the device, and found that he was gone, the US Marshals Service said.

Francis was arrested in 2013 and pleaded guilty two years later. He suffered numerous health problems, including kidney cancer, which led to him being released to house arrest in 2018 while acting as a cooperating witness for federal prosecutors.

He was due to be sentenced on September 22.

Four Navy officers have been found guilty in the case so far, while another 29 people, including naval officials, contractors and Francis himself, have pleaded guilty, US media said.

© 2022 AFP

Spain plans temporary wealth tax amid high inflation

A government plan calls for a tax on Spain's "big fortunes" would help offset inflation relief measures to assist low and middle-income Spaniards.

Montero says an "exceptional" tax would affect "no more than one percent" of the population

Spain's left-wing government said it would slap a temporary tax on the wealthiest 1% of the country's population to help pay for inflation relief measures.

"We are talking about millionaires, those who are in the 1% of income," Finance Minister Maria Jesus Montero told the laSexta television channel on Thursday.

She said it was important that "we can finance the aid" to support "the middle class and workers" but did not provide details on the tax rate or how much it would raise.

The government has introduced a raft of measures to help people cope with soaring prices, such as free public transport, stipends for students to stay in school and subsidized petrol.

The country's annual inflation rate hit 10.4% in August. It has remained in double digits since June, a level not seen since the mid-1980s.

Spain already targeting banks and energy firms

In July, the government introduced a bill to create a temporary levy on banks and large energy companies.

"We are going to use a similar scheme to that for energy companies and banking. For the next two years...the big fortunes of this country will be asked to make a temporary effort," Montero said on Thursday.

She still has to negotiate the plan with her Socialist party's coalition partner Unidas Podemos and acknowledged that parliamentary approval procedures mean it might not be ready by the start of 2023.

lo/wmr (AFP, Reuters)

Africa: After the drought comes the flood

Africa's rivers are lifelines. But extreme weather often poses a threat to those who live on their banks. Early-warning weather systems are in need of improvement, experts say.

Flooding forced people from their homes in Ethiopia's Gambela region in September 2022

The flooding in Nigeria is extreme. Houses have been swept away, more than 300 lives have been lost and more than 100,000 people are displaced, according to the authorities.

The National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) says the floods are the worst in decades and has warned that the situation could deteriorate further. 

Speaking after an emergency meeting on Monday, NEMA Director General Mustapha Habib Ahmed said the flooding was a result of regular rains since July.

The Niger River and its largest tributary, the Benue, have been carrying immense amounts of water. Experts say that several dams in Nigeria and neighboring Cameroon could overflow in the coming weeks.

Large swathes of arable land are already flooded.

Experts are warning that floods could exacerbate hunger in Nigeria

Warnings come too late

Three of Nigeria's northern states are particularly affected by the flooding: Yobe, Adamawa and Borno.

Yerma Ahmad Adamu, a senior physician at Yerma Memorial Hospital in Maiduguri, the capital of Borno State, is dissatisfied with the government's response.

Flooding has hit northern Nigerian states particularly hard, with neighboring

 Cameroon also affected

The call by NEMA and neighboring states for people to evacuate to high-lying places and stockpile foodstuffs came too late, Adamu said in a DW interview.

Authorities had warned of the floods six months ago, Adamu said. But concrete forecasts about the extent were lacking, although they would have helped those now affected to prepare better.

"People need to boil water, and health centers should have zinc oxide ready — that's given to children and adults to protect them from diarrhea — plus a combination of salt and water," the physician told DW. 

Adapting to climate change

Across Africa, extreme weather events have increased in recent years, with sometimes devastating consequences. A recent report by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) points to severe flooding in South Sudan, Nigeria, the Republic of Congo and the Democratic Republic of Congo in 2021 — and extreme drought that led to forest fires, particularly in northern Africa.

Only 40% of Africa's population currently access early warning systems to protect them from extreme weather and the effects of climate change, according to the WMO.

As a key task for the future, the WMO recommends intensified cross-border cooperation, data and expertise-sharing, as well as more investment in  climate change adaptation.

Nigeria is battling its worst floods in a decade with more than 300 people killed in 2022 including at least 20 this week, authorities said on Monday, admitting the situation is “beyond our control.” FRANCE 24's Sam Olukoya reports.

Niger: Measuring stations and flood maps

Approaches to this have been in place in West Africa for decades. For example, the Niger Basin Authority (ABN) has been bringing together nine states affected by the Niger River system since 1980.

At around 4,200 kilometers (2,600 miles), the Niger is Africa's third-longest river. Some 160 million people live alongits banks. They depend on its water, but have to live with its risks.

ABN area manager Issa Bakayoko told DW about the dangerous interplay between floods and drought. 

"In times of drought, the vegetation cover is attacked, and the land is exposed to wind and rain. Then, when there is heavy rainfall, the runoff water washes sand and rain with it. The riverbed silts up, and the river can no longer carry the large volumes of water," Bakayoko said.

In order to cope with the risks, riverside states have set up a measuring system that records water levels and outflowing water volumes, and maps which water levels can be expected when and where. The German Society for International Cooperation (GIZ) provides support in this regard.

The satellite-based early warning system, consisting of 27 measuring stations, enablesprecise advance warnings within 24 hours, the GIZ project manager Jochen Rudolph told DW.

Flood maps generated from the data also allow conclusions to be drawn about when and where the population should be evacuated.

Planning larger dams and urban development

However, implementing the recommendations drawn from this analysis is not always possiblein the Niger Basin. Some states simply cannot afford the costs, according to Rudolph. despite contributing significant sums. 

A number of commissions in Africa work similarly to the ABN, Rudolph told DW. These include the Nile Basin Initiative and commissions for Lake Victoria in East Africa, the  Okavango in southern Africa,or the Volta River system in Ghana and Burkina Faso.

But there is room for improvement, Rudolph told DW. Floods could be mitigated with larger dams. "Three are being planned and already built on the Niger. With retention basins that prevent the runoff of water masses in the rainy season from being as violent as it often was i

No matter how great the efforts to regulate water masses, the effects of climate change will increasingly force people to adapt. The WMO report comes to this conclusion, as do experts interviewed by DW.

Especially in the face of a growing population, a sustainable plan for urban development is essential, says Issa Bakayoko: "Such a plan must define the flood-prone areas and keep them free as catchment areas, so it must not make them available for people to live in." If countries can do that, he says, it could drastically reduce the impact of flooding.

Antonio Cascais and Al-Amin Suleiman Mohammad in Nigeria contributed to this article.

Edited by: Benita van Eyssen