Sandra Finley

2018-04-10 re Cholera and Norovirus in Georgia Strait, BC. Local resident writes . . .

 Health, Salmon & Fish, Water Bowser BC Sewage Treatment Plant  1 Response »
Apr 102018
 

Please scroll down to heading  With thanks to Dianne (the local resident).

NOTE:

  • the Comment from Thomas Gates (bottom of posting) from local group SOS Bowser  http://sosbowser.ca.
  • Both the cholera and norovirus outbreaks are plausibly related to sewage  (#1 and #2 quotes, just below).
  • Not mentioned:   marine vessels as a source of human sewage.

 

  1.   Re late March, 2018, cases of cholera on the east coast of Vancouver Island, BC,

From Dept of Fisheries and Oceans Report, March 23, 2018:

marine water sampling results from March 6, 2018 (show) elevated fecal coliform levels in this area.

2.   Re April 9th, 2018, closure of 2 oyster farms after norovirus outbreak, 40 cases (URL below),

. . .  human sewage in the marine environment is currently believed to be the most plausible cause of shellfish contamination, according to BCCDC epidemiologist Marsha Taylor.

(BCCDC is the BC Centre for Disease Control.)

UPDATE:  126 cases of norovirus.   I add updates (source) to:

as presented verbally to Town Council, Cholera cases, originating French Creek and Qualicum Bay. And April 9th report of norovirus. Human sewage a plausible factor in both.

My personal experience a couple of years ago, swimming parallel to the shoreline, approaching the French Creek area, sent me in hasty and frightened retreat to a hot bath with disinfectant.  Sewage contamination, long term, was evident in the water.

Please see Dianne’s input below, which includes:

No doubt the French Creek outflow has a lot to do with it but the government will blame private septic tanks.  This is simply not true with few exceptions.  There are sufficient regulations that government could use if this was really the problem.

RELATED TO:

 

= = = = = = = = = = = = = = =

With thanks to Dianne from BC:

. . .   There appears to be no science regarding this outbreak nor is there a significant effort in why this outbreak happened.  No doubt the French Creek outflow has a lot to do with it but the government will blame private septic tanks.  This is simply not true with few exceptions.  There are sufficient regulations that government could use if this was really the problem.

 

We have been sailors in this area for more than two decades.  What I find appalling is how opaque the water has become with vegetative growth by June/July along our coastal area from Deep Bay to well below French Creek.  There is also surface growth of a slimy algae found nowhere else to the extent seen  in our area to well south of French Creek.  We have sailed throughout the inland waters from Port McNeil to Victoria.  Our local waters only ossolate waters from the tides with very little thru-put toward Victoria.   The poop waste is building up and the backwaters along shallow shelves flow north, not south.  Consequently all of our beaches are polluted both north and south of the French Creek pipe.  This must be stopped.  I was amazed at the contamination in relatively cold waters this early in the season. It will only get worse as the weather warms.

We cannot be apathetic.

 

2018-04-09 2 B.C. oyster farms closed after norovirus outbreak, CBC

 Health, Salmon & Fish  No Responses »
Apr 102018
 

With thanks to Janet, BC.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/oysters-norovirus-1.4611419

40 cases of gastrointestinal disease linked to eating the shellfish raw

The consumption of raw oysters has once again been linked to an outbreak of norovirus in B.C. (Elaine Thompson/Associated Press)

 

Two B.C. Vancouver Island oyster farms have been closed following an outbreak of norovirus associated with eating the raw shellfish.

The B.C. Centre for Disease Control says about 40 cases of acute gastrointestinal illness have been connected to the consumption of raw oysters since March. Testing has confirmed some of the cases were norovirus.

Federal officials with Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO) confirmed the affected farms are located on the east coast of Vancouver Island at Deep Bay and Denman Island.

While the two farms are no longer harvesting oysters for consumption, no recall of oysters has been issued by the Canadian Food Inspection Agency.

Human sewage suspected

While the precise sources of contamination have not been identified, human sewage in the marine environment is currently believed to be the most plausible cause of shellfish contamination, according to BCCDC epidemiologist Marsha Taylor.

Anyone who falls ill with diarrhea and vomiting after eating shellfish should call B.C. HealthLink at 811 where qualified personnel can help you evaluate your symptoms, said Taylor. Most people recover from norovirus on their own with proper hydration and rest, but in some cases dehydration can be severe and require medical attention.

In order to kill norovirus and other pathogens, the BCCDC recommends consumers cook oysters thoroughly, to an internal temperature of 90 C for 90 seconds. Consumption of raw oysters is not encouraged.

 

Widespread impact

The president of the B.C. Shellfish Growers Association noted that while only two farms were closed, the entire industry will likely be hit by the impact.

“The problem with these general advisories is, rather than target the farm that may have a problem, a lot of industry has to suffer the consequences from a depressed market,” he said.

In late 2016 and early 2017, more than 400 norovirus cases associated with raw or undercooked B.C. oysters led to the closure of 13 farms.

That outbreak was declared over in April 2017. Human sewage was also suspected as the cause.

“Is there a solution? Yes, we need to pay more attention to what we are putting into the ocean,” said Pocock.

2018-04-09 Killer robots: pressure builds for ban as governments meet, the Guardian

 Lockheed Martin, War Economy (includes Cdn Census & Trials)  No Responses »
Apr 102018
 

Countries spending billions on ‘third revolution in warfare’ as UN debates regulation of AI-powered weapons

Russia’s Armata T-14 battle tank can autonomously fire on targets and is expected to be fully autonomous in the near future.
Russia’s Armata T-14 battle tank can autonomously fire on targets and is expected to be fully autonomous in the near future. Photograph: Grigory Dukor/Reuters

 

They will be “weapons of terror, used by terrorists and rogue states against civilian populations. Unlike human soldiers, they will follow any orders however evil,” says Toby Walsh, professor of artificial intelligence at the University of New South Wales, Australia.

“These will be weapons of mass destruction. One programmer and a 3D printer can do what previously took an army of people. They will industrialise war, changing the speed and duration of how we can fight. They will be able to kill 24-7 and they will kill faster than humans can act to defend themselves.”

Governments are meeting at the UN in Geneva on Monday for the fifth time to discuss whether and how to regulate lethal autonomous weapons systems (Laws). Also known as killer robots, these AI-powered ships, tanks, planes and guns could fight the wars of the future without any human intervention.

The Campaign to Stop Killer Robots, backed by Tesla’s Elon Musk and Alphabet’s Mustafa Suleyman, is calling for a preemptive ban on Laws, since the window of opportunity for credible preventative action is fast closing and an arms race is already in full swing.

 

“In 2015, we warned that there would be an arms race to develop lethal autonomous weapons,” says Walsh. “We can see that race has started. In every theatre of war – in the air, on the sea, under the sea and on the land – there are prototype autonomous weapons under development.”

Ahead of the meeting, the US has argued that rather than trying to “stigmatise or ban” Laws, innovation should be encouraged, and that use of the technology could actually reduce the risk of civilian casualties in war. Experts, however, fear the systems will not be able to distinguish between combatants and civilians and act proportionally to the threat.

France and Germany have been accused of shying away from tough rules by activists who say Europe should be leading the charge for a ban. A group of non-aligned states, led by Venezuela, is calling for the negotiation of a new international law to regulate or ban killer robots. The group seeks general agreement from states that “all weapons, including those with autonomous functions, must remain under the direct control and supervision of humans at all times”.

The new global arms race

The US launched an autonomous ship, Sea Hunter, on 7 April 2016.
The US launched an autonomous ship, Sea Hunter, on 7 April 2016. Photograph: Steve Dipaola/Reuters

Fully autonomous weapons do not yet exist, but high-ranking military officials have said the use of robots will be widespread in warfare in a matter of years. At least 381 partly autonomous weapon and military robotics systems have been deployed or are under development in 12 states, including China, France, Israel, the UK and the US.

Automatic systems, such as Israel’s Iron Dome and mechanised sentries in the Korean demilitarised zone, have already been deployed but cannot act fully autonomously. Research by the International Data Corporation suggests global spending on robotics will double from $91.5bn in 2016 to $188bn in 2020, bringing full autonomy closer to realisation.

The US, the frontrunner in the research and development of Laws, has cited autonomy as a cornerstone of its plan to modernise its army and ensure its strategic superiority across the globe. This has caused other major military powers to increase their investment in AI and robotics, as well as in autonomy, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.

“We very much acknowledge that we’re in a competition with countries like China and Russia,” says Steven Walker, director of the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, which develops emerging technologies and whose 2018 budget was increased by 27% last year.

The US X-47B unmanned autonomous aircraft.
The US X-47B unmanned autonomous aircraft. Photograph: Rex Features

The US is currently working on the prototype for a tail-less, unmanned X-47B aircraft, which will be able to land and take off in extreme weather conditions and refuel in mid-air. The country has also completed testing of an autonomous anti-submarine vessel, Sea Hunter, that can stay at sea for months without a single person onboard and is able to sink other submarines and ships. A 6,000kg autonomous tank, Crusher, is capable of navigating incredibly difficult terrain and is advertised as being able to “tackle almost any mission imaginable”.

The UK is developing its own unmanned vehicles, which could be weaponised in the future. Taranis, an unmanned aerial combat vehicle drone named after the Celtic god of thunder, can avoid radar detection and fly in autonomous mode.

Russia, meanwhile, is amassing an arsenal of unmanned vehicles, both in the air and on the ground; commentators say the country sees this as a way to compensate for its conventional military inferiority compared with the US. “Whoever leads in AI will rule the world,” said Vladimir Putin, the recently re-elected Russian president, last year. “Artificial intelligence is the future, not only for Russia, but for all humankind.”

Russia’s Armata T-14 battle tank.
Russia’s Armata T-14 battle tank. Photograph: Mikhail Metzel/Tass/PA Images

Russia has developed a robot tank, Nerehta, which can be fitted with a machine gun or a grenade launcher, while its semi-autonomous tank, the T-14, will soon be fully autonomous. Kalashnikov, the Russian arms manufacturer, has developed a fully automated, high-calibre gun that uses artificial neural networks to choose targets.

China has various similar semi-autonomous tanks and is developing aircraft and seaborne swarms, but information on these projects is tightly guarded. “As people are still preparing for a high-tech war, the old and new are becoming intertwined to become a new form of hidden complex ‘hybrid war’,” wrote Wang Weixing, a Chinese military research director, last year.

“Unmanned combat is gradually emerging. While people have their heads buried in the sand trying to close the gap with the world’s military powers in terms of traditional weapons, technology-driven ‘light warfare’ is about to take the stage.”

Pandora’s box

According to the Campaign to Stop Killer Robots, these systems threaten to become the “third revolution in warfare”, after the invention of gunpowder and nuclear bombs, and once the Pandora’s box is opened it will be difficult to close.

“Inanimate machines cannot understand or respect the value of life, yet they would have the power to determine when to take it away,” says Mary Wareham, the campaign coordinator. “Our campaign believes that machines should never be permitted to take human life on the battlefield or in policing, border control, or any circumstances.”

Supporters of a ban say fully autonomous weapons are unlikely to be able to fully comply with the complex and subjective rules of international humanitarian and human rights law, which require human understanding and judgment as well as compassion.

Pointing to the 1997 ban on landmines, now one of the most widely accepted treaties in international law, and the ban on cluster munitions, which has 120 signatories, Wareham says: “History shows how responsible governments have found it necessary in the past to supplement the limits already provided in the international legal framework due to the significant threat posed to civilians.”

It is believed that the weaponisation of artificial intelligence could bring the world closer to apocalypse than ever before. “Imagine swarms of autonomous tanks and jet fighters meeting on a border and one of them fires in error or because it has been hacked,” says Noel Sharkey, professor of artificial intelligence and robots at the University of Sheffield, who first wrote about the reality of robot war in 2007.

“This could automatically invoke a battle that no human could understand or untangle. It is not even possible for us to know how the systems would interact in conflict. It could all be over in minutes with mass devastation and loss of life.”

2018-03-26 Water: re Cholera cases from herring eggs, Qualicum Beach area. Letter to officials, Reply from Medical Health Officer.

 Water Bowser BC Sewage Treatment Plant  No Responses »
Apr 092018
 

My letter to officials appears below this reply from the Medical Health Officer:

 

From: Hasselback, Paul
Sent: March 26, 2018 7:03 AM
To:  Sandra Finley
Cc: Waters, Shannon (Dr)  ((Vancouver Island Health Authority)
Subject: FW: re Cholera cases from herring eggs, Qualicum Beach area

 

Ms. Finley:

 

As the Medical Health Officer for the Qualicum area your inquiry was forwarded to me.  I am very aware of the ongoing details of the current cluster of Vibrio cholera illness associated with herring egg consumption.

 

While you may wish to use this situation as an example for not supporting a specific proposed sewage treatment facility or treatment process, that would not be consistent with the information arising from the cluster of illnesses.

I reviewed your submission on the proposed Bowser facility, and short of diverting all effluent from any water return, the facility would actually reduce the likelihood human caused bacterial contamination. If anything, the recent events would enhance the arguments for improvements to the Bowser facility(and to other direct marine discharging waste returns).

 

We remain concerned about untreated sewage from residences and communities and marine sewage disposal, although this event may not be related it is a hypothesis, and has been implicated in recent shellfish related illness.

 

There may also be  other causes which are not related to human wastes.

 

As such, while you may wish to use the information as you wish, it would appear that it does not strengthen your arguments and may actually weaken them.

 

Thanks for sharing your perspective.  I wish you the best in your advocacy endeavours.

 

 

Paul Hasselback MD MSc FRCPC

Medical Health Officer

Central Vancouver Island (Nanaimo, Oceanside, Alberni, West Coast)

250  739   6304

= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =

MY LETTER TO OFFICIALS RE CHOLERA CASES TRACED TO HERRING ROE (EGGS)

From: Sandra Finley
Sent: March 25, 2018 5:47 PM
Subject: Bowser Sewage Treatment Plant and Cholera traced to herring eggs harvested in vicinity of Qualicum Beach

 

TO:

 

RE:   Bowser Sewage Treatment Plant and Cholera traced to herring eggs harvested in vicinity of Qualicum Beach

 

In the end I suspect the Cholera won’t be such a mystery at all.

 

The Vancouver Sun describes  “The harvest in the area where the infections took place — a stretch of coastal waters from French Creek to Qualicum Beach . . .”.  

 

I describe my experience swimming in that same water, in  Submission to BC Govt officials, re the proposed Bowser Sewage Treatment Plant   (2017-09-12).  (Qualicum Beach is flanked on either side by French Creek and Bowser, as you will know.)

 

You may (not?!) recall the submission.   it is based on and includes experience with water on the Atlantic Coast (Halifax),  and Saskatoon (the South Saskatchewan River).

 

It does not matter how fancy the name applied to the Sewage Treatment Plant (Sequencing Batch Reactor with UV radiation and Tertiary Filtration), the plants do not and cannot remove many of the most problematic components,  as explained in my Submission sent to you last September.  (copy at the above URL).

 

I have submitted a request to make a verbal presentation to Qualicum Beach Council.  I will make the case for withdrawal of the endorsement of the Bowser Sewage Treatment Plant.  It’s an easy case to make, but in my experience Councils (human) are most often very status quo.

 

A critical mass of informed people, or crisis (Cholera?) is required, before change will happen.

 

If the cases of Cholera do not make the case for stopping the “marine disposal” of sewage treatment plant effluent,  there is no hope for the human race!

Please, somehow, activate the machinery of officialdom to bring an end to the practice.

 

Thank-you, and

 

Best wishes,

Sandra Finley

2018-04-06 Researchers develop device that can ‘hear’ your internal voice, The Guardian

 Technology  No Responses »
Apr 082018
 
Researchers develop device that can ‘hear’ your internal voice

New headset can listen to internal vocalisation and speak to the wearer while appearing silent to the outside world

by Samuel Gibbs

MIT’s AlterEgo headset can ‘hear’ internalised voices and speak to the user through a bone-conduction system.

MIT’s AlterEgo headset can ‘hear’ internalised voices and speak to the user through a bone-conduction system. Photograph: Lorrie Lejeune/MIT

Researchers have created a wearable device that can read people’s minds when they use an internal voice, allowing them to control devices and ask queries without speaking.

The device, called AlterEgo, can transcribe words that wearers verbalise internally but do not say out loud, using electrodes attached to the skin.

“Our idea was: could we have a computing platform that’s more internal, that melds human and machine in some ways and that feels like an internal extension of our own cognition?” said Arnav Kapur, who led the development of the system at MIT’s Media Lab.

Kapur describes the headset as an “intelligence-augmentation” or IA device, and was presented at the Association for Computing Machinery’s Intelligent User Interface conference in Tokyo. It is worn around the jaw and chin, clipped over the top of the ear to hold it in place. Four electrodes under the white plastic device make contact with the skin and pick up the subtle neuromuscular signals that are triggered when a person verbalises internally. When someone says words inside their head, artificial intelligence within the device can match particular signals to particular words, feeding them into a computer.

1:22
Watch the AlterEgo being demonstrated – video

The computer can then respond through the device using a bone conduction speaker that plays sound into the ear without the need for an earphone to be inserted, leaving the wearer free to hear the rest of the world at the same time. The idea is to create a outwardly silent computer interface that only the wearer of the AlterEgo device can speak to and hear.

“We basically can’t live without our cellphones, our digital devices. But at the moment, the use of those devices is very disruptive,” said Pattie Maes, a professor of media arts and sciences at MIT. “If I want to look something up that’s relevant to a conversation I’m having, I have to find my phone and type in the passcode and open an app and type in some search keyword, and the whole thing requires that I completely shift attention from my environment and the people that I’m with to the phone itself.”

Maes and her students, including Kapur, have been experimenting with new form factors and interfaces to provide the knowledge and services of smartphones without the intrusive disruption they currently cause to daily life.

The AlterEgo device managed an average of 92% transcription accuracy in a 10-person trial with about 15 minutes of customising to each person. That’s several percentage points below the 95%-plus accuracy rate that Google’s voice transcription service is capable of using a traditional microphone, but Kapur says the system will improve in accuracy over time. The human threshold for voice word accuracy is thought to be around 95%.

Kapur and team are currently working on collecting data to improve recognition and widen the number of words AlterEgo can detect. It can already be used to control a basic user interface such as the Roku streaming system, moving and selecting content, and can recognise numbers, play chess and perform other basic tasks.

The eventual goal is to make interfacing with AI assistants such as Google’s Assistant, Amazon’s Alexa or Apple’s Siri less embarrassing and more intimate, allowing people to communicate with them in a manner that appears to be silent to the outside world – a system that sounds like science fiction but appears entirely possible.

The only downside is that users will have to wear a device strapped to their face, a barrier smart glasses such as Google Glass failed to overcome. But experts think the technology has much potential, not only in the consumer space for activities such as dictation but also in industry.

“Wouldn’t it be great to communicate with voice in an environment where you normally wouldn’t be able to?” said Thad Starner, a computing professor at Georgia Tech. “You can imagine all these situations where you have a high-noise environment, like the flight deck of an aircraft carrier, or even places with a lot of machinery, like a power plant or a printing press.”

Starner also sees application in the military and for those with conditions that inhibit normal speech.

2018-04-09 Punishment of Julian Assange is political, not legal Daily Mirror, UK

 Julian Assange, Wikileaks, Chelsea (Bradley) Manning, Arjen Kamphuis  No Responses »
Apr 082018
 

http://www.dailymirror.lk/article/Punishment-of-Julian-Assange-is-political-not-legal-148445.html

Ecuadorian President Lenin Moreno

 

 

Recent reports that the Ecuadoran government has blocked internet / phone access and disallowed visitors to Wikileaks founder Julian Assange – who has been holed up in the Ecuadoran Embassy in London for five and a half years – point to the latest in a series of moves apparently generated by US pressure, in what seems to be a concerted attempt, along with its allies, to subject the controversial whistle-blower to punishment outside of any legal process. Assange has been confined to the embassy building since he was granted political asylum by Ecuador in 2012.  His physical and mental health have reportedly suffered on account of his isolation, which has now been intensified by jamming his electronic communications.
According to reports, two months ago when Assange lost his bid to overturn the arrest warrant issued by UK authorities, the judge, maintaining that Assange had ‘restricted his own freedom,’ said that “in contrast to most prisoners he enjoyed access to a computer, mobile phone and the internet.” These are the very facilities that he is now deprived of, making his conditions even more like those of a sentenced prisoner.
Assange has never been charged. He fears that if he steps out of the embassy he will be arrested and extradited, eventually to the US, where he could be tried for espionage based on Wikileaks’ publication of thousands of classified US documents exposing shocking conducts of the US military in Iraq and Afghanistan. His lawyers have said he could face the death penalty there.
In a statement explaining its move, the Ecuadorean Government has said that “the conduct of Assange via his messages on social media puts at risk the good relations that Ecuador maintains with the United Kingdom, the European Union and other nations.”  The conduct in question is said to be Assange’s tweeting of his views on the Catalonian crisis.

 

“Assange has never been charged. He fears that if he steps out of the embassy he will be arrested and extradited, eventually to the US, where he could be tried for espionage based on Wikileaks’ publication”

In Ecuador’s 2017 presidential election in which current President Lenin Moreno took office, it was his conservative opponent who threatened to evict Assange, while Moreno had said he could stay, reports say.  It was Moreno’s government that granted Assange Ecuadorean citizenship in December, to provide him with ‘another layer of protection,’ and sought to give him diplomatic immunity. All of this would suggest that there has been recent outside pressure on Ecuador on this issue.
With Swedish prosecutors having last year formally dropped their investigation into rape allegations in Sweden, all that the UK authorities are left with to justify Assange’s arrest is the argument that he ‘skipped bail’ when he took refuge in the Ecuadorean embassy.  Now, recent revelations of email correspondence between Sweden’s prosecutors and Britain’s Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) have added credence to the view that Assange’s plight has more to do with mala fide intentions of those who wish to see him punished, than any pursuit of justice. It appears that the last four years of Assange’s imprisonment in the embassy have been entirely unnecessary.  “In fact, they depended on a legal charade” wrote Jonathan Cook in Counterpunch in February.

 

““His only ‘crime’ is that of a true journalist — telling the world the truths that people have a right to know” 

Cook reveals that Sweden actually wanted to drop the extradition case against Assange back in 2013. “Why was this not made public? Because Britain persuaded Sweden to pretend that they still wished to pursue the case” he said.
“According to a new, limited release of emails between officials, the Swedish director of public prosecutions, Marianne Ny, wrote to Britain’s Crown Prosecution Service on October 18, 2013, warning that Swedish law would not allow the case for extradition to be continued,” he wrote. Cook further said that the CPS destroyed most of the emails relating to this correspondence, contrary to CPS protocols, and that only fragments remain.
In 2016, a UN working group ruled that Assange was being arbitrarily detained by the governments of Sweden and UK, and that he was entitled to his freedom of movement, and to compensation. Both British and Swedish authorities disregarded the ruling, with the British Foreign Secretary reported as saying it was “frankly ridiculous.”

Wikileaks founder Julian Assange

 

Following the announcement that Assange’s internet and phone access has been cut off, journalists, artists, intellectuals and high profile personalities including ex-CIA officials have rallied to his support, gathering outside the embassy and sending appeals to the Ecuadorean government to allow him his right to freedom of speech.
“His only ‘crime’ is that of a true journalist — telling the world the truths that people have a right to know” said a group that included American linguist and political theorist Noam Chomsky, Australian journalist/ film-maker John Pilger, Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Zizek and many other high profile figures.In an open letter published online they called on president Moreno to end the isolation of Assange, saying Ecuador’s government was justifying the gagging of Wikileaks’ publisher “under extreme pressure from Washington and its collaborators.”

 

“The conduct of Assange via his messages on social media puts at risk the good relations that Ecuador maintains with the UK, EU and other nations”

“This censorious attack on free speech is not happening in Turkey, Saudi Arabia or China; it is right in the heart of London… If the EU and the UK continue to participate in the scandalous silencing of a true dissident in their midst, it will mean that free speech is indeed dying in Europe,” they wrote.
Zizek in a separate article in Defend Democracy Press noted that “Ecuador is a small country, and one can only imagine the brutality behind-the-scenes pressure exerted on it by Western powers to increase the isolation of Julian Assange from the public space.”  He said Assange “is not spying on the people for those in power, he is spying on those in power for the people. This is why the only ones who can really help him now are we, the people.”
As Jonathan Cook asks:“One has to wonder at what point will most people realise that this is – and always was – political persecution masquerading as
law enforcement.”

2018-04-05 New book, “Why Young Men”. Compelling interview, author Jamil Jivani, CBC The Current

 Culture and Ethics, Empowerment, Health, Peace or Violence  No Responses »
Apr 062018
 

 

The young author in this interview is profound.

RECOMMEND:   Go to the URL.  Below is a back-up copy (there are a couple of missing audio links). 

http://www.cbc.ca/radio/thecurrent/we-re-competing-with-extremists-for-our-young-people-s-futures-says-author-who-escaped-gang-culture-1.4606013

Jamil Jivani’s new book looks at the alienation that can lead to young people becoming radicalized. (Wim Van Cappellen/Harper Collins Canada)

We’re competing with extremists for our young people’s futures, says author who escaped gang culture
Listen  25:43

When Jamil Jivani was eight years old, he and his father were stopped by police in Brampton, Ont.

“He was harassed and made to sit on the curb like a criminal, and yelled at and bullied in front of me,” the lawyer and author remembers.

“It hit me so hard and it made me think: ‘Well I guess when I grow up to be a man that’s what I’m going to have to experience too.'”

Jivani, now 30, struggled with his identity in his teens and felt the pull of violence and crime. He also became involved with a radical group — the Five Percent Nation — both online and through attending meetings.

Despite this early experience of alienation, he became an author, activist, and graduate of Yale Law School.

He told The Current’s Anna Maria Tremonti that when children feel rejected by authorities or societies that are supposed to protect them, it “sends a message that the world isn’t here for you.”

He said this may leave them vulnerable to others with dangerous ideologies, from gangs to political extremists, to step in and offer the promise of fixing the world — if you’re willing to fight on their terms.

It’s the subject of his new book Why Young Men: Rage, Race and the Crisis of Identity.

Jamil Jivani in studio with Anna Maria Tremonti. (CBC)

Make young people see their potential

Jivani was a disengaged student who failed his Grade 10 literacy test. The experience left him feeling stupid and “almost like a broken person,” he recalls.

“I was a set of pieces that were waiting to be put back together,” he said.

“With the right or wrong influences around me, I could have been turned into anything.”

Combating the problem is a matter of making young people feel like they are key to the future of humanity, he said.

“The more you can make young people feel that level of responsibility, and feel that level of leadership, the more I think you can get greatness out of them.”

“But when people are doing that to get the worst forms of rage and violence out of them, we’ve seen that it works.”

The National
Why Young Men Become Radicalized

In the notorious neighbourhood of Molenbeek in Brussels, a Canadian finds insight into the roots of radicalization. 11:40

Being ‘a tough guy’

His teenage years were spent getting in fights and trouble in school, and trying to be “a tough guy” involved in gang culture, like the men he saw in popular culture.

Things came to a head when he asked a friend to buy him a gun.

“He quoted me a price, and told me: ‘Just let me know when you want it.'”

Jivani went home and cried.

“I remember thinking: ‘Wow, I had the chance to be the tough guy that I fantasized I would want to be, when I listen to rap or watch movies — and I almost had my bluff called.'”

He never got the gun, because he realized that it would prove the prejudice that others felt about him. He also didn’t want to lose his mother.

“The only good thing I had in my life at that point was my mother,” he says, “and I really felt like I might cross the line if I had a gun, where she might give up on me.”

With the right or wrong influences around me, I could have been turned into anything.– Jamil   Jivani  

It was a turning point, but not an easy one. Jivani writes about “the capacity to aspire”: the tools and opportunities available to young men who want to change their lives.

While many are limited by financial or educational opportunities, he points out that young people can also be constrained by their own imaginations.

“Doing the work as a society to provide them with an understanding of the diversity of things that they’re capable of is so important,” he said.

The Current
Jamil Jivani on his cancer diagnosis
00:00 01:35

Jivani says that facing his own mortality has made writing a book about his experiences more meaningful. 1:35

Jivani wants people to realize that this is a competition for our young people’s futures.

It may seem like a lost cause sometimes, he said, but you have to hang on for that breakthrough moment.

“You have to be actively involved in their life,” he said, “be passionate about supporting them and empowering them.”

Show them that you care, he adds, about their lives, their friends, even about what they’re reading on the internet.

“They’ll see that passion,” he said, “and they need it.”

Listen to the full conversation at the top of this page, where you can also share this article across email, Facebook, Twitter and other platforms.

This segment was produced by The Current’s Howard Goldenthal.

 

2018-03-26 Baylor’s Doc Hotez Bullies Parents of Vaccine Injured Children | Barbara Loe Fisher

 Vaccinations (incl corruption of science & govt)  No Responses »
Mar 292018
 
Also regarding Hotez:
Published March 26, 2018 | Best in Video

Click on:

http://www.thevaccinereaction.org/2018/03/baylors-doc-hotez-bullies-parents-of-vaccine-injured-children-barbara-loe-fisher/

Many years ago when I was having a conversation with a senior official at the Centers for Disease Control during a public engagement meeting, we explored the reason for why public health officials and parents of vaccine injured children were at such odds with each other. I said it was because we disagreed about the science. He said no, it was a disagreement over values and beliefs. Recently, a physician dean at Baylor University College of Medicine made it clear that it is a lot about doctors getting off on demonizing and bullying parents of vaccine injured children.

 

2018-03-26 Beginning of the end’ for secret [ISDS] corporate courts [UK article]. Campaigners celebrate as courts prove illegal

 Trade Deals, PPPs, Integration Canada-U.S.  No Responses »
Mar 272018
 

I posted the official news of this earlier:    2018-03-06   Significant. European Court of Justice rules on ISDS (Investor State Dispute Settlement) clauses.

The importance of this article:  community-based publications operating to put important information like this into the hands of everyday people.  AND! some repetition is good for my memory!

 

With thanks to Janet E:

Quotes from Nick Readon, and Pia Eberhardt herein who have both written about implications of ISDS regarding the Digby Neck Quarry and who were leaders in EU coalitions to stop ISDS in CETA.

See info on The Big Issue North independent street newspaper at bottom of e-mail

fyi-janet

==============================

https://www.bigissuenorth.com/news/2018/03/beginning-end-secret-corporate-courts/#

By Clare Speak

Transparency campaigners are celebrating after the highest court in Europe
ruled that offshore courts allowing multinational corporations to sue governments
are not legal.

 

These courts, known as investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) tribunals, exist outside national or European legal systems. They usually meet in secret, give no right of appeal and, in the majority of cases, rule in favour of the corporations. It might sound like the stuff of dystopian nightmares but they have been around for two decades.

 

Found in the small print of most international trade deals, ISDS rules give big business the right to use these courts to sue over any measure that adversely affects their profits – including bringing in laws to protect public health and the environment.

 

“Dead in the water”

 

The rules have already been successfully used by businesses to sue countries countless times. Notable cases include French corporation Veolia suing the Egyptian government for raising the minimum wage, and US tobacco giant Philip Morris suing Australia after its government brought in plain cigarette packaging.

 

As these ISDS tribunals exist outside normal court system, including Europe´s judicial system, the European Court of Justice ruled that they are incompatible with EU law.

 

ISDS is best known as being part of the controversial Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), a planned EU-US agreement that sparked protests on both sides of the Atlantic. The rule is also found in the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA), a similarly controversial deal between the EU and Canada, which has not been fully implemented yet because of disagreements over ISDS.

 

The ruling means TTIP is now “dead in the water”, campaigners say, and it´s also hoped to “spell the end of CETA as we know it”.

 

“ISDS not only violates EU law, it is also dangerous for democracy, taxpayer money and much needed policies, for example, to combat climate change. Now is the time to stamp out the excessive corporate privileges once and for all,” Pia Eberhardt, CEO of Corporate Europe Observatory, told Big Issue North.

 

“EU member states should terminate existing investment treaties and withdraw from the Energy Charter Treaty.”

 

The ECJ´s ruling came after one such court ordered the Slovakian government to pay EUR22 million (£19.4 million) in damages to Achmea, a Dutch healthcare company. The company sued using ISDS rules within a Netherlands-Slovakia trade agreement when the Slovak government decided to place limits on healthcare privatisation, which Achmea said harmed its potential future profits. When Slovakia refused to pay, Achmea then started proceedings against it in the German courts, which asked the ECJ to check whether this was compatible with European law.

 

ISDS is found in hundreds of similar international trade and investment deals already in effect worldwide. In European member states at least, these agreements will now no longer be viable.

 

Brexit effect

 

Eberhardt said ISDS-like parallel legal systems for corporations should now be scrapped from all EU trade deals, whether with Canada, Japan or the many other countries with which they are currently negotiated.

 

“The decision marks the beginning of the end of ISDS in Europe,” stated Laurens Ankersmit of environmental activist lawyers ClientEarth, adding that they were looking at legal options to force EU member states to end trade agreements containing ISDS if they did not do so voluntarily.

 

One country that is not expected to give up such agreements easily is the UK.

 

“As it´s leaving the EU, Britain might think it can avoid terminating its investment treaties with EU member states,” Nick Dearden, director of Global Justice Now, told Big Issue North.

 

The UK´s post-Brexit trade talks are the most secretive yet, Dearden added. This lack of transparency means any future UK-US deal is widely expected to contain many of the worst parts of the stalled TTIP deal, including ISDS.

 

“Transparency is much worse than with TTIP,” said Dearden. “At the moment our MPs have no ability to know what´s going on.”

 

He added that British MPs have “essentially no rights at all” when it comes to trade deals – they can´t stop them, amend them or even scrutinise trade minister Liam Fox.

 

While trade experts say the UK government is very likely to want ISDS in any future UK-US trade deal, the US might actually change its position.

 

Although the US has long been a proponent of corporate courts, there is now growing scepticism. US trade representative Robert Lightizer is not a fan, and the US has already proposed to partially scrap ISDS in its NAFTA trade deal renegotiations after it has caused endless hold-ups.

 

As public awareness and anger over the corporate court system continues to grow, Dearden says ISDS is now “coming under pressure globally” and points out it has been rejected in trade negotiations by countries from South Africa to Ecuador. If the US turns against ISDS too, the UK could be left struggling to find any trade partners willing to accept it.

 

Photo: “MPs have no ability to know what´s going on,” says Global Justice Now´s Dearden who delivered a petition against TTIP to the European Commission Buy this week’s mag Find a vendor

 

Big Issue North is a business solution to a social problem.

 

It´s a limited company employing staff to produce and distribute a weekly magazine that is sold by people who have limited other ways of earning an income in the North West and Yorkshire and Humber.

 

As well as selling the magazine, our vendors are given advice by staff on how to get help with anything from developing their skills or accessing English language courses, to getting housing, financial or health advice, which can help them achieve their goals and improve their lives for good.

 

Around 250 people sell Big Issue North each week. Big Issue North sellers buy the magazine from one of our regional offices for £1.25 and then sell it on established pitches in towns and cities for £2.50. They keep the £1.25 they make on every magazine.

 

Selling Big Issue North gives people the opportunity to earn an income. It also gives them motivation and self-esteem.

 

Big Issue North sellers are making a commitment to earn an income – working not begging.

Eighty five per cent of vendors have never begged and 64 per cent of those who have committed crime prior to selling the magazine say they have offended less since they have been selling.

 

The Big Issue North Trust is a registered charity (charity number 1056041), which raises funds to provide a range of support for sellers including support accessing services, help getting ID, home furnishing packages and projects such as breakfast clubs.

 

——————–

 

Big Issue North started in December 1992 as a Manchester supplement within the London-based Big Issue.

 

From there, Big Issue North grew as an independent publication distributed in the North West and Yorkshire and Humber. To expand the range of services that we offered to vendors, Big Issue North Trust was established in 1996.

 

A big fundraising campaign, plus National Lottery money and a regeneration grant from English Partnerships meant we were able to move into office in Manchester in 1998, with offices in Liverpool, Leeds, Sheffield and Hull to follow, along with sub-offices in Preston and Kendal.

 

Since becoming independent, we have retained close ties with Big Issue, sharing advertising and working together on common projects to support our vendors and improve what we do.

 

Big Issue North is also one of 112 street paper projects in 34 countries, which are supported INSP (International Network of Street Papers). INSP supports the development and sustainability of its members, and adds value to their work so that thousands of homeless vendors – more than 250,000 so far – can earn a living and improve their lives. INSP does this by providing a range of services and projects, including the annual Global Street Paper Summit and the INSP News Service.

 

Big Issue North and Big Issue North Trust are part of The Big Life group. Working across the north, Big Life is in the business of changing lives, creating opportunities for people who have the least.

2018-03-25 Public trust is undermined when Police malfeasance is brought to light. Front-line officers, but what about Leadership?

 Corruption  No Responses »
Mar 262018
 

From: Sandra Finley
Sent: March 26, 2018 1:31 PM
To: The Sunday Edition
Subject: re March 25 Edition, commentary, Police malfeasance

 

Dear Michael Enright,     (CBC Radio, The Sunday Edition)

 

Yes, public trust in Canadian justice is undermined when Police malfeasance is brought to light.   It challenges the public image of the Police.

The examples cited in your commentary were of front-line officers, for example, lying under oath.

There was no mention of the higher-ups in the Policing organization.   Leadership has a large influence on the ethical behaviour of subordinates.

 

An excerpt from the book, “Social Media, Politics and the State: Protests, Revolutions, Riots, Crime and Policing in the Age of Facebook, Twitter and Youtube” (2014),  is available online.   It illuminates the example I am unable to dislodge from my memory, of the role of police Leadership itself, in the undermining of public trust in the Police.

 

There have been seven hundred thousand “views” of the main video of police officers disguised as protesters at Montebello in 2007, and just under another hundred thousand hits on the secondary videos.   The numbers of people who have discussed, read articles, and been informed by newscasts adds to those numbers.  The actions of front-line officers were not only influenced,  they were directed by police Leadership.

In the aftermath of Montebello,  I did not observe venom spit at the three officers who were arguably there to incite violence, which is an offence.  It was understood that the problem was with the “higher-ups” who condoned, stone-walled, and refused to hold a public inquiry as to who was behind the decision to deploy police provocateurs.

 

Excerpts from  Social Media, Politics and the State elucidate further:

(Police ‘Image Work’, p. 231).

“Police use news media to manage and maintain control over situations, including their public image.”

Note, the management of public image is performed not by front-line officers, but by the higher-ups.

The Police have traditionally set the framework to  “maintain control over their public perception of authority as legitimate” . . . “ the public perception of the police as THE legitimate authority (social power)”.   . . .

In a changed world, if police actions are illegitimate, social media makes it possible to transfer some control over imaging out of police hands.  They are no longer the ‘authorized knowers’ of the situation.

“Police continue to favour news media contacts to control and frame events.”

Official police statements are used for this purpose.  (Again, that is not the work of front-line officers.)  In the particular example, the official police statements were contradicted by on-line videos taken at the event.  The lies (contradictions) were quickly pointed out by the on-line community.

 

I just wanted to point out that it is unfair to point out malfeasance by front-line officers, and exclude malfeasance by “the higher-ups”.  I provide one egregious example (Montebello) to make the case;  there are others.

 

My friends and family know not to phone me on Sunday mornings; I do not have time for them when the Sunday Edition is on.   Thank-you to you, and to everyone at The Sunday Edition.

 

Sandra Finley

 

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