"We need to understand that there have been and there will be other
events such as these terrible attacks."
"We're at
war against an ideology, Islamist ideology."
French Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin
"This is a tragedy once again. We're a free country, we have
demonstrated freedom to all countries of the world."
"Today, this freedom
is closing in on us. Life needs to be lived for everyone."
Nice resident Frederic Lefèvre, 50, friend of Church Sextant Mr Loquès
"[A
Koran, two telephones and a 30cm (12-inch) knife were found on the assassin, Brahim Aouissaouhim]. "We also found a bag left by the attacker. Next to this bag were two knives that were not used in the attack." French chief anti-terrorist prosecutor Jean-François Ricard
Church Sextant Vincent Loquès had worked at the church for more than 10 years Reuters
Three terrorist attacks in France in one week. The latest yesterday in Nice, following hard on the murder of French middle-school teacher Samuel Paty, at a school just outside Paris who was targeted by members of the Muslim community for his use of mocking cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad in his civic class, as an example of French cultural values in free speech in a secular society. The agitation that spurred the attack against Mr. Paty was incitement led by some parents of Mr. Paty's Muslim students one of whom had produced a video divulging the teacher's name and that of the school, effectively placing a fatwa on the teacher.
And now, a Tunisian man who had entered France unauthorized after he had been ordered to leave the Italian island of Lampedusa armed himself both psychologically and physically to mount an attack on French Catholics in his own bid for avenging hero status. Unlike the Chechen youth who decapitated Mr. Paty and mutilated his body, then videoed his triumph, who was shot dead by police in an encounter following the murder, the young Tunisian man who slaughtered three innocent people was wounded and arrested for murder.
The Notre Dame basilica was this man's choice to execute jihad. Bearing a Koran, he burst into the church before the first Mass of the day, resolving to kill. His relatives, shocked at the miscarriage of justice where a good, caring son and brother was arrested for an unthinkable crime, are in mourning, hoping the 'truth' will emerge and they will be re-united with the man they refuse to believe would commit such carnage. He had continually shouted "Allahu Akbar!" while he slaughtered a man and two women, and even as he confronted police before they disarmed him.
Brahim Aouissaoui's mother, Gamra, and family reacted with shock to news of the attack and his arrest Reuters
In his zeal to avenge the Prophet or simply to become a shaheed, and please Allah by offering up the lives of kufars, the Tunisian man entered the church, slit the 55-year-old sexton's throat, beheaded a 60-year-old woman standing near the alter, then severely slashed and wounded a third woman, 44 years old. The younger woman managed to make her way to a nearby cafe, where she collapsed and died of her grievous wounds. Nice Mayor Christian Estrosi noted the similarity of this attack to the one that killed teacher Samuel Paty.
That the day of this latest atrocity happened to be the anniversary of the birth of the Prophet Mohammad is another grim irony; a birthday gift, perhaps? In his native Tunisia, the killer may have known that one of its MPs had asserted the right of Muslims to take deadly vengeance on anyone who mocked their prophet. The Tunisian parliament was not pleased and discussion ensued whether to remove the man from his parliamentary post. They plan to undertake an enquiry of their own.
President Macron declared once again that nothing would subdue or subordinate France to a fascist ideology's demands, that secular France would bow to no religion, and he planned to deploy thousands of additional military personnel in the protection of vulnerable and vital French sites such as places of worship and schools. France had been attacked "over our values, for our taste for freedom, for the ability on our soil to have freedom of belief. And I say it with lots of clarity again today: we will not give any ground", he said, speaking from Nice.
The suspect was detained minutes after the attack at the basilica EPA
The 21-year-old Brahim Aoulssaoui arrived at Nice railway station at 5:47 a.m. from Lampedusa, the closest European point of entry from Tunisia used by migrants from Africa. He was not known by Tunisian police as a suspected militant, according to the country's counter-militancy court whose spokesman informed that he had left on September 14 by boat for Italy. Witnesses to the attack gave testimony of how the attack went forward and how it ended, validated by mobile phone footage and official accounts.
During the attack someone ran to a bakery shop located beside the church asking staff to call police. "I thought it was a joke, I didn't believe it", one of the bakery staff said, but at the person';s insistence, one of the people from the bakery walked over to the church, pressed an intercom button to alert the municipal police and they arrived within 30 seconds. "When the attacker came out [of the church], there was a kind of panic around the concourse [surrounding the church. There was blood visible", one witness recounted.
After the attacker was taken into custody, parishioners gathered for news about the victims. "We just found out on TV that our sexton was assassinated. We're in shock", said one of the parishioners, speaking of the well-liked sexton, a father of two children. "He did his job as a sexton very well. He was a very kind person", added Gil Florini, a Catholic priest in Nice.
On Thursday evening people gathered outside the church to light candles for the victims Getty Images
"Experts predicting that there's only a 40 percent chance of a negative result, that to me actually sounds pretty optimistic."
"Even
if you have fifty percent protection, we still won't know whether
these vaccines actually move the needle on the things we need to move
the needle on."
"In
medicine we license drugs and vaccines all the time, despite lingering
uncertainties regarding impact and safety. [We can't wait for absolute
certainty.]"
"The
point is to make the best choices we can, given the evidence we have
and to continue collecting evidence so that we can revise our choices if
the data turn southward."
Jonathan Kimmelman, professor, director, Biomedical Ethics Unit, McGill University
"None
of those trials [in Phase III studies] currently under way are designed
to detect a reduction in any serious outcome such as hospital
admissions, use of intensive care, or death. [Even mild infections could
qualify as an] event."
"In
Pfizer and Moderna's trials, for example, people with only a cough and a
positive laboratory test would bring those trials one event closer to
their completion."
Peter Doshi, associate editor BMJ (British Medical Journal)
"We
just don't know what to expect. You start asking yourself very
practical questions: If something doesn't work fifty percent [of the
time], then do we really have something?"
"Maybe
we do as an emergency response initially, but a fifty percent level we
would have to imagine over time has to get better than that."
Bruce Clark, president, CEO, Medicago
Protesters call for an end to COVID-19-based restrictions in Sacramento, California.Credit: Stanton Sharpe/SOPA Images/LightRocket/Getty
When
might a COVID-19 vaccine be available? When no fewer than 28 experts
with a quarter-century each experience in the field were asked their
opinion by a team from McGill University, the guess was around June 2021
as a best-case scenario, but more likely to come on stream in the fall
of next year. The experts were also of the opinion that a 3-in-10 chance
existed that an issue of safety would eventuate after approval was
given to the first vaccine, requiring a warning accompany the vaccine.
More concerning, that a 4-in-10 chance would arise when the first large
field study might project a negative result. As in back to Square One.
Professor
Kimmelman of McGill University who was the senior author of the paper
points out that fewer than five percent of non-pandemic flu vaccines
tested in humans get approved; long odds making him puzzled at the state
of confident optimism by public health officials such as U.S.
coronavirus chief Dr.Anthony Fauci who states his belief with a decided
certainty that an effective and safe vaccine will be available in the
near future. A more realistic view, suggests Professor Kimmelman, is
that an effective vaccine will evade the near future.
There
is no certainty that vaccines reaching Phase III trials representing
the final stage before approval may be given, will deliver normalcy back
to the world. Proposed FDA and international standards for such
vaccines are being raised; how good would be good enough?, added to
which looms the logistical challenge in distribution of a two-dose
vaccine, and inoculating the world community, much less persuading the
young and individuals at low risk of contracting COVID to be vaccinated
to help achieve the longed-for herd immunity effect.
Over
two hundred vaccines against the SARS-CoV-2 virus are currently in
development, eleven of which are now in Phase III studies -- each one of
which involves tens of thousands of volunteers. These are double-blind
and placebo-controlled blue-ribbon trials where no one is privy to who
is being inoculated with the real vaccine and who a placebo. Designed to
conclude after 150 to 160 COVID infections are seen among the study
volunteers, a data safety and monitoring board would be set to determine
whether fewer infections took place among the vaccinated group.
What
is of utmost importance, cautions Dr. Kimmelman, is whether a vaccine
will prevent deaths, ICU admissions or hospitalizations. Where the
difficulty lies is that hospital admissions and deaths from COVID-19 are
uncommon -- so that of necessity it would require a large population
over a prolonged period of time to acquire sufficient death numbers to
determine the existence of a difference between the vaccine and placebo
group.
A
minimum target of fifty percent efficacy for a COVID-19 vaccine has
been set by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, so that a vaccine
would be expected to be fifty percent superior over a placebo at
preventing disease. Moderna's vaccine in an early-stage study produced
neutralizing antibodies in 45 healthy 18- to 55-year-olds receiving two
vaccinations 28 days apart, as reported in the New England Journal of Medicine. Side effects such as fatigue chills, headache or muscle aches occurred in over half the participants.
While AstraZeneca's vaccine produced an immune response in both the young and old, Reuters reported.
It was left uncertain how well an antibody response translates into how
well any vaccine can prevent COVID, however. In the same token, even a
vaccine that works only half the time, offers an opportunity at keeping
the potency of the epidemic at a lower level, particularly should it
prevent severe disease and deaths.
And
then there is the possibility that vaccines with protection of 30
percent could also have emergency authorization under FDA and
international standards, when the debate turns to 'how low can you go?'
"The
problem you could create is the following: You push a low-efficacy
vaccine out on the grounds it's better than nothing. Right now, you've
got zero. Thirty percent protection? Better than zero."
"It's a really difficult question to know at what point do you say, 'it's good enough'."
"What's
the ideal? The ideal is we totally understand how this virus works, we
get a vaccine, we know that it will stop this pathogen from being able
to infect humans and we know that it lasts for a specified time, for
example, ten years, and then you get a second vaccine."
"You can't wait until you truly understand the scope of the problem because people are dying."
Francoise Baylis, philosopher, university research professor, Dalhousie University
A technician
works in a lab at Sinovac Biotech where the company is producing their
potential COVID-19 vaccine CoronaVac during a media tour on Sept. 24,
2020 in Beijing, China.Photo by Kevin Frayer/Getty Images
"With his reckless actions under the pretense of ‘supporting freedom of
expression’, [Macron] is triggering a conflict, [a] rupture whose global
repercussions can deeply and negatively impact people of all beliefs."
Turkish Parliament
"The Turkish president does not represent Muslims, nor the Muslim
world. [Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan] has political
disagreements with many countries in the region such as Bahrain, Saudi
Arabia, Egypt."
"It's shameful [Erdogan’s attacks on French President Emmanuel Macron and his call for a boycott of French goods]."
"In France, Muslims have as much freedom and enjoy the same rights as
all their fellow citizens. There are 2,500 Muslim houses of prayer. The
laws of the republic allow for everyone to live their faith freely."
"French citizens of the Muslim faith [should rally behind Macron.] Let’s be strong together."
Imam Hassen Chalghoumi, president, Conference of Imams of France
A Palestinian burns a picture depicting French President Emmanuel Macron [Suhaib Salem/Reuters]
"[President Emmanuel Macron is contributing to the radicalization of
people by insisting that caricatures of Prophet Muhammad falls under free
speech.] You are forcing people into terrorism, pushing people towards it,
not leaving them any choice, creating the conditions for the growth of
extremism in young people’s heads."
"You can boldly call yourself the leader and inspiration of terrorism in your country."
Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyron
"[Malaysia
is] gravely concerned [over the] growing open hostilities towards
Muslims following French teacher Samuel Paty’s brutal killing]."
"As a matter of principle, we strongly condemn any inflammatory
rhetoric and provocative acts that seek to defame the religion of
Islam."
Malaysian Foreign Minister Hishammuddin Hussein
More
than one in four non-Muslims in Austria do not want Muslims neighbors.
This percentage is remarkably high in the UK as well, at 21 percent. In
Germany, 19 percent of non-Muslim respondents say that they would not
welcome Muslim neighbors. The figure stands at 17 percent in Switzerland
and 14 percent in France. Overall, Muslims are among the most rejected
social group.
#IStandWithFrance and #WeStandWithFrance is trending in
Hindu-majority India, the country hosting the third-largest Muslim
population worldwide. Indian Twitter is alive with support for France's
position on extremist Islamism where in various Muslim-packed banlieues
in France some mosques and their religious leaders along with other
Muslim special-interest groups foment Islamist notions of defiance,
claiming French laws to be subservient to Islamic Sharia law. It is
where the violence of jihad is promoted, and which the French government
has now declared itself at 'war' with Islamist 'separatism'. In India,
that message resonates, leading thousands to express solidarity with
France.
In the Muslim world, however, Turkish President Erdogan
unleashed a storm of vengeance against French President Emmanuel Macron
when he retorted that he needed to have his head examined and furiously
informed Turks that French goods should be shunned. Presumably he also
ordered his wife to stop carrying her costly French-designer handbag. In
Kuwait, the board of directors of the Al-Naeem
Cooperative Society launched a boycott of all French products, ordering
their removal from supermarket shelves.
"Based on the position of French President Emmanuel Macron and his
support for the offensive cartoons against our beloved prophet, we
decided to remove all French products from the market and branches until
further notice", announced the Dahiyat al-Thuhr
association as it followed suit. Reminiscent of the 2005 outrage in the
Muslim world when the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten published a dozen editorial cartoons, most of them depicting the Prophet Mohammad in undignified poses.
And
out of that episode came universal rage in the Islamic world erupting
into violent protests, a number of deaths associated with those protests
and widespread boycotting of Danish goods. Now France is facing a
similar situation, sufficiently so that its government has taken steps
to warn French expats to take extra safety precautions wherever they are
in Muslim-majority countries to avoid any controversy over the Mohammad
cartoons and to stay away from protests where they too could become
vengeance targets like French teacher Samuel Paty.
The situation of his death is a replay of the 2015 Charlie Hebdo
satirical magazine publication of the Mohammad cartoons that resulted
in an atrocity that killed a dozen people at the editorial offices of
the magazine when Islamist gunmen went on a murder spree, that spread by
other jihadists targeting a French kosher supermarket slaughtering
three more, plus a female police officer a day previous. These vengeance
killings by Islamists as punishment for being Jewish and for sacrilege
posing as freedom of speech is what has motivated the French president
to launch a steep investigation of the presence of Muslim enemies of the
Republic.
In January 2015, millions of people flooded the streets of Paris and other French cities to denounce the Charlie Hebdo terrorist attacks.
An angry nation brandished brightly colored pencils and banners,
defending free expression and France's staunchly secular ideology.
Typical
of Islam, the frothing-at-the-mouth accusations of Western-based
attacks against Islamic values and the sacredness of its
founder-prophet, blaming the West for the terrorist excesses of pious,
faithful jihadists responding to the call of Islam, the religion of
peace, to mount terror on the non-Muslim countries of 'war'. And so it
is that Islamists run amok in their pernicious, vile attacks against
infidel targets, while the clerics espousing the glory of jihad blame
the West's self-protective response to Islamist atrocities against the
West, is claimed to be nurturing terrorism.
To
their credit, Saudi Arabia appears to have spurned calls elsewhere in
the Muslim world for a boycott of French products, even while the
Kingdom condemns the cartoons. But in Bangladesh, thousands of
protesters marched through Dhaka, rabidly furious Bangladeshis stamping
on posters of President Macron. Iran took the outraged step of
diplomacy, summoning the French charge d'affaires in registering their
protest against the cartoons; an absurdity of sanctimonious heights from
the premiere fomenter of violence in the West, a signal champion of
terrorism.
And
so it is that the French foreign ministry has warned its nationals to
take particular personal care to protect themselves in Indonesia,
Turkey, Bangladesh, Iraq and Mauritania, to avoid public gatherings and
upgrade their level of alertness. Since the murder of French teacher
Paty, people in France have themselves been protesting, displaying the
cartoons in the street. In one city the cartoons were projected on to a
building. At least one Paris mosque has been temporarily closed for its
part in urging action against Samuel Paty for showing cartoons of
Mohammad in one of his middle school classes in history.
Security
alerts saw the closure of the areas around the Arc de Triomphe on
Tuesday and the Eiffel Tower in central Paris. A bomb alert forced the
evacuation of the Arc de Triomphe area and surrounding subway stations.
The discovery of a bag filled with ammunition necessitated the brief
evacuation of the Paris Champ de Mars park around the Eiffel Tower, in
another display of Muslim disenchantment with the French government's
taking such paltry matters as the murder of a Frenchman for 'insulting'
the Prophet seriously.
A woman holds a picture of Samuel Paty, at the Place de la Liberte in Lille on October 18.
"A lawyer should act with integrity -- not simply honesty, but with candour and the strength of good character to take accountability when mistakes are made. They must not only act within the Rules of Professional Conduct but be mindful of the consequences of their actions."
"In my teenage years and early 20s, I was highly driven to change the world and right injustices. I was restless, wanted things to happen quickly and I felt invincible."
"My time in prison changed me forever; it gave me perspective and forced me to look at myself and evaluate my weaknesses."
"I often relive the events post-2004 and know how differently I would approach that situation now. I do not believe the ends justify the means. They do not, and I have paid a heavy price for having made that mistake once."
Suresh Sriskandarajah, Tamil-Canadian, Toronto
In 2013 Sriskandarajah pleaded guilty in a New York courtroom to conspiring to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organization. He was sentenced to two years in prison at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn. While there he tutored dozens of inmates. He also wrote his first-semester law school exams, as a law student at University of Ottawa, Ontario. He was one of six Canadians an FBI probe charged with giving aid to the Tamil Tigers, viewed as a terrorist organization in the United States.
Three others were arrested in New York, while Sriskandarajah was eventually rendered by Canadian authorities to the U.S. to stand trial, accused of researching and acquiring communications, aviation and night-vision equipment and warship-design software for the Tamil Tigers a group fighting the Sri Lankan government for a Tamil homeland. He appealed the extradition request all the way to the Supreme Court of Canada, and it took six years for his extradition to take effect.
Sriskandarajah was born in Sri Lanka in 1980, a minority Tamil, at a time of escalating civil strife when at seven years of age he saw a relative die after swallowing a cyanide capsule, evading government soldiers. Not long after that, his father working on an oil tanker as a deckhand, declared himself a refugee when the ship arrived at the port of Montreal. It took a year before his mother and one brother were able to join his father and Sriskandarjah at age eight was left with extended family, until a year later he and another brother were able to join their parents in Canada.
He was an excellent student, studying engineering at University of Waterloo. He returned to Sri Lanka in 2004 on a student exchange program to help set up a technology training centre in the country's northeast where the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) acted as government and where he "was pressured to abandon his humanitarian work in order to teach computer programming to members of the LTTE's technology division".
Suresh
Sriskandarajah, 2006.Glenn Lowson/National Post
"I did not appreciate the broader implications my decision to associate with the Tamil Tigers would have. However, at no point did I support any forms of violence", he wrote in a 'reflection' to a Law Society of Upper Canada Tribunal tasked to decide whether a man once convicted of a terrorist offence should be granted permission to practise law in the province. "If the [law society] were to decide a person of Suresh's character is not eligible, this would be a signal that our legal profession does not accept contrition and redemption as truly operative values", wrote supporter Craig Scott, a law professor and former member of Parliament.
He had returned to Sri Lanka a second time when 2004 was winding down, at a time a powerful earthquake took place sending tidal waves over the coastal areas of countries abutting the Indian Ocean, including Sri Lanka. When it happened, he rushed to an orphanage where he had volunteered and discovered that 150 of 170 children there had been killed in the tsunami. "I felt compelled to assist in any way I could. I became involved in relief efforts, including the burial of dead bodies speaking with foreign media in an attempt to give voice and raise awareness to the destruction I had personally witnessed." And among other things he had witnessed the Tamil Tigers alone giving aid.
Just before he was extradited to stand trial in the U.S., Sriskandarajah married, finished his first semester of law school at University of Ottawa, but was taken to New York before he was scheduled to write his exams. He took those exams while in prison. The New York judge, Raymond Dearie who presided over his trial, said: "Everything about him is positive, but for his involvement in this [Tamil Tiger] activity". Deported back to Canada in 2014 after serving his sentence he transferred to Osgoode Hall at York University to continue his law studies, where he graduated with honours.
A three-lawyer panel earlier this month came to a unanimous decision that Sriskandarajah had passed the 'good character' requirement becoming eligible to be granted a lawyer's license. It is a standard for anyone filing membership application to the Law Society of Ontario to work as a lawyer to answer a series of questions to establish 'good character'. One of the questions is whether the applicant had ever been convicted of a crime.
Suresh Sriskandarajah in 2004 in a northern Sri Lanka orphanage.Photo by Handout
Ardent Victimization in the Somali/Muslim Community
Ardent Victimization in the Somali/Muslim Community
"We need to feel safe in our city. Change needs to happen, not empty gestures."
"Enough
is enough. The time is now. Justice may have been denied in the trial
of the killer of Abdirahman Abdi, but we can still choose justice as a
city and make community safer for us."
"We need to stop sending untrained people with guns when our neighbours and loved ones are in crisis."
IfrahYusuf, chair, Justice For Abdirahman Coalition
"I don't mind screaming because we need to scream our voices very loud of [sic] what's been going on to our people."
"We
must come together. I'm going to say it as loud as I can: Their fists
may beat us, their guns may kill us, but they will never, ever silence
our voices. Our voices are the most powerful of tools and the most
powerful of weapons ..."
"The killings of Indigenous peoples and Black people, it must stop."
Claudette Commanda, Algonquin Anishinaabe, Kitigan Zibi First Nation
Ifrah
Yusuf, incoming chair of the Justice for Abdirahman Coalition, leads
the march from its starting point at McNabb Park on Saturday.Photo by Ashley Fraser /Postmedia
Black,
Muslim and Indigenous communities in Canada have forged a bond of
victimization. They hold the greater white community at fault for their
colonialist past and their current attitudes, citing them as being
racist and prejudiced against people of colour, against Islam, against
First Nations. These are groups within the larger society that see
themselves as vulnerable minorities whose rights and entitlements are
given short shrift, and who are constantly victims of an unjust legal
system.
What
they also have in common is that they frequently live at or below the
poverty line. As well, they tend to sequester themselves in deliberately
separated blocs, choosing not to integrate with the greater society. A
feeling of alienation, of victimhood and vulnerability to unfair
treatment and public condemnation is also shared between them. Needless
to say that in the greater society there are people living in poverty
who are not of colour, not representing any religion, and downtrodden
primarily because life has been unkind to them in the circumstances of
their lives. Including mental illness and substance dependency.
Another
issue both communities have in common is that of criminal activity
disproportionate to their share of numbers in the community. Gangs,
violence, weapons, smuggling, drug dealing, gang rivalry, and
intimidation of members of their own communities who fear reporting
their illegal and often violent behaviour for fear of retribution. Minor
details which keep police busy, involved in their duty to uphold the
law and ensure community safety.
Abdi
Abdirahman was a 37-year-old Somali refugee, living with his family in
Ottawa as a member of the extended Somali community. He had a mental
illness for which he received medical treatment as an out-patient and
was prescribed anti-psychotic medication to control his outbursts of
mental illness. It appears his family failed to agree with the medical
professionals who diagnosed, treated and prescribed medication for this
man, and they were successful in having that medication dropped as a
therapy to keep h8is mental instability in check.
The Justice for
Abdirahman Coalition protest started in McNabb Park before turning into a
march, blocking traffic on several nearby streets.Photo by Ashley Fraser /Postmedia
One
day in July of 2016 Mr. Abdirahman went to a neighbourhood cafe as
apparently he often did. A busy place, there were many others at the
cafe and they were witness to his violently forcing himself on a few
women, one after another, at the cafe. One woman was so viciously
gripped by him that others present came to her rescue and with
difficulty detached him, escorting him out to the street. And there, on
the street was a young mother with an infant in a bicycle carrier who
had just stopped outside the cafe. His attention turned to her, in turn.
Police
had been called about the altercation, and one police officer arrived
in a police car and attempted to take Abdirahman into custody,
struggling to place him in handcuffs. Abdirahman picked up a 30-pound
road construction standard swinging it about wildly. Pepper spray failed
to stop him. He then sprinted toward the apartment where he lived
nearby with his family, the police officer in chase, having radioed for
help. When the first officer finally caught up with Abdirahman, again
struggling to place him in handcuffs, he was unable to overcome
Abdirahman's physical resistance.
A
second police officer soon arrived, appraised the situation, and added
his physical presence to the struggle where both officers together
appeared unable to overcome the resistance of the man in full psychotic
fervour. The second officer, Const.Daniel Montsion, hit Abdirahman
several times with his gloved hand in the face and on his thigh. Mr.
Abdirahman's nose was broken, and suddenly he became still and stopped
breathing. The two officers applied CPR attempting to restore him to
consciousness. When soon afterward responding paramedics arrived they
pronounced Mr. Abdirahman dead.
A
coroner's report pointed out that Mr.Abdirahman had died of a heart
attack. Brought on by the episode of psychotic attack, and that he had a
previously undiagnosed serious heart condition. Const.Montsion was
charged with manslaughter, aggravated assault and assault with a weapon (the police-force-issued reinforced gloves).
At his trial witnesses for the prosecution were found to have given
testimony that was contradicted by surveillance videos. Ontario Court
Justice Robert Kelly found Const.Montsion innocent of all charges after
taking all evidence and testimony into account.
The Justice for Abdirahman protest started in McNabb Park on Saturday.Photo by Ashley Fraser /Postmedia
But
some raucous members of the Ottawa-Somali community will not be
convinced that Const.Montsion is not a murderer and was simply
discharging his professional duty to the security and safety of the
public in extremely difficult circumstances. An ongoing saga of
victimization and blame has been released anew by the Justice for
Abdirahman Coalition which launched another protest through downtown
streets shouting "No justice, no peace", carrying placards and shouting "Black lives, they matter here" and "They say get back, we say fight back".
Traffic
was brought to a standstill by the march of several hundred people
while organizers unfurled yellow caution tape about the intersection.
And five demands were delivered through a megaphone announcement with
the coalition calling on the Ottawa Police Services board to freeze the
budget for police and city council to oppose any budget increase for
police so funding should instead be targeted for public health and
social services for the city's Black and indigenous communities.
They also called for "demonstrably racist, misogynist and/or violent officers"
to be fired, starting with Const.Montsion, including the Ottawa Police
Association president, along with other instructions to be fulfilled to
their satisfaction by the City of Ottawa. An alternative to a police
response to interventions with people in mental health crisis to be
immediately substituted. "No more deaths, fire OPS" was chanted by people in the crowd. "Defund the police", protesters shouted holding Black Lives Matter and Justice for Abdirahman banners.
A Justice for
Abdirahman protest started in McNabb Park and then turned into a march,
stopping traffic on nearby streets, Saturday October 24, 2020. Before
the protest began a group of the supporters took a moment to pray.Photo by Ashley Fraser /Postmedia
"Countries that have avoided the first waves [in Europe] have no reason to be complacent."
"It
might be a cursed blessing [given the historical precedent of 1918 when
some countries that managed to avoid the first wave of the flu pandemic
were hit harder, later]."
Yangzhong Huang, senior fellow for global health, Council on Foreign Relations
"We are heading into a very substantial fall/winter surge [in the U.S.]"
"We
expect the surge to ... continue to increase as we head towards high
levels of daily deaths in late December and in January."
Chris Murray, director, Institute for Health Metrics, University of Washington
Healthcare workers attend to a COVID-19 patient
at one of the intensive care units (ICU) at the University Hospital of
Torrejon in Torrejon de Ardoz, Spain
- AP Photos
Having
avoided the worst outcomes of the first wave of COVID-19, some of those
countries in Europe are now experiencing a case spike for the first
time while others which were hit hard by the initial invasion of the
highly infectious novel coronavirus are once again suffering the anguish
of having been ambushed by a virus that will not fade gracefully into
the past. This is a virus that is more complex, more unexpected and more
deadly than others that have visited an unwilling human world
population.
Parts
of Central and Eastern Europe where not so long ago countries received
high praise for low case numbers are now attempting to cope with some of
the steepest rates of infection in the world. In Latin America, South
Asia and the Middle East, very similar conditions have been anguishing
countries there. In Poland new cases reported daily saw a record 7,482
declared on Monday, the government announcing its plans to transform the
National Stadium in Warsaw to a field hospital, even while the nation's
president has become one of the COVID victims, and is now in isolation.
On
Sunday, 5,059 were recorded, its health minister resigned to be
replaced by an epidemiologist who has entreated Czech doctors working
abroad to return to their country at a time of national need. In the
coming weeks, warned Czech epidemiologist Roman Primula, there would be
seen a "significant increase in the number of hospitalizations, severe coronavirus cases, and deaths".
A couple walks through Prague, Czech Republic. Due to a rise in
coronavirus infections, the interior minister recently warned that the
country's medical system is 'in danger of collapsing.' (Gabriel Kuchta/Getty Images)
Poland and the Czech Republic were viewed as success stories a mere few months earlier. The German newspaper Die Welt had reported in June that Poland had "stood firm while others have stumbled",
as the country of 38 million had a mere 23,000 cases confirmed. In
Prague, thousands had attended a party in early July to say 'farewell'
to the virus, despite warnings from the World Health Organization. This
was at a time that the country of ten million had seen 12,000
infections.
Now, over 183,000 confirmed cases blemish Poland's success story, and the Czech Republic can boast around 174,000 COVIDinfections,
492 new cases per 100000 in the past seven days, indicative of one of
the fastest escalating outbreaks in the world, while Poland had 140 new
cases per 100000, a figure steeper than other global hot spots such as
the United States and Spain. For the first time, over recent weeks some
countries in the Middle East have seen the virus widely spread, where
Jordan imposed weekend curfews and Lebanon shut its bars and nightclubs.
Cars line up at a drive-thru COVID-19 testing site in El Paso, Texas, on Friday. (Paul Ratje/AFP via Getty Images)
Then
there is the United States where a study by the University of
Washington's Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation estimated the
pandemic could claim over 500,000 American lives by February, over
double the death rate at the present time, which is rated amongst the
highest in the world. Colder weather, it is feared, will have the effect
of driving people indoors where it is more likely for the virus to
spread -- along with the concerns that people fail to wear masks.
Even
as cool weather is just beginning to settle over the country, cases,
hospitalizations and deaths are increasing to the point where
nationwide, 76,195 new cases were reported on Thursday, almost a
single-day record high of 77,299 seen on July 16. India is the only
country that saw a greater number of cases in a one-day period on
September 17, of 97,894. Should 95 percent of Americans begin to cover
their faces with masks out in public however, the IHME suggests that
possible death-number could drop by 130,000.
According
to U.S.Health Secretary Alex Azar, the increase is attributable to the
behaviour of individuals, where household gatherings have become a "major vector of disease spead".
Pennsylvania recently reported its largest single-day increase since
the beginning of the pandemic.The U.S. on Thursday reported 916
fatalities due to COVID, one day after over 1,200 new deaths was
reported for the first time since August. The average is 785 deaths
daily over the past seven days.
A traffic warden directs traffic as motorists arrive for Covid-19 tests
at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles, California on 8 October.
Photograph: Frederic J Brown/AFP/Getty Images
U.S.
hospitals have seen a surge of up to 34 percent new patients of
COVID-19, from October 1. The hardest-hit state based on new cases per
capita have been recognized as North Dakota, with 887 new cases at last
count. The most new cases in sheer numbers were reported by Texas, with
5,820 new infections, California following with 6,365. Iowa, Kentucky,
Oklahoma, South Dakota, Tennessee, Wisconsin and Wyoming all reported
record numbers of hospitalized COVID patients.
While
Colorado, Illinois, Indiana, Montana, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma and
Utah reported their largest daily increase since the beginning of the
pandemic. An exception is the Northeast where there has been no
significant surge even as infections are trending higher. A single
bright light is Vermont with no hospitalized COVID patients and a mere
16 new cases posted Thursday.
"We've got a situation where for more than the last decade there's been a significant and unexplained upward tick in global methane atmospheric concentration."
Jonathan Elkind, senior research scholar, Columbia University Center on Global Energy Policy
"[It will] stimulate discussion and inspire people to ask questions."
"The concentrations shown are in the atmosphere -- not just at ground level. The concentrations in one region therefore may be due to emissions in another region."
"The global warming potential of methane is 84 times greater than that of carbon dioxide -- the greenhouse gas we may be most familiar with."
"It is important to know where, when and how methane enters the atmosphere. Reducing methane emissions is an important tool in the fight against climate change."
Stephane Germain, company president, founder, GHGSat Inc., Montreal
GHGSat unveiled Pulse, a free map showing average weekly methane
concentrations around the world at a resolution of approximately two
kilometers per pixel.
Credit: GHGSat
"We know that there is not a lot of industrial activity in Northern Canada."
"The red areas [on the map] are natural sources of methane. One of the important consequences of climate change is the impact on permafrost melting, which can influence methane emissions."
"But when you go into summer -- June, July, August -- the colours start to change to red."
"It is reasonable to assume that there is more methane due to the melting permafrost."
Sarah Gallagher, scientific adviser, Canadian Space Agency
Timelapse of methane concentrations in Permian shale of West Texas and New Mexico from June through October. Source: GHGSat Inc.
The most accurate map of global methane concentration ever devised has just been released by a Montreal company, the methane map called Pulse, using data from the company's two satellites, launched earlier in the year and is capable of detecting methane emitted by oil and gas wells, coal mines, power plants, farms and factories. This significantly updates climate surveillance, becoming a vital tool to hold countries and companies accountable for meeting targets in the reduction and eventually elimination of planet-warming pollution.
Access to the interactive map is free online, with a resolution of approximately two kilometres by two kilometres. A version of the map with a finer resolution of 25 metres by 25 metres is available through subscription. Accounting for a quarter of all man-made greenhouse gas emissions, the capability of tracking methane is vital. Methane emissions have risen by close to ten percent over the past twenty years, according to the science journal Nature.
A six-month period through to October 10 is represented by the time-lapse map GHGSat published recently, based on images captured weekly from space, along with information gleaned from partners such as the European Space Agency. Green represents average methane emissions, at roughly 2,800 parts per billion, while yellow is above average, and dark red represents the high end of the methane emissions scale.
The lockdowns meant to slow down the infection pace of the COVID-19 pandemic devastated normal demand for oil, sending methane emissions lower and these readings represent the early count. Methane's swift buildup during the hot summer months in the Northern Hemisphere, show orange and red pixels along the Arctic coast and around Beijing, through intensification on the map which identifies concentration of methane across the troposphere where naturally occurring emissions mingle with those caused by human activity.
Wetlands are one example of naturally occurring emissions, while mountains are seen to trap methane, as in Southern California at the Sierra Nevada range, or in South Asia below the Himalaya. More than 80 times greater potency that carbon dioxide over a twenty year period, methane's greenhouse impact fades faster than that of carbon dioxide. In a paper published recently, Professor Elkind of Columbia University outlined the manner in which satellite-driven transparency will permit investors to better identify which companies fail to back up their goals with action.
The map, according to scientific adviser Sarah Gallagher, revealed fluctuations in methane concentration in Canada's Far North as in April and May when the northern region remains largely covered with ice and snow, showing up on the map in green and blue colours that correspond to low methane concentrations. Roughly 40 percent of the world's annual methane emissions come from natural sources, with the rest attributed to human activity.
Artwork: GHGSat is aiming for a constellation of greenhouse-gas monitors in the sky GHGSat
"I can only testify to what I know and the fact [Guffre] has lied about me from the beginning to the end."
"I'm a very loyal person and Jeffrey was very good to me when my father passed away."
"One of the lies she told was that President Clinton was on [the] island where I was present. Absolutely one thousand percent that is a flat out total fabrication and lie."
"I never saw any inappropriate underage activities with Jeffrey, ever."
Ghislaine Maxwell, British socialite, charged with criminal recruitment and grooming of underage girls for sex
"The unsealing of this transcript has resulted in the public dissemination of salacious questions and answers that can linger in the minds of potential jurors."
Brian McMonagle, criminal defence lawyer, Philadelphia
"[The unsealing of Maxwell's deposition is] a long time coming and a welcome step toward revealing the evidence of the scope and scale of the Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell sex-trafficking ring."
Sigrid McCawley, lawyer for Epstein accuser Virginia Giuffre
The guilt charges of the underage sex network that was set up by and for the former financier Jeffrey Epstein did not die with his prison suicide. The British socialite who was his long-time associate, one-time lover, and accused pimp of underage girls whom she is said to have selected and groomed to be shared among Mr. Epstein and his friends and colleagues in upper-class sexual adventurism. For some reason known only to herself Ms.Maxwell left her native Britain to purchase a palatial getaway home in New Hampshire secretively but not so much so that her presence was unknown to authorities.
She was arrested in Bradford, New Hampshire, despite her shielded identity on July 2nd and locked into a prison in Brooklyn when the justice in her criminal case judged her to represent an unacceptable flight risk. Ms.Maxwell, 58 pleaded not guilty to criminal charges that she gave assistance to Epstein in recruiting and grooming underage girls for illegal sex acts in the mid-1990s. She is also accused of having lied under oath.
A 418-page deposition she had composed for the scrutiny of the law court in 2016 was not meant for public consumption and the speculation that would follow, given the recognizable names of those involved with Jeffrey Epstein who died in Manhattan in August of 2019, awaiting trial on federal sex-trafficking charges. He had pleaded guilty to charges out of Florida state for a non-prosecution agreement in 2007 and was imprisoned for 13 months. Virginia Giuffre, now 37, and underage when she claims she was Epstein's sex slave and who has sued Maxwell, urged that the deposition be released.
Now it has been, through the decision reached by U.S.District Judge Loretta Preska, at the insistence both of Giuffre's lawyer, and the Miami Herald newspaper. Her trial is on schedule to begin July 2021. In the deposition almost all those she named had been blacked out and her lawyers had fought to keep it that way, insisting release might violate her right against self-incrimination and resulting publicity could make it difficult to put an impartial jury together in her criminal case.
At one time, U.S.President Donald Trump, former U.S.President Bill Clinton and Prince Andrew of the British royal family were among Epstein's friends; he moved in high society; wealth and notoriety is a great opener of doors. According to Ms.Giuffre, Epstein took her to London in 2001 where he introduced her to Prince Andrew, and she counted that trip as one of three events when, according to her account, the prince had sex with her,
Virginia Roberts Giuffre. (Bebeto Matthews/Associated Press)
Ms.Maxwell was grilled under oath for over nine and a half hours by lawyers representing Epstein accuser Virginia Giuffre in April of 2016 when the civil defamation lawsuit against her was settled. She had explained that her connection with Epstein included aiding him to hire architects, cooks, decorators, gardeners, pool cleaners and other service people in the maintenance of his six luxury properties which included a townhouse in Manhattan, a home in Palm Beach, and two islands in the U.S.Virgin Islands group.
In this Sept. 2, 2000 file photo, British socialite
Ghislaine Maxwell is seen leaving a wedding in Salisbury, England in a
car driven by Britain's Prince Andrew. (Chris Ison/PA/The Associated Press)
"I
said, I'm telling you, you're not getting the billion dollars. I said,
you're not getting the billion, I'm going to be leaving here in, I think
it was about six hours."
"I looked at them and said: I'm leaving in six hours. If the prosecutor is not fired, you're not getting the money."
"Well, son of a bitch [laughing], he got fired."
Former U.S. Vice-President Joe Biden
Social
media platforms have become powerful influences well beyond their
importance as a site where people can exchange opinions and post
notices. They have taken the place of the office water cooler, the
small-press regional newsletter, the daily gossip column, and hard news
disseminator. And have become as influential as any big-city newspaper
of reputation and renown or network television empire. They rate high in
the public social gossip anchorage of casual society but they have also
over the years challenged reputable news media as a venue for active,
not passive participation in popularizing news content and populist
political opinion.
They
flex their media muscles as purveyors of news and influencers appealing
to their large followings and channeling their own political sympathies
for greatest effect, while punishing in subtle ways those using their
platforms as a loudspeaker for their own, media-unapproved ideologies
and preferences and political-right-spectrum allegiances. They convey
'fake' news without a blush. Plump for candidates for high political
office whose politics they approve, and try to 'silence' views that run
counter to their own. They don't take criticism with equanimity as
deserved for veering off neutrality as a social media platform.
The Trump campaign posted a screenshot as evidence that Kayleigh McEnany's account was locked Getty Images
The
evidence is not hard to find; the detested President Donald Trump's
off-hand and off-kilter remarks on Twitter come with reality-check
warnings. The White House communications officer representing the
president of the United States has been banned on Twitter. In the
upcoming presidential election set for early November, the Democratic
candidate is given preference, the Republican short shrift. Both Twitter
and Facebook which take the giant's share of social media popularity
and usage have taken it upon themselves to act as political mentors to
their following, pointing them in the 'right' direction.
Even
people within the international community-users of the platforms who
detest Mr. Trump are -- or should be -- dumbfounded at the activist role
embraced by the social media rulers of note. When the New York Post reported that "a massive trove of data recovered from a laptop computer" left
at a repair shop and then forgotten, revealed that the son of the
former vice-president of the United States and current Democratic
candidate for president on November 3 had or was in pursuit of lucrative
associations with Ukrainian and Chinese companies it immediately became
news to be suppressed by Facebook and Twitter.
The
use and abuse of political influence at the elite executive level for
personal gain? Who cares? There's an election to be won. And not by the
detestable Trump. That's the new news, evidence of corruption in the
Biden family. Yes, it's old news, actually, but news never given the
attention it deserved, as when Joe Biden gave his own proud public
account when he used his status as vice-president to force the
government of Ukraine to fire its chief prosecutor on the threat of
withholding a U.S. aid grant to Ukraine.
Joe
Biden and son Hunter. According to the New York Post, emails from a
recovered laptop indicate the younger Biden had or wash pursuing
multiple lucrative arrangements with companies in Ukraine and China. Jonathan Ernst/Reuters
The
Ukraine's chief prosecutor was engaged in an anti-corruption campaign, a
campaign that the current president of Ukraine promised during his own
pre-election speeches. The recovered laptop held emails that validated
what was already suspected; Hunter Biden introducing a top Burisma
executive to his father. Burisma, Ukrainian energy company, was facing a
criminal investigation, the very company that Hunter Biden was involved
with, and was lucratively on contract with for his 'services'. In a
talk to the Council on Foreign Relations, seen on YouTube, Joe Biden
boasted of his successful threat to have the chief prosecutor fired and
the investigation and his son's implication buried.
Any attempts by Facebook and Twitter users to post those findings courtesy of the New York Post
were censored. But it wasn't only the social media giants who censored
that new information on gross interference in other governments, on
insider trading on family influence, on acquiring lucrative contracts in
exchange for the inside-ear on U.S. policy and connections, but the
greater U.S. news media for whom the revelations were an instant
no-story yawn. Censorship, suppression of a kind normally associated
with corrupt, totalitarian governments which 'own' national news media.
The accuracy of the New York Post's
revelations has been validated. The story details, however, were
acquired through the active intervention of Rudolph Guiliano who when he
was mayor of New York during the 9/11 atrocity was a hugely respected
public figure, but now that he represents Donald J. Trump, a caricature
in many respects who has managed to lead the U.S. in unexpected ways but
has never succeeded in rehabilitating himself other than as a crude
egotist, cannot be viewed as a purveyor of truth and thus the story was
fated to be entombed.
Perhaps
the real issue is that it doesn't really matter beyond the arrogant
impudence of the news media ignoring an important story to shield a
favoured political candidate running for high office, because the public
which should be alerted so they are fully apprised before casting their
vote, really has a feeble choice in any event. Either the bombastic,
clumsy current president returns for a second term in office, or a
feeble-minded, lying, corrupt ex-vice-president is returned as president
of the great United States of America.
"Mark Zuckerberg and Jack Dorsey — the CEOs of Facebook and Twitter —
are being ordered to Capitol Hill to answer for their companies’
censorship of The Post’s expose on the Biden family’s foreign business
dealings in Ukraine and China."
"'Senate Judiciary Committee Republicans on Thursday authorized
subpoenas for the execs after accusing them of engaging in “suppression
and/or censorship; of The Post’s reporting."
The New York Post
Twitter blocked users from posting links to the New York Post article
critical of Joe Biden, an unprecedented step against a major
publication.
Photograph: Denis Charlet/AFP/Getty Images
This represents a general opinion site for its author. It also offers a space for the author to record her experiences and perceptions,both personal and public. This is rendered obvious by the content contained in the blog, but the space is here inviting me to write. And so I do.
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