Category Archives: Freedom

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Re: We Are Less Free Today Than 40 Years Ago; The Social Justice Threat To Liberty, Ryan Alford, both, April 16.The United States Bill of Rights is based on enlightenment political theory: the natural rights of John Locke; Jean-Jacques Rousseaus The Social Contract; maybe Immanuel Kants moral principles based on human autonomy. All uphold the principle of inalienable human rights. To suggest a right is granted but can be limited, subject only to such reasonable limits prescribed by law as can be demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society, is like suggesting one can be a little bit pregnant.

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Rights are generally designed as a buffer against government overreach. When government can override rights with a notwithstanding clause, we have no individual rights. A right is a right, or it isnt. You cant suck and blow at the same time.Larry Sylvester, Acton, Ont.

Kudos to Ryan Alford for nailing the most important constitutional issue of our time: should the government and courts be deciding social justice issues, or should individuals, through their own deliberation, decide for themselves. Liberty and freedom should rest in the peoples hands as was originally conceived by our Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Freedom of speech is the most essential cornerstone of democracy. Trust the people.Patrick Skillings, Victoria.

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Re: Ukraine Burns, Canada Hesitates, John Ivison, April 19.Ukraine needs help now. Canada has a supply of light armoured vehicles in storage, but rather than providing immediate aid to Ukraine by sending them, Defence Minister Anita Anand is thinking about sending new ones for which there hasnt even been a contract awarded to build them. Ukraine needs help now, not months from now.

When first elected, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced that Canada is back, yet there has been very little to support this statement. His government should do the humane thing and get those light armoured vehicles out of storage and over to Ukraine as quickly as possible.Barbara Cantlie, Toronto.

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Re: The Problem With Banning Holocaust Denial, Terry Glavin, April 14; Holocaust Denial Ban Likely To Be Pointless, Chris Selley, April 16.A number of National Post columnists have expressed doubts as to the legality and effectiveness of legislation being proposed by the Canadian government, and already adopted by several European countries, to ban Holocaust denial. Although they acknowledge the evils of antisemitism and Holocaust denial, little is offered on how to stem the tide of antisemitism other than public education.

Statistics indicate a troubling rise in antisemitism around the world. It must never be permitted to reach the levels it did in the 1940s. Certainly education is vital, but whose freedom of expression is impeded, other than antisemites, by the proposed language in the budget, condemning those who wilfully promote antisemitism by condoning, denying or downplaying the Holocaust?Sam Mitnick, Cte-Saint-Luc, Que.

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Re: No, Poilievres Populism Isnt Racist, Adam Zivo, April 16.Its early days in the Conservative leadership race, so there is more hype than scrutiny around what Pierre Poilievre has promised at this juncture. His musings about the Bank of Canada and its independence would be a game-changer, and not in a good way. His promise to speed up the accreditation for foreign workers is a non-starter, as the provinces control the accreditation process and it is there for a good reason. There are standards in our various professions and trades, and many immigrants coming in simply dont meet those standards. There is no fast track to becoming qualified in Canada as immigrants must pass the same exams as everyone else.

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Poilievre has to get through the leadership election in September, and then spend three years or less trying to convince voters to choose the Conservatives next time out. This will be a big ask, as the more right-wing element of the party that former prime minister Stephen Harper spent 10 years keeping power away from will most definitely be a part of Poilivres cabinet if he succeeds at defeating the Liberals. It would seem unlikely that voters would consider a party that would have anti-abortionist, anti-vaccine and pro-gun advocates in its cabinet.Jeff Spooner, Kinburn, Ont.

Re: Sweden, Finland Edge Closer To Joining NATO, April 14.Russia has threatened to move its nukes and hypersonic missiles closer to Europe if Sweden and Finland join NATO. But arent these the same missiles that can easily cover long distances? Having Russian missiles on Europes doorstep, rather than many kilometres away, is a distinction without a difference. The question is: will Russia ever deploy them?

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Russian President Vladimir Putin knows that NATO has no offensive designs over Russian territory and is no threat to Russia, per se. The present madness stems from the realization that NATO on Russias doorstep means its doorstep will stay right where it is.Mike McCrodan, Langley, B.C.

Re: 40,000 Deported By Force, Says Mariupol Mayor, April 19.The city of Mariupol, Ukraine, has reportedly been almost completely destroyed by the invading Russians.

There is a town in France, Oradour-sur-Glane, that is the site of a Nazi atrocity during the Second World War. In 1944, the retreating Nazis herded the population into the towns church, barred the doors and set it on fire. Then they razed the village to the ground. After the war, the French left the destroyed village at it was, never to be rebuilt. Now it stands as a memorial to those killed by Nazi atrocities.

When all of this is over, and Ukraine has survived, something like that should be done with at least a section of Mariupol: a memorial to the insanity, and the victims, of Vladimir Putin. Never to be forgotten.Murray Bowman, Vancouver.

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Letters to the editor: True freedom does not have loopholes - National Post

Steve Leder is the Senior Rabbi of Wilshire Boulevard Temple in Los Angeles.

During Passover, our festival of freedom, we celebrate two kinds of freedom: Freedom from, and freedom to.

We remind ourselves that freedom from slavery is an imperative to use that freedom to liberate others who remain oppressed.

God granted us free will. Human suffering is therefore a human problem, not a God problem. We cannot only pray for freedom and peace; we have to work for them.

There are more slaves in the world now than any other time in history. Their anguish is in the clothes we wear, our coffee, our phones, and in many, even sadder ways. There are billions more people shackled by poverty, addiction, depression, anxiety, abuse, loneliness, and of course, this cruel and senseless war in Ukraine.

The religious question, the spiritual question, the Easter and Passover question is: what shall we, who are among the freest and most fortunate humans who ever lived, do with our freedom and good fortune?

Let's not congratulate ourselves, until we use them to liberate our brothers and sisters in Ukraine and everywhere from the Pharaohs of today.

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Story produced by Julie Kracov and Amy Wall. Editor: Chad Cardin.

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A Passover prayer: We must use our freedom to liberate the oppressed - CBS News

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Freedom softball team knocks off Liberty 5-3 | Sports - thepress.net

POMPANO BEACH, Fla.--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Today, Stimwave Technologies announced the level-1 FREEDOM clinical trial series launch. The FREEDOM clinical trial series consists of multi-center, prospective, randomized trials that monitor chronic pain patients responses to peripheral nerve stimulation (PNS) over time. Leading through the investment of level-1 evidence-based data in PNS is a central part of Stimwaves ongoing commitment to outstanding outcomes for treating patients suffering from chronic pain. Upon completion of the FREEDOM clinical trial series, the study data will be aggregated to demonstrate further broad proof of efficacy with Stimwaves Freedom PNS therapy.

Freedom-1 for Chronic Knee Pain

FREEDOM-1 is Stimwaves first clinical trial (in the series) to evaluate treating patients with chronic knee pain using the Stimwave Freedom PNS system. The primary endpoint consists of a reduction in pain equal to or greater than 50% based on the visual analog scale. Secondary outcomes will be related to changes in the physical function of patients knees while undergoing treatment, and overall quality of life improvement.

Knee pain is one of the most prevalent forms of chronic pain experienced by patients globally and is strongly correlated with the high volumes of surgical procedures performed each year on the joint, said Standiford Helm, MD, Lead Investigator for Freedom 1. Despite the surgical interventions available today to fix functional problems, a patients quality of life can be severely impacted by chronic pain and subsequent reductions in mobility. The Freedom PNS system offers a unique solution by addressing chronic knee pain associated with a specific peripheral nerve, at the source.

A key component of Stimwaves long-term value creation strategy is to collaborate with leading centers to generate high-quality, level-1 clinical data that supports the appropriate use of the Freedom PNS therapy through our market-leading medical education and market access initiatives. We are very excited to launch this initial FREEDOM-1 study in connection with the treatment of chronic knee pain and look forward to launching additional similarly structured chronic pain trials as part of our larger commitment, said Aure Bruneau, Stimwaves Chief Executive Officer.

About Stimwave Technologies Incorporated

Stimwave Technologies is a medical device company that develops, manufactures, and markets, neuromodulation products. Its Peripheral Nerve Stimulation (PNS) and Spinal Cord Stimulation (SCS) products are implanted technology that block pain signals to the brain and provide a drug-free alternative for treating patients suffering from chronic pain. Stimwave Technologies Freedom Systems, the SCS and PNS products, provide a unique and innovative technology with an HF-EMC wireless energy transfer from an external transmitter and antenna to the implanted electrode array and separate receiver. Stimwave Technologies FDA-cleared product portfolio can treat nerves from the neck down that are causing pain. Stimwave Technologies principal place of business is in Pompano Beach, Florida and it operates worldwide through its operating subsidiaries. For more information, please visit https://stimwavefreedom.com/.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20220419005973/en/

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Stimwave Technologies Launches FREEDOM-1 Clinical Trial for Peripheral Nerve Stimulation to Treat Chronic Knee Pain - BioSpace

Mary Annette PemberIndian Country Today

ODANAH, Wisconsin It was the blue ceiling that got me.

Although St. Marys Catholic Church is tiny, its vaulted ceiling soars to an unexpected height. Its an impossible robins egg blue or the hue of a blue sky that could never exist. Unexpectedly, it drove my heart into my throat, where it stayed for several minutes. That blue color obliterated journalistic objectivity, placing me back into a wordless, needy childhood.

I realized at last that the ceiling was the same color as the little blue Virgin Mary medal that lived between my mothers breasts, fixed to her brassiere with a safety pin. That medal would gaze back at me when we laid down in bed together for afternoon naps, at bedtime or just to visit. Those were the times she told me the Sister School stories, her life at St. Marys Catholic Indian boarding school and her childhood on the Bad River Ojibwe Reservation in Wisconsin.

The little church is all that remains now of the mission school buildings.

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Catholic icons and sense of place are forever intertwined in my psyche regardless of my efforts to connect to my Ojibwe language, culture and heritage. Although I follow traditional Ojibwe spirituality and havent been a practicing Catholic in many years, Catholicism continues to occupy a corner of my being.

That occupation of the soul, I realize, was part of Catholic missionaries plans for Indigenous peoples. Although they achieved their goals in many ways, I recently discovered that my own people engaged in remarkable acts of stealth resistance to an assimilationist agenda whose aim was to obliterate our world view.

During my recent visit to the old Bad River mission grounds and the Mother House of the Franciscan Sisters of Perpetual Adoration, the order of nuns who taught at St. Marys, I gained unexpected insights into ways that our ancestors worked within a rigid system of oppression to preserve and pass along our precious gifts of culture and language.

For the first time, I also began to understand the barriers for Catholic leadership in facing the churchs role in forwarding colonial, assimilationist Native policies.

Statues of a nun and Native children in a shrine outside of St. Mary's Church on the Bad River Ojibwe reservation in Wisconsin. St. Mary's Indian Boarding School was located on this site but has since been torn down. (Photo by Mary Annette Pember/Indian Country Today)

Like many Catholic orders that operated Indian boarding and day schools, the Sisters of Perpetual Adoration have embarked on a campaign to examine their organizations role in the assimilation process that aimed to strip away Indigenous culture and language. While heartfelt and sincere, their efforts seemed vague and overly cautious, however. As Sister Eileen McKenzie, president of the Franciscan Sisters of Perpetual Adoration, said during an interview with Indian Country Today, We are in a big learning curve about our history at St. Marys.

Over the past two or three years, the sisters have begun to realize there are issues over their past work with Native Americans, she said.

Weve been doing a lot of webinars and research around the issues and thinking about what this means of our complicity in federal and church policies that were unjust and genocidal, McKenzie said.

My familys boarding school experience of brutality, repression and shame for being Native plays an ongoing role in mine as it does in the lives of many Native people. There is an ongoing effort in Indian Country, predating by decades the recent media focus on discoveries of graves at Canadas Indian residential schools, of trying to gain attention of church and government leaders on their roles in assimilationist boarding school policies.

The fallout of historic boarding school trauma dwells with many of us every day. Therefore, its difficult to believe institutions that played such a primary role in creating this trauma view it as a part of a distant past.

We are learning and walking tentatively to see if we can help move to a place of healing while reconciling with the truth, McKenzie said.

Students at the St. Mary's Indian Mission School on the Bad River reservation in Wisconsin circa 1930. (Photo courtesy Bad River Tribal Historical Preservation Office)

The sisters recently donated $250,000 toward the establishment of the Mashkiiziibii (Medicine River) Culture Revitalization and Youth Center in Bad River and have reached out to the National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition indicating support. They are also sharing their archives, but most of the work seems to be limited to webinars and Zoom conversations.

We are looking at dismantling racism and learning how our church was complicit in colonialism, McKenzie said, pausing briefly. It seems like were not doing anything but we are learning; we want to be engaged and have a relationship with the Native community in order to ask what they need.

She added, I would say perhaps theres a fear of acting too quickly.

Sister Eileen McKenzie is president of the Franciscan Sisters of Perpetual Adoration in La Crosse, Wisconsin. (Photo by Mary Annette Pember/Indian Country Today)

Clearly she, the sisters and the Catholic church are all struggling with how to proceed in addressing the public emergence and focus on the churches ugly Indian boarding school past.

Pope Francis apology to Indigenous peoples of Canada for the deplorable abuses they suffered at the countrys residential schools, run almost exclusively by Catholic orders, is focusing the worlds attention on the long-standing role that the church has played in forwarding and benefitting from colonial policies.

It was, after all, church and Vatican edicts such as the Doctrine of Discovery that are foundational to Catholicism and Christianity in the Americas. The doctrine is composed of papal bulls or orders handed down by Catholic popes authorizing agents of European monarchs to dominate Indigenous lands and people by any means necessary.

The Romanus Pontifex bull was handed down in 1452 by Pope Nicholas V authorizing European agents to invade, search out, capture, vanquish and subdue all Saracens and pagans whatsoever and other enemies of Christ wheresoever placed, and the kingdoms, dukedoms, principalities, dominions, possessions and all movable and immovable goods whatsoever held and possessed by them and to reduce their persons to perpetual slavery.

Subsequent bulls supported the dehumanization of those living on lands in the Americas, according to the Upstander Project, and the dispossession, murder and forced assimilation of Indigenous peoples.

The doctrine has shaped the entirety of the White settler relationship with Indigenous peoples in the U.S. and continues to color an inequitable, paternal mindset towards them. These historic papal edicts are the genesis of U.S. federal Indian law in the U.S. Supreme Court, beginning with the Marshall Trilogy starting in 1823 with Johnson v. MIntosh which adopted the doctrine as the origin of American property title. Indeed, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg famously drew on the doctrine in her 2005 decision in Sherrill v. Oneida Indian Nation.

Pope Francis did not rescind the papal bulls underlying the Doctrine of Discovery in his apology, a point that was not lost on Indigenous peoples. To do so could be interpreted as a commitment to dismantle the institutional power structure of the church.

Regarding the pontiffs omission, Gerald Antoine, who led a First Nations delegation to meet with the Pope in March, said in an interview with Al Jazeera, In respect of the spirit of this journey for the requested pardon (from the church), it will require the full acknowledgement and the rescinding of the seed that resulted in the coordinated efforts by the state, the church and the police servicesin implementing these destructive and vicious processes.

If the Catholic Church is to truly atone, I realized, all theyll have to change is everything.

Exterior of St. Mary's Catholic Church on the Bad River Ojibwe reservation in Wisconsin. (Photo by Mary Annette Pember/Indian Country Today)

Stepping into the vast Mother House with its scrubbed wooden surfaces, statues of saints and angels instantly transported me back to St. Patricks Catholic School where I attended class from 1st grade through part of 8th grade.

Reentering those unequivocal Catholic spaces evoked an unexpected visceral quality of how my childhood memories of my mother are so closely intertwined with church iconography. Being near her while hearing her poignant little girl memories of her harsh life at the Sister School were the times I felt closest to her, a recipient of her love, confidence and attention.

Inexplicably, she raised me, her youngest child and only daughter, as a strict Catholic. My older brothers had little exposure to the church but after I was born, my mother fiercely embraced Catholicism, taking me to mass daily and enrolling me in a Catholic day school.

Fellow Native boarding school researchers have speculated that for her, immersing me in Catholicism was a way of providing me the best chance of surviving as a Native girl in the White mans world.

Certainly her own experience taught her painfully that it was the White mans Christianity that dominated society. After years of researching how we respond to childhood trauma and abuse, survival strategies of bonding with the most powerful person in the room, I see now that my mother had no other choice; the church and the Sister School were simply too powerful.

Jon Sweeney wrote in the Church Life Journal about Nicholas Black Elks conversion to Catholicism. Black Elk was a Lakota medicine person who famously converted to the faith in 1904. Asked by author John Neihardt what was the motivating factor for his conversion, especially considering the beauty and meaning of Lakota spirituality, Black Elk replied, Because my children have to live in this world.

The Mother House may be one of the most unlikely spaces to encounter a stunning example of Native resistance to U.S. assimilationist policies. But there it was, hidden in an old report languishing deep within the recesses of the sisters archives.

Although the sisters graciously allowed me open access to their archives, their holdings are rather thin, consisting mostly of a few scrapbooks and quarterly rosters of students who attended the school. Details about individual pupils were scant.

I was tickled, however, to find my grandmothers name, Cecelia Moore, listed on a roster. She attended the schools day program from 1911 until February 1916 when she abruptly left at age 13. In the rosters preprinted column regarding her reason for leaving, St. Marys secretary wrote tersely, for no good reason. This was certainly in keeping with what I knew of my fiercely independent and outspoken Grandma Cele.

The resistance or what my mother would have described as dang Indian bullheadedness emerged in a remarkable collection of documents and reports created from 1935 to 1940 as part of a federal Works Progress Administration project coordinated by Sister Macaria Murphy, principal of St. Marys School. Entitled simply, WPA Indian Research Project: Bad River Reservation, Odanah, Wisconsin, the volumes-long report documents vast aspects of Ojibwe life in the region, the industrial year, health data, history of the tribes political structure, military records of local men and traditional Ojibwe cultural and spiritual ways.

President Franklin D. Roosevelt created the WPA during the toughest years of the countrys Great Depression as a means to gainfully employ citizens in order to build public infrastructure such as school buildings, hospitals, bridges, airfields, roads and sanitary lines. The WPA also sponsored projects in the arts employing tens of thousands of actors, musicians, writers and artists.

Several Bad River citizens were employed to research and write reports on Ojibwe culture and spirituality; the tenor of the work, however, was clearly influenced by Sister Murphys point of view as a Catholic nun. Most of the essays on culture are framed by stereotypical ethnological studies of the day that emphasized that Native traditions were part of a rapidly dying primitive past that was giving way to the modern assimilated Native American.

I was disheartened by a listing in the projects index, Why does paganism still exist among the Chippewa? The term Chippewa is an Anglicized version of the word Ojibwe.

Dan Morrison, a Bad River Ojibwe man, answered the question in a short essay that is included in the report.

There are still a few pagans on the Bad River reservation, he wrote. Every person who possesses some intelligence realizes that the Indians knew nothing of true worship until it was brought to them by the different missionaries. We find that some Indians, irrespective of the development of their minds, do not have enough ambition to think for themselves; it is only natural that this class should follow along the lines of least resistance and while principles of Christianity have been expounded in their presence they still continue in their belief in pagan tradition as it is easier to follow.

Later, I shared my archive findings with my cousin Delphine Hurd on the Bad River reservation. As a young mother, Delphine lost her leg after a tragic car accident with a drunk driver. Recently she lost her other leg to diabetes. She is gently bickering with her partner Albert when I arrive. Here, hand me my prosthetic; I need to kick your ass! she threatens.

Seated around her kitchen table, I read Morrisons words aloud to her and our friend Jan Smart. After a few moments of silence, Smart said, Oh, he was probably mid.

At this we all burst out laughing. She was referring to the Great Medicine Society, an Ojibwe spiritual fellowship that predates European contact by hundreds of years. Despite the efforts of Christian missionaries, the society continues today in many Ojibwe communities, kept alive and protected by people such as Morrison.

Suddenly, Morrisons dismissive essay emerged to us as an act of resistance. The WPA project was created in a time when it was a federal offense to be caught engaging in traditional Native spiritual practices.

A bit of additional research corroborates our suspicion that Morrison was conducting a form of covert rebellion. In 2013, Chantal Norrgard described the WPA project in Tribal Studies in American Indian Nation Building. She writes, In contrast to the projects official purpose, the writers saw it as a means to look back on the persistence and integrity of their community and to address political and economic issues they faced at the time.

Norrgard quotes Morrisons later writings.

It is time that the thinking people of this country should wake up to the fact that little has been done in the way of preserving the background of the American Indian, notwithstanding the brilliant work that has been done to conserve the knowledge and work of mankind, he wrote. Today the American Indian stands out among American people not historically but as a curiosity.

Bad Rivers tribal historic preservation officer, Edith Leoso, confirmed our theory. Many not-so-devout Christians were still doing Ojibwe ceremony but they did so secretly, Leoso said.

But surely, I asked Leoso, in a small tightly knit community like Bad River everyone must have known about the activities of their neighbors.

Leoso believes that it was an open secret that people, especially elders, were keeping the Great Medicine Society alive. To tell on someone at that time was to risk their lives, she said. Our people just dont do that.

The federal Code of Indian Offenses enacted in 1883, which later helped create the Courts of Indian Offenses, was designed to outlaw Native cultural practices such as dances and other activities celebrating Native spirituality. Although the code was amended in 1933 eliminating references to customary Native practices, it was not until 1978 with the passage of the American Indian Religious Freedom Act that Native peoples could freely and legally practice their own religions.

Elders were respected plus people really didnt want that world view to be completely annihilated, Leoso said.

Leoso also explained that the Indian pageants performed at St. Marys for the entertainment of donors and tourists were actually an opportunity for elders to pass on songs and teachings from the society.

During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the White public developed a taste for Indian pageants as entertainment. Think of the poem, The Song of Hiawatha, by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, published in 1855.

Katrina Phillips, citizen of the Red Cliff Band of Lake Superior Ojibwe and assistant professor of American Indian history at Macalester College, describes the phenomenon as salvage tourism, a convergence of tourism and nostalgia for a history and Indian who never was.

Leoso said her grandmother told her of how the sisters and White audiences at St. Marys Indian pageants had no idea that the Ojibwe elders were in fact conducting ceremony right under their unsuspecting noses.

Our ancestors risked their lives and freedom to pass along the songs and protocols of ceremony, Leoso said.

Leoso attended St. Marys in the 1960s. She has dark memories of a stern environment with the sisters doling out swift, violent discipline for the smallest infraction.

Every time you went to school, it was like walking on eggshells, she said.

I asked her what shed like to see from the church in terms of accountability.

An apology is a good place to start, she said. An apology means humbling yourself.

Leoso thinks that true accountability, however, is unlikely.

Hiding behind this veil of righteousness isnt going to fly anymore, she said. They need to make their records available to us.

Leoso recalled her recent visit to the Mother House.

I introduced myself to them in our Ojibwe language. I told them despite everything that was done by the church to me and other Ojibwe children to keep us from speaking this beautiful language was an utter failure.

That was part of my healing, she said.

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Our ancestors risked their lives and freedom - Indian Country Today

If the UK Home Secretary certifies the US request to extradite Julian Assange, it will violate the prohibition against torture and set an alarming precedent for publishers and journalists around the world, Amnesty International said today following the UK Magistrates Courts decision to issue an order to extradite him.

The case will now be sent to UK Home Secretary Priti Patel, who will decide whether or not to certify the US request by 18 May.

The UK has an obligation not to send any person to a place where their life or safety is at risk and the government must not abdicate that responsibility. The US authorities have flatly stated that they will change the terms of Assanges imprisonment in a federal facility whenever they see fit. This admission places Julian Assange at great risk of prison conditions that could result in irreversible harm to his physical and psychological well-being, said Agnes Callamard, Amnesty Internationals Secretary General.

The extradition of Julian Assange would also be devastating for press freedom and for the public, who have a right to know what their governments are doing in their name,

Publishing information that is in the public interest is a cornerstone of media freedom. Extraditing Julian Assange to face allegations of espionage for publishing classified information would set a dangerous precedent and leave journalists everywhere looking over their shoulders.

Prolonged solitary confinement is a regular occurrence in the USAs maximum security prisons. The practice amounts to torture or other ill treatment, which is prohibited under international law. The assurances of fair treatment offered by the USA in the Assange case are deeply flawed and could be revoked at any time.

Extradition to the USA would put Julian Assange at risk of serious human rights violations, and hollow diplomatic assurances cannot protect him from such abuse.If the UK government allows a foreign country to exercise extraterritorial criminal jurisdiction to prosecute a person publishing from the UK, other governments could use the same legal apparatus to imprison journalists and silence the press far beyond the borders of their own countries.

The charges against Assange should never have been brought in the first place. It is not too late for the US authorities to set things right and drop the charges, said Agnes Callamard.

In the meantime, given the politically motivated nature of the case and its grave implications for freedom of expression, the UK should refrain from representing the USA in any further appeals.

Link:

UK: Certifying Assange's extradition puts him at great risk and would pose grave threat to press freedom - Amnesty International

Democracy has declined in Poland for the eighth consecutive year and reached its lowest recorded level, according to the latest annual ranking published by Freedom House.

In itsNations in Transit report, the US-based NGO raises particular concern over the Polish governments instrumentalisation of the politically captured Constitutional Tribunal (TK) to attack European Union treaties, the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), and reproductive rights.

Since 2020, Freedom House has no longer classified Poland as a full democracy. Last year, it revealed that Poland has recorded the fastest decline in democracy across the 29 countries in Central and Eastern Europe and Central Asia that it monitors for Nations in Transit.

In this years report, Polands democracy rating fell again, due to a drop in its score for the national democratic governance category. This was because the government has changed the system to its advantage, capturing and instrumentalising key institutions such as the Constitutional Tribunal.

The government has stacked the TK with its own appointees, in some cases illegitimately, according to a ruling by the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR), which last year found that the TK in its current form is not a tribunal established by law.

The TK itself has hit back, issuing two rulings last year that declared parts of the ECHR to be incompatible with Polands constitution. It also ruled that the constitution has supremacy over EU law and that a European Court of Justice (ECJ) order could effectively be ignored by the government.

Freedom House also notes that Poland has been refusing to pay millions of euros in fines issued against it by the ECJ last year for failing to comply with orders to suspend operations at a coal mine and to shut down a disciplinary chamber for judges.

The European Commission recently began to take the unpaid fines from Polands EU funds the first time such an action had ever been taken against a member state.

The new report also notes that last year continued to see fines for breaching Covid protocols overturned by Polish courts due to a lack of proper legal basis for restrictions introduced by the government.

Meanwhile, a migration crisis at the border with Belarus, though orchestrated byBelaruss authoritarian leader, Alexander Lukashenko, resulted in Poland banning media and humanitarian groups from the border and facing criticism for pushing back migrants and preventing asylum applications, notes Freedom House.

The NGO also pointed to the fact that independent media face baseless or exaggerated lawsuits and that the government sought to end US ownership of the countrys largest private TV station a move that was only blocked by a presidential veto.

Moreover, elections are free but not fair due to the state broadcasters bias and the use of public funds as election financing for the governing majoritys candidates, says the report.

Poland has also recently slumped in a number of other similar rankings of freedom and democracy. In the Human Freedom Index,published by libertarian think tank the Cato Institute, Poland now ranks 49th overall worldwide behind Albania and Mongolia slipping from a high of 21st in 2011.

Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem), which produces the largest global dataset on democracy, last year found that Poland has moved further towards autocracythan any other country in the world over the last decade.

Similarly, the World Justice Project, a Washington-based think tank, found in October that Poland had seen the largest decline in rule of law over the last year. The countrys drop was driven in particular by lower scores for constraints on government powers and fundamental rights

Polands government has argued that the countrys declining position in most rankings of democracy as well as regular criticism from international institutions result from outsiders failing to properly understand the situation, being misled by the Polish opposition, or simply being biased.

The ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party argues that it has actually improved Polish democracy by rebalancing a media landscape that was previously dominated by liberal-leaning outlets and by removing post-communists from the judiciary. However, critics note that PiS itself has appointed former communiststo the courts.

PiS also notes that it was elected to power in 2015 with an unprecedented majority, and then given a second term by voters in 2019. Its candidate for president, Andrzej Duda, was likewise re-elected for a second term in 2020. During that period PiS has also won local and European elections.

Main image credit: Jacek Marczewski / Agencja Wyborcza.pl

Daniel Tilles is editor-in-chief ofNotes from Poland. He has written on Polish affairs for a wide range of publications, includingForeign Policy,POLITICO Europe,EUobserverandDziennik Gazeta Prawna.

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Polish democracy declines for eighth year running to lowest recorded level, finds Freedom House - Notes From Poland

From the outside, the space is unassuming, another storefront in a light industrial park in Chandler. Architecturally, it gives little away: red brick, concrete, tinted windows, gravel. Its perimeter is lined with empty parking spaces. And the only clue to whats inside requires some basic Spanish.

Si Se Puede Foundation, reads the lone sign tacked to the wall outside. There'sa logo of two birds carrying a leafy twig.

Inside, in what is clearly a workshop, the mood is electric. A corridor doubles as a busy thoroughfare, teeming with young people, high schoolers most of them, wearing bright red T-shirts. Theyduck in and out of a conference room, tap away in a computer laband chat by a silent shelf of 3D printers waiting for their next task.

In a classroom,whiteboards covered in text and diagrams run the length of one wall, the backdrop to a fervent planning discussion. Here, the number of students on missions increases, and so too does a loud buzzing sound, emanating from a white door in the corner.

The door opens to a cavernous workroom, replete with banners and a dizzying array of mounted tools. Screeching saws are being operated by teenagers wearing safety glasses and big white ribbon bows that, one student explains, signify an enduring commitment to empowering female engineers.Across the room, others are wrestling yellow pool noodles into tubes made of bright red canvas.

Amid the chaos which, it must be said, is occurring within the parameters of standard workshop safety regulations a little whirring robot struts its stuff. It travels across a practice area in spurts and fits, alternating between launching balls into an 8-foot-tall plastic funneland swinging precariously on a set of uneven bars.

Its name is Red Bull.

In February, one of its creators, Liz Seaton, witnessed a moment of perfect synergy. She and the team had gathered for the robots first-ever test drive. The mechanical team had built the robot. The electrical team had wired it. Lizs team had programmed it. And it worked.

I remember the excitement flowing through me, Liz says. It was so awesome.

Liz was first introduced to the field around age 10. I think I programmed a picture of a koala, she says. But it was not until last year, when she joined Degrees of Freedom (DoF), a Chandler-based robotics team run by the nonprofit Si Se Puede Foundation, that her passion and possibly her career began in earnest.

Now a 14-year-old high school freshman, Lizis in her element at the Si Se Puede STEM Center (STEM stands forscience, technology, engineering and mathematics).No matter how much time she spends here and lately, its been a lot she always wants to come back. Its not like she doesnt have other stuff going on. She has schoolwork, and basketball,friendsand a 10-year-old sister (who, obviously, now wants to join the robotics team).

But this spring, Liz is navigating the biggest programming challenge of her life.

Her mission is to get Red Bull a beloved construction of metal, plasticand wire that sports little white wings and weighs roughly 105 pounds to climb up the bars, each higher than the last.

Autonomously. As in, by itself.

It is a mammoth programming task for a freshman. But if Liz can pull it off in time for the FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology)Championshipin Houstonthis week it will give her team an edge. And Liz loves her team.

Seven days out from Houston,she is in the classroom, punching code into a laptop.

Its crunch time, she tells The Arizona Republic. Weve got a lot still to do. But I think it's totally possible we can get it done, especially if we work hard.

Next to her, mentor Juan Palomino offers a stream of advice in the form of questions that Liz registers, answer, and works into the code without her eyes ever leaving the screen.

Her red shirt displays the team logo, a blue silhouette of two open hands with thumbs interlocked to resemble a bird in flight. Her neat braid is affixed with the symbolic white bow. Her black mask has the DoF logo and team number, 6413, on one side, and LIZ in block white letters on the other. Her fingernails are painted in sparkly red and blue, one color on each hand an idea she picked up from team captain Natali Rodriguez, who matched her nails and eyeshadow at the teams last meet. On her feet are black Doc Martens.

I'm proud to be here, you know? Liz says. Some of my friends will be like, She's such a nerd.I'm like, And? I'm building robots. What are you doing?

The DoF teenagers are sitting in a high school gym in Scottsdale, a red patch in a sea of students, closely watching the awards ceremony for the FIRST Robotics Arizona Valley Regionals.

They had placed seventh. It was a strong result, but their robot was eliminated too early to secure a ticket to Houston.The students deeply wanted to make it to the championship, which everyone calls "Worlds,"the highest level of FIRST competition between teams from across the globe.

Now they had one chance left: winning the Regional Chairmans Award.

Known as just Chairmans," the award is described by FIRST as its most prestigious. It is about more than robots, though an impressive one is still required, and at its heart rewards a team that uses STEM as a force for good in the community. The winner would be announced last of all.

The moment was particularly fraught for Tanisha Baliga, Khushi Parikhand Maria Estrada, who had crafted the application making the case forwhy DoF should win. Prior to the ceremony, the girls had received conflicting information. Their coach, Faridodin Fredi Lajvardi, an old hand in robotics competitions, was a judge in other categories and knew who had won Chairman's. Hehad given a pep talkthe teens interpreted as kind of dispiriting. On the other hand, Khushi had asked the Magic 8 Ball app on her phone if they would win.

Its reply: It is certain.

They had decided to enter just a week and a half out from the competition, mostly due to Tanisha's persistence. Mentor Izzy Thalman thought they had left it too late.

I was like, I dont know how to break it to (Tanisha) that I dont think we can do this, she says. But the 16-year-old Hamilton High student was very persuasive. Of course, Tanisha doesnt let me say no.

The team had won once before, in 2019, and the three girls thought they had another shot. In the application essay, they drew on the DoF logo for inspiration, describing the team as birds of a feather with Si Se Puede, and as a group that had transformed over time into a larger flock that strives to soar even higher.

The team had changed a lot in the past year. Until 2021, DoF was an all-girls team, but when COVID-19 led to a dearth of money, mentors and budding engineers, they merged with their brother team, Binary Bots.

The transition came with some bumps. Lajvardi, who is the vice president of STEM initiatives at Si Se Puede as well as a hybrid coach/manager for DoF, recalls some initial resistance. But it ebbed, he said, after the students realized more people meant more time to specialize in the parts of robotics they were most interested in. Mentor Megan Cheng noticed that while the girls tended to wait their turn to speak, the guys would jump in, eager to say their part. After some changes, like raising hands and calling on people instead, the group adjusted.

Still, DoF retained a feminist core and ethos. It is reflected in the teams structure, with all leadership positions occupied by girls or nonbinary people, all of them people of color. It is symbolically manifested by the white bows, which students of all genders wear proudly. And it is evident in the experiences of students, who talk passionately about what it means to be part of a place that welcomes and celebrates them just as they are.

It means a lot to Maria to be a Mexican woman in STEM.

It really brings me joy that I get to inspire my family members and other people in the community, she said.

Khushi said she overcame her self-doubt about venturing into the field after watching women succeed on the Arizona State University and Si Se Puede college team, Desert Wave.

Tanisha was drawn to the fact that in DoF she could do hands-on work, instead of people assuming she would take on a secretarial role.

I could ask questions without feeling like an idiot because every man wasn't trying to sit there and explain basic concepts to me, she said. Like, I know how to use a saw. Im asking how the code works.

Eight languages are spoken among DoFs 17 students, who hail from a variety of high schools. Many of them speak Spanish, which has allowed them to promoterobotics to parents from the local area in their first language, and to mentor a rookie team from Mexico. They have guided youth teams, and adapted toys for children with disabilities.

Recently, the team Zoomed with a STEM organization based in Ghana, and now has plans to fundraise for robotics equipment for its 500 students and get one of their teams to next years championship.

The students have at times been surprised by their own strengths. For Khushi, one past challenge sticks out. The task was to create an assistive technology necklace for a girl who was losing her sight and speech. The jewelry would consist of interactive beads, with a braille letter on one side and an icon on the other, allowing the girl to communicate.

Creating the beads required software Khushi didnt know how to use. I remember going into that project thinking I wouldn't be able to contribute anything, she said.

What she could offer was just as important as the software: empathy, for a fellow teenage girl. What do we need to tell our teachers? What do we need to talk to our parents about? What are some emotions and needs that we have? How can we make this necklace into something that's a stylish piece that she'd want to wear? Khushi said. Little things like that, that key to understanding her, is why giving a voice to these underrepresented communities in STEM is so important. Because you come out with products that are more inclusive and more user oriented.

When Cheng, now a software engineer at General Motors, was growing up, conversations about diversity never got further than, Oh, youre a girl. Thats so great. Cheng, 26, said it was amazing to see the students fully recognize the unique contributions they can make to STEM.

When people talk about diversity and engineering, it's not just like, Oh, you think differently,but like, they really do bring different life experiences that some students may not have, she said. And through these different experiences, our team finds ways to help others who may not be seen, or who may be left behind as the world moves faster and faster.

Tanisha, Khushi and Maria had done their best to relay all of this, or some version of it, anyway, to the judges. The verdict seconds away, Tanisha clutches the hands of Thalman and another mentor, her body twisted awkwardly to reach them both. Her eyes are tense above her signature black mask. She is sure another team, one with rockets in its branding, is going to win. As the ceremony announcer starts reading the judges comments, Tanisha scrutinizes every word for clues.

One team takes to the sky, spreading the FIRST mission…

Im thinking of like, rockets soaring.

… from using their engineering and robotics knowledge to mentor teams and engage with children …

There's a program for younger kids, so that could apply to anyone.

… to their analytical approach towards measuring their impact …

What is analytical about our team?

… the community flocks to this team.

Flocks … Flocks!

Tanishas eyes widen. One of her hands flies up to cover her masked mouth. She gasps in delight. The team is buzzing now, slapping legs, turning in their seats, huge smiles radiating from under their masks. The announcer finally reaches her conclusion Team 6413! and the teenagers erupt in a sea of celebrating red.

Khushis Magic 8 Ball app was right.

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Natali Rodriguez, team captain and Liz's nail polish inspiration, is surveying the practice field at the Chandler workshop, where students are tending to a stationary Red Bull.

I probably spend more time here than I do anywhere else, she says. This is probably like my second home.

Natali, a senior at Chandler High, is in her fourth and final year as a DoF student. She became captain after a nerve-wracking process,she says, that involved writing out why people should vote for her, posting it in a team Slack channel. When she found out she had won, she was at Ikea, of all places, with Maria Estrada. I was screaming and all happy, she says.

She is interrupted by a loud whirring sound. Red Bull is back in action. The robot has scooped up two customized tennis balls, each red and roughly the size of a basketball.It drives forward and abruptly fires them in the direction of the giant funnel. One of the balls goes in, a neat basket. The other hits a fluorescent light hanging from the ceiling with a loud bang and ricochets off at an angle, leaving the long bulb swinging erratically.

Was that … a success? I guess, to us, it will always need refining, Rodriguez says. It hit the light. But having one of the balls at least get in is a success to us, because it's kind of difficult, even though it may not seem like it.

For Lajvardi, the coach, success is about more than winning and losing. He is a relentlessly animated man who explains concepts with gusto, often by reenacting conversations, and comes across as part engineering coach and part motivational speaker.

But he is best known for a robotics victory almost two decades ago. In 2004, while working as a teacher at Carl Hayden High School in west Phoenix, Lajvardi co-coached a team of four Latino students, three of them undocumented, to victory in a college robotics competition.

Team's legacy: In 2004, they beat MIT. Today, it's complicated

Their underwater robot, which was named Stinky and involved the artful deployment of tampons to defeat a last-minute leak, beat out schools including the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Cambridge. A movie about the unlikely victory, starring George Lopez as a character loosely based on Lajvardi, was released in 2015.

Lajvardi happily recounts the enduring lessons from thisastonishing triumph. One, you dont get to choose who plays you in a movie(he wanted Keanu Reeves).Two, the boys won after he convinced them of a simple fact: Their brains were equal to the brains of the students from the fancy colleges.

Genetically, there is no difference, right? Lajvardi said. If you believe that, then there's absolutely no reason why you can't compete.

After 30 years in public education, Lajvardi joined Si Se Puede and was appalled by a study showing girls dropped out of STEM, or avoided it altogether, because of male-dominated culture. Now, he is working to instill a sense of self-belief in the DoF kids.

You are the only one that can control whether or not you're successful, he said. If you let society decide that for you, you're doomed.

Lesson number three: Its all about human connection. Role models are essential,not just having them in the first place, but becoming them, too. Lajvardi recalls meeting a Latina woman at a convention who had driven her sons for 4 hours to meet the Carl Hayden High School boys.

I was stunned, he said. I realized in that moment, how much it means. After the woman left, heleaned over to one of the boys, Lorenzo Santillan, and told him: Youre a role model.

He goes, I don't want to be a role model, Lajvardi said. I go, Too bad. So am I. If I don't always do the right thing, he told Lorenzo, people will think "Oh, you don't think you have to do that, because you're Mr. Lajvardi who beat MIT."

So now I have to ask myself, what would the person whoI'm supposed to be do? he told Lorenzo. So now I have to do the right thing. Whether I want to or not.Because if I don't? Everybody's gonna know. There's no anonymity anymore.And hegoes, 'But that's not fair.I said, 'Well, you can choose to live up to it, or let everybody down. That's the only two options I can see. So pick!

What does success look like for DoF? For this team, if they're all positive and they come back on fire. That's what I want, Lajvardi said. He wants the students to get ideas, get excited, and be even better next year. Winning is not the only thing, he says, but knowing how to win is important.

And the teenagers are working on it. The game they will be playing in Houston, Rapid React, lasts an intense 2 minutes. For the first 15 seconds, Red Bull is on its own. If all goes well, Madhumitha Madhu Thumati, a 17-year-old junior and DoFs programming lead, will get the robot, already pre-loaded with a ball, to autonomously pick up another ball from a defined spot on the field and fire them both into the goal.

Then Pedro Rojo will take over. The 18-year-old is the teams lead driver, and in his final months of high school robotics before he heads to ASU's Walter Cronkite School of Journalismin the fall. He thinks he might want to work in audio. But first, he will commandeer the joysticks in Houston for 1 minuteand 45 seconds of each game, maneuvering Red Bull from ball to ball, scoring goalsand evading his opponents' defensive strategies.

In the final 30 seconds, Red Bull will attempt to climb up four bars. The low rung garners four points, the medium six, the high bar 10, and the uppermost, known as the traversal, a solid 15. Pedro can drive the robot up the rungs, with impressive ease, if he has to. But the aim is for it to happen autonomously.

Thats Lizs task. Will the programming be ready in time?

Definitely, she says. We have to have it ready for Worlds.

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With seven days to go, excitement is still the dominant emotion at Si Se Puede STEM Center. But stress is encroaching fast. In the workshop, Palomino, Liz and Madhu are in a brief programming team huddle.

What is left after today? Palomino asks the two girls, reminding them they need a definitive plan. Tomorrows Thursday, Madhu says in response, her face stricken, fingers on her temples. Then she and Liz begin to recite a list of tasks.

Behind them, eight people are crowded around Red Bull. (Whats with the name, by the way? Pedro: Because Red Bull gives you wings!) The robot is looking good. Thepool noodles,ensconced in canvas, have taken their rightful place as safety bumpers. A little red sign bearing the team's sponsors is now attached to Red Bull's front.

In the conference room, Tanisha, Khushi and Maria are standing in a row behind a colorful stuffed bird, practicing their presentation for Worlds. Their speech draws analogies between the life of birds like nurturing their young and the activities of DoF like mentoring youth robotics teams.

The three girls deliver their lines, one after the other, to the near-empty room. They finish with a flourish, their hands rising in unison in the position of the DoF bird logo. The routine is nearly perfect. A forgotten word here. Lines spoken too fast there. But the girls have high standards for themselves.

A little rusty, one of them declares. They immediately launch into a discussion of pre-presentation anxiety, and how its immediately followed by post-presentation anxiety.

Back at the practice area, the programming huddle is over, and students are constructing … something … out of white plastic pipes.

This is a makeshift pit, Lajvardi explains,a structure to serve as their home base in Houston. The team has a metal one, which lives in the workshop, but not enough funding to take it to Houston.

In front of the construction effort, Liz and Pedro are stationed at the metal trolley that holds the joysticks and the programming laptop. Its a big moment. Programming preparations for the autonomous climb are complete. Its time to start writing the routine.

Red Bull climbs by alternating between its two arms. There is an extendable metal arm protruding straight out of the top of the robot at a 90 degree angle, and a wide plastic arm that spans across Red Bulls base. To climb, the metal arm first latches on to a rung and pulls the robot up. When it is high enough, the plastic arm reaches up and takes over the hold, allowing the robot to tilt. Then the extendable metal arm can reach for the next rung, and so on to the top. In theory.

Liz is writing the routine bit by bit, sending Red Bull up the rungs and incorporating things like the degree of the tiltinto her code. At the start of every attempt, she calls out Three, two, one! Sometimes the robot does what she wants it to, and sometimes it doesnt. But before too long, she presses a button and Red Bull makes it to the high bar all by itself.

Palomino erupts. Yeah! Lets go! Thats how you DO it! He high-fives Liz. Now lets do it three more times. Make sure it wasnt a fluke.

Its an invigorating early success. But getting to the traversal,the highest bar, is proving more difficult. Palomino and another mentor are stationed on either side of Red Bull, tossing foam underneath the machine as soon as it first latches on to soften any potential falls. They are also ready to step in and catch the robot if it doesnt latch on properly, to avoid a catastrophic breakage.

As the night goes on, they seem to be rescuing Red Bull more and more. The two ends of theplastic arm wont quite latch on symmetrically, leaving the robot hanging at an angle. They change the battery.

Can I get a quick time check? Palomino says. Its 8:29 p.m.

Ohhh, Liz says. My moms picking me up. Ill just tell her Ill be out a little bit later."

They keep going. Three, two one! Three, two one! Three, two one! The metal arm grazes the traversal once, twice. But it just wont latch on. Suddenly it is 8:56 p.m. This is your last one, Palomino tells Liz. Otherwise your moms not going to let you come back.

Three, two, one! The arm moves, and hits against the high bar, a rung they have just about perfected at this point … but on the wrong side of it. What? Liz says. A few minutes later, at 9 p.m. on the dot, Palomino calls it. An autonomous climb to the very top is not happening. Today.

You made incredible progress tonight, Palomino tells Liz.

I know, I know! she replies, dancing with pent-up energy behind the metal trolley. But she isnt disappointed. In fact, Liz is pumped.

See the article here:

Young robotics engineers work to give 'Red Bull' and themselves championship wings - The Arizona Republic

While anti-lockdown protests were a weekly occurrence in cities like Toronto duringthe height of pandemic restrictions, now that COVID-related orders have been completely lifted in the majority of settings, most would think that these groups don'thave muchmore reason to demonstrate.

Mask mandates and vaxpasses have been gone for weeks in all but a few select places, allsectors of businesswere long ago reopenedto the public, pandemic capacity limits are a thing of the past,and we cangather normally with family and friends again.

But some people in the province have kept on publicly rallying for "freedom" on a regular basis up to and including this past weekend.

Localshave beenreporting parades of people still taking over city streets in cars and on foot, waving Canadian (and American?) flags, honking, "trashing" nearby businessesand even accosting passersby and workersfor choosing to wear masks.

Protests took place in locales such as Niagara Fallsand Thunder Baylast weekend,leading to road closures and general confusion about why the heck such events arestill going on.

As one person said in a Reddit query, "Am I just completely out of the loop?I thought all mandates/mask requirements are pretty much non-existent in Ontario."

It appears to be residual crowds from the protests that took place far earlier in the health crisis during peak lockdown as well as the more recent and largertrucker convoys planned inFacebook community groups dedicated to the moot cause.

"They have made being against vaccines/masks/mandates their entire personality," one Redditor noted in one of the manyforums discussing the persisting events.

"It's their hobby. And probably the only people left who are speaking to them," another added.

According to the websitefor Freedom Fighters Canada, one of the organizations still involved in such events, the groups are calling for "The end of all government mandates; the end of all tyrannical bills and legislature our government has overstepped its boundaries, we are here to put them back in their place...working for the people not against them."

It seems that the main issues, now that most measures have gone by the wayside, is the fact that partially or unvaccinated residents face a different set of rules for entering the country after travel; that unvacinated individuals are still unable to enter the U.S. and other countries;andthe fact that face coverings are still required on planes and trains within Canada.

Unfortunately for the few still fighting what they perceive to be the good fight, it doesn't seem like many people really sympathize with their cause in fact, they seem to feel quite the opposite, wishing that if people were going to bother protesting, they would be bringing up "actual issues like inflation and housing costs."

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There are still freedom rallies taking place in Ontario for some reason - blogTO

Petaia Nome is one of the few people in the remote Pacific island of Tuvalu who has to wear personal protective equipment (PPE).

While face masks, visors and gowns have become a common sight in most countries in the years of the pandemic, in Tuvalu one of the very few countries to have never had a Covid case they are rare, worn primarily by airport workers, like Nome, whose job is to offload cargo.

Nome knows that if Covid does arrive in his tiny country, about 4,000km from Australia with a population of about 12,000, it will probably be via one of the planes that brings medical supplies and food, or repatriates Tuvaluans stuck abroad.

I love my job but now with the Covid, I feel unsafe and worried for my family at home. And I am very careful when handling cargoes, I always make sure that I follow the right procedures when taking off my PPEs, says Nome.

As soon as the plane leaves, all of us at the airport are tested and once the result is negative, I feel so relieved and just hurry back home to continue with my chores at home and enjoy the rest of the day.

According to the World Health Organization, the worlds Covid-free countries are limited to North Korea and Turkmenistan whose claims to be Covid-free are in doubt and three Pacific island nations: Tuvalu, Nauru and the Federated States of Micronesia, as well as a few other island territories.

The airstrip on Funafuti Tuvalus capital and main atoll stretches along the length of the island, which is very narrow, just a few metres across at some points. When planes arent taking off or landing, the airstrip is used as a soccer pitch or to dry washing. Sometimes people even sleep on it when the weather is particularly hot.

But since the pandemic began part of the airstrip is totally out of bounds. The hangar, about 300m from the airport, has become a quarantine centre and is guarded by police.

Whenever I am tasked to quarantine and the airport areas, I am always making sure that I and my other colleagues follow standard operation procedures, said police constable Hililogo Tepou.

She believes there is always a chance the virus could arrive via planes and cargo vessels but not if frontliners take precaution measures seriously.

In the meantime, apart from duties at the job, I cruise around the island, drinking and partying with friends and just do what I love doing. I believe Tuvalu is so lucky to be free from the virus and we should be grateful always for this, she said.

Tuvalu shut its borders in early 2020 and has not reopened them since. This has given the nation time to prepare, with about 90% of its adult population fully vaccinated and 85% of 12-17-year-olds having received their first dose.

Two of Tuvalus outer islands have closed their borders to non-fully vaccinated persons from other islands, but other than this, schools and other services are running normally and people live basically normal lives.

While most Tuvaluans are happy with the governments decision to close the countrys borders in early 2020, it has come at a cost.

Before the pandemic, there were three flights a week into Tuvalu from Fiji on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays.

Women who sell local handicrafts would set up tables near the airport to display necklaces, hair clips, garlands, small mats, and baskets for sale.

Anita Filigina, one of the women selling handicrafts, said she used to receive a good income from her sales.

I still sell my handicrafts just outside my home and at the airport when there is a plane and I get less. Luckily I have another business as my husband is a fisherman, said Filigina.

She is grateful that Tuvalu is Covid-free, particularly because big crowds of people gather at her home whenever she has a catch to sell.

I am selling my fish to the public without worrying at all because I know everyone who comes to my place is not sick and I am thankful to government for handling the country properly, said Filigina.

When Tuvalu closed its borders, Tuvaluans living outside the country immediately flocked to Fiji to be repatriated.

Onboard the last flight from Fiji to Tuvalu in March 2020, was DeAllande Pedro, then a Year 11 student in Fiji.

He returned to Tuvalu where he started attending the only secondary school on Funafuti.

Looking back, I feel I have made the right decision to come back home, he said. My school in Fiji was locked down for almost a year.

I am now doing my preliminary studies at the University of the South Pacific Tuvalu campus without any worry at all because I am accessed to my courses online as everything is offered online, and I can always visit local tutors to assist me, said Pedro.

When hes not studying, Pedro plays rugby at the airstrip, fishes and goes riding around the island at night.

Dr Tapugao Falefou, chair of the national Covid-19 taskforce, has said that borders will remain closed until further notice, with the exception of a few repatriation flights, funded by the Taiwanese government, which the government is opting to run before another outbreak of Covid grips Fiji.

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Freedom and fear: life in one of the few countries that Covid hasnt touched - The Guardian