Giannis Koutivas on the future of iGaming and affiliates – AffiliateINSIDER

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Following a sluggish 2020 so far, the world is slowly returning to normal. And as part of this, a handful of real-life conferences are coming back to the forefront.

This includes in the world of iGaming. Affiliate marketing expert Giannis Koutivas will be attending one of these in October with KingBet Media, which is titled GAME.

GAME stands for the Gaming & Affiliate Marketing Expo, with KingBet Media being an official media partner.

We spoke to Giannis about the upcoming event in Athens, as well as the upcoming Google Cookiepocalypse and more.

Giannis Koutivas: We are totally extroverted during this period! We want to give knowledge and value back to the community that has granted us with so many things in recent years.

One of the best ways to do this is to support conferences, big and small, and be there to help the industrygrow. We are proud to be media partners of the GAME Event, held by the guys on Eventus International. It is held on Athens, during the first two days of October. We will be there, waiting for you to talk about delivering value to the Greek market.

This one will be a real conference, not a digital one. But of course, it will be a corona-era conference! Organisers will do everything to keep it safe and I am sure there wont be any problems at all. Social distancing and old-school hygiene habits can make a huge impact asscientists claim andwe are ready to follow these guidelines!

GK: I think this is the elephant in the room. It all depends, whetherthe stakeholders (actually the browsers) are committed to reshaping the internet in a place where privacy is number one concern. If not, then this wont change anything at all.

New techniques will emerge and it will be business as usual. But if they are, then this could be the endof the web as we know it. Websites will need to rely on 1st party data, which means they need to produce their own ways of remarketing and not rely on other media networks.

Affiliate marketing wont be affected at all. On the contrary it will be king, because operators will see the affiliates traffic as the best-targeted traffic they can find. This will totally upgrade the affiliates role.

GK: We feel that online conferences are here to stay for some time, even though the feeling is nowhere near the same as the real-life ones.

In the absence of sports, esports and virtual games benefitted as many predicted they would. We think that these will continue to gain momentum going forward.

GK: Promoting online casino brands, of course. We even had to promote casino brands through our sports bettingchannels! The growth we all saw was monstrous, once there were no sports events to bet on.

Media production is also one of our concerns for the future. We wanna deliver the full value to operators. Both brand awareness and performance. We already host our own online slots Twitch show with kingbet.net and we plan to expand this tactic to both becasino.com and helpbet.com, our English websites.

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Giannis Koutivas on the future of iGaming and affiliates - AffiliateINSIDER

Defamation defense affirmed by Nev. SC in gambler’s case over blackjack footage – Legal Newsline

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CARSON CITY, Nev. (Legal Newsline) A gamblers bet that he could take down Nevadas Anti-SLAPP law is a loser, as the Nevada Supreme Court ruled against him on July 30.

Dr. Nicholas Colons attorneys at Nersesian & Sankiewicz came up with the strategy in an attempt to pursue their clients defamation lawsuit against the Nevada Gaming Control Board, which is alleged to have shown Colon using a device at a blackjack table during a presentation.

Though Colon wasnt named and his face wasnt shown while using a tally counter device under the table he says it was obvious that he was the person in the clip. The NGCB and deputy chief James Taylor do not deny that the footage was of Colon.

Defendants routinely use Anti-SLAPP laws to head off defamation lawsuits. The laws entitle them to mount an early defense that their alleged actions are protected by free speech.

In Nevada, Colons case presented the Supreme Court with a chance to decide whether its Anti-SLAPP laws violate defamation plaintiffs right to a jury trial.

Rather, they function as a procedural mechanism, much like summary judgment, that allows the court to summarily dismiss claims with no reasonable possibility of success, Justice Lidia Stiglich wrote.

Upon making the requisite showing under prong two, a plaintiff can proceed to a jury trial on the underlying claim. A plaintiff who has failed to meet this burden would not have been entitled to a jury trial, even absent an Anti-SLAPP motion to dismiss. The right to a jury trial is therefore still available.

Taylor gave a presentation in 2017 called Scams, Cheats, and Blacklists to about 300 attendees at the Global Gaming Expo, which is organized by co-defendant American Gaming Association.

A nine-second video showed someone, only visible from the neck down, using a counter device under a blackjack table. Colon, who was in attendance and is a well-known gambler, argued it was obvious the clip was of him. He charged the defendants with calling him a cheater.

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Colon admits to having the counter but says it cant be used to cheat at blackjack. Though the district court denied the Anti-SLAPP motion to dismiss his case, the Supreme Court reversed.

Taylors presentation was made in good faith, Stiglich wrote. Taylors declaration states that he acquired all of the information, videos and photographs used in his presentation through GCB investigations, and that the information contained in his presentation was true and accurate.

This declaration shows that the gist of Taylors presentation was either truthful or made without knowledge of its falsehood.

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Defamation defense affirmed by Nev. SC in gambler's case over blackjack footage - Legal Newsline

COVID-19 Emergency Response Latin America and the Caribbean Report: Based on Internal Situation Report N 16 (August 5, 2020) – Bolivia (Plurinational…

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SITUATION OVERVIEW

4.054.586 Confirmed cases

143.800 Confirmed deaths

At this moment, Latin America and the Caribbean is the region with the most restrictive measures at the global level

COVID-19 has spread to all 54 counties and territories in the Americas Region

BENEFICIARIES REACHED SO FAR 7.343.016 PEOPLE

HOW IS COVID-19 IMPACTING GIRLS IN THE REGION?

As previous reports, all CO report 3 mayor issues in the lives of girls: 1. Increase in gender-based violence both in virtual spaces and in everyday life. 2 Anxiety and uncertainty generated by the decline in livelihoods and economic means 3. And increase in domestic and care work.

Detrimental to the quality of education, lack of social contact and emotional containment. The issue of mental health is also been reported in several countries. The confinement measures are weakening girls social and collective actions, even if there are virtual means this is something not all girls have access to. This impacts directly to their access to education and self-organization in their communities.

As previously reported, the effects of COVID 19 have led to the collapse of local health systems, preventing women, adolescents and youth from accessing sexual and reproductive health services.

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COVID-19 Emergency Response Latin America and the Caribbean Report: Based on Internal Situation Report N 16 (August 5, 2020) - Bolivia (Plurinational...

Balancing Employee Health and Safety With Business Continuity During COVID-19 – Automation World

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Daniel C. Malyszko is director of operations and IIoT consultant

Employee health and safety is the most critical requirement for maintaining operational and business continuity in the COVID-19 communal work environment. When a positive test occurs in the workplace, the typical reaction is to enforce a campus-wide or zoned shutdown in the manufacturing facility, causing a disruption to production. Future management to prevent spreading should include pro-active measures, so that no production shutdowns need to occur while keeping employees safe and healthy. Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) is releasing guidance and regulations on the steps employers should take in preparing workplaces for COVID-19. Key to implementing OSHA guidelines could lie in data-driven approaches to business continuity. With that in mind, lets examine some possibilities.

A good first approach is to leverage existing systems, such as door access badge scanning, to understand who was in a given area during a specific time range. This data can provide coarse contact tracing resulting in more informed quarantining. However, the effectiveness of the data set relies on having numerous badge readers throughout the facility to understand where and when potential contact was made. Most plants have some level of access control, so this is a good place to begin building a digital index of data to aid in understanding the full scope of a positive test result.

Door access alone doesnt provide enough data to accurately measure contact tracing, so we must increase granularity by utilizing more advanced data sources to understand where and for how long people are interacting in a given work environment. Examples are work order systems, workstation logins, room scheduling systems, and location services provided by Wi-Fi and Bluetooth beacons.

One technology that has created buzz is a lanyard/phone Bluetooth node-to-node that provides not safe distance alerting, but this approach can only provide coarse contact tracing without context on where interaction has occurred. This sort of safety by proximity alerting approach is a stopgap measure to aid in behavior modification regarding social distancing, but it doesnt give the deep analytics regarding how people move and interact within a manufacturing environment.

Accurate location data is what most COVID-19 task forces are seeking to aid in contact tracing, and Real Time Location Systems (RTLS) is a technology many are looking at investing in. An RTLS equips personnel with a lanyard/badge/wearable tag and can provide precise location data with the addition of some infrastructure that complements typical plant floor wireless technologies. Ultra-Wideband (UWB) is one such technology that can provide 1ft resolution positioning with high signal stability. UWB uses tags (transmitters) on the person or asset and anchors (receivers) mounted on the ceiling or walls. UWB is also becoming more prevalent in the consumer market with companieslike Apple embedding this technology in their devices for precise proximity awareness to other devices or enabling tracking of tagged personal effects such as wallets and keys. While UWB is the superior RTLS, most manufacturing facilities do not currently have the infrastructure in place to support this robust approach. Capital investment would, most likely, be required.

So why is an UWB RTLS the best solution for contact tracing within a manufacturing facility? UWB RTLS can be a versatile investment with expanded use cases beyond tracking and tracing infected employees. Other applications include quick mustering in the event of an unsafe condition in a segment of the plant, panic button in the case of an accident or need for immediate medical attention, geofencing and restricted area alerting, people-awareness environment in an operating zone, health/safety awareness, people navigation and people flow analytics including heatmapping and spaghetti diagrams.

Additional opportunities for manufacturers to improve and enhance their operation are possible when they make the investment to deploy UWB RTLS in their facility. Examples include asset inventory and location, digital work order asset search, material flow and production planning, forklift tracking, guided picking process, and location-based automation triggers.

It is clear that manufacturers will need to establish a hazard analysis framework and roadmap by further increasing the accuracy and scope of visibility around potentially infected employees through ingestion of new technologies and data sets. There is also a need to assess potential infrastructure investments to provide a safe and healthy work environment conducive to meeting production demands that also meet the COVID-19 OSHA requirements. Currently, there is no one size fits all solution. Every manufacturer has different enterprise systems, custom data integration and specific application functionality requirements. But it is certain that a truly effective solution will rely on an index of digital data from many disparate sources. Addressing employee health and safety in the post-COVID communal work environment can and should be considered a digital transformation initiative.

System Integrators (SI) knowledgeable in manufacturing and advanced technologies can be an asset to manufacturers navigating the many options to dealing with contact tracing. The role of the SI is to understand the clients business objectives so the SI can provide relevant guidance to the client on the art of the possible through the deployment of advanced tracking and tracing technologies and analytics.

Daniel C. Malyszko is director of operations and IIoT consultant atMalisko Engineering, a certified member of theControl System Integrators Association(CSIA). See Malisko Engineerings profile on theCSIA Industrial Automation Exchange.

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Balancing Employee Health and Safety With Business Continuity During COVID-19 - Automation World

The 3 Telltale Signs That It’s Time for You to Automate – mySanAntonio.com

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Photo: Rowan Jordan | Getty Images

The 3 Telltale Signs That It's Time for You to Automate

Have you ever seen other entrepreneurs and their agencies scale with ease, and you wonder how theyre doing it? They seem to have the same size team that you do and dont seem to have a secret sauce to their techniques or what theyre offering to their clients. And yet, theyre bringing on more and more clients and reaching higher monthly revenue goals seemingly every week. Heres a secret: theyre automating. And as much as automation is a secret weapon, its something any entrepreneur or agency can adopt in as little as an afternoon.

Automation refers to the outsourcing of tasks to new team members or technological resources. Since its a brand new frontier, many entrepreneurs wonder if theyre ready for that next step, especially with the desire for control and keeping everything in the business in house. But the truth is, its likely that youve been due for some automation for a long time, but havent known that its time to get started. Here are four telltale signs that you could benefit from bringing automation into your business.

Related: How Automation Intelligence Can Improve Your Business in Good and Bad Times

How overwhelmed are you currently feeling? Do you feel like your to-do list is always 50 items long and counting? Many entrepreneurs falsely equate being busy with being successful. Heres a question for you. Is the work youre doing actually pushing the needle forward with your business goals? Or do you feel like a hamster on a treadmill, constantly on calls and emails with little payoff?

Heres a secret. You dont actually need to be doing all the busy work youre doing. And, you dont have to hire a full-time assistant to take the load off your plate, either. This is where automation comes in. It can come in the form of a project management tool, an AI assistant to handle your emails and scheduling calls, or automated email follow-ups. Imagine how much time youll save.

Startdetermininghow many of your tasks can be automated by conducting a time audit. Using an app like Toggle, determine how much of your day is eaten up by doing tasks that others can do,especially if these are little tasks that keep you flitting across the surface of your work instead of going deep.

Remember the days before your business got going when youd always be in the creative flow? Whether you were building client packages, a landing page, or a social media design, you felt like you had plenty of mental space to brainstorm new ideas and build. When were constantly inundated with smaller to-do list items, it becomes challenging to unlock that same creativity, which can negatively impact your business. Business owners that automate know that what makes them successful is the vision and creativity of the founders, so they automate or outsource whatever they can to free up their mental space for the big, directional, and vision-based projects. Thats why recruiting a motivated team is so important. Team collaboration is key to performance, and effective communication helps to empower the team to do more faster, together. Ineffective collaboration can have the opposite effect. In this case study, released by ClickMeeting, they explored the impact of introducing better tools for interactive group learning sessions, aligning the culture, and helping teams collaborate better, which has become vital in todays #WFH environment.

In the case study, ClickMeeting provides insight into how international gaming company G2A used their product for managing online meetings that encouraged idea-sharing, effective collaboration, and strategy discussions amongst the team. The G2A team witnessed a big jump in productivity.

The interactive group learning sessions enabled G2A to connect their teams so that they were able to collaborate better including sharing projects, documents, and content, and askingfor real-time advice or input from their teammates. As a result, the companys leadership team was able to automate their tasks and align corporate culture, ensuring everyone is on the same page helping them accomplish more.

Related:Automation Is Becoming a Business Imperative: Don't Wait Until It's Too Late

More time in the flow state contributes to scaling, too especially if youve been wanting to dream up ways to do it right! If you have big visions and goals for these next few years for your business or agency and its ability to scale (with both revenue and clients), thats a surefire sign that you should use automation.

James Dhillon, the CEO of Automaters, shared with Yahoo Finance that If youre still using human capital for the tasks that can be automated, youre eventually going to get phased out by the next generation of smart agency owners. He firmly believes that one of the biggest mistakes founders can make is trying to be a jack of all trades. Were spread too thin when we try to do it all. And, a new wave of agency owners who are using automation is scaling and sweeping up clients and testimonials in the process. To ensure youre on their playing field, consider beginning to automate today.

Related:Trader Joe's is Renaming International Products After Petition Calls Out Racist BrandingWhy Hiring an Expert Is Smart When Undertaking a RebrandFree Webinar | July 30: Is It Time To Rebrand Your Company?

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Study: Dwarf Planet Ceres is an Ocean World

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According to several new studies published today in the journal Nature, space rock Ceres holds massive reservoirs of sea water underneath its surface.

According to several new studies published today in the journal Nature, Ceres, the largest object in the asteroid belt between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter, likely holds massive reservoirs of sea water underneath its surface. Yes: An ocean planet. 

A team of researchers found evidence of an “extensive reservoir” of brine beneath the surface of the 20-million-year-old Occator crater on Ceres using high definition images from NASA’s Dawn spacecraft.

Ceres is the only dwarf planet in the inner solar system. It’s only 590 miles across and takes 1,682 Earth days (4.6 years) to orbit the Sun. It has a very thin atmosphere of water vapor from ice volcanoes.

The recently discovered reservoir is roughly the size of Utah’s Great Salt Lake and is thought to be filled with extremely salty water — which is what stopped it from freezing.

NASA’s Dawn spacecraft, a now-retired space probe that launched in 2007, took the images from just 22 miles from the surface during a second run in 2018.

The team analyzed infrared images and found evidence of hydrohalite, a material commonly found in sea ice on Earth, which has never been observed on another planet.

Scientists suspect this reservoir was formed in the Occator crater after another space rock impacted with the location some 20 million years ago. The scientists believe that after this impact, the surface of the crater froze over, forming a large reservoir of melt water beneath.

“The material found on Ceres is extremely important in terms of astrobiology,” Maria Cristina De Sanctis, a researcher at the Istituto Nazionale di Astrofisica in Rome, Italy, co-author of one of the new papers and Dawn team member, told AFP.

“We know that these minerals are all essential for the emergence of life,” she added.

“It’s really kind of a smoking gun, because you would have expected it had gone away if it had been sitting there even close to the surface for millions of years,” Dawn Principal Investigator Carol Raymond of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab told Astronomy.

“Past research revealed that Ceres had a global ocean, an ocean that would have no reason to exist [still] and should have been frozen by now,” De Sanctis told Astrology. ”These latest discoveries have shown that part of this ocean could have survived and be present below the surface.”

READ MORE: Ceres: An ocean world in the asteroid belt [Astronomy]

More on Ceres: Traces of Organic Molecules Have Been Located on Ceres

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Study: Dwarf Planet Ceres is an Ocean World

New York City Subway System Asks Apple to Improve Masked Face ID

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New York's mass transportation agency, fed up with folks taking off their masks to unlock their iPhones, wants Apple to improve facial recognition features.

Mask On

New York City’s subway-running Metropolitan Transit Agency, fed up with folks taking off their masks to unlock their iPhones, wants Apple to improve their iPhones’ facial recognition features. In a letter to CEO Tim Cook obtained by The Associated Press, Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) Chairman Patrick Foye complained that too many riders were seen removing their masks to unlock phones even though Apple recently simplified the unlock process for people wearing masks.

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Some masks have been shown to thwart facial recognition programs, to the point of being a government concern last month. Before Apple’s software update in May, users wearing masks would have to wait a few seconds while face-recognition features tried and failed to authorize them before asking for a passcode. Now masked iPhone users are able to swipe up and enter a passcode immediately, so in theory, there shouldn’t be any need to remove a face covering while riding an MTA bus or train.

Now Delayed

The MTA Chairman’s letter comes at a unique time. MTA ridership, the fares from which the MTA depends on, plummeted almost 90% during the height of the coronavirus epidemic in New York City. The request to improve facial recognition comes just two months after two US Senators proposed banning police use of the technology and after previous arguments from experts that such technology should be banned from everyday life.

READ MORE: MTA asks Apple’s help to solve iPhone mask issues [AP]

More on Facial Recognition: Government leak: Cops terrified masks will block facial recognition

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New Climate Paper: Maybe Let’s Let Venice Sink?

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How much effort should we place on preserving World Heritage Sites threatened by climate changes brought on by human activity?

Absolutely Atlantian

How much effort should we place on preserving heritage as the world around us changes? “How much effort,” asks a press release from North Carolina State University, “should be spent trying to keep Venice looking like Venice?”

Rather than spending increasing resources to keep Venice looking like Venice, a new proposal published in the journal Climate Change suggests World Heritage Sites, like Venice, should be allowed to “transform” as our world changes.

Timeless

Historically, preservation efforts have focused on keeping heritage sites exactly as they were. But, as the world around us continues to change, preservationists and researchers are suggesting there may be a better model than to keep up with the pace of change.

In a paper co-authored by Eugene Jo, World Heritage Leadership Programme Coordinator at the International Centre for the Study of the Preservation and Restoration of Cultural Property, and Erin Seekamp, a professor of parks, recreation and tourism management at North Carolina State University, Seekamp and Jo argue that heritage sites “severely impacted” by climate change could remain damaged to serve as a “memory” of that event and to encourage conversation about the loss.

Keep it Cool

Ultimately, Seekamp and Jo call for a new categorization of heritage sites they call “World Heritage Sites in Climatic Transformation.” The designation would better help identify sites at risk and funnel resources towards them; almost like an endangered species list for parts of the world. Rather than be forced to continue preventing change, the designation would allow heritage sites to progress in a way that benefits them as well as the environment.

“We’re not saying that this should open the door for development or tourism,” Seekamp adds. “We’re saying, ‘Let’s create a new categorization, and enable those places to not just think about persistent adaptation, but about transformative adaptation.’ It allows us to think about alternatives.”

READ MORE: Landmarks Facing Climate Threats Could ‘Transform,’ Expert Says [NCSU]

More on Climate Change: Scientists: Climate Change Is Going to Suck, but It Won’t Be Armageddon

 

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Minority Report-Style Crime-Predicting AI Predictably Sucks At Its Job

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The UK government has been funneling millions of dollars into a gun and knife crime prediction tool that uses artificial intelligence. Turns out it sucks.

Saw It Coming

The UK government has been funneling millions of dollars into a prediction tool for violent crime that uses artificial intelligence. Now, officials are finally ready to admit that it has one big flaw: It’s completely unusable. Also: Predictably (ironically), riddled with ethical problems, as Wired reports.

Police have already stopped developing the system called “Most Serious Violence” (MSV), part of the UK’s National Data Analytics Solution (NDAS) project, and luckily was never actually put to use — yet plenty of questions about the system remain.

The tool worked by assigning people scores based on how likely they were to commit a gun or knife crime within the next two years.

Two databases from two different UK police departments were used to train the system, including crime and custody records.

Fatal Flaws

Fortunately, the system never got off the ground. The system was full of flaws according to official documents obtained by Wired. “A coding error was found in the definition of the training data set which has rendered the current problem statement of MSV unviable,” a March briefing read.

“It has proven unfeasible with data currently available to identify a point of intervention before a person commits their first MSV offense with a gun or knife with any degree of precision.”

Instead of predictability scores in the high 70s, as was found in early tests, the system was only able to predict gun or knife violence less than 20 percent of the time.

Biases

Luckily, police forces have decided to discontinue the development of the system. Yet, as experts tell Wired, even with a 100 percent accuracy, plenty of biases would remain in similar systems in the future, especially with regards to age and ethnicity.

READ MORE: A British AI Tool to Predict Violent Crime Is Too Flawed to Use [Wired]

More on AI: Scientists Are Using an “AI Bird Watcher” to Solve a Solar Farm Bird Massacre Mystery

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Scientists Are Using an “AI Bird Watcher” to Solve a Solar Farm Bird Massacre Mystery

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The Department of Energy recently signed a contract with an AI lab to come up with a machine learning bird watcher to study bird around solar farms.

AI Bird Watcher

Solar energy! ‘Might be completely renewable and green and great for the planet, sure. It could also, however, be deadly — if you’re a bird.

But really: A 2016 study found that large solar farms in the US accounted for the death of almost 140,000 birds every year. For a while, we only had our best guess as to why solar farms were killing birds at such a scale — for instance, they may have mistaken the reflective panels as the surface of water.

These theories are far from confirmed. But we may soon know a lot more, courtesy of an artificial intelligence-powered birdwatcher, as Wired reports.

Bird Algorithms

The thinking is that an algorithm can pick out avian behavior and analyze their flying patterns near solar panels. The Department of Energy recently signed a contract with Argonne National Laboratory in Illinois to develop a tailor-made AI solution.

“The machine-learning research we’re doing is a little unique, because we don’t just want to classify an object in a single image,” Adam Szymanski is a software engineer at Argonne, who’s working on the system, told Wired.

“It has to classify a small, fast-moving object over time,” he added. “So if the bird is flying, in some frames you’ll see a dot and in others you’ll see its wings out, and we need to track that object as it moves across the camera.”

Perched on a Solar Panel

Ironically, the bird watcher will likely rely on solar panels on its own. Using and adapting a camera system designed to monitor pedestrians and cars, the team is planning to mount the bird watcher on top of a solar panel.

The goal? To eventually figure out how bird behavior changes around solar panels and ensure that birds are protected in the future.

READ MORE: Why Do Solar Farms Kill Birds? Call in the AI Bird Watcher [Wired]

More on AI: Elon Musk: If You Don’t Think AI Could Outsmart You, You’re an Idiot

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Scientists Are Using an “AI Bird Watcher” to Solve a Solar Farm Bird Massacre Mystery

Scientists Made Mice Glow in the Dark to Study Mitochondria

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Mitochondria, as we all know, are the powerhouse of the cell, but if something dampers the mighty mitochondria it can be difficult to determine why.

Powerhouse

Mitochondria are the powerhouses of the cell — but if something dampers their output, it can be difficult to determine why. To better investigate mitochondrial function, a team of researchers from Switzerland’s Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne developed a method to make mice glow in the dark, like fireflies. Their work was published today in the journal Nature Chemical Biology.

Cell Walls

Like cells themselves, mitochondria have a membrane that filters materials entering and exiting their structure. That membrane relies on a difference in polarity known as “membrane potential” and when membrane potential drops, it can be indicative of a problem. Testing that membrane is why scientists had a need to make mice glow.

So! To do that, (EPFL professor and the paper’s lead author) Elena Goun and team used mice genetically modified to express luciferase, the enzyme that produces light when combined with another compound called luciferin — which is exactly how fireflies glow. The team developed two molecules that, when injected into mice, pass into the mitochondria and cause them to produce luciferin, making the mice glow. “In a completely darkened room, you can see the mice glowing, just like fireflies,” says Elena Goun.

Actual Glow Up

Studying mitochondrial function is then as simple as measuring how bright the mice glow. The brighter they are, the more luciferin in the mitochondria, the better the mitochondria are functioning. This animal model method of testing mitochondrial function could be extremely useful in things like cancer drug research, as well as things like diabetes, oncology, aging, nutrition, and neurogenerative diseases.

READ MORE: Fireflies shed light on the function of mitochondria [EPFL]

More on Mouse Studies: Lab Puts Mice in Suspended Animation. Will It Work on Humans?

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White Nationalist Group Permanently Banned From YouTube Over Hate Speech – HillReporter.com

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A white nationalist group has been permanently banned from YouTube after violating policies on hate speech. VDARE, which has called declining immigrant employment a Trump win, and expressed worry that America will be changed as it shifts away from being a white nation, for white people, is no longer welcome on the video platform.

The Southern Poverty Law Center captures a few quotes from VDARe, including a lament that America, defined almost explicitly, sometimes very explicitly as a white nation, for white people, is shifting to a new and non-white version, and questioning whether we will want to call the new updated version America at all. A tweet from the organization on Monday calls it a Trump triumph that immigrant workforce falls for 11th straight month. On their site, they have actually separated out a series of stories tagged as minorities not social distancing.

According to Right-Wing Watch, the organizations YouTube channels have been permanently suspended, for violating site rules by alleging that members of groups protected by the sites policies were innately inferior to others and by linking to hateful content off-platform along with other rule violations. Last month, when another white nationalist group, American Renaissance, was banned for similar reasons, VDARE tweeted to describe this as the video platform gag[ging] [an] opponent because you have lost the argument.

The founder of VDARE, Peter Brimelow, has been described as one of the alt-rights founding fathers, and after the murder of Heather Heyer at a white supremacist rally in Charlottesville Virginia, the site published a piece defending the violent behavior of neo-Nazis and alt-right hate groups at that event.

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Japan’s Bishops promote peace and the abolition of nuclear weapons – Vatican News

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As Catholics in Japan commemorate the 75th anniversary of the destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki by an atomic bomb, their Bishops take steps to promote peace and abolish nuclear weapons.

By Sr Bernadette Mary Reis, fsp

The Apostolic Visits of Pope John Paul II in 1981 and Pope Francis in 2019 to Hiroshima and Nagasaki have been decisive in promoting peace and nuclear disarmament.

The current Bishop of Nagasaki and President of the Japanese Conference of Catholic Bishops, Bishop Mitsuaki Takami, explained how in a pre-recordedwebcastentitled Catholics Commemorate 75 years after Hiroshima and Nagasaki posted on 3 August by Georgetown Universitys Berkley Center for Religion, Peace and World Affairs.

Bishop Takami said the words Pope John Paul spoke in Japanese on 25 February 1981 in Hiroshima at the Peace Memorial are memorialized in Japanese and English on a monument at the Memorials entrance.

War is the work of man. War is destruction of human life. War is death. To remember the past is to commit oneself to the future To remember Hiroshima is to abhor nuclear war To remember Hiroshima is to commit oneself to peace Let us promise our fellow human beings that we will work untiringly for disarmament and the banishing of all nuclear weapons (Pope John Paul II).

In response to Pope John Paul IIs words, Bishop Takami said that the Bishops Conference decided to designate the period from 6 August, the day Hiroshima was bombed, until 15 August, the day the war ended, as Ten Days of Prayer for Peace . This practice began in 1982 and continues to this day, the Bishop said.

Last year in November, Pope Francis visited both cities on his Apostolic Journey to Japan in November 2019.

He went one step further than his predecessor, Bishop Takami explains. He declared that the possession and use of nuclear weapons are immoral. He stressed the need for unity and working together toward a world free of nuclear weapons and committed the Church to the goal.

The use of atomic energy for purposes of war is immoral, just as the possessing of nuclear weapons is immoral (Pope Francis, Hiroshima, 24 November 2019).

A world of peace, free from nuclear weapons, is the aspiration of millions of men and women everywhere. To make this ideal a reality calls for involvement on the part of all: individuals, religious communities and civil society, countries that possess nuclear weapons and those that do not, the military and private sectors, and international organizations. Our response to the threat of nuclear weapons must be joint and concerted.

We must never grow weary of working to support the principal international legal instruments of nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation, including the Treaty on the prohibition of nuclear weapons (Pope Francis, Hypocenter Park, Nagasaki, 24 November 2019).

As long as the idea that weapons are necessary to promote peace, Bishop Takami said, abolishing nuclear weapons will remain difficult. He nourishes the hope that the U.S. and Japan will one day not only reconcile with each other, but work together for the abolition of nuclear weapons.

To that end, and in response to Pope Franciss appeal in Hiroshima, a Nuclear-Free World Foundation was formally launched on July 7th, at the initiative of Archbishop Alexis Mitsuru Shirahama of Hiroshima. This Foundation will fund people working for the ratification of the U.N. Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, Bishop Takami says. Their goal is that fifty countries sign and ratify the treaty. The dioceses of Hiroshima and Nagasaki will direct fundraising activities, and three existing civic peace organizations will manage the Foundation, the Bishop says.

In conclusion, Bishop Takami says that the Japanese Bishops have also designated the period from 1 September to 4 October as a Month for Protecting All Lives.

This period corresponds to the Season of Creation, and the words are reminiscent of the motto of Pope Franciss Apostolic Journey: Protect All Life.

This month is meant to encourage Japanese Catholics to undertake concrete actions to improve the environment and protect the earth.

I firmly believe that protecting the environment and promoting wholistic human development will lead to peace (Bishop Mitsuaki Takami).

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Japan's Bishops promote peace and the abolition of nuclear weapons - Vatican News

Anti-Blackness, Abolition, and Criminal Justice: A Conversation with Dr. Emily Wang and Professor Tracey Meares – Yale School of Medicine

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As many individuals across the United States and in New Haven are engaged in conversations and activism around systemic racism, sparked in part by the disparate impact of COVID-19 on communities of color and recent horrific incidents of police brutality against black men and women, around 170 members of the Yale community and others convened on Zoom on July 22 for a conversation titled Anti-Blackness, Abolition, and Criminal Justice: A Conversation with Dr. Emily Wang and Professor Tracey Meares."

Anna Reisman, MD, director, Program for Humanities in Medicine, and professor of medicine at Yale, and Helena Hansen, MD, PhD, director of Social Medicine in Action, and associate professor, Department of Psychiatry, NYU Langone Health, organized and moderated the program, in which Sydney Rose Green, a fifth-year MD-PhD student at Yale School of Medicine (YSM) and the Program in History of Science and Medicine, also participated as discussant.

Tracey Meares, JD, Walton Hale Hamilton Professor and a founding director of the Justice Collaboratory at Yale Law School, began the conversation, explaining that people need to know the history of the abolition of slavery and Reconstruction to understand the current advocacy for abolishing and defunding the police. Meares is a nationally-recognized expert on policing in urban communities.

Meares stated that the term abolition is inescapably tied to the context of slavery, and that while the 13th Amendment eradicated the legal category of slavery, it did not do the rest of the necessary work to establish citizenship for the formerly enslaved. The 14th Amendment ensured birthright citizenship for emancipated enslaved people and the 15th Amendment was directed at ensuring their right to vote. Reconstruction made some progress on the systemic changes necessary for citizenship, but it lasted only 11 years before a backlash of white supremacist terror ended it.

The calls today for abolishing and defunding the police, Meares believes, are calls to fulfill the promise of Reconstruction that never took place and provide the set of public goods of citizenship that Reconstruction was to have provided. In our era some of those goods include quality health care, housing, and education. Meares described safety as one of those public goods, but said that when people who live in neighborhoods that are disadvantaged from decades of underinvestment and neglect are asked to define safety, they will often focus on issues such as housing, food security, and access to health carenot how quickly armed law enforcement officers arrive when someone calls 911.

She then compared the concepts of abolishing and defunding the police to a compass, noting Ted Alcorns metaphor. These terms point us in the direction we may want to go, but they are not a road map for how we get from here to there. As Meares described later in the conversation, even if policing was dramatically changed overnight, communities in need would still be fragile, with, for example, poor health care, housing, and schools, and these underlying conditions will take timeand a significant amount of moneyto change. Meares added, what makes change particularly difficult is that money currently invested elsewhere will have to be reprioritized, meaning there would have to be a sacrifice of privilege.

YSM Associate Professor Emily Wang, MD, MAS, agreed with Meares that there is difficult work ahead and that progress is not going to be fast. Wang is the director of the Health Justice Lab, which focuses on improving the health of individuals and communities who have been affected by mass incarceration. She also is the director of the new SEICHE Center for Health and Justice, which will focus on identifying and applying strategies to improve the health of individuals and communities impacted by incarceration in Connecticut, nationally, and globally.

Wang noted that while it is positive that COVID-19 has led to more decarceration, early release is often dangerous because of the poor support systems available to formerly incarcerated individuals outside of prison. Made worse by COVID-19, these include, for example, lack of food, jobs, housing, and health care.

Wang said that as health providers, we must ask ourselves how we provide the vital support needed for people leaving prisons. Referring to the history Meares had highlighted, Wang noted that when a health care system for newly-freed individuals began to be created during Reconstruction, the doctor-patient ratio was poor, with 100 doctors caring for four million people. Many of the newly free individuals did not have vital supports in place, similar to released prisoners today. Wang said that health care providers also need to interrogate themselves and the health system to see where they are complicit with anti-blackness, noting that COVID-19 has unmasked longstanding health disparities.

In her remarks, Green thanked Meares for providing important historical context and Wang for showing photos of people in the prison system, humanizing what often is an abstract topic.

Green shared how she first came into consciousness of the role of health care providers in perpetuating systemic racism. In 2013, she was living in Florida when Marissa Alexander, a black woman with three children, was facing 20 years in prison in Florida for firing warning shots to protect herself in her own home from her violent husband. Green did not understand why health care providers, such as pediatricians, did not stand up and say a prison sentence would harm Alexanders kids and Alexander herself. Green viewed the health system as implicated in what happened to Alexander.

Regarding the road map for change, Wang pointed to Yale University, Yale New Haven Hospital, and YSM as the biggest three employers in New Haven, and noted that nationwide, about one of seven new jobs is in health care. She said that if our local institutions step up and hire from minority communities, that would have a significant economic impact, and would importantly change the look of who works in our health system.

Wang also focused on the importance of changing the hearts and minds of ordinary people and said this happens most often when people meet individuals who are different from them, for example, who have been incarcerated. She said unfortunately this does not happen often, because we lead segregated lives.

Meares agreed that bringing about systemic change requires that ordinary people understand that the system we live in is unjust, adding that this is the work we must be doing.

Greens advice to medical students and trainees for bringing about change: Dont wait. As a collective, our voices can be just as powerful.

One of the final questions of the evening was whether providing medical care to people in prison legitimizes incarceration. Wang admitted this is a complicated issue for which she does not have an answer. From a professional perspective, she and her colleagues center their values and practices on the wishes of their incarcerated patients. Personally, she knows that without good health care, incarcerated patients will suffer.

Meares responded by saying she has never been an idealist, but rather is a pragmatist, adding there is no purity to this if you are on the ground doing the work.

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Anti-Blackness, Abolition, and Criminal Justice: A Conversation with Dr. Emily Wang and Professor Tracey Meares - Yale School of Medicine

Dismay among hibakusha over Abe’s perceived indifference : The Asahi Shimbun – Asahi Shimbun

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NAGASAKI--Hibakusha atomic bomb survivors expressed outrage Aug. 9, the 75thanniversary of this city's atomic bombing, overPrime Minister Shinzo Abe's apparent indifference to their calls for the abolition of nuclear weapons and related matters.

Representatives of five groups of hibakusha met with Abe after he arrived from Tokyo to attend the annual ceremony to commemorate victims of the bombing.

In his address during the ceremony, the prime minister said his government will give consideration to hibakushas feelings.

But he did not visit the Nagasaki Atomic Bomb Museum, which the representatives had requested he do when they met with him last year.

Abe also made no mention during his speech of calls by hibakusha for the government to sign and ratify the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.

If the government says it will be considerate of hibakushas feelings, the prime minister should grant our request, said Shigemitsu Tanaka, 79, head of the Nagasaki Atomic Bomb Survivors Council, one of the five groups, after this years meeting with the prime minister. He should ponder his reason for traveling all the way to Nagasaki.

After the ceremony, the representatives handed a written request when they met with Abe and other government officials.

The government side reiterated its longtime position that Japan will continue to work to bridge differing stances taken by countries on the abolition of nuclear weapons and lead efforts to promote international debate on the issue.

Koichi Kawano, 80, chairman of the A-Bomb Survivors Liaison Council of the Nagasaki Prefecture Peace Movement Center, said he was disappointed by the lack of substance in the prime ministers speech.

The government vows to work as a bridge, but I am wondering what it has been actually doing while being complacent about remaining under the U.S. nuclear umbrella, he said.

Hibakusha were also dismayed by the almost identical speech delivered by Abe at the commemorative event held in Hiroshima three days earlier.

We might have felt a serious note if his speeches had contained references to respective details unique to Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but there were none, said Masao Tomonaga, chief of the Nagasaki-ken Hibakusha Techo Tomo-no-Kai (association of people with the official designation as hibakusha).

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Dismay among hibakusha over Abe's perceived indifference : The Asahi Shimbun - Asahi Shimbun

Convention on worst forms of child labour receives universal ratification – UN News

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Formally known as Convention No. 182, the treaty, adopted two decades ago, achieved universal ratification on Tuesday, making it the most rapidly ratified Convention in the UN agencys 101-year history.

Universal ratification of Convention 182 is an historic first that means that all children now have legal protection against the worst forms of child labour, said ILO Director-General Guy Ryder.

It reflects a global commitment that the worst forms of child labour, such as slavery, sexual exploitation, the use of children in armed conflict or other illicit or hazardous work that compromises childrens health, morals or psychological wellbeing, have no place in our society.

Ending child labour has been one of the main goals of the ILO, which was founded in 1919.

The UN agency estimates that 152 million children worldwide are affected, with 73 million in hazardous work.

Most child labour takes place in the agriculture sector, mainly due to poverty and parents difficulties in finding decent work.

Convention No. 182 calls for the prohibition and elimination of the worst forms of child labour, which includes slavery, forced labour and trafficking.

It forbids the use of children under18 in armed conflict, prostitution, pornography, illicit activities such as drug trafficking, and in hazardous work.

The Convention was adopted by ILO member states meeting in Geneva in 1999.

It is one of the organizations eight Fundamental Conventions, which cover issues such as the elimination of forced labour, the abolition of work-related discrimination and the rights to freedom of association and collective bargaining.

The Pacific island nation Tonga deposited its ratification instruments with the ILO on Tuesday, becoming the final country to do so.

The ILO said incidence of child labour and its worst forms dropped by almost 40 per cent between 2000 and 2016 as ratification rates increased and countries adopted laws and policies, including relating to minimum age to work.

However, the UN agency fears the COVID-19 pandemic could reverse years of gains, especially as progress had slowed in recent years,

particularly among children 5 to 11 years, and in some geographical areas.

As 2021 is the International Year for the Elimination of Child Labour, the ILO plans to raise awareness of the issue to accelerate progress.

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Convention on worst forms of child labour receives universal ratification - UN News

Modi govt abolishes textile board with activists and experts pontificating, to get work done through institutes like NIFT instead – OpIndia

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The Modi government has taken yet another step to make the government free from activists and experts who know how to pontificate without really making any impact on the ground. Just like the garden variety activist who pontificates about poverty in the slums while sitting in air-conditioned parties, the Handloom Board, which was abolished by a notification on the 27th of July, had activists and experts who sat in Delhi, enjoying the social status of a prestigious position without really working with the weavers.

The move inspired some amount of outrage from expected quarters that wished to turn this into a move that supposedly hampered the growth of the industry and also the interests of the weavers. The loudest criticism came from activist Laila Tyabji.

Laila Tyabji is reportedly an Indian social worker, designer, writer, and craft activist.She is one of the founders ofDastkar,a Delhi-basednon-governmental organization, working for the revival of traditional crafts in India. Unsurprisingly, she was awarded by the UPA government in 2012 with a Padma Shri.

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Laila Tyabji, chairperson of Dastakar a not-for-profit NGO working to support traditional Indian craftspeople reacted to the decision and said: Strange things happen quietly in COVID times without even a whisper of warning. The news that the almost 70-year-old All India Handicrafts Board, established in 1952 by Pupul Jayakar and nurtured by Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay, has been abolished came as a complete surprise.

Tyabji expressed her shock in a Facebook post. She wrote: All these years on, it remained the one official forum, however, watered down, where the voices and views of weavers and craftspeople could be expressed directly. One place where representatives of the sector were present in considerable numbers and were actually empowered to advise the Government in policy and sectoral spending The spaces where people themselves can interact directly with Government, or be part of their own governance, are certainly becoming leaner and increasingly few in number. It is worrying.

Essentially, Laila Tyabji insinuated that the Handloom Board was the one true voice of the artisans and craftsperson and the abolition of the board meant that the government would work in isolation and not really hear the real voice of the people, christening herself as their representative.

It is important to note that people in the know say that the Handloom Board was nothing but a group of advisors who wished to pontificate without doing making a substantial impact. The board has existed for 4 decades. What is their impact?, an individual close to the board said. Essentially, the board was started to give political patronage to friendly faces by the previous regime and thus, served no substantial purpose in furthering the interests of the weavers over the past 4 decades.

The criticism that has come from Laila Tyabji gives one the impression that voices of the downtrodden, which were heard through these activists are now being suppressed by the government. However, did Laila Tyabji actually make any substantial impact while working with the ministry to give the Ministry the required inputs?

People in the know have now questioned the commitment of Laila herself citing another example. Vide on order in 2016 was passed for the up-gradation of Weavers Service Centres and for the creation for Design Resource Centres.

The composition of the committee was as under:

The composition of the committee was as under:

The 1stmeeting of the committee was held on 08.11.2016 under the chairpersonship of Honble Minister of Textiles, in which policy decisions regarding revamping of WSCs were taken. On the basis of inputs received from WSCs along with the requirement of additional physical infrastructure & manpower, a draft report was submitted by the expert committee. Thereafter, the 2ndmeeting of the expert committee was held on 27.02.2017 for discussing the draft report and to make final recommendations for upgrading WSCs.

In the meeting, it was decided that the expert committee members shall indicate their preferences for visits to various WSCs and such visits will be facilitated by the ministry.

Interestingly, only Jaya Jaitley visited the WSC and submitted her report to the Ministry. Laila Tyabji, who is now outraging about the Handloom Board being abolished and that her work being the voice of the voiceless will be compromised, did not only not bother to visit any WSC but also did not bother to submit a report to the Ministry.

Thereafter, it was decided to abolish the board and work towards the upliftment of the weavers and craftsmen through NIFT.

The Modi government then decided to set up DRC in all 28 Weavers Service Centres (WSCs) through NIFT with the following objective:

To build and create design-oriented excellence in the Handloom Sector.

To facilitate weavers, exporters, manufacturers and designers for creating new designs.

According to sources, an amount of Rs 3.5 crores has already been released to NIFT to work with weavers within the framework of this program and students and faculty, together, would be working with the Ministry.

The same objectives that were meant to be met by the committee and the board is now working effectively through the NIIFT.

Thus, it is evident that Laila Tyabji herself was hardly interested in representing the voices of the downtrodden to the Ministry. If she was, she would have visited the WSC and given her inputs to the government.

Essentially, the Handloom Board was an advisory council that made little to no impact on the ground. The members thus used their position as a status symbol without really contributing to the development or welfare of the weavers through their position in the board.

Many in the know expressed their opinion on the board, however, wished to stay anonymous. One person in the know said, How can they claim to be the voice of the weavers of Bhagalpur and several other areas sitting in their AC rooms in Delhi? None of them bothered to visit the weavers personally and they wish to pretend as if they were the sole voice of the downtrodden. This is just them being disgruntled at losing a prestigious position that they can show-off in parties.

Essentially, people in the know said that the Board was hardly of any consequence and more work is certainly being done after the Ministrys association with NIFT as compared to the board giving gyan on what the weavers and artisans needed without even meeting them.

7th August 2020 marks the 6th National Handloom Day in India. August 7was chosen as National Handloom Day to commemorate the Swadeshi Movement which was launched on this day in 1905 in the Calcutta Town hall to protest against the partition of Bengal by the British Government. The Handloom industry in India is of prime significance since it not only symbolises the culture of India but also gives employment to thousands of women.

The Modi government decided to abolish the much-hyped and ornamental Handloom Board. The notification to abolish the Handloom Board was issued on the 27th of July. The notification read, Minimum Government and Maximum Governance, leaner government machinery and the need for systematic rationalisation of government bodies, the Government of India have abolished All India Handloom Board with effect from the date of this resolution.

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Modi govt abolishes textile board with activists and experts pontificating, to get work done through institutes like NIFT instead - OpIndia

Nagasaki peace activist working to nurture next generation – The Japan Times

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Nagasaki Nobuto Hirano, a peace activist born to a hibakusha family in Nagasaki, is determined to nurture young people so they will take over the work of passing on memories of the tragedy and hopes for peace to future generations.

It is our generations responsibility to nurture people who will lead peace activities in the next generation, Hirano, 73, said, noting that those who survived the atomic attacks are aging.

Hirano has been supporting the high school peace ambassador movement since it began 23 years ago.

The movement has sent over 270 Japanese high school students to visit the U.N. office in Geneva and other places across the world to convey the voices of hibakusha and call for the abolition of nuclear weapons.

Nagasaki was devastated by a U.S. atomic bomb Aug. 9, 1945, three days after the atomic bombing of Hiroshima in the closing days of World War II.

Hirano started thinking about the bombing seriously when he was a high school student after his friend from childhood suddenly died of leukemia. Everyone suspected that his death was caused by the effects of radiation from the atomic bombing.

The experience guided Hirano toward peace activities.

After graduating from a university in Tokyo and working for a company, he became a teacher in Nagasaki and started playing a leading role in peace activities as a child of hibakusha.

In 1998, the peace ambassador movement started, prompted by nuclear tests conducted by India and Pakistan that year.

Hirano was the one who suggested sending young people to the United Nations. I had a sense of crisis because peace activities did not involve many young people, Hirano recalled.

I thought I had to nurture young people, he added.

Some of Hiranos peace-promoting peers were skeptical about the idea, he said. Even a hibakusha asked him, What can young people do?

But Hirano brushed aside their objections and launched the movement, believing nothing starts if we keep saying such things.

In 1998, two first high school peace ambassadors visited the U.N. headquarters in New York and called for the elimination of nuclear weapons in English.

The movement gradually started attracting international attention. It was nominated as a Nobel Peace Prize candidate in 2018 and 2019.

Persistence led us to success, Hirano said confidently.

However, there are challenges in helping young people grow into leaders.

Hirano has lost touch with some of the young participants. Some take part only while theyre serving as peace ambassadors, he said.

Nevertheless, Hirano feels great about continuing the movement each time he dines with about 20 to 30 former peace ambassadors in Nagasaki on Aug. 9.

Ive been spending every Sunday over the past 23 years to raise them, Hirano said. I have strong confidence in their future.

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Nagasaki peace activist working to nurture next generation - The Japan Times

‘A Very Pathetic Response’: Charles and Inez Barron on Protest, Police Reform and Radical, Black-Led Politics – Gotham Gazette

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Charles, left, & Inez Barron, right, at a ceremony with the Mayor & others (photo: John McCarten/City Council)

Anything short of a revolution wont satisfy Charles and Inez Barron, the married Brooklynites who hold seats in the State Assembly and City Council, respectively, and the police reforms and city budget passed in the wake of recent widespread Black Lives Matter protests serve merely as a distraction to their radical idea of Black-led politics.

Assemblymember Charles Barron and City Council Member Inez Barron, both Democrats, have a combined 30 years in city and state elected office, and many more in activism. They are two Black elected officials with a long history of fighting racism and representing majority-Black neighborhoods like East New York, East Flatbush, and Canarsie, and they are eyeing the current moment as a new opportunity in their campaign against oppression and vision for a new political party.

My biggest goal right now, and has been for the last couple of decades, is to build a powerful, independent, Black, radical political movement for the liberation of Black people in communities where we constitute the majority, said Charles Barron, once a member of the Black Panther Party and now representing the 60th Assembly District.

For the Barrons, whove been civil rights activists for decades whether in or out of elected office, the recent Black Lives Matter protests spurred by police killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and other Black people, as well as the city and state government response, are seen in a long, historical context. And, they say, the heated political debates the protests catalyzed in New York still amounted to tinkering at the margins, not properly reinventing a racist society.

While they ignited protests across the country, those recent deaths hit New York nerves still raw from past deaths of unarmed Black people at the hands of police, especially the killing of Eric Garner in 2014, and ongoing complaints of excessive force and disproportionate enforcement by race by the NYPD. The massive wave of protests prompted city and state politicians to pass a very long list of idled police reform bills, as well as a New York City budget that became focused around calls by activists and some elected officials to defund the police.

Though many New Yorkers saw the recent sweep of city and state legislation -- which included outlawing police chokeholds, codifying the New York Attorney General as special prosecutor in certain cases of civilian deaths at the hands of police, and much more -- as either too much or major victories in the fight against injustice, the Barrons said the reforms (and the new city budget) fell far short of what they believe is required.

That is a very pathetic response, said Charles Barron. I supported all of it, the activists, the advocates wanted it, the families that were harmed and lost loved ones wanted it. I supported it. But it was a bunch of bogus legislation that was around for years.

Whether its the state budget in Albany or the New York City budget at City Hall, the Barrons -- who swapped seats in 2013/2014 and may do so again in 2021/2022 -- are often among the no votes even as most of their fellow Democrats vote yes. In separate interviews with Gotham Gazette, Charles and Inez Barron emphasized their own ideas for increasing public safety, like dismantling current models of policing, involving the community in adding or removing officers, establishing a truly independent prosecutor for when police kill unarmed civilians (since they view New York Attorney General Letitia James as not independent enough), abolishing prisons, and increasing Cure Violence programs.

Inez Barron also said she plans to introduce new legislation aimed at replacing the Civilian Complaint Review Board (CCRB), a police oversight agency, with an elected body that reviews NYPD misconduct.

The Barrons also described what they call their own Black-led radical political movement, which they currently run through a nonprofit grassroots advocacy organization they founded called Operation P.O.W.E.R, or People Organizing and Working for Empowerment and Respect, and how they eventually want to grow it to a political party that supports Black people running for office.

Inez Barron said the couples future political plans remain uncertain as her time in the Council ends at the end of next year due to term limits. There are no term limits in the State Assembly, however, and Council members are allowed more than two terms if they run again after a break, so the possibility of another Barron seat swap remains. While its possible Charles Barron may run for City Council and Inez Barron for Assembly again, Inez Barron said elevating youth to positions of power is a priority for her and her husband.

Well, thats an interesting idea and we dont see it as switched, because it certainly was not a musical chairs kind of thing, the people voted and we were elected to those positions and were very pleased to see that the community appreciates and recognizes our service and wants us to represent them, said Inez, who represents the 42nd City Council District, which includes East New York, Broad Channel, Brownsville, Canarsie, East Flatbush, Howard Beach, and Jamaica Bay. So what the future holds, I dont know, my term as you say does end until December of 2021. And we work from a collaborative, a co-operative group Operation P.O.W.E.R. and the decisions about people and positions and elections and campaigns is in fact made collectively, those decisions are made collectively, so we have not in fact made those decisions.

We do have several young people that we are grooming and training and making sure they understand the intricacies of how things work, Inez Barron continued. And we are preparing them to step into those positions and represent the people.

History of ActivismAccording to the biography on his website, Charles Barron joined the Harlem chapter of the Black Panther Party before founding the branch of the National Black United Front, or NBUF, in the same neighborhood. The chairperson at the time made him chief of staff of NBUF and also secretary general of the African Peoples Christian Organization, or APCO.

Charles Barron touts efforts to bring truly affordable housing to the areas hes represented in the Council and Assembly, and securing millions of dollars in funding for CUNYs Black Male Initiative.

Inez Barron has highlighted a long history of fighting segregation and discrimination, excluding Africa from school curriculum, police misconduct, and environmental racism. Before being elected to the City Council, Barron authored legislation in the Assembly to preserve affordable housing in Spring Creek and Starrett City. Before being elected to the Assembly in 2008, Barron was a public school teacher for more than three decades.

Operation P.O.W.E.R. and a Public Safety VisionInez and Charles Barron offer a similar vision of the community taking control of public safety. Charles said he wants to see the police department, in its current state, dismantled, and for the community to lead in the hiring and firing of police in their neighborhoods. He stressed the importance of having more social workers involved in intervention. The Assembly member also said he wants to abolish the prison system as it exists today and find alternative solutions for people who are mentally challenged or display antisocial behavior.

Both Barrons emphasized preventative measures in public safety. Charles pointed to poverty as the root of crime and that unemployment causes mental distress. Inez praised Cure Violence programs, which take an evidence-based, public health approach to stop the spread of violence through conflict-resolution by authentic messengers, engagement with high-risk individuals, and community mobilization. Inez said nonprofit Man Up! works in her Council district to promote peace in communities, and its work has contributed to the relatively lower increase in gun violence in her district compared to others, who have seen a proportionally larger uptick. The BK Reader recently reported the relatively high shooting numbers in East New York are on par with similar numbers from last year, a stark contrast to other neighborhoods that have experienced spikes.

As for the implementation of their vision, the Barrons said they have been building their Black-led, radical movement for years. Working through Operation P.O.W.E.R., they foresee building a Black-led political party because, as Charles Barron said, the Democratic Party does not fit their vision of Black liberation. The Barrons formed their organization with specific goals in mind, including self-determination, community control of organizations and governmental agencies embedded in the community, land trusts, and worker cooperatives to combat a capitalist society, according to Inez Barron.

Charles Barron said their tactic right now is to use the Democratic Party as a way to win elections until they build a separate party. He disparaged other Black elected officials who he said let their neighborhoods gentrify, saying many of them fall to political ambition or party loyalty. The Assembly member also said political organizations like the New King Democrats or the Democratic Socialists of America or parties like the Working Families Party are not matches for the movement the Barrons spearhead.

Any Black person looking for liberation, these groups are not viable options, said Charles Barron. Theyre using us to maintain the status quo. Theyre not trying to really change any system of capitalist oppression, theyre trying to reform things and some are just opportunists for themselves.

Next year, Inezs time in the Council expires. When Charles, who held her seat before her, reached his consecutive term limit, East New Yorkers voted him into the Assembly seat while Inez ran for City Council. That may be a possibility again, but Operation P.O.W.E.R. will reach a decision on who it wants to support in elections towards the end of this year, according to Inez Barron. She said they have also mentored young people in East New York who they want to help boost into office, though she did not name any names.

All thats represented by my Council district are the areas in which were looking to make sure we can have strong, radical, independent, decision-making people in those positions, said Inez Barron. If you grow too quickly and if you dont have other areas that adhere to what you say are the principles of your organization it can morph into something that you did not intend.

The Barrons tend to differentiate the movement they are building as more radical and revolutionary from the one New Yorkers have recently seen a resurgence of in the streets. Charles Barron advised Black Lives Matter advocates to move from the symptoms of racism to root causes.

Theres a difference between organizing and mobilizing for power, said Charles Barron. When you mobilize people around issues like police brutality or some other kinds of issues, you dont get any power doing that. Youre just responding to issues and they placate you with some empty reform.

State Police ReformOn the state level, reforms included the Eric Garner Chokehold Act that criminalizes police using chokeholds when it leads to serious injury or death; the repeal of 50-A, which kept law enforcement officers disciplinary records from the public eye; the appointment of the Attorney General as a special prosecutor when police kill an unarmed civilian; the Amy Cooper bill that makes false, race-based 911 calls illegal; the right for persons not under arrest to record law enforcement; and the Police Statistics and Transparency Act, which directs courts to collect racial and demographic data for low-level offenses and publish it online each month, along with mandating police to report any deaths during arrest to the Department of Criminal Justice Services. The governor also signed laws requiring that officers report discharging their weapons; people in custody are given medical and mental health services as needed; State Police patrol officers wear body cameras; and the state creates a Law Enforcement Misconduct Investigative Office under the Department of Law which will investigate misconduct complaints against any local police department.

Charles and Inez Barron both said the new state laws, as well as those passed at the city level, are not fully responsive to the needs of the people, and that their passage had been long overdue. Charles referred to the history of the chokehold bill and how, although an NYPD ban on chokeholds had been implemented in different forms for decades it had not stopped police from using the maneuver on unarmed, Black civilians (like Eric Garner).

Charles Barron launched into criticism of Attorney General Letitia James, who like the Barrons is a Black Democratic Brooklynite (James was a City Council member, then New York City Public Advocate before being elected Attorney General). By Cuomo executive order going back several years, before James took office in 2019, the Attorney General acts as a special prosecutor in cases where police kill unarmed civilians, a responsibility now codified. James is also currently investigating NYPD interactions with protestors, as requested by Cuomo. Charles Barron said he doesnt see James office as a separate, objective entity because of the attorney generals connection to Cuomo, who helped James win a crowded 2018 Democratic primary as the Democratic governor and former attorney general won a third gubernatorial term himself.

She is a disgrace to our people, Charles Barron said of James. She is a puppet for the governor and he doesnt mind showing the strings. An independent office doesnt need a governor to appoint them to do anything, but she got in there by way of favor from the governor and shes his puppet.

Charles Barron said that the attorney generals office chose not to prosecute instances of police misconduct like the case of Saheed Vassal, an unarmed Black Brooklyn man who was shot by an NYPD officer in 2018, and appealed the case of Jalil Muntaqim, a former member of the Black Panther Party who contracted COVID-19 in prison and was set for temporary release until the state blocked the initial decision.

Attorney General James has worked tirelessly and independently to investigate the interactions between the NYPD and protesters, said a spokesperson for the Attorney Generals office in response to the criticism from Charles Barron. While this investigation remains ongoing, its clear that many New Yorkers have lost faith in law enforcement, and Attorney General James is leading the charge for transparency, accountability, and progress. We must all work together to change the system, and we encourage Assemblymember Barron to share his ideas about redesigning the role of public safety with us.

Governor Cuomos office did not respond to requests for comment for this article. These are not Charles Barrons first critique of the governors actions, as seen in 2016 and 2018 when the Assembly member interrupted Cuomos annual State of the State addresses to question his commitment to public school funding, especially in low-income neighborhoods.

City Police ReformThe City Council also passed and Mayor Bill de Blasio signed a set of laws aimed at police reform and accountability. It approved its own chokehold bill, which went farther than the state legislation in that it criminalized any use of chokeholds by police, classified the action as a Class A misdemeanor, prohibited officers from compressing someones diaphragm during arrest, and criminalized other forms of restraint that put pressure on a persons neck or back that may prevent breathing or blood flow. The Council also approved the Public Oversight of Surveillance Technology, or POST, Act, which requires the police to report on its surveillance technology and how it is used to the public; a disciplinary matrix to track officer misconduct; the right of the public to record law enforcement; and a mandate for police to display their badges at all times.

Inez Barron said she commends her colleagues in the Council on the chokehold bill, but they need to stay resolute in the face of opposition from the police commissioner.

I encourage them to stand tall and dig in because theres going to be pushback, she said. Theres already talk about, Well we need to amend that and not include the restrictions on other airway passages, we need to not have that in.

Otherwise, Inez Barron said the new disciplinary matrix loses some of its footing in reform because the police commissioner has no obligation to act on the findings. To introduce the type of accountability she wants to see in the NYPD, she said she is cosponsoring a bill with Council Member Alicka Ampry-Samuel, also a Black Brooklynite, to reform the Civilian Complaint Review Board.

The CCRB is an agency that can receive complaints about certain types of alleged NYPD office misconduct, investigate those claims, and make recommendations on disciplinary actions. But Inez Barron said she found fault in the process because the police do not have to execute the recommendations and only a small percent of complaints are substantiated, meaning the CCRB finds enough evidence to believe that the subject officer committed the alleged act without legal justification. Jon Darche, the executive director of the CCRB, confirmed that 10 percent of complaints ultimately become substantiated in a June board meeting.

The mayor, City Council, public advocate and police commissioner appoint the members of the CCRB, and that is one of Inezs primary concerns in replacing the agency. The Barron-Ampry-Samuel legislation would section the city into 17 districts and hold elections in those districts for members of a new civilian review board. In addition, the four districts with the highest incidents of police misconduct complaints would receive an extra representative, for a total of 21 members.

This is legislation that is not just a knee-jerk response to the most recent conditions that were facing of police misconduct and police causing death, said Inez. This is legislation thats been five, six years in the making.

The Council member said the bill will also address another of her primary concerns, the CCRBs power in investigating misconduct. She said the proposed new body would be able to hold hearings, have subpoena power, and implement binding decisions the commissioner cannot change but the individual who filed the complaint may appeal.

The last piece of the legislation would create the appointment of an independent prosecutor who is elected by the people and has the authority to prosecute police abuse cases that rise to the level of a crime.

Inez Barron said she and Ampry-Samuel will likely introduce the bill in the next several weeks, and have received calls from other Council members who want to support the proposal.

She said that officers who commit certain offenses, especially the shooting of unarmed civilians, should be immediately dismissed. She pointed again to what she said was a police force without adequate repercussions or accountability for their actions.

Things are not gonna change when they know the consequences for their actions are minimal, said Inez. They continue to be on the job, they continue to get increases in salary and rise through the ranks. Its criminal, its really criminal.

A Divisive City BudgetThe city budget that passed for the July 1 start to the new fiscal year served as another piece in the recent and ongoing public safety and police reform debate. Many protestors and elected officials called for an at least $1 billion reduction to the roughly $6 billion NYPD annual operating budget.

Inez Barron was among those officials, and she voted no on the budget deal -- as did Council Members Brad Lander, Carlos Menchaca, Jimmy Van Bramer, Ben Kallos, Antonio Reynoso, Carlina Rivera, Donovan Richards, and Helen Rosenthal -- because she said it did not meet those demands, not going far enough to defund the NYPD and shift resources to youth and social services.

Both Charles and Inez Barron noted some claims, chiefly by Mayor de Blasio, that the new budget moved $1 billion from the police, but said clearly, as acknowledged by City Council Speaker Corey Johnson and others, that it did not in actuality.While explaining her no vote during the City Council budget proceedings on June 30, Inez Barron said the mayor did not acknowledge the demands of the protestors in the actions he took, and argued for a reduction in the ranks of those officers killing Black and brown people.

We need a hiring freeze, no new academy classes, and a reduction in uniformed officers headcount, Barron said. And just as the city had to pivot on a dime to address the COVID-19 pandemic, we must do likewise regarding the NYPD. There is, as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said, quote, the fierce urgency of now end quote. I vote no.

The Barrons call for defunding the NYPD and, more broadly, for abolition of the police as it is currently structured, stands in some contrast to several Black City Council members who supported the budget deal reached between the mayor and the Council. Several of those Black elected officials, like Brooklyns Laurie Cumbo and Robert Cornegy and the Bronxs Vanessa Gibson, have argued they while they want fairer policing their communities also want a strong police presence, and that while they favored moving some resources from the NYPD in the recent city budget, they were not supportive of a major defunding of the police department. Richards, who is likely to become the next Queens Borough President based on the recent Democratic primary he won, was the only Black Council member aside from Inez Barron who voted against the budget deal.

In particular with the city budget, the Barrons both called attention to school safety agents' planned multi-year move from the NYPD to the Department of Education as a soft reform and accounting gimmick.

It was, I dont want to say symbolic, Inez Barron told Gotham Gazette of the NYPD changes in the budget. It was, in fact, the act of defunding but it did not affect the officers themselves. I think as long as [Mayor de Blasio] has the commissioner that he has in place theres going to be a lot of continuation of situations that are not beneficial to Black and brown people, particularly as they get involved in issues with the NYPD.

Charles strong opinions have been recognized by most elected officials, including Mayor de Blasio. In a 2018 ceremony unveiling the Prince Joshua Avitto Community Center, named after a 6-year-old boy who was murdered in East New York, Charles suggested that as much as they were celebrating the new center, a revolution was imminent, and he repeated calls to abolish jails and shelters while investing more in jobs, youth centers, and economic development.

So I want to say about the Assembly member what you see is what you get, de Blasio said after Barrons remarks. And thats a compliment.

Youth services is also a significant point of contention for the Barrons in this years city finances. Charles said people should not consider the Summer Youth Employment Program (SYEP), which the adopted budget partially restored through the Summer Bridge initiative after de Blasio had cut the entire SYEP in his executive budget plan, as a win in the city budget.

On the youth program alone I wouldnt have passed this budget, I wouldnt have voted for it, Charles Barron said. How can they feel good about 35,000 youth slots and you got $88 billion [total budget]? You cut it from 70 [thousand slots] and then brag about how you saved it.

Both Barrons also brought up $450 million the mayor said was being moved from planned NYPD capital spending and reserved for youth and recreation centers and how, in their experience, the bureaucracy around creating those buildings delays plans by three to five years. Inez Barron did say, however, that she saw the restoration of funding for CUNYs Accelerated Study in Associate Programs (ASAP) as an accomplishment. ASAP offers special financial and academic resources for students to graduate from associate-degree programs. Both Barrons are CUNY Hunter College alumni; Inez served as teacher, administrator, and principal in education for years before running for office, and she serves as the chair of the Councils Committee on Higher Education, where she has pushed for making CUNY tuition-free again.

In light of what they considered disappointing reforms and budgeting amid a more widespread reckoning about race and power, their pursuit of a Black-led political movement seems top of mind for both Barrons. They said they will continue to grow their movement until it is strong enough to stand as its own political party without being co-opted by people who do not share their same aims.

I plan on speaking truth to power no matter what the consequences are, said Charles Barron. Inevitably, I believe our struggle may be long, but our victory is certain.

Link:

'A Very Pathetic Response': Charles and Inez Barron on Protest, Police Reform and Radical, Black-Led Politics - Gotham Gazette

Remember Hiroshima by Abolishing Nuclear Weapons – LA Progressive

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Remember Hiroshima by Abolishing Nuclear Weapons

For the last 17 years, my friends and I have organized a peaceful vigil for nuclear disarmament on Hiroshima Day, August 6th, in Los Alamos, New Mexico at Ashley Pond Park, the actual spot where the Hiroshima bomb was built.

There, sometimes with as many as 400 others, weve been calling for the abolition of nuclear weapons; the closing of the Los Alamos National labs; the cleaning up of the environment and making reparations to the downwinders and indigenous people whose land was stolen.

This year, the pandemic has forced us to host an online commemoration instead (on August 6th, 8 p.m. EST, at http://www.campaignnonviolence.org/hiroshimaday2020) with speakers including Dr. Ira Helfand of the Nobel Peace Prize group, the Intl Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons and Archbishop John Wester of New Mexico, who will speak of his recent visit to Hiroshima and Pope Francis urgent call to abolish nuclear weapons.

We remember what the United States did 75 years ago when we killed 200,000 people at Hiroshima and another 40,000 people in Nagasaki. We repent of this evil by recommitting ourselves to the long hard work of building a global grassroots movement for the abolition of nuclear weapons and war, starting with the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons.

Our message over the years has been simple, moral and urgent: Nuclear weapons have totally failed us

Our message over the years has been simple, moral and urgent: Nuclear weapons have totally failed us. They dont make us safer; they dont provide jobs; they dont make us more securethose are age-old lies. Instead they bankrupt us, economically and spiritually.

According to the Doomsday Clock, we are in greater danger now than ever. A limited nuclear war between India and Pakistan is very possible; an all-out nuclear war would end life as we know it. We cannot continue down this path. If we spent billions instead on teaching and building nonviolent civilian-based defense systems and nonviolent conflict resolution programs around the world, we could move the planet closer toward true peaceand have the resources to cut the roots of war, such as injustice, poverty, and racismand start safeguarding creation.

To the employees of the Los Alamos National Labs and the nuclear weapons industry, we have been pleading: dont waste your one precious life building weapons to vaporize millions of sisters and brothers. Quit your jobs and find pro-human, nonviolent work.

To the Christians who work at the Los Alamos Labs and the nuclear weapons industry, weve been saying: take up the command of the nonviolent Jesus who say love your enemies, dont nuke them. Quit your jobs, join his campaign of nonviolence, and work for a more just, more nonviolent nation and world.

To our politicians, we say, stop funding nuclear weapons development. This message is integral to the Black Lives Matter movement, the environmental movement, the anti-corruption movement, and all the grassroots movements for justice and peace. Instead, fund the needs of the people for better schools, jobs, healthcare, food, housing and environmental cleanup.

These weapons and our violence blind us to the truth of our common humanity, our oneness with creation. We can no longer even imagine a world without war or nuclear weapons. Today, we demand leaders with vision of a new North America, free of nuclear weapons, a new land of nonviolence that fulfills Dr. Kings visionary dream, who will work to make that vision come true.

This 75th anniversary of Hiroshima should not just be an interesting historical marker; it should be a turning point, when the U.S. renounces its nuclear legacy, and charts a new course for itself and humanity, so that together in a nuclear-free future, we can get on with the task for justice, environmental cleanup and learning to live at peace with one another.

John DearPeaceVoice

Excerpt from:

Remember Hiroshima by Abolishing Nuclear Weapons - LA Progressive