Category Archives: Freedom

The Parkland softball team took on defending Eastern Pennsylvania Conference champion Freedom on Thursday in a conference quarterfinal.

The teams meeting in the regular season was a high-scoring game that saw the Trojans beat the Patriots 11-9 on April 14.

Parkland controlled the rematch from the start, scoring four runs in the first inning and then added three runs each in the fifth and sixth frames to post a 10-0 home victory in six innings.

We were all pretty nervous, but getting up in the first inning really relaxed all of us, Parkland senior shortstop Jenna Piatkiewicz said. Then, we were just getting the bat on the ball.

The second-seeded Trojans will play third-seeded Emmaus in the semifinals at 4 p.m. Monday at Patriots Park in Allentown. The Green Hornets beat sixth-seeded Whitehall 4-3 in a quarterfinal on Thursday.

Trojans senior pitcher Ashlyn Hillanbrand struck out 10 batters and held Freedom to four hits on the day.

The senior struck out the side in the second inning and had two strikeouts each in the first and fifth frames.

Hillanbrand only allowed four singles and didnt let a runner reach third base in the game.

It was a very different story from the teams meeting in the regular season where Freedom scored nine runs on 11 hits against the Trojans.

We started to work inside and outside. Both areas, Hillanbrand said of the first meeting. We noticed that helped a lot. I think the day before we played them, we played Emmaus 12 hours earlier. It was an eight-inning game. It was just tough to wake up at 9 in the morning and be ready.

Im happy because shes matured. Shes working on better locations, Trojans coach Barry Search said of the pitcher. Shes doing a great job for us. She keeps us in ball games. She gives us the possibility to be successful.

Parklands first seven batters in the first inning reached base. Piatkiewicz hit an infield single to lead off the game. Two batters later, senior second baseman Cassidy Sweeney had an RBI single for the Trojans. After a single by senior third baseman Shana Gugliandolo, junior center fielder Evelyn Montone drove a two-run single into left field to increase the lead to 3-0. Senior left fielder Ashlyn Cope added an RBI fielders choice for Parkland in the opening inning.

Sophomore catcher Morgan Schultz made it a 6-0 lead with a two-run single in the fifth inning. Piatkiewicz followed with an RBI single.

The Trojans got an RBI single from senior right fielder Lucia Ruimy in the sixth frame. The game ended early when Piatkiewicz hit a two-run single.

We needed to work on hitting, Montone said. Through the season, we progressed. It got better. And today we had 12 hits.

Piatkiewicz went 4-for-5 with a pair of RBIs for Parkland.

Montone went 3-for-4 with a triple and two RBIs for the Trojans, who improved to 15-5 on the season.

Parklands Cope reached base in all three of her plate appearances.

Sophomore shortstop Madison Glick had two hits for the Patriots, who fell to 12-9 on the year.

The Trojans have split the season series with the Green Hornets. Parkland lost to Emmaus 2-0 at home on April 13 and then rebounded for an 8-3 road win last Thursday.

Its equal, Search said of the matchup against Emmaus. Its going to be one of those 50-50 shots, I think. If were on and we can hit the ball, its going to be good for us. If we cant do that, they have a very good team and theyre also doing a great job. Its almost identical records. I think it was a matter of a one-hundredth power point that separated us and them. Theyre equal teams.

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Josh Folck may be reached at jfolck@lehighvalleylive.com.

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Parkland softball starts fast, rolls to EPC playoff win over Freedom - lehighvalleylive.com

EDMONTON, AB, May 13, 2022 /CNW/ - Freedom Cannabis Inc., a Canadian producer of premier cannabis brands, is pleased to announce it has formed a strategic relationship with Pervasip Corp, and its wholly owned Seattle-based Zen Asset Management, owners of the Artizen brand (jointly referred to as "Artizen") to pursue mutually beneficial business opportunities.

The strategic relationship will see the two companies collaborate on areas of mutual benefit, including co-branding and sharing intellectual property. The two companies entered into the relationship after signing a non-binding Letter of Intent that forms the basis of the agreement.

"For Freedom Cannabis, this is a very important step forward," explained CEO, Johnfrank Potestio. "This provides our company with a very important foothold in the US market that can be developed even further as our two companies begin to collaborate."

The strategic relationship is beneficial to both companies as they build brand awareness in their respective markets. The cannabis companies are licensed producers and managers of premier brands and are quickly gaining market share in both Canada and the US.

The LOI also contemplates a potential joint venture between the two companies for Artizen's branded product to be grown at the Freedom facility located just outside of Edmonton, Alberta. This would include licensing of the Artizen brand in Canada and Freedom licensing its brand to Artizen in the US.

The two companies will also explore a potential merger in the future, depending on market conditions and regulatory approvals, that would significantly increase market share in North America. A potential merger would be dependent on due diligence by both parties, Freedom Cannabis pursuing a public offering in Canada, and legalization of cannabis at the federal level in the US.

While the LOI provides a path forward for Freedom to secure a foothold in the US market, the companies are focused on leveraging their synergies in the short term, including the sharing of intellectual property and co-branding of products.

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"We are very pleased to have formed a working relationship with Artizen," explained Potestio. "Artizen shares the same values as Freedom Cannabis and are dedicated to becoming one of the leading brands in North America. The LOI provides significant opportunity for Freedom Cannabis to access the large US market while continuing to build its brand in Canada."

"Freedom and its management team have an impressive foundation for growth, and we are pleased to enter into this relationship, maximizing each other's potential, especially at a time when we are expanding Artizen across the United States. Building on the recognition of Artizen being the 9th largest independent cannabis flower brand in the US, Freedom is the perfect strategic partner to both accelerate our growth and enter the Canadian market" said German Burtscher, Pervasip's President and Chief Executive Officer.

Pervasip Corporation

Pervasip Corp., a developer of companies and technologies in high value emerging markets, owns Artizen Corporation and its subsidiary, Zen Asset Management LLC, a diversified asset management company founded to acquire, develop, and support companies and technologies in the cannabis industry. ZAM's existing clients operate four licensed cannabis cultivation and one processing facility in Washington. Most of the biomass produced by these independent cultivators has been sold historically under the Artizen brand, including all-time top selling products in flower in Washington state. Additional information on Artizen-branded products is available online at http://www.artizencannabis.com. Pervasip additionally owns 5% of KRTL Biotech, Inc., a developer of biotechnologies with a focus on pharmaceutical applications of cannabinol and psilocybin. Additional information on KRTL is available online at http://www.krtlbiotech.com. Additional information on Pervasip can be found at http://www.pervasip.net.

Forward-Looking Statements

This news release contains statements and information that, to the extent that they are not historical fact, may constitute "forward-looking information" within the meaning of applicable securities legislation. Forward-looking information may include financial and other projections, as well as statements regarding future plans, objectives, or economic performance, or the assumption underlying any of the foregoing. In some cases, forward-looking statements can be identified by terms such as may, would, could, will, likely, except, anticipate, believe, intend, plan, forecast, project, estimate, outlook, or the negative thereof or other similar expressions concerning matters that are not historical facts. Examples of such statements include, but are not limited to, statements with respect to the objectives and business plans of the Company; ability to realize benefits from its recent corporate appointments; ability to retain its key personnel; the intention to grow the Company's business and operations; the competitive conditions of the industries in which the Company operates; and laws and any amendments thereto applicable to the Company. Forward-looking information is based on the assumptions, estimates, analysis, and opinions of management made in light of its experience and its perception of trends, current conditions and expected developments, as well as other factors that management believes to be relevant and reasonable in the circumstances at the date that such statements are made, but which may prove to be incorrect. The material factors and assumptions used to develop the forward-looking information contained in this news release include, but are not limited to, key personnel and qualified employees continuing their involvement with the Company; and the Company's ability to secure financing on reasonable terms. Forward-looking information involves known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause the actual results, performance or achievements of the Company to differ materially from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by the forward-looking information, including, without limitation, risks relating to the future business plans of the Company; risks that the Company will not be able to retain its key personnel; risks that the Company will not be able to secure financing on reasonable terms or at all, as well as all of the other risks as described in the Company's periodic disclosure statements.

Accordingly, readers should not place undue reliance on any such forward-looking information. Further, any forward-looking information speaks only as of the date on which such statement is made. New factors emerge from time to time, and it is not possible for the Company's management to predict all of such factors and to assess in advance the impact of each such factor on the Company's business or the extent to which any factor, or combination of factors, may cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in any forward-looking information. The Company does not undertake any obligation to update any forward-looking information to reflect information or events after the date on which it is made or to reflect the occurrence of unanticipated events, except as required by law, including securities laws.

SOURCE Freedom Cannabis Inc.

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Freedom forms strategic alliance with US-based Artizen - Yahoo Finance

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Oliver: Freedom to read | Opinion | mainstreet-nashville.com - Main Street Nashville

Its Not Free SpeechRace, Democracy, and the Future of Academic Freedomby Michael Brub and Jennifer RuthJohns Hopkins, 293 pp., $29.95

When the Higher Education Research Institute first surveyed professors at four-year colleges, the far right barely registered; just 0.4 percent of the respondents so identified themselves, compared to 5.7 percent who labeled themselves far left. While there were more conservative professors, 15.7 percent, they were dwarfed by self-described moderates, at 38.8 percent, and liberals, who had a plurality at 39.5 percent.

That was more than thirty years ago. In Its Not Free Speech, Michael Brub, a professor of literature at Pennsylvania State University, and Jennifer Ruth, a professor of film at Portland State University, are asking whether academic freedom is being used as a refuge for white supremacists. Their answer is yes, an answer so damning that, they say, it should make us rethink academic freedom. So, whats changed?

Not the share of far-right professors. Thats still 0.4 percent in the most recent survey.

Other things have changed, but not to serve Brub and Ruths argument. There are now roughly as many self-described far-left professors (11.5 percent) as conservatives (11.7 percent). The ratio of liberals to conservatives has risen from a little over 2:1 to well over 4:1.

White supremacy in the academy wouldnt seem to merit book-length alarm.

But Brub and Ruth are dedicated defenders of academic freedom. Both have served the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) as members of Committee A, which investigates complaints against universities and crafts policy documents and reports on academic freedom. This is not only hard, mostly thankless, work but also an opportunity to keep an eye on American campuses. When they say that the problem of tenured white supremacists is weighty enough to prompt new thinking about academic freedom, we owe them a hearing.

However, when we search Its Not Free Speech for reasons to think that the academy harbors white supremacists, we find a handful of cases. Theres Amy Wax of the University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School, whose brand of nationalism implies that our country will be better off with more whites and fewer non-whites. Theres Bruce Gilley of Ruths own Portland State, who thinks not only that Western colonialism was defensible at times in the past but also that a colonial governance agenda, suitably modified, is right for our present. These cases have drawn much attention. But Brub and Ruths Exhibit A for the proposition that the problem here is unfathomably larger than any one Bruce Gilley or Amy Wax is the case of Gregory Christainsen. Brub and Ruth call this case central to their argument. Lets look at it closely.

Christainsen is a professor emeritus of economics at California State University-East Bay. He had been a full professor there for nearly 25 years when he took up, in writing and the classroom, race realism, according to which racial inequalities reflect natural inequalities. A 2014 anonymous student complaint did nothing to damage Christainsens good standing. He was not firedor rebuked, or censured, or disciplined. Christainsens case, say Brub and Ruth, shows the entrenched, unshakeable beliefs of the white supremacist professoriate.

The facts that Brub and Ruth volunteer show no such thing. They show something duller. Full professors are rarely reviewed with care. Anonymous complaints, whatever their merits, rarely trump decades of service. That may not be defensible, but its not a sign of white supremacys strength in out universities.

Brub and Ruth dont volunteer that when Christainsens work became more widely known, CSUs academic senate voted 32-1 to censure him for racist scholarly activity and requested that he be relieved of his remaining teaching duties, already limited since his early retirement in 2016. Just one person, a black colleague who had known Christainsen for 29 years, spoke against the resolution. CSUs administration didnt forbid Christainsen to teach, but he has apparently not been in a classroom since. More than eighty CSU professors, drawing in part on the Christainsen case, publicly urged the provost not to reappoint Christainsens department chair, Jed DeVaro. DeVaro was not reappointed.

Thats Brub and Ruths best shot at establishing the magnitude of the problem their book addresses. For this we need to rethink academic freedom?

Lets consider, nonetheless, the rethinking they have in mind. The case for academic freedom rests on the distinct way in which universities serve the public. The common good, says the widely adopted 1940 AAUP Statement of Principles, depends upon the free search for truth and its free exposition. Trustees and legislators, the argument goes, should give professors the widest latitude in teaching, research, and their speech as citizens, because their intervention can undermine free inquiry. And free inquiry, although we cannot foresee its precise results, is a public benefit. This case flies only if people who might otherwise try to bend the university to serve their passions and interests bet, instead, that universities will serve us better as homes of reason than they will as carriers of someones creed.

Doubts about that bet often come from conservative outsiders, who think it nave. Academic freedom may be good in theory, they say. But in practice, it protects antiwar activists, or Communists, or critical race theorists, for whom universities are assets in a propaganda war. (This was the central argument of one of the ur-texts of modern American conservatism, William F. Buckleys 1951 book God and Man at Yale.) Its Not Free Speech is a sign that insiders have doubts, too. To many younger scholars, with whom Brub and Ruth sympathize,

ideals like academic freedom look like hazy, high-minded beliefs cherished by old white people oblivious to the way in which right-wing provocateurs . . . weaponize the freedoms they enjoy.

This threat, Brub and Ruth suggest, should provoke us to rethink academic freedom in two ways.

The first rethinking is more of a reminder. Academic freedom is not free speech. I enjoy free speech at my local park, where I can talk about whatever I like. In my classroom, I cannot, without drawing the disapproving attention of my dean, turn my Byzantine Art class into an extended meditation on Trumpism. As a historian, Im free to write The Holocaust Deniers Had It Right. But when my department denies me tenure because Im incompetent, I cant complain that my academic freedom has been violated. As a citizen, I am free to tweet, the college wont let me exclude bloodsucking Zionists from my course, but come grading season, I shall exact sweet revenge. But even fierce advocates of academic freedom will concede that such a tweet raises questions about my fitness that warrant investigation.

Academic freedom means not that there are no limits on what I can say but that limits are set by the demands of research and teaching, not the demands of trustees and the public. Brub and Ruth worry that many of their colleagues accept an excessively libertarian conception of academic freedom that renders such limits meaningless for tenured professors like Gregory Christainsen.

The second rethinking is more fundamental. Drawing on critical race theory, Brub and Ruth argue that just as purportedly neutral laws legitimate existing maldistributions of wealth and power, so also does the academys fetishization of a mythically neutral pursuit of truth provide cover for the powerful. For that reason, academics should abandon the pretense of neutrality. On the understanding of academic freedom that has prevailed for over a century, the university serves democracy indirectly by supporting the unrestricted research and unfettered discussion of impartial investigators, moved by scientific conscience. On the understanding of academic freedom that Brub and Ruth propose, ideas are to be judged not only on how they reflect the best available arguments and evidence but also on whether they reflect a commitment to furthering democracy.

In practice that means that the faculty academic freedom committees Brub and Ruth assign the task of evaluating competence should think of competence both in standard disciplinary terms and in its democratic valence. Such committees will make judgment calls . . . that take into consideration the historical and political circumstances in which their universities find themselves. A classicists conspiratorial tweet about the faking of the moon landing, on this understanding, may require less aggressive intervention than his conspiratorial tweet about #StopTheSteal.

Brub and Ruth acknowledge that even in the narrow work of evaluating scholars in their own fields of expertise, professors go astray and mistake challenges to the present state of their field for incompetence. What then, of the broader work of evaluating the democratic valence of ideas in light of the historical and political circumstances that the university confronts? Experts in physics may make errors in judging their fellow physicists, but at least they are well equipped to judge. It is hubris to think that faculty committees are competent to assess the historical and political circumstances, then measure the harm to democracy that might result from a colleagues article or tweet.

In presenting their own judgments about our nations historical and political circumstances, and what we should make of them, Brub and Ruth issue standard but disputable pronouncements. Weve learned, they say, from social media that mass communication isnt a big coffee shop in which people exchange reasoned ideas. But weve known that since the adoption of the printing press. Weve learned, they say, from the rise of Donald Trump and the alt-right, to doubt liberal shibboleths about . . . the so-called marketplace of ideas. But no thoughtful liberal holds that the metaphorical marketplace of ideas guarantees the triumph of good ones, any more than they hold that due process guarantees just outcomes, or that elections ensure wins for the good guys. Free speech, Brub and Ruth say, may have helped dissenters in the early 1990s, but since then the courts have decisively tilted the First Amendment in the favor of corporations and religious conservatives. Nothing they say subsequently earns them that decisively.

Throughout, Brub and Ruth depict liberals as lovers of abstractions who look past hard realities. Liberals dont get, for example that supporting free speech for Nazis is actually quite beneficial to Nazis. Aryeh Neier, who as executive director of the ACLU, defended the right of neo-Nazis to march in Skokie, was a refugee from Nazi Germany. The Nazis murdered his extended family. But what does a fellow like that know about Nazis? What did the architects of the AAUPs 1940 academic freedom statement know about political illiberalism? Only we who have been stung by Facebook and Fox News understand that the old ways have failed.

That a myopia of the present this powerful afflicts academics like Brub and Ruth, who know more about the history of academic freedom than most, doesnt inspire confidence in faculty committees as guardians of democracy.

If thats the future of academic freedom, count me out.

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Do We Really Need to Rethink Academic Freedom? - The Bulwark

In the days after Vladimir Putin launched the invasion of Ukraine in late February, Vladimir Shurupov, a cardiologist from the Siberian city of Tomsk, felt he could not breathe properly. I was having panic attacks, I could not eat or sleep. I just knew I had to remove myself from this place, from this atmosphere, he said.

Shurupov, 40, had been a quiet critic of Putins government for years, but he had never attended a protest of any kind, fearful of unwanted attention or arrest. When the war began, disgust with the regime combined with a fear he would be sent to the front. If there was mobilisation, I would have been called up as a military doctor, and this is not a war I would be willing to fight in, he said.

Shurupov discussed with his wife and two sons that perhaps they should try to leave the country. The family had minimal savings but he was able to sell his car for cash and buy four tickets to Yerevan, the capital of Armenia.

Just two days after first discussing leaving, they flew out of Tomsk to Yerevan. After receiving Schengen visas, they moved on to Bulgaria. They have no plans ever to return home.

The Shurupov family are among hundreds of thousands of Russians to have fled the country since the war began on 24 February. Putin has referred to such people as traitors and scum and said their departure will help cleanse Russian society.

Many are opposition journalists or activists, whose work has in effect been criminalised under increasingly draconian wartime laws in Russia. Others are businesspeople fleeing sanctions. Some simply did not want to be part of a society where pro-war feelings are running so high. Shurupov estimated that of 30 colleagues at his hospital, only three were opposed to the war.

Some of those who left in the days after the invasion have already decided to return, but many are set on making a new life abroad, at least until there are political changes in Russia.

I dont want to live behind a new iron curtain. I just had a feeling that there was no future in Russia, said Valery Zolotukhin, 39, a literary and theatre scholar who came to Armenia with his wife and seven-year-old daughter. In Russia, youre living inside the fantasy of a few people Theyve created an imaginary world and youre forced to be part of it.

A century ago, after the Bolsheviks took over Russia, millions of migrs fled to Istanbul, Prague and Harbin. Today there is an echo of that process as the cafes of Vilnius, Tbilisi and Yerevan are packed with Russians in the first stages of building a new life.

Armenia is one of the most popular destinations, because no visa is required. It has also created favourable conditions for IT businesses, prompting the relocation of thousands of Russian tech professionals over the past two months.

At the beginning, you walked down the street and saw all your friends from Moscow, and the people from St Petersburg and Nizhny Novgorod you only normally see on Zoom calls, said Maya Gorodova, a former commercial director at Russian startups, who has set up a coworking space in Yerevan with views to Mount Ararat from the windows.

All 70 current tenants are recent arrivals from Russia, and Gorodova has received calls from Russians in Belgrade, Tbilisi, Tel Aviv and Bali, she said, asking for advice on setting up new work spaces for migrs.

The outflow of tech professionals is likely to be a huge blow for Russia, which in recent years has become a highly digitised economy. But opposition to the war, a fear of possible mobilisation and the loss of contracts with foreign clients due to sanctions have combined to push many to the exit.

At Hummus Kimchi, a new restaurant run by a brother and sister team transplanted from Moscow, recent arrivals to Yerevan discuss their next moves. Some have their eye on Britains Global Talent visa and have paid thousands of pounds to agents who promise to craft their forms to match the Home Offices checklist. Others note that Germany offers citizenship within five years for arriving IT specialists.

Of course these are all reserve options, said one young tech professional, sipping a craft beer. Hopefully, Putin will die soon and we can all go back.

For many who have left, emigration was the final moment in a life of gritty opposition activity, including arrests and house searches. For others it was the start of a political awakening.

One woman in her 30s, who did not want her name published, said she had always opposed Putin but had been too fearful to attend protests or post on Facebook. On the second day of the war she wore clothes in Ukrainian colours to work, and her colleagues began insulting her. She realised nobody in her social group shared her revulsion over the invasion.

Its impossible to talk to any of my friends, I started chats with a few of them and it feels like they are just pressing control C, control V. Theyre all repeating the same phrases, she said.

She also left behind a long-term boyfriend who works in Russias security services. Previously they had not discussed politics much, but before departing she wrote him a long letter setting out her opposition to the war. They have hardly spoken since.

In a short time here I met more people who think like me than I did in the last few years in Moscow. And I realised that here Ive stopped always calculating what I should say based on who Im talking to. I feel so much freer, she said.

Many Russians in Yerevan spend long hours in the citys cafes and bars, philosophising about whether there was any way to have stopped Putin earlier, and whether they should have done more. Some remain worried about repercussions at home and speak in mealy mouthed euphemisms about the unfortunate events or the Ukrainian situation. Others are eager to express their wholehearted support for Ukraine.

In Moscow, Elena Kamay ran Lambada Markets, which put on street markets beloved by the citys so-called creative class that has sprung up over the past decade. Stalls sold vintage clothing, items by local designers and other artisan objects. Of course it was all a facade, we lived in a bubble. And now its all over, she said.

Kamay moved to Yerevan at the beginning of March, and like many has been thinking back over the past decade from todays vantage point. She accepted that working in Moscow had involved doing a deal with your conscience, though she said she had been attending anti-government protests since 2011.

Recently, she said, she had been rereading messages she had exchanged with Oksana Baulina, a Russian activist and journalist who left Russia two years ago and was killed by a Russian airstrike in Kyiv in March while reporting. I always thought she was exaggerating a bit when she described her views about Russia and the political system, but it turns out she was right all along, she said.

Elena Chegodayeva also arrived in Yerevan in March, and a few weeks later set up a school from an apartment in the city centre. The 50 pupils and 20 teachers have all recently arrived from Russia. Chegodayeva said she had been pondering the concept of collective responsibility since the war started.

We are all Russians and we will have to take responsibility for this, just like Germans had to after the war, she said. On the other hand, I was two years old when Putin was elected, so its not entirely clear what more I could have done.

Chegodayeva, 24, said she had lost part of her university stipend for arguing with her professor about whether the annexation of Crimea was illegal, and received dawn visits to her apartment from police after taking part in protests. She said the case of a St Petersburg artist who faces 10 years in jail for replacing supermarket price tags with anti-war slogans showed protest in Russia now was futile. She will only return to Russia if there is revolution in the air, she said.

Rather than try to persuade people to stay, Putin has celebrated the outflow of hundreds of thousands of educated, anti-war Russians. In a sinister video address in the middle of March, Putin criticised those who moved abroad or supported the west in its current battle with Moscow.

Any people, and particularly the Russian people, are able to distinguish true patriots from scum and traitors, and simply spit them out like a fly that flew into their mouths, he said, using some of the harshest language of his two decades in charge. There would be a natural and necessary cleansing of society, said Putin, which would be beneficial to the country in the long run.

The question now is whether those who have left will gradually disconnect themselves from Russia, or form a powerful opposition to Putin and his regime from outside, rallying around political forces such as associates of the jailed opposition leader Alexei Navalny, who are mostly now based in Vilnius.

For 100 years, the understanding of emigration was that people quickly lost touch with Russia and didnt understand it, so nobody believed the political emigration might have a chance of playing a role in Russian politics, said Andrei Soldatov, a co-author with Irina Borogan of a recent book about the history of Russians outside Russia.

Now, however, the internet opens up very different possibilities. The country is still connected to the world. So many Russian journalists left the country and still have contact with their audiences, and this is an absolutely new development for the Kremlin, Soldatov said.

Before trying to change the regime, many of the migrs are first focused on trying to change the mind of war-supporting family members who have stayed behind, refusing to leave.

Shurupov hopes his mother will eventually join the family in Europe, but so far she is resisting. I havent been able to convince her about the war, and she doesnt want to leave. For me, this is a real tragedy.

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Russian migrs fleeing Putins war find freedom in the cafes of Armenia - The Guardian

NEW SEWICKLEY TWP. A new long-term road closure will cause significant detours for motorists traveling in New Sewickley Township and Freedom.

According to PennDOT, road crews will begin to enter the final phases of the Freedom Road Upgrade Project along Freedom-Crider Road on Monday. The long-term detours are scheduled to begin at 9 a.m., restricting access to the roadway from Route 989 to the intersection with Crows Run Road through late September.

The Freedom Road Upgrade project began in November, using $21.75 million to improve the roadway between Park Quarry Road and Route 989. During construction, crews have worked to add culvert replacements, roadway reconstruction and widening, roadway realignments, new shoulders, guardrail updates, drainage improvements, additional turn-lanes, a roundabout installation and relocate utilities along the roadway. The project is expected to be fully complete by the fall of 2024.

As road crews complete the final phase of the project, PennDOT has posted the following detours:

In addition to the detour for Freedom-Crider Road, work along Route 989 will cause a long-term closure through late September. Starting on Monday, an around-the-clock closure will take place from the intersection with Freedom-Crider Road and end at the intersection with Lovi Road (Route 2006.)

Throughout the project, only local traffic will be allowed through the work zones.

Motorists are advised to practice caution when driving in the area for the workers' safety. Drivers can check the condition of the road and project status live on the 511PA website and smartphone app.

Read the rest here:

PennDOT to begin long-term closures along Freedom-Crider Road and Route 989 on Monday - The Times

KATHMANDU/NEW DELHI Media outlets in Nepal were abuzz recently with reports that the countrys iconic Bengal tigers (Panthera tigris tigris), on whose protection the government and various NGOs lavish huge sums of money every year, were moving to India in search of better habitats.

The story resonated with the public, in a country where thousands of Nepalis cross the open border daily into the southern neighbor in search of better jobs and incomes .

As India is doing a better job at managing its tiger habitats, Nepali tigers are crossing the border to move to greener pastures, one media report said.

Following the reports, Nepals Department of National Parks and Wildlife Reserves said it was preparing plans to encourage Nepali wild animals to stay in Nepal.

The episode highlights one of the key human-induced challenges facing efforts to conserve the Bengal tiger population in its joint stronghold of Nepal and India : animal nationalism, or the belief that certain wildlife belong to a particular country.

A century ago, there were an estimated more than 100,000 wild tigers across Asia. By the early 2000s, their number had plummeted by 95%, largely due to poaching and habitat loss and fragmentation. During this time, three subspecies the Java, Bali and Caspian tigers went extinct.

In 2010, the governments of tiger range countries committed to doubling the tiger population by 2022, the year of the tiger in the Chinese zodiac. Since then, the population of Bengal tigers has bounced back, with Nepal and India leading the way toward achieving the goal.

On July 29, International Tiger Day, Nepal is expected to announce the achievement of the goal of doubling the population, at least in some of its protected areas.

Tigers have historically moved freely between ranges in Nepal and India, establishing a rich genetic pool. When we radio-collared 10 tigers in Nepal and India [in] 2013, we found that they were frequenting both India and Nepal, said Baburam Lamichhane, a conservation biologist at the National Trust for Nature Conservation, a semi-governmental body in Nepal.

However, these movements are becoming increasingly restricted due to a host of challenges, and compounded by a sense of animal nationalism that threatens to fragment populations in the two countries.

Animals dont care which land belongs to Nepal and which land belongs to India, says conservationist Narendra Man Babu Pradhan, a former warden of Nepals Chitwan National Park who now works with IUCN, Nepal. But it hasnt been easy for humans to understand that.

Governments and NGOs on both sides of the border spend a lot of money and resources trying to shore up the population of tigers. As their performance is judged by the number of tigers counted in the census, the cross-border movement of tigers becomes an accounting problem.

But the notion of national tigers was discredited in the late 1990s when conservationists realized that conserving tigers in isolated protected areas would never be an adequate strategy. A study commissioned by the Save the Tiger Fund and conducted by WWF and the Wildlife Conservation Society developed a new approach for tiger conservation. They came up with the idea of tiger conservation units, habitat blocks across the tigers global range with the best potential to recover and secure their populations. The TCU analysis originally identified six units across south-central and western Nepal and northwestern India.

These units were separated from one another by degraded habitat that was likely a barrier to tiger dispersal. It was agreed that conservation efforts should focus on creating habitat connectivity between these six TCUs by restoring forest habitats and corridors to facilitate the tigers movement. This would result in a large and connected landscape extending from Nepals Bagmati River in the east to Indias Yamuna River in the west, called the Terai Arc landscape.

In recent decades, rapid human population growth and land-use change, especially the building of new roads, in this landscape has led to deforestation and expansion of human settlements.

This means that wildlife that could historically move from one country to another along the 1,850-kilometer (1,150-mile) border are now limited to a few corridors that run across it. These corridors connect key tiger habitats such Pilibhit in Indian with Shuklaphanta in Nepal; Dudhwa with various community forests in Nepal; and Katerniaghat with Bardiya National Park, says Pranav Chanchani, national lead for tiger conservation at WWF-India.

Some corridors have already been affected by Nepals roads; their effect on tiger movement has yet to be ascertained, said Lamichhane. Although Nepal recently issued a set of guidelines for the construction of wildlife-friendly infrastructure, these are not yet fully implemented. Similar border roads are being built in India.

A recent study suggests that when roads run close to protected areas, wildlife is threatened not just with being hit by vehicles. They also face the fragmentation or loss of their habitat, reduced genetic connectivity, and increased poaching. The new border roads being planned in both countries could have deleterious impacts on tiger movement and ultimately the species survival, unless appropriate mitigation structures are expediently built, Chanchani said.

As the human population increases on the fertile plains, vehicle traffic is expected to pick up on these roads, increasing the risk for the endangered animals. Prachi Thatte, who studies connectivity conservation genetics at WWF-India, said genetic studies on tigers reveal that high-traffic roads act as barriers to their movement.

Even the existing national highways connecting major city centers may be permeable to tiger movement on stretches with low traffic volumes and when other landscape features facilitate movement. This is corroborated by data from radio-collared tigers that have been observed to cross national highways at night when the traffic is low, Thatte told Mongabay-India.

While roads with moderate to low traffic are not complete barriers, they do obstruct gene flow, likely due to the risk of deaths. Although tigers are currently known to navigate across low-traffic roads, this is bound to change in the future as traffic is projected to increase and roads will likely be widened to accommodate increasing traffic volumes, Thatte added.

A 2018 report by Indias National Tiger Conservation Authority recommends that roads being built along the border with Nepal avoid traversing protected areas and corridors and ensure appropriate and adequate animal passageways where alternate alignments are not possible. But the recommendations from the report havent been fully implemented, as both countries continue to build roads.

The issue of tiger movement between the two countries is further complicated by the animals behavior. While humans may build corridors to facilitate their movement, they cant force tigers to always move through these corridors, researchers say. Information from a radio-collared tiger in 2018 revealed that tiger movement between the two countries is not merely limited to these corridors but also occurs through agricultural areas and small forest fragments connected with Nepals Chure range, Chanchani said.

Tigers have even been found crossing rivers such as the Sharda (known as the Mahakali in Nepal) to move between the two countries. In one of these corridors between the Boom Range of Champawat Forest Division in India and Brahmadev in far western Nepal, tigers swim across the Sharda River for many months of the year, barring perhaps in the rainy season, Chanchani said.

Tiger movement has also been recorded in small sections of farmland in the Lagga Bagga-Shukla Phanta corridor, where the forests and grasslands of Indias Uttar Pradesh state meld into the Shukla Phanta Wildlife Sanctuary of Nepal, with the Sharda River looping around at the south and southeast.

But as farming areas see a rise in the unplanned building of infrastructure, it may not be easy for tigers to continue taking this route for long, experts say.

While theres value in looking at the transboundary landscape as a single unit in conservation action to harmonize planning and interventions for transboundary landscapes differences in forest management and governance across countries make it challenging for combined efforts, conservationists say.

A transboundary approach to conservation has been adopted in the TransBoundary Manas Conservation Area, and to an extent, also in the Terai Arc landscape.

However, given the differences in forest management and governance, security and development imperatives, and social, economic, cultural and political settings across international borders, it has not always been possible to align all relevant aspects of conservation programs, Chanchani said.

Despite the challenges the Bengal tiger faces in crossing between Nepal and India, conservationists on both sides of the border agree that the fates of the animals populations in both countries are intertwined, as is the well-being of the people living in the frontier region.

This makes International Tiger Day this July an opportunity for the range countries to look beyond population growth, said Narendra Man Singh Pradhan.

We should look at the landscape as one unit and come up with concrete efforts to facilitate the movement of tigers between borders, he said. We have no other option.

Banner Image: ABengal tiger checks out the conditions before getting into the canal at Sundarban Tiger Reserve, West Bengal, India. Photo by: Soumyajit Nandy / Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International.

Feedback:Use this formto send a message to the author of this post. If you want to post a public comment, you can do that at the bottom of the page.

Citations:

Quintana, I., Cifuentes, E. F., Dunnink, J. A., Ariza, M., Martnez-Medina, D., Fantacini, F. M., . . . Richard, F. (2022). Severe conservation risks of roads on apex predators.Scientific Reports,12(1). doi:10.1038/s41598-022-05294-9

Athreya, V., Navya, R., Punjabi, G. A., Linnell, J. D., Odden, M., Khetarpal, S., & Karanth, K. U. (2014). Movement and activity pattern of a collared tigress in a human-dominated landscape in central India. Tropical Conservation Science, 7(1), 75-86. doi:10.1177/194008291400700111

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As tiger numbers in Nepal and India grow, their freedom to roam shrinks - Mongabay.com

In early April four Russian student editors of a university website called DOXA were put on trial in Moscow. The students at the Higher School of Economics had been under house arrest for a year for encouraging minors to engage in life-threatening activities expressing their views at a protest rally. All the same, the newspaper kept working. In the weeks immediately after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the DOXA website was an important source of independent information about the war.

We have stopped taking responsibility for what is happening in our country, declared one of the DOXA editors, Volodya Metelkin, at the trial. One of his co-defendants, Alla Gutnikova, concluded her speech by describing freedom as a process through which people develop the habit of becoming resistent to enslavement.

Responsibility and freedom these words, important to these students, were also precious to the Soviet dissidents of the 1960s and 1970s. This was evident in the demonstration on Red Square in August 1968, following the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia. The protestors there were just eight of them included Larisa Bogoraz, an outspoken activist, Pavel Litvinov, a grandson of one of Stalins foreign ministers, and Natalya Gorbanevskaya, founder of the samizdat journal, The Chronicle of Current Events. Most of them, Bogoraz and Litvinov included, were arrested and subjected to a show trial. Gorbanevskaya was arrested at the end of 1969 and then incarcerated in a psychiatric hospital.

In her final statement at the trial, Bogoraz declared that if she had not participated in the demonstration, she would have considered herself responsible for the actions of the government just as everyone bore responsibility for the Stalin-Beria labour camps. Her decision to demonstrate, she explained, was a way of taking responsibility for what had happened, even though she knew that the protest would likely prove ineffective. I decided that it was not a matter of effectiveness in so far as I was concerned, but of my responsibility, she declared.

In his final plea, Litvinov stated that he had felt obliged to express his disagreement with the government, while noting that it was vital for the country that its citizens should be truly free. At the demonstration itself, Litvinov had unfurled a banner bearing the phrase For your freedom and ours a slogan used by Polish insurgents protesting Russian rule in the 19th century.The implication was that taking responsibility for the events in Czechoslovakia was important for the fate of the Soviet Union itself.

Of course, the demonstration did not have any immediate effect. But in a letter to Western newspapers written just after it had taken place, Gorbanevskaya indicated that the demonstrators had succeeded in a moral if not a political way: they had broken through the torrent of unbridled lies and cowardly silence to show that not all Soviet citizens agreed with the violence being perpetrated in their name.

There was often an existential element in the activity of dissidents in that they wanted to free themselves from a feeling of being gripped by fear or entangled in lies. In his memoirs, human rights activist Vladimir Bukovsky called on people to throw off the excuses with which they justified complicity in crime. A small core of freedom existed in every person, he declared; this was a consciousness of personal responsibility, which meant inner freedom. Bukovsky played a crucial role in exposing the Soviet abuse of psychiatry in the early 1970s.

Another critic of Soviet communism, Nadezhda Mandelstam from an earlier generation of thinkers also had things to say about responsibility. In her view, people came to abdicate a sense of responsibility for the country in the 1920s as the Bolshevik dictatorship established itself. Everyone of us had a share in what happened, and there is no point in trying to disclaim responsibility, she wrote in her memoirs. In her view, inner freedom and memory were needed for anyone wanting to bring positive change to the world. Even the most ordinary person had the power to influence the course of events, she thought.

The dissidents generally did not like the word dissident: its use by the Soviet regime implied that they were effectively traitors to the motherland or figures of marginal importance. Today the Russian foreign agents law is a similar attempt to imply that such people are unpatriotic.

But these dissidents of the late 1960s were raising questions of national importance. The Soviet Union was desperately in need of new ideas. The invasion of Czechoslovakia was effectively a way of avoiding the challenge posed by the Czech reformers: the task of recovering a humane vision of life in a society still suffering the effects of Leninism and Stalinism. After he retired, the long-serving Soviet ambassador to Washington, Anatoly Dobrynin, wrote that while the Czechoslovak crisis gradually lost its intensity after the invasion, the military intervention cost the U.S.S.R. dearly politically and morally.

In her speech in early April, Alla Gutnikova remarked that even before her arrest, through her studies, she had joined the school of being able to talk about truly important things. Perhaps developing this art individually and collectively is in itself an act of responsibility. It is not easy to practice and can be costly for the participants: at their trial, Gutnikova and her co-defendants were sentenced to two years of corrective labor.But the failure to develop this capability, or the loss of it, can have bitter consequences, as the war in Ukraine shows.

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Russian Dissent Then and Now: 'For Your Freedom and Ours' - The Moscow Times

The media watchdog Reporters Without Borders (RSF) released the 20th edition of its World Press Freedom Index last week, in which it underscored a twofold increase in polarisation amplified by information chaos.

Media polarisation is emerging as one overarching hurdle inhibiting progress in conflict-marred regions of Africa, where it is also fast becoming an open threat to peace and security.

Few countries illustrate this gloomy trend better than Mali in the Sahel, and Ethiopia at the Horn of Africa.

In Mali, political uncertainty and tensions between the countrys government and former colonial power, France, have increased since a military coup led by Colonel Assimi Goita in August 2020 overthrew elected President Ibrahim Keta, who was supported by France.

Last week, the military government accused the two French broadcasters RFI and France24 of airing disinformation about reports of human rights violations by the Malian army around the town of Diabaly.

The Malian government accused France of spying after the French military released a video of what it said were mercenaries from the Kremlin-linked security firm Wagner burying bodies at a mass grave on 20 April.

NGOs including Human Rights Watch have accused the Malian junta of targeting innocent civilians with over 100 people said to have been killed since December. Mali said the reports that its army had carried out abuses contained false allegations aimed at destabilising the government.

Malis High Communication Authority has decided to ban RFI and France 24 from the Malian airwaves. UN rights office spokesperson Ravina Shamdasani warned that the current climate in Mali is one with a pervasive chilling effect on journalists.

As the space for free expression is severely curtailed in Mali, social media platforms are playing an increasingly important role. In a region already blighted by military coups in Guinea and Burkina Faso, the current social and political tensions in the west African nation are sustained by disinformation and inflammatory content, which have proven difficult to stamp out.

Mali is now placed 111 out of the 180 countries monitored in the latest World Press Freedom index, a 12-place drop from 2021.

In the eastern part of the continent, Ethiopian federal troops deployed by the prime minister, Abiy Ahmed, have been fighting the Tigray Peoples Liberation Front (TPLF) since November 2020.

Journalists and human rights groups have reported serious abuses in the country, mostly mass killings and violent atrocities. Victims blame federal Ethiopian soldiers, the Amhara regional militias and Eritrean forces.

The UN high commissioner for human rights, Michelle Bachelet, has said that serious violations of international law may have been committed by Ethiopia, Eritrea and the TPLF.

Ethiopia is ranked 114 in the latest press-freedom rankings, 13 places down from last year. Ahmed made a promising start when he took power in April 2018, but the Nobel peace prize-winners war in Tigray has meant a rapid reversal of positive developments, including in the area of press freedom.

This years index show that new freedoms are severely threatened. The Committee to Protect Journalists has reported on how erosion of media rights has seriously increased during the conflict. Several journalists and media workers accused of helping foreign media have been arrested.

Furthermore, Ethiopian news media have become dangerously divided along ethnic lines. Facebook and Twitter have come under fire over their roles in the conflict. Critics argue they are not doing enough to prevent the spread of hate speech and incitements to violence on their platforms. Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen has also stated that in places like Ethiopia social media is fanning ethnic violence, a claim the firms reject.

The RSF uses five indicators to compile the index: political context, legal framework, economic context, sociocultural context and security. Whereas the most worrying part for Mali is the political context, Ethiopia scores extremely low on the security indicator.

The Nobel committees decision to award the 2021 peace prize to journalists Maria Ressa from the Philippines and Dmitrij Muratov from Russia stressed the importance of quality journalism as a prerequisite for democracy and peace. Both countries continue to plunge on the RSF list.

After its invasion of Ukraine, and the ongoing information war, Russia is now ranked 155th, with the situation for press freedom described as very bad. Today, parts of the Nobel peace prize committees rationale can be read almost as a prelude to what was to come: A free, independent and fact-based journalism protects against abuse of power, lies and war propaganda.

Dr Kristin Skare Orgeret is a professor in journalism and media studies at Oslo Metropolitan University, with a particular focus on media in conflict

Dr Bruce Mutsvairo is associate professor at Utrecht University and is investigating the impact of disinformation in exacerbating political conflict in Mali and Ethiopia

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Media polarisation risks press freedom and peace in conflict-hit Mali and Ethiopia - The Guardian

Non-fungible tokens (NFTs) and digital art (including, I proudly admit, my own) are offering people the chance to tell their stories in innovative new ways. Cryptocurrencies have exploded, offering people around the world a new tool to use for investments and financial transactions, free from government control. And on the other side of the regulatory spectrum, even central banks are thinking about the future of digital currency and digital wallets. But with all this change, have we had the chance to stop and consider what this new digital reality will mean for the future of privacy?

The role of new digital realities and crypto will play in the future of privacy

In this latest episode of Garry on Lockdown, I discuss with Jaya Baloo, CISO at Avast, the status quo of security in cyberspace, and the role our new digital realities and crypto in particular will play in shaping the future of privacy. Although the episode was recorded before Putins second invasion of Ukraine began, this war (and the hybrid war combining conventional and cyber weapons that authoritarians have been waging against democracies everywhere for over a decade now) only reinforce how this story is more relevant now than ever before.

Our new virtual technologies are tools and, just like any other tools, they offer opportunities and progress, but also hurt, harm, and potential dangers to guard against. Just as work-from-home allowed people all over the world to keep doing their jobs while protecting themselves and their loved ones from a deadly pandemic, it also opened up a billion new points of attack and vulnerabilities in cybersecurity. Suddenly, the ransomware attacks youve only been reading about in the news may hit home when a cyberattack shuts down your local hospital, or infiltrates your email inbox. Billions of IoT devices flood the markets which consumers happily buy for cheap prices, uninformed about the security vulnerabilities they may come with.

Crypto can help solve security issues. At the same time, the rise of cryptocurrencies offers just as many new complications for firms and individuals trying to adapt to this new reality while doing good for the world. Ill admit that, like many of you, I too was skeptical of crypto at first, but the more I learned about the technology, the more I realized its importance, especially for those living under authoritarian governments.

Cryptocurrencies helping dissidents but also dictators?In fact, I was won over when experts at the Human Rights Foundation I chair showed me how cryptocurrency, free from government interference, can be a powerful tool for dissidents on the frontlines of freedom all over the world. If youre supporting a dissident in Venezuela, how can you get them the resources they need to speak out against a tyrannical regime? Whats the currency you use to avoid government seizures and persecution?

At the same time, just as dissidents use crypto to avoid government repression, some have asked me whether dictators may use crypto to avoid foreign sanctions. With Russias leading banks locked out by Western sanctions, are Russian oligarchs turning to digital cryptocurrencies?

Join Jaya and I as we discuss all this, and more, in the new episode of Garry on Lockdown.

Please note that this video was filmed prior to the onset of the war in Ukraine. The information presented in the video reflects the events taking place before February 24, 2022.

Read more from the original source:

The real exchange rate between crypto and freedom - Security Boulevard