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Families hold protests in multiple cities to demand justice for Flight PS752

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Families who lost loved ones in the destruction of Flight PS752 held protests today in cities across Canada, the U.S., Germany and the United Kingdom to demand justice.

Iran’s military shot down the Ukraine International Airlines flight shortly after takeoff in Tehran on Jan. 8, killing all 176 passengers onboard — including 55 Canadian citizens and 30 permanent residents.

Canadian officials said Iran stalled for months before sending the plane’s “black box” data recorders to France for downloading and analysis.

Iran’s Civil Aviation Organization released a preliminary report in August and said that only 19 seconds of the cockpit conversation was recorded after the first missile strike — but did not reveal details of what that recording captured. A second missile hit the plane 25 seconds later, according to Iran.

Several Canadian cabinet ministers said the report provided only “limited and selected information” and demanded that Iran explain why the airspace over Tehran was kept open on a night of heavy military activity, and why the missiles were launched in the first place.

More than two dozen family members and friends spread out on Parliament Hill in Ottawa this afternoon wearing matching black masks with the word “justice” on them. It was one of six rallies that took place in Canada today; other rallies went forward in Edmonton, Toronto, Montreal, Winnipeg and Calgary.

Hamed Esmaeilion took to the microphone in Ottawa on behalf of the association representing victims’ families in Canada with a list of demands. He lost his wife Parisa Eghbalian and her nine-year old daughter, Reera, in the crash.

“The families demand there must be a fair, comprehensive investigation without any interference by the Iranian government,” said Esmaeilion.

 

Hamed Esmaeilion’s wife Parisa Eghbalian and her nine-year old daughter Reera Esmaeilion died on Flight PS752. He spoke at the protest on Parliament Hill on behalf of an association representing victims’ families in Canada on Oct. 5, 2020. (Ashley Burke/CBC News)

 

Canada creating a forensics team

Families are also calling on countries that lost citizens in the tragedy to publicly release any information they’ve obtained about what happened.

Canada announced last Friday it’s creating its own forensics and assessment team to “collect, organize and analyze all available information, evidence and intelligence” about Flight PS752. The former deputy director of operations at the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, Jeff Yaworski, is heading the team, which also includes representatives of several government departments and agencies.

Ralph Goodale, the federal government’s special adviser on Flight PS752, recommended the team be assembled to help the federal government address a “complex international process that’s unfortunately very difficult and very challenging.”

“The evidence, the witnesses, the site are all within the control of Iran,”Goodale said as he attended the protest on Parliament Hill today. “Therefore, the other countries that were so tragically affected like Canada and others … to gain access to that information requires a complex pursuit of international procedures.”

The forensics team will “double-check, triple-check and critique” what Canada is hearing from other authorities including Iran, he said.

“To make sure every question is properly asked, and every answer is properly given,” said Goodale. “Where there’s a gap or a defect or deficiency in our view, this forensics team will be able to point out exactly what those defects are.”

Champagne accuses ICAO of not doing enough

Foreign Affairs François-Philippe Champagne said Canada will not be “intimated ever by an Iranian regime who would not want us to get to the bottom of this.”

The families are also calling on the countries that cooperate through the International Civil Aviation Organization to adopt a resolution condemning the destruction of Flight PS752. In 2014, the 36-state council condemned the downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 over eastern Ukraine.

 

Foreign Affairs Minister François-Philippe Champagne and Transport Minister Marc Garneau attended the rally. (Ashley Burke/CBC National News)

 

Champagne accused ICAO of not doing enough today.

“I have said many times I want ICAO to do more to uphold the air safety international convention,” he said. “They should take ownership of what needs to be done next to bring justice, but also support the Safer Sky Initiative Canada’s been launching.”

ICAO said it has “urged the Islamic Republic of Iran to conduct the accident investigation in a timely manner” and in compliance with international conventions. ICAO spokesperson Anthony Philbin also said its council did adopt new standards and recommended practices on conflict zone risk assessments and responsibilities.

Ukraine meeting with Iran this month

Andriy Shevchenko, Ukraine’s ambassador to Canada, said his country is scheduled to speak with Iran over Oct. 18-21 to raise concerns on behalf of five countries that lost citizens. The talks are expected to cover a broad range of issues, including compensation for victims’ families.

“We are not satisfied with the amount of information we get from Iran,” Shevchenko told CBC News at the Ottawa protest.

Masoud Pourjam’s brother Mansour died in the crash and he is still haunted by what happened. He said he still wakes up around 3 a.m. most mornings — the same hour he learned his brother had died.

“It’s still a nightmare for me,” said Pourjam. “As days go by, I still have no closure for that.”

Mehrdokht Hadi drove from Toronto to attend the rally in Ottawa after losing two of her friends on the flight.

“Everybody’s lives have been touched,” she said. “Our lives are not the same after what happened that night.”

Source: – CBC.ca

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Inequality has broad impacts on the health of Montreal children, report finds

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MONTREAL – A new public health report says economic inequality has wide-ranging effects on Montreal children’s health and development, affecting everything from high school graduation rates to screen time.

The report released Monday by Montreal’s public health department found that the city’s 12-and-under population is doing well as a whole, but that there are “significant inequalities” depending on where they live and their socioeconomic status.

“We continue to observe important socioeconomic and territorial disparities,” it reads.

Researchers concluded that 67 per cent of kindergarten children living in a disadvantaged environment were considered not very active or not active at all, compared with 55 per cent for their better-off peers.

Twenty-three per cent of disadvantaged kindergarten children reportedly spent more than two hours a day looking at screens, compared with 12 per cent for those in the more “advantaged” group. Excessive screen use “is associated with various health problems in children including sleep disorders, concentration difficulties, musculoskeletal disorders and developmental risks,” the report says.

Only 67 per cent of disadvantaged teens graduated high school, compared with 89 per cent of those from better-off environments.

The report notes that a 2022 study on kindergarten students found that some groups were at higher risk of “developmental vulnerability” tied to inequality, including children from disadvantaged backgrounds, those born outside of Canada, and those for whom French is not their first language.

“Other subgroups of students also have specific health and education needs that must be taken into account in our interventions: students needing special support and boys,” the report reads.

It notes that the measles and chickenpox vaccination rates at the elementary school level have dropped from 81 per cent in 2016-17 to 78 per cent now, but the rates vary greatly in different parts of the city, from as low as 65 per cent in some neighbourhoods to 86 per cent in others.

The report also says inequalities exist at the neighbourhood level, with some areas offering less access to parks, public transit, safe streets and daycares.

In general, the report found that inactivity and screen time were higher in Montreal than the rest of the province. It found that income for families in Montreal was also lower than elsewhere in Quebec — despite a higher level of education — and that 29 per cent of Montreal parents reported high stress levels, which is also higher than other regions.

More than 38,000 Montreal families, or 14 per cent, are spending more than 30 per cent of their income on housing, and a 2020 survey indicated that more than one in five children lived in a food-insecure household, the authors wrote.

The report says housing insecurity is a source of stress for families, and that issues such as mould or overcrowding can lead to health problems.

Tabled by Montreal public health director Mylène Drouin, the report notes that difficult living conditions can have lifelong and wide-ranging impacts on children, making them more prone to everything from a lower birth weight to illnesses such as asthma.

“In fact, the stress of living in precarious conditions in a chronic manner even has consequences on the child’s biology, resulting in long- and short-term health effects,” the authors wrote, adding that the resulting health inequalities are “avoidable.”

The report includes a number of recommendations, including more social and affordable housing, financial subsidies for low-income families, and more daycare spaces for vulnerable children, including those with special needs and the children of asylum seekers.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 21, 2024.

The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.



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Judge doesn’t swallow B.C. ‘cow share’ operator’s raw milk case in decades-long fight

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A B.C. Supreme Court judge says a longtime raw milk advocate who once tried to circumvent regulations through a “cow share” program can’t try to overturn the provincial ban on unpasteurized milk again after two previous unsuccessful attempts.

Judge William Veenstra says in a ruling posted online Monday that raw milk activist Gordon Watson’s latest attempt to change raw milk regulations can’t succeed because the matters have already been heard and decided by the court more than a decade ago.

The ruling says the idea behind cow sharing, in which participants are offered fractional ownership in a cow, was to exploit a legal loophole allowing farmers to consume raw milk from their own herd.

Veenstra’s ruling says Watson was involved in a “cow share” program in the early 2000s that was eventually shut down when the Fraser Health Authority obtained a court injunction in 2011 due to raw milk being considered a health hazard under the Public Health Act.

It says Watson’s decades-long “campaign for real milk” continued even though his constitutional challenge failed and after he was found in contempt of court for operating a raw milk operation in Chilliwack, B.C.

The ruling says Watson characterized the raw milk from the “cow share” program as “dividends from our jointly-held asset in the form of fluid milk labelled ‘Enzymatic Bath Lotion.'”

Watson filed another constitutional challenge in April 2024, trying to restrain “the government from enforcing the Public Health Act in respect of raw milk,” but Veenstra’s ruling issued in Vancouver says his latest claims were barred because of the earlier rulings in 2011 and 2013.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 21, 2024.

Note to readers: This is a corrected story. A previous version incorrectly said the ruling was made in Victoria. In fact, it was made in Vancouver in B.C. Supreme Court.

The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.



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Women in states with bans are getting abortions at similar rates as under Roe, report says

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Women living in states with abortion bans obtained the procedure in the second half of 2023 at about the same rate as before the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, according to a report released Tuesday.

Women did so by traveling out of state or by having prescription abortion pills mailed to them, according to the #WeCount report from the Society of Family Planning, which advocates for abortion access. They increasingly used telehealth, the report found, as medical providers in states with laws intended to protection them from prosecution in other states used online appointments to prescribe abortion pills.

“The abortion bans are not eliminating the need for abortion,” said Ushma Upadhyay, a University of California, San Francisco public health social scientist and a co-chair of the #WeCount survey. “People are jumping over these hurdles because they have to.”

Abortion patterns have shifted

The #WeCount report began surveying abortion providers across the country monthly just before Roe was overturned, creating a snapshot of abortion trends. In some states, a portion of the data is estimated. The effort makes data public with less than a six-month lag, giving a picture of trends far faster than the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, whose most recent annual report covers abortion in 2021.

The report has chronicled quick shifts since the Supreme Court’s Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization ruling that ended the national right to abortion and opened the door to enforcement of state bans.

The number of abortions in states with bans at all stages of pregnancy fell to near zero. It also plummeted in states where bans kick in around six weeks of pregnancy, which is before many women know they’re pregnant.

But the nationwide total has been about the same or above the level from before the ruling. The study estimates 99,000 abortions occurred each month in the first half of 2024, up from the 81,000 monthly from April through December 2022 and 88,000 in 2023.

One reason is telehealth, which got a boost when some Democratic-controlled states last year began implementing laws to protect prescribers. In April 2022, about 1 in 25 abortions were from pills prescribed via telehealth, the report found. In June 2024, it was 1 in 5.

The newest report is the first time #WeCount has broken down state-by-state numbers for abortion pill prescriptions. About half the telehealth abortion pill prescriptions now go to patients in states with abortion bans or restrictions on telehealth abortion prescriptions.

In the second half of last year, the pills were sent to about 2,800 women each month in Texas, more than 1,500 in Mississippi and nearly 800 in Missouri, for instance.

Travel is still the main means of access for women in states with bans

Data from another group, the Guttmacher Institute, shows that women in states with bans still rely mostly on travel to get abortions.

By combining results of the two surveys and comparing them with Guttmacher’s counts of in-person abortions from 2020, #WeCount found women in states with bans throughout pregnancy were getting abortions in similar numbers as they were in 2020. The numbers do not account for pills obtained from outside the medical system in the earlier period, when those prescriptions most often came from abroad. They also do not tally people who received pills but did not use them.

West Virginia women, for example, obtained nearly 220 abortions monthly in the second half of 2023, mostly by traveling — more than in 2020, when they received about 140 a month. For Louisiana residents, the monthly abortion numbers were about the same, with just under 700 from July through December 2023, mostly through shield laws, and 635 in 2020. However, Oklahoma residents obtained fewer abortions in 2023, with the monthly number falling to under 470 from about 690 in 2020.

Telehealth providers emerged quickly

One of the major providers of the telehealth pills is the Massachusetts Abortion Access Project. Cofounder Angel Foster said the group prescribed to about 500 patients a month, mostly in states with bans, from its September 2023 launch through last month.

The group charged $250 per person while allowing people to pay less if they couldn’t afford that. Starting this month, with the help of grant funding that pays operating costs, it’s trying a different approach: Setting the price at $5 but letting patients know they’d appreciate more for those who can pay it. Foster said the group is on track to provide 1,500 to 2,000 abortions monthly with the new model.

Foster called the Supreme Court’s 2020 decision “a human rights and social justice catastrophe” while also saying that “there’s an irony in what’s happened in the post-Dobbs landscape.”

“In some places abortion care is more accessible and affordable than it was,” she said.

There have no major legal challenges of shield laws so far, but abortion opponents have tried to get one of the main pills removed from the market. Earlier this year, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously preserved access to the drug, mifepristone, while finding that a group of anti-abortion doctors and organizations did not have the legal right to challenge the 2000 federal approval of the drug.

This month, three states asked a judge for permission to file a lawsuit aimed at rolling back federal decisions that allowed easier access to the pill — including through telehealth.



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