Mike Farnworth, Minister of Public Safety and Solicitor General, and Adrian Dix, Minister of Health, released the following statement regarding the BC Coroners Service Review of Heat-Related Deaths in BC in Summer 2021 report:

“We are saddened by the confirmation that 619 people lost their lives to heat during the unprecedented summer 2021 heat dome. Our hearts go out to families and friends who continue to mourn the loss of a loved one. dear.

“After last year’s tragic heat dome and the growing impacts of climate change, it was clear that we needed to work together to prepare for heat events, especially extreme heat emergencies, and we thank the committee for Heat-Related Deaths Review for its recommendations on how the provincial government can do this.

“Many of the committee’s report recommendations that are directed to the province are complete or in progress. The province has implemented a coordinated provincial heat alert and response system, the BC Heat Alert and Response System, which alerts the public, First Nations and local governments of heat warnings and extreme heat emergencies, and outlines the actions to be taken by provincial authorities. government agencies to keep people safe. The system is ready for use this summer and includes the ability to issue intrusive broadcast alerts through Alert Ready to notify people of extreme heat emergencies.

“The province continues to work with communities to prepare for heat events. The new announced extreme heat funding stream, as part of the $189 million Community Emergency Preparedness Fund, will support First Nations and local governments in extreme heat hazard mapping, assessment and planning. We will continue to work with First Nations and local communities and make supports available to them, including providing clear guidance on eligible expenses, such as opening cooling centers and transportation to cooling centers.

“The Department of Health continues to work to identify and support populations most at risk of dying during extreme heat emergencies, such as people with chronic conditions or limited mobility. For example, health authorities have provided resources for home health workers on when it is important to perform wellness checks, the signs and symptoms of heat exhaustion and how to do so. answer.

“In addition, we released British Columbia’s multilingual Extreme Heat Preparedness Guide with tips and resources on how people can protect themselves and their loved ones during extreme heat emergencies.

“All recommendations contained in the BC Coroners Service report will be carefully considered and considered.

“Alongside local governments and First Nations, the province is committed to keeping all British Columbians safe during heat events and we are working on this by reviewing and strengthening our response systems. We will continue to move forward and take the necessary steps to prevent heat-related deaths in the future.

Learn more:

To learn how to protect yourself and your community during extreme heat events and how to stay cool, see British Columbia’s Extreme Heat Preparedness Guide: https://www2.gov.bc.ca/assets/ gov/public-safety-and-emergency-services/emergency-preparedness-response-recovery/embec/preparedbc/preparedbc-guides/preparedbc_extreme_heat_guide.pdf

Under the patronage of the Egyptian Ministry of Communication and Information Technology (MCIT), and in collaboration with the Technology Innovation & Entrepreneurship Center (TIEC) of the Information Technology Industry Development Agency (ITIDA), Ericsson (NASDAQ: ERIC ) announces the five team winners and the overall winner of the “Together Apart” hackathon.

The big winner of the “Together Apart” hackathon is the Nabtah team. Nabtah is a solution that follows an inevitable course, where the inclusion of artificial intelligence becomes the high caliber of modern intelligent agricultural systems. Its main objective is to maximize farmland productivity with the least effort and highest efficiency, which in turn delivers high quality crops to consumers.

The winning teams in order are Team Nabtah in first place, Team Your Passion in second place, Team Poseidon in third place, Team Mastoura in fourth place, and Team SANAD in fifth place. The five winning teams provided unique solutions in line with the Egyptian Vision 2030 addressing key topics such as health, environmental sustainability and education. The thematic hackathon aims to identify innovative solutions using technology, connectivity and 5G to create tomorrow’s solutions from today’s challenges.

The five winning teams will receive the support necessary to qualify them for the business incubator and TIEC’s pre-incubation and acceleration programs. The Nabtah team will travel to Ericsson’s headquarters in Sweden to present the team’s solution and interact with the entrepreneurial community.

Amr Mahfouz, Managing Director of the Information Technology Industry Development Agency (ITIDA) said: “Congratulations to all the teams. We are committed to promoting entrepreneurship and innovation in the field of information technology in order to stimulate the growth of the sector, support sustainable national development and position Egypt as a regional center of technology and innovation. entrepreneurship. The solutions proposed by the participants relate to very vital needs of our society. We’ll help winning teams scale their solutions with our expert mentorship and coaching to help turn their ideas into commercially viable products and services.

“The Egyptian entrepreneurial and startup ecosystem continues to grow exponentially as the volume of investments in local startups has increased from $190 million in 2020 to $491 million in 2021. Thus, we have detailed a comprehensive strategy of five years in cooperation with Deloitte, to continue supporting the capacities of the ecosystem to access foreign markets, to attract funding and more venture capital, and to ensure better access to the talents who receive a high priority in our program added the CEO of ITIDA.

Eva Andren, Ericsson Egypt Country Manager, says, “The Together Apart Hackathon drives innovation to get the most out of technology. Strengthening our collaboration with ITIDA, the hackathon is a way to demonstrate the ability of innovation to achieve the Egyptian Vision 2030. The innovative ideas that have emerged are a source of pride for us and for the nation. We congratulate the winners and look forward to seeing the ideas come to fruition. »

The winning solutions are:

First place: Team Nabtah

Members: Sara El-Shatby, Noha Mohammad, Rohanda Hamed, Omar Safwat

Solution quote: Nabtah is a solution that follows an inevitable course, where the inclusion of artificial intelligence becomes the high caliber of modern intelligent agricultural systems. Its main objective is to maximize farmland productivity with the least effort and highest efficiency, which in turn delivers high quality crops to consumers. Nabtah implements a formula by identifying harmful weeds and pests through images, then determines their rate of spread, range, and provides a connection between farm owners and solution providers, realizing a community where Nabtah can alert landowners to the presence of infection in adjacent land, so that they can take the necessary safety measures. »

Second place: Team up with your passion

Members: Sandra Ehab, Andrew Ramzy, Mariam Abobasha, Gehad Ahmed

Solution quote: “Our idea aims to share a better future for the younger generation by helping them find their passion, helping them develop their skills and introducing them to jobs of the future to land the jobs they really love to build the life they want. ‘they deserve. Our platform integrates various technologies such as artificial intelligence, virtual reality and 5G technology. »

Third place: Team Poseidon

Members: Youssof Kandil, Zahra Saadawy, Farah Yousef, Omar Azzam

Solution quote: “Poseidon will lead Egypt and the world to cleaner water. Poseidon is an automated clean-energy boat that will turn a dream into reality. Poseidon’s main objective is to cross the Nile and clear it of floating and submerged waste. This is done using state-of-the-art technology and integrating the Internet of Things and Artificial Intelligence. Poseidon is the friendly doctor of water and he will lead the Nile into the future we all want to see.

Fourth place: Team Mastoura

Members: Bassam Ramadan, Marwan Zaghloul, Mohamed Abdelwahab, Mohamed Ramadan, Mohammad Othman

Solution quote: “Mastoura is a personal financial management application that makes the decision for you and plans your finances. Understanding how and when to spend your money depends on your in-app payments. The app is an integration of artificial intelligence and digitization of financial operations. Our app is the key to a healthier financial life. So with Mastoura it’s always enough.

Fifth place: Team SANAD

Members: Ahmed Arnous, Abdullah Omar, Sherif Eldeep

Solution quote: “SANAD is an innovative solution that enables visually impaired people to expand their understanding of the world by providing a personalized sound experience powered by artificial intelligence. It allows instant environmental analysis of face, color, currency and text recognition. Our mission is to improve the quality of life for the visually impaired, especially in developing countries, and to break down the boundaries between sighted and visually impaired people, helping them to practice their daily activities individually, which aligns with Egypt Vision 2030.”

Conservative/evangelical religions have joined with right-wing politicians from all branches of government, including those in the federal judiciary, to overrule Roe vs. Wade and his offspring and to undo 50 years of “established law” (as recognized by the various members of the conservative Supreme Court who have since been appointed deer and who are now about to overthrow him, nevertheless).

The focus of these religious/political conservatives on the “sacredness of life” from conception is mind-boggling. Politicians, with the support of the clergy, are on the verge of making pre-viable abortion a criminal offense and granting “personhood” status to fetuses who could not live outside the womb. They enlisted militiamen to spy on and prosecute pregnant women and their doctors, demonized and penalized women seeking abortion services, disrupted the operations of abortion counselors and providers, and demanded victims of rape and incest that they bear the fruits of these crimes to term births.

Unfortunately, their moralizing concern for the sanctity of life comes to an abrupt halt when the baby is born. After that, the mother is on her own – often trying to care for and support her child without adequate health care, housing support, social services and food security. (The 2021 Montana Legislature killed 11 bills that would have benefited living children and their families.)

But even worse, while waging their holy war to protect unborn children, clerics have also sexually abused living children. And, their cronies in the legislature helped these pedophiles and their churches cover up these sex crimes.

The original poster was the Catholic Church. In 2002, the Boston Globe published its investigation into sexual abuse by predatory priests in the Boston Diocese. In 2002, a report commissioned by the Church revealed more than 11,000 incidents of child sexual abuse. However, the American dioceses compiled complaints from 17,000 people for which they have paid around $4 billion to victims since the 1980s. It was common practice in the Catholic Church not to report such crimes to civil authorities, but to cover up the conduct of offending priests, often moving pedophile priests from parish to parish.

More recently, the Southern Baptist Convention, the largest Protestant denomination in the country, commissioned a study on sectarian pedophilia. This study reported that over two decades there were more than 700 incidents of child sexual abuse by pastors. According to the manual of the Catholic Church, those who reported abuse were ignored, disbelieved, or met with the constant refrain that there was nothing the church could do. Known abusers have continued in ministry without notice or warning to their current churches or congregations.

Not to blame just the Catholic and Baptist churches, every institutional religion, regardless of denomination, has its own stories of child sexual abuse by its ministers – mishandled in essentially the same way.

Indeed, most commentators agree that the number of victims is seriously underestimated. There is simply no room in this essay to fully discuss this tragedy.

Either way, the fact is that if churches put as much effort into protecting living children and prosecuting abusers as they do protecting pre-viable fetuses, then there would likely be a fraction of the living victims of clergy pedophilia. .

Equally disturbing, these, the Lord’s stewards, are able to carry out their heinous acts under the protection of man-made laws designed to enforce man-made religious doctrines and practices. Each state has a law, such as Montana’s section 41-3-201(6)(b) and (c), that permits not reporting incidents of sectarian child sexual abuse if canon law, Doctrine or established practice of the Church so requires. reports of abuse remain confidential. To put it bluntly, the laws of Montana and other states give cult pedophiles a stay-out-of-jail pass, a free pass.

So there you have it: right-wing politicians, legislatures, and conservative religions are more concerned with protecting pre-viable fetuses and demonizing women who seek abortion services than they are with protecting living children from bigoted pedophiles and abusers. to demand that these crimes be reported in a timely manner to civil society. authorities.

These politicians and religions need to remember Matthew 7:5, where Jesus said, “Hypocrite! First remove the plank from your eye, and then you will see how to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.

Reverend Dr. Bill Harmon’s life suddenly changed during a ninth-grade chapel service. Then a shy teenager at a Christian school in his hometown of Baltimore, he was moved to tears by the singing of a guest preacher.

When Harmon ran from the room to hide his emotion, his religion teacher followed him and asked him why he was crying.

“I didn’t understand why,” Harmon recalled. “He said to me, ‘Well, that’s the spirit of God.'”

Now 24 years into his career as an ordained minister — the last 14 as executive director and senior pastor of King of Glory Lutheran Church in James City County — Harmon is poised to play a role prominent for the national denomination in August.

Last month, Harmon was elected president, or bishop, of the Southeast District of the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod (LCMS). With nearly two million baptized members, LCMS is the second largest Lutheran church in North America.

The Southeast District, based in Arlington, Va., includes approximately 215 congregations and 80 school ministries in Virginia, Delaware, North Carolina, South Carolina and Washington, D.C., as well as much of the Maryland and parts of Pennsylvania.

“I feel the weight of that responsibility,” Harmon said. “At the same time, I’m excited because I will have a larger platform to be a catalyst for God to do infinitely more in people’s lives.”

Harmon, 50, will step down from the King of Glory, which has 900 members, at the end of June. He and his wife Gayle — his college sweetheart and first-grade elementary school teacher Clara Byrd Baker — will remain residents of the Williamsburg area.

In his new role, Harmon will focus on finding new ways to engage communities and celebrate and recruit church workers in times of declining membership and staff shortages. As it has done locally, it will emphasize outreach, community service and programs such as King of Glory mentorships for students interested in church careers.

“I only got into this because people said to me, ‘You should consider doing this,'” he said. “It’s not even something that’s on a lot of people’s minds as a possibility.”

The King of Glory members weren’t surprised to see their pastor tipped for a bigger job in the church. Harmon is an engaging speaker who has inspired congregants to spread the love of Jesus to their neighborhoods, said Ross Fuller, whose family of five joined the church in 2007.

“Like any good leader, he inspires the people around him to be better,” Fuller said. “He meets people wherever they are in their lives, in order to help as many people as possible.”

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Harmon developed virtual tools such as new members’ Zoom meetings that kept the church strong when others faltered, Fuller added, “He’s always ready to go out. off the beaten track”.

Growing up, Harmon and his sister didn’t go to church every weekend, although his family always opened meals with a prayer. When he was in college, his parents chose a private Lutheran program for its educational benefits. Although Harmon didn’t initially want to go, he quickly embraced church life and eventually attracted his family as well.

During his senior year of high school, Harmon preached in school chapel services across Baltimore. He studied Judeo-Christian heritage at Concordia College in Bronxville, New York, before earning a master’s degree in theology from Concordia Seminary in St. Louis, Missouri.

Ordained to the ministry in June 1998, Harmon went on to earn a doctorate in ministry from Regent University in Virginia Beach. He worked for congregations and religious programs in Michigan and New York before settling in the Williamsburg area.

As a preacher, Harmon aims to make each of his sermons applicable to everyday life. He often wonders if his late parents, both blue-collar workers, could have used any of the lessons.

“As I write, I wonder, ‘Would Dad, the forklift operator, who works overtime to support his children, care?'” he declares. “Would mom be the administrative assistant?” Preaching should be practical, I think.

Outside of church, Harmon is the father of three sons, all in their 20s, and enjoys reading historical fiction, hiking and walking with his dog Guy, a black Golden Retriever mix. The spirit of God, however, never leaves his mind.

“Church is a place where people come for nourishment, so they can go out and be the community church every day,” he said. “Be patient, be kind, be in control of yourself and serve others. Worship should never end on Sunday.

Alison Johnson, [email protected]

A man reads a newspaper while selling betel leaves, known as pan, cigarettes and sweets at a shop in Karachi, Pakistan December 30, 2021. REUTERS/Akhtar Soomro/File Photo

ISLAMABAD, June 4 (Reuters) – Pakistan’s GDP growth will slow to 5% for the next fiscal year beginning July 1, from 5.9% for the year ahead, following a fiscal tightening aimed at securing the support of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), announced the government. said Saturday.

The Ministry of Planning made the estimates before the annual budget which will be presented on June 10.

“Given the uncertain external and local economic environment, GDP growth will decline slightly and is projected at 5% for 2022-23 driven by agriculture (3.9%), manufacturing (7.1%) and the services sector (5.1%), “said the ministry in a working document seen by Reuters.

The document indicates that fiscal consolidation will be pursued to reduce the deficit through a combination of expenditure management and revenue improvement.

Pakistan’s foreign exchange reserves have fallen sharply in recent months – falling to $9.7 billion, less than 45 days of imports – and its double-digit inflation and growing current account deficit have put it in dire straits. hard.

Moody’s changed Pakistan’s outlook to negative from stable.

Pakistan is waiting for the IMF board to authorize a seventh review to resume a $6 billion bailout signed in 2019 after the two sides wrapped up talks in Doha last month.

The document indicates that the budget deficit for the July-March part of the outgoing fiscal year widened to 4% of GDP, compared to 3% of GDP for the corresponding period of the previous financial year.

The current account posted a deficit of 13.8 billion dollars (3.5% of GDP) in July-April of the outgoing fiscal year, he said.

Average inflation was recorded at 11.3% during the July-May period of the current financial year, against 8.8% during the comparable period of the previous year.

The new government of Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, who took over from ousted Prime Minister Imran Khan in April, said it had inherited a severe economic crisis.

Reporting by Asif Shahzad Editing by Peter Graff

Our standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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The implementation of safe, reliable and inclusive digital public infrastructure, supported by strong governance frameworks, is essential for countries to build a resilient future. On June 1, heads of government, international development organizations and philanthropic funders came together to pledge large-scale technology sharing, funding and commitment to support this international cooperation agenda.

At a high-level event this week, world leaders jointly committed to advancing the use of digital public goods (DPGs) – the open source solutions needed to build a digital public infrastructure (DPI) that can enable countries to provide better services and foster inclusive economic growth. The event was organized by the Digital Public Goods Alliance (DPGA), the Government of Norway, the Government of Sierra Leone and the United Nations Development Programme.

Digital public infrastructure – the digital systems such as money transfers, digital identification and data exchange that enable the efficient delivery of essential functions across society – can play a vital role in strengthening resilience, including pandemic and crisis recovery. At the event, world leaders committed to implementing and funding digital public infrastructure through a new Digital Public Goods Charter, which serves as a framework for increasing international cooperation on this agenda.

The DPG Charter, co-led by the DPGA and the Digital Impact Alliance (DIAL), outlines a clear vision for a coordinated global approach to building a safe, reliable and inclusive digital public infrastructure using DPG. This can enable countries – regardless of income level – to transform services and service delivery for people and communities around the world.

The DPG Charter and the commitments made by world leaders are particularly relevant given the devastating socio-economic effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and increasing climate disruption. These challenges, compounded by the unprecedented food, energy and financial crisis precipitated by the war in Ukraine, create an urgent need for action.

Investing in digital public infrastructure that puts human rights at the center and promotes holistic, gender-responsive approaches can mitigate short-term economic shocks and build resilient systems for the future. The benefits are proven: countries that had well-governed public digital infrastructure weathered the pandemic better than countries that did not. These countries have been able to respond more quickly to challenges by capitalizing on the use of pre-established, high-quality, welfare-enhancing digital systems.

DPGs are built on open standards and therefore support greater interoperability. This can reduce duplication, save time and money in implementation, and provide opportunities for digital cooperation globally. The DPG Charter promotes the use of DPGs for digital public infrastructure, which in turn can create a fairer and more inclusive playing field for countries and local digital ecosystems around the world – by increasing the participation of micro – traders, including women, in e-commerce; improving children’s access to education; ensuring the digitization of the last mile of payments and cash transfers; and strengthening crisis preparedness and resilience.

This event, and the pledges made, marks the starting point for global cooperation on PGDs for PGD – and the funding to support it – between governments, multilateral organizations, donors and the private sector. These efforts are in line with the UN Secretary-General’s roadmap for digital cooperation, as well as the activities of the Global Digital Compact and the Future Summit in 2023.

Here are some of the leaders who have pledged their support to move this initiative forward:

Alkesh Kumar SharmaSecretary, Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, India“By joining the DPGA, we are committed to making available India’s digital public infrastructure, such as the Universal Payment Interface (UPI), as global digital public goods, and will offer technical assistance to countries of implementation to advance global well-being for all.”

Eva-Maria Liimets, Minister of Foreign Affairs, Estonia“Estonia remains committed to supporting the development of the X-road solution and championing it as a digital public good that can drive digitization, and also plans to invest a minimum of €20 million in solutions of open source AI in 2022-2023.”

Niels Annen, State Secretary at the Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development, Germany: “Germany has invested 20 million euros in the GovStack initiative to accelerate the development of digital government services by sharing interoperable and reusable digital building blocks and has earmarked additional funds for the initiative.”

Zunaid Ahmed Palak, Minister of State, ICT Division, Ministry of Posts, Telecommunications and Information Technology, Bangladesh: “In order to respond to Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s call to build an equitable, high-income smart Bangladesh by 2041, this requires an uncompromising and relentless focus on ensuring digital equity enabled by DPGs and large-scale digital public infrastructure. This is precisely why I am proud to announce today that the Government of Bangladesh will join the Digital Public Goods Alliance and fully endorse the vision of the Digital Public Goods Charter.

Paula Ingabire, Minister of ICT and Innovation, Rwanda“Rwanda fully subscribes to the vision set out in the Charter for Digital Public Goods. We are committed to driving the DPG agenda forward. By joining the Digital Public Goods Alliance today, we commit to contributing our expertise and sharing lessons learned as well as learning from the successes of different partners.

Mykhailo Fedorov, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Digital Transformation, Ukraine: “It is the digital public infrastructure that allows us to continue to provide services to our citizens. It has also become the foundation for data-driven decision-making processes […] In collaboration with UNDP, in very difficult conditions, we provided digital public services for the reception of displaced people [internally displaced people] status. We are working on a platform for payment and deduplication of international humanitarian agencies through Diia services.

Bill Gates, Co-Chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and Nandan Nilekani, Co-Founder and Chairman of Infosys Technologies Limited, have spoken in support of the DPG Charter and confirmed their strong commitment to advancing investments in digital public infrastructure , enabled by the DPGs, for financial inclusion, social protection and inclusive development.

Other participating countries that pledged their support and commitments at the event include: Norway, Philippines, Sierra Leone, Sweden, Uganda, as well as leaders from USAID, UNDP and from UNICEF.

Distributed by APO Group for the United Nations Development Program (UNDP).

A man fatally shot two women in the parking lot of an Iowa megachurch before turning the gun on himself Thursday night, police said.

The man committed the horrific violence around 6:50 p.m. while a youth ministry service was taking place inside Cornerstone Church in Ames, Story County Sheriff’s Captain Nicholas Lennie said. , to reporters, according to the Des Moines Register.

Worshipers remained inside the church during the shooting and no other injuries were reported, the newspaper reported.

No further details were immediately available about the apparent double murder suicide.

“I wouldn’t say I’m shocked as law enforcement,” Lennie told reporters. “We prepare and train hard for it, but when it happens it’s obviously chaotic until you get the hang of it.”

Ames, home of Iowa State University, is a city of about 66,000 located about 30 miles north of the state capital in Des Moines.

According to the Cornerstone Church website, it was founded in 1994 from an ISU university ministry, The Salt Company, which is the name of its youth ministry today. Approximately 1,300 students attend services at Cornerstone every Thursday evening during the school year.

“Tonight’s senseless act of violence claimed the lives of two innocent victims at their place of worship,” Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds said. said Thursday evening. “Kevin and I mourn the families who have suffered an unfathomable loss.”

The Czech Republic’s Foreign Ministry summoned Russian Ambassador Oleksandr Zmeevsky on Tuesday to express concern over the use of diplomatic properties.