By: Benjamin Mussett

It was a brisk February day and the sound of Indigenous prayer songs echoed down the street. A crowd of demonstrators, onlookers, and police was huddled around a striking, new skyscraper while security guards barricaded its entrance.

Earlier that day, representatives from the Holborn Group and the Trump Organization, including Eric, Tiffany, and Donald Trump Jr., had gathered inside the new building to cut the red ribbon and mark the official opening of Vancouver’s Trump International Hotel and Tower. At the invite-only press conference, Joo Kim Tiah, president and CEO of the Vancouver-based Holborn Group, thanked Vancouver for giving him the opportunity to “help shape the skyline of this beautiful city.”

Outside, the mood was decidedly less celebratory.  

When it was announced a couple weeks prior that the president’s sons would be attending the tower’s official opening, local activists quickly began organizing protests to greet them. Speaking on behalf of Occupy Vancouver, the group that planned the protest outside Trump Tower, activist Mathew Kagis said they wanted to show support for those who have been directly affected by Trump. “There are a lot of people in the States that are marginalized and are very afraid. We want them to know that we are with them,” said Kagis.

The so-called “Welcome Trump Party” was an all-day affair featuring various speakers, DJs, and Indigenous drumming. As the official ribbon-cutting took place that morning, over 100 protesters were outside demonstrating.

Whether it be with those personally impacted by Trump’s actions or with fellow protesters, solidarity appeared to be the reason many decided to attend. “I came out to show solidarity with all the other people who disagree with Trump and everything he stands for — especially [those against] having a symbol of Trump in Vancouver,” explained Andrew Latimer, a fourth-year undergraduate student from SFU.

Both Kagis and Latimer were unsure whether the protests would have any local  impact. “I hope it has an impact on the bookings. I hope it has an impact on Trump Tower’s business, but I don’t know if it will,” remarked Kagis. Douglas Ross, an SFU professor and expert on international relations, also questioned the impact of the protests. “Trying to gauge the effect of a rather hostile Vancouverite response to the opening of the new Trump building on the president, or even whether he will notice it, is not possible. We’ll only know if there is some sort of casual tweet from the White House. I suspect there won’t be,” stated Ross.

Nonetheless, Ross highlighted how unprecedented the opening of the hotel was. “A president who has all these ‘active’ property holdings and investments being run by immediate family members is certainly without precedent — unless this sort of thing happened pre-World War II. For the modern era, he is in a class by himself.”

Meanwhile, others are still calling for the Holborn Group, which developed and maintains ownership of the property, to cut ties with the Trump Organization.

While the company has expressed concern with Trump’s controversial politics, Joo Kim Tiah has insisted that the deal is essentially “locked-in.” According to Tiah, the company would endure significant legal and financial repercussions if they broke their contract with the Trump Organization.

Diego Reyna, who spoke at the separate Resist 4 Peace March held later that day, still urged the company to reconsider changing the building’s name. “We all make mistakes — sometimes fixing those mistakes is costly. The right thing to do is to change the name of your hotel,” implored Reyna. The Mexican-born Port Moody resident made the news last spring when he hung a Mexican flag at the top of Trump Tower while it was still under construction.

The Resist 4 Peace march started at Jack Poole Plaza in the late afternoon as a mix of rain and snow began to fall. Organized by Richmond high school students, Nora Fadel and Yasmin Ahmed, the theme of solidarity was as present here as it was at the protests taking place at the tower.

Aaron Ekman, a previous secretary treasurer of the BC Federation of Labour, encouraged protesters to try and find common ground with Trump supporters. Recalling his own experience talking with some of the president’s supporters, Ekman found that there were numerous issues they agreed on. According to Ekman, trying to understand where others are coming from would work to reduce the sense of political polarization so many presently feel.

It was difficult not to notice the fairly small turnout at the march. This made some sense due to the frigid and wet conditions and the fact that it was a weekday. However, one protester said she was still disappointed by the attendance. The demonstrator, who wanted to remain anonymous, said she wished organizers had combined the two events to avoid splitting the turnout and minimizing its impact.

Regardless of their number, those who faced the cold weather did so with enthusiasm, chanting “dump Trump” as they exited Jack Poole Plaza.

While concerned Vancouverites protested Donald Trump, back in Washington the new president delivered his first address to Congress. Listing his early achievements and outlining his expansive plans for the future, the president, once again, didn’t hesitate to paint a dismal picture of the country he inherited. At one point, he said the country was “an environment of lawless chaos.”

Despite this, many in the media felt that much of the president’s speech actually conveyed a softer, unifying message than those in the past.

Early on, Trump addressed the recent onslaught of hate crimes, including vandalism of Jewish cemeteries, bomb threats targeting Jewish community centres and the racially-motivated shooting of two Indian men in Kansas. “While we may be a nation divided on policies, we are a country that stands united in condemning hate and evil in all of its very ugly forms,” proclaimed the president.

For those who came out to protest him yesterday (or earlier this week), these remarks are likely to fall on deaf ears, overshadowed by the inflammatory rhetoric Trump has employed ever since the day he announced he was running for president.

With files from CBC News, The Georgia Straight, Global News, NPR, Wired, The Atlantic, the Washington Post and CBS News.

By: Ana Maria Mejia-Morales

Chile – Chile without water

Santiago, capital of Chile, was deprived of water for four days after mudslides contaminated the Maipo River, the city’s main source of water. Five million people were left without water, as it was polluted with rubber and mud, whilst businesses and schools were closed across the city. Three people were also reported dead along with 19 who are currently missing. The heavy rainfalls that caused the mudslides arrived after a problematic five-month drought that caused fatal wildfires around the country.

With files from New York Times and BBC News

France – Corruption in French presidential race

As the French come closer to electing a new president in May, scandals are starting to emerge. François Fillon, the centre-right candidate for the conservatives, has been summoned to appear in court after allegations emerged that he paid his wife large amounts of the French people’s money for a fake job. Fillon refuses to step out of the presidential race, despite having slipped down the polls after Marine le Pen and Emmanuel Macron. What seems to be worrying parts of the French audience is the possibility of French voters shifting from Fillon to Le Pen, the extreme far-right candidate.

With files from BBC News and Al Jazeera

Syria – UN report shows war crimes were committed in Aleppo

The UN has reported that the Syrian air force and the rebels committed war crimes in Aleppo last year. According to the UN Commission of Inquiry report, Syria, and its ally, Russia, used a disturbing amount of bombs and weapons in areas controlled by the rebels without any military target. The report clarifies it is unclear as to whether Russia or Syria was the main perpetrator of these indiscriminate attacks. On the other side, it was discovered that the rebels continuously used weaponry without any target, terrorized the civilian population, held humanitarian aid, and used civilians as human shields.

With files from BBC News and Al Jazeera

North Korea – Kim Jong-nam’s killers to be charged

Two women will be charged with murder for the death of Kim Jong-nam, the half-brother of North Korea’s leader Kim Jong-un. They allegedly poisoned Kim Jong-nam with nerve agent VX, which appears to be a planned hit in the Kuala Lumpur airport. Malaysian authorities claim the women knew what they were doing when handling the chemical — however, the person who provided the chemical remains at large. It is possible that North Korea was the mastermind behind the attack because Kim Jong-nam openly criticized the regime. North Korea has denied such accusations.

With files from BBC News and Al Jazeera

For many years, concussions were something sports coaches, and even doctors knew little about in regards to long-term repercussions. Back in 2002, Dr. Bennet Omalu was the first to discover chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), a severe degenerative disease that affects many parts of the brain, caused by repeated trauma to the head. It was discovered after the many cases of concussions found in professional football players in the US, and later discovered in many other contact sports where head trauma is possible.

15 years later, SFU’s very own Shield-X, has proven to dramatically reduce the risk of serious brain conditions like CTE. A recent study claims that thanks to the device, there were reportedly 31% fewer concussions.

Shield-X was created seven years ago at Simon Fraser’s Head Injury Prevention Lab, part of the School of Mechatronics Systems Engineering. Since its creation, it has been rigorously tested on hundreds of athletes in both the US and Canada to ensure its ability to prevent concussions.

As football is notorious for its head-to-head impact, the most recent study focused on over 300 high school athletes on football teams in Canada and south of the border over the 2016 football season. However, the technology is not limited to football players. As chief technology officer and post-doctoral student at SFU, Daniel Abram, explains, “The Shield-X membrane can be implemented in different ways to enhance the protection of any headgear.” It can be easily applied to the inside or outside of a helmet like a sticker, and Abram hopes to see it used in ski, hockey, and bike helmets.

With football and hockey being in the spotlight of concussion research, the typically male-dominated sports have left females out of the majority of brain trauma related studies. An article from Medical Xpress claims that incomplete studies comparing male and female college athletes are to blame. However, a recent study has now discovered in comparable sports, like soccer and basketball, females are 50% more likely than males to suffer a concussion, and that number skyrockets after an athlete has already experienced one.

A recent panel discussion at McGill University concluded college sports are starting to see an epidemic of concussions. This is mainly due to the fact that athletes tend not to report injuries — especially if they are in a sport with a short season, leaving them only a handful of weeks to showcase their skills. Although we are seeing preventative steps being taken at research centres like we have at SFU, there is still a general lack of technology to monitor athletes after they have suffered from a brain injury.

A doctor who participated in the discussion, Dr. Guy Rouleau, said that “there are very few objective tests to evaluate the injury. We can’t predict recovery rates, complications, or potential long-term consequences of repeated concussions. We don’t know why some people are more susceptible than others.” This is all due to the current lack of research, technology, and funding.

Shield-X can potentially protect many of our fellow students as they follow their college sports dreams, but much is needed to be done in order to ensure they’ll lead full lives after college. As for concussion-prone sports, such as soccer, rugby, cheerleading, and many others that do not have helmets as part of their attire, there is still much to do.

By: Manon Busseron

Allison Carter, a PhD student in health sciences, has conducted research concluding that the more time women spend on the Internet, the more dissatisfied they feel about their body.

The idea of a correlation between time spent online and body dissatisfaction first came from Carter’s personal experience. She began to notice that her own use of the Internet had an effect on her sense of body dissatisfaction. She then chose to investigate that relationship using Canadian data.

Her research was based on a study of 3,000 Canadian women aged 12 to 29 from all over the country. These women reported the amount of time they spent on the Internet each week in the past three months (excluding time spent at work or school). They were then asked to answer the question: “How satisfied are you with the way your body looks?” Answers ranged a set of five responses that went from “very satisfied“ to “very dissatisfied.“

The results

The results show that “women who spend 11 to 20 hours online were also more likely to be less satisfied with their bodies,” said Carter. Those that spend more than 20 hours online each week “reported body dissatisfaction at three times the rate of those connected for less than one hour per week.“

Carter underlined that a lot of research has been done on “the effects of various social fields“ on self-perception, from TV and magazines to, more recently, the Internet. According to Carter, the strong effects on women are caused by the fact that “women are being taught to be focused on what the body looks like and to be concerned about it.”

Although no specific type of online content was investigated, women generally consulted websites, particularly social media and fitness websites, that “tend to be focused on idealized aspects of female beauty.“ Carter said that they are “typically consuming images, messages, and ads that promote thinness as beautiful, and a perfection that does not exist, which can lead to the internalization of these messages and consequently lower body image.”

What about men?

The experience was repeated on 2,700 men also aged 12 to 29. Carter reported that they feel “a much lower rate of body dissatisfaction despite a higher rate of Internet use,“ suggesting that there is a slightly different pattern for men and women regarding the effects of the use of Internet.

How can young women and students use the Internet in a more positive manner?

“One of the most direct things is to limit the amount of time you spend online. The Internet has a lot of positive aspects but we should pay greater attention to the kind of content we’re consuming,“ Carter warned. She advises students to “unfollow“ accounts that cause “harmful self-evaluation and follow those that lift us up.“ She personally recommends the Instagram account Beauty Redefined, “that promotes really great messages around body positivity.“

Body dissatisfaction can have important consequences such as a lower self-esteem, eating disorders, excessive exercise, and depression. “Beyond being important individual issues, these are also public health issues,” insisted Carter.