All over the world, basic human rights are still being violated. So today, on Human Rights Day, you can do something about it. @amnestycanada #W4R21 #sponsored

When protests against a notorious police unit swept Nigeria, Imoleayo Michael knew he had to get involved. He had no idea he’d end up alone in an underground cell for 41 days. #W4R21 #sponsored @amnestycanada

Since forming in 2006, Sphere has been at the forefront of the fight for LGBTI and women’s rights in Ukraine. It has also been under attack. #W4R21 @amnestycanada #sponsored

Bernardo Caal Xol’s incarceration is representative of the wider problem of human rights abuses against Indigenous people across the Americas. They safeguard 80 percent of the world’s remaining biodiversity, but their safety is often at risk from big corporations looking to exploit natural resources. Click the link in bio to find out how you can support @amnestycanada's campaign to get justice for Bernardo. #W4R21 #sponsored

At least 450,000 people in over 100 countries took action through Amnesty International’s #WriteForRights campaign last year. This year, they’re calling on you to join them and be in that number. #W4R21

If you can’t afford a house in the Toronto area by tightening your belt and rolling up your sleeves, maybe you should do away with the belt and shirt altogether. Pants, too. ⁠ ⁠ A 1,300-square-foot house listed for $350,000 about an hour’s commute away from Toronto is getting thousands of inquiries from young adults hunting for their first house. The neatly manicured residence at 23 Rodeo Drive just outside of Hamilton, Ontario, features three bedrooms, a gazebo, garden space, and a spa bathroom. ⁠ ⁠ Oh, and it’s in a nudist resort. ⁠ ⁠ “Yes, our resort is very affordable to live. But you have to be a nudist here,” said Ponderosa Nature Resort general manager Alyson Walsh. “We’re getting a lot of people that possibly are trying to pretend to be a nudist just to get a reasonable place to live, so we’re being very careful.”⁠ ⁠ Realtor CC Alexander said her team has received 24,000 inquiries for the property since it was listed Sept. 1, with most coming from people 35 and under. While some are nudists, the vast majority are regular pants-wearing folks desperate for quasi-affordable housing. ⁠ ⁠ Read more at the link in our bio.

Flooding in and around Vancouver—even in an optimistic scenario—could destroy tens of thousands of homes, harm First Nations, and drive up already wild housing prices for everyone.⁠ ⁠ If and when climate-intensified flooding inflicts catastrophic damage on Vancouver, many of the city’s richest residents could escape relatively unscathed. As global temperature rise gets worse over the coming decades, the disparity between the city’s most expensive areas and vulnerable communities could widen. ⁠ ⁠ And if anything, climate experts told VICE News, the potential for a desperately unequal city to become even more divided and unaffordable is far worse than it was in 2015. ⁠ ⁠ Vancouver’s geography makes it uniquely vulnerable to climate change. A good chunk of its metro area is built on a flood plain, resulting in roughly 250,000 people living within about 1 metre above sea level. Researchers at the University of Southampton several years ago placed it in a global top 20 of flood-exposed cities alongside New Orleans, Miami, New York, Mumbai, and Osaka. ⁠ ⁠ The city has for over a decade attempted to become one of the most ecologically sustainable places on the planet. It has built dense housing near transit hubs, planted trees, and expanded a large network of bike lanes. This fall the UK group Business Waste named Vancouver the world’s “greenest city” for its innovative waste recycling programs. ⁠ ⁠ Yet all this has taken place against a deepening affordability crisis. The Vancouver region’s average home price is around $1.2 million. It’s the most unaffordable city in North America, an Oxford Economics team concluded this week. ⁠ ⁠ For years, city planners have largely treated climate risk and housing unaffordability as two separate and unrelated challenges. But as ocean levels rise due to global heating, social inequality and unaffordability in Vancouver could rise along with them—and experts contacted by VICE News said the city is nowhere near prepared for the consequences.⁠ ⁠ Read more at the link in our bio. ⁠ ⁠ 📷 Joe McNally/Getty Images⁠ ⁠ #canada #vancouver #climatechange

Burger Baron—a curious fast-food institution in Alberta—has amassed a cult following, sheltered a generation of Arab immigrants, and endured decades of turmoil. To read more, visit the link in our bio. 📷 Amber Bracken/Back Road Productions

Ryerson University will be changing its name so that it no longer includes one of the architects of Canada’s residential school system—a move demanded by Indigenous students, advocates, and faculty members at the Toronto school for years.⁠ ⁠ According to the Eyeopener, Ryerson University’s student newspaper, the school’s board of governors officially accepted all 22 recommendations from a report by the Standing Strong (Mash Koh Wee Kah Pooh Win) Task Force, at a meeting Thursday. The task force was asked to reconcile the legacy of the university’s namesake, Egerton Ryerson.⁠ ⁠ “Given that our namesake is increasingly recognized as a symbol of colonialism, our identity as an institution can no longer be disentangled from separate schools, segregation, the genocide of Indigenous Peoples and cultural erasure,” the task force report said.⁠ ⁠ It isn’t clear yet what Ryerson’s new name will be—the task force recommends the university speak with “community members and stakeholders” to do so.⁠ ⁠ Ryerson was a 19th century Ontario politician, minister, and educator who helped create Canada’s residential school system. He supported the creation of segregated school systems for Indigenous and non-Indigenous students and believed the former should be separated from their families and assimilated into Euro-Canadian society through working in so-called ‘industrial schools.’⁠ ⁠ Over 150,000 First Nations, Inuit, and Métis children are believed to have passed through the residential school system over the course of its roughly 115-year history. Malnutrition, disease, and abuse by school staff led to the deaths of thousands of children. ⁠ ⁠ To read the full story, visit the link in our bio. ⁠ ⁠ 📷 Chris Young/Canadian Press

Afghanistan’s all-girls robotics team is trying to escape the country and make it to Canada while the Taliban, known for its cruelty against women, continues to regain control over the nation.⁠ ⁠ “To talk to these girls and listen to them crying over the phone to be saved… Begging that the Canadians save them... These girls have a future—they deserve to have a future. They all want to go to college. They will not be able to do that if they remain in Afghanistan,” said human rights lawyer Kimberley Motley on CBC News Network.⁠ ⁠ According to Motley, the robotics team is appealing to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau because they competed in a robotics competition in Canada in 2018 and won the highest honour in their category. Trudeau met the girls at the time, which Motley said was “life-changing” for them.⁠ ⁠ “We are literally begging the Canadian government, we are begging Prime Minister Trudeau—who has been an amazing supporter of the Afghan girls robotics team—to please allow them to come to Canada,” Motley said. ⁠ ⁠ The Taliban, a militant group that imposes strict interpretations of Islamic law, including barring women from public life and banning music, movies, and television, controlled Afghanistan from 1996 to 2001, until U.S.-backed forces overthrew the regime.⁠ ⁠ After 20 years of unrest and U.S. occupation, U.S. troops are withdrawing, and the Taliban has resurged, seizing most of the country, including the capital city of Kabul, which resulted in the country’s president fleeing the country on Sunday. The group has been accused of a number of human rights abuses, including violent punishment of dissidents and treating young women and girls as sex slaves. ⁠ ⁠ The Canadian government has already committed to welcoming 20,000 Afghans into the country. Trudeau’s office did not response to VICE World News requests for comment specific to the robotics team by the time of publication.⁠ ⁠ Visit the link in our bio to read the full story.⁠ ⁠ 📷 The Canadian Press/Sean Kilpatrick⁠ ⁠ #Afghanistan #Canada #JustinTrudeau #Taliban

Footage shows crowds rushing to the tarmac of Kabul’s Hamid Karzai International Airport at the weekend, attempting to flee Afghanistan as the Taliban took control of the nation’s capital.⁣⁣ ⁣⁣ Scenes of chaos were reported at the airport on Sunday night as people tried to board international flights, prompting the US embassy in Kabul to advise citizens not to travel to the airport until notified as the security situation was “unsafe”.⁣⁣ ⁣⁣ A spokesman for the Taliban told Al Jazeera on Monday that the war in Afghanistan was “over” after insurgents took control of the presidential palace in Kabul. ⁣⁣ ⁣⁣ According to reports, Afghanistan President Ashraf Ghani fled Kabul on Sunday.⁣⁣ ⁣⁣ Over the past weeks—as the U.S. finalised the withdrawal of their troops after 20 years of war—the Taliban gained territory and took control of key cities at an aggressive pace. ⁣⁣ ⁣⁣ In the days prior, anxious Afghans had started a hurried scramble to leave, fearing the loss of freedoms and a return to previous life under Taliban rule. Airlines reported full capacity in their flights for weeks.⁣⁣ ⁣⁣ But for most Afghans, the majority of whom are without travel documents, let alone the means to travel, purchasing a flight ticket is a pipe dream.⁣⁣ ⁣⁣ Away from the airport, long queues of men, women, and children snaked the streets around the passport department on Sunday morning. Those in line didn’t know if their hours of waiting would lead to anything. ⁣⁣ ⁣⁣ Afghanistan has the worst-ranked passport in the world, with most countries requiring a multitude of documents before granting visas to Afghan passport holders.⁣⁣ ⁣⁣ Footage by Jawad Sukhanyar via Storyful.⁣

A Catholic priest in Alberta has repeatedly called news of unmarked graves at former residential schools “lies” and said that Indigenous children who were forced to attend residential schools died of “natural causes.” “We are now also in the unfolding of lies, big lies. There are those mass graves being uncovered at residential schools,” Rev. Marcin Mironiuk told his congregation during a mass at Our Lady Queen of Poland Parish, a Polish-language church in Edmonton, Alberta. Canada's residential schools were used forcibly assimilate 150,000 First Nations, Inuit, and Métis children. More than half of the schools were run by Catholics. Disease, malnutrition, and physical and sexual abuses were common. More than a thousand unmarked graves have been confirmed since May on residential school grounds across Canada. The Catholic Church has had to respond to multiple instances of its leaders either denying or downplaying the ongoing legacy of residential schools. In multiple July 18 masses, Mironiuk said he personally visited Kamloops residential school site without disclosing he was a priest, and repeatedly asked to see the “mass graves.” Tk’emlúps te Secwe̓pemc First Nation was the first to confirm more than 200 probable unmarked graves of Indigenous children at a former residential school site in Kamloops, British Columbia. Mironiuk said he was told he wasn’t allowed to see the unmarked graves because the grounds are sacred. “Oh, well, if it's a sacred place then you wont allow exhumation to happen to determine why the kids were buried there,” he told the parish. “Look at this manipulation, this lying.” Mironiuk—whose parish is part of the same congregation that ran Kamloops Indian Residential School—said children died of natural causes and were placed in proper cemeteries after they died, “which is why we’re living a huge lie and they want to deceive us.” Canada's Truth and Reconciliation Commission—which investigated the horrors at residential schools and their ongoing legacy—identified about 3,200 deaths when it published its findings in 2015. Of all the deaths recorded by the TRC, nearly half didn’t have a documented cause. 📷 Our Lady Queen of Poland