Unicef sees end of polio in Pakistan

Amin Ahmed

Published October 10, 2021 - 

In this 2015 file photo, a healthworker gives polio vaccines to children in the suburbs of Lahore. — AP/File


ISLAMABAD: Deputy Executive Director of Unicef Omar Abdi has said his organisation sees the possibility of an end to polio in Pakistan as only one polio case has been reported in the country this year.

Talking to Dawn at the end of his visit to Pakistan, Mr Abdi said: “We have been looking at the trend for the last 20 years and twice before we came this close, but now we are closest to the finish line.”

There is a commitment from the government to eradicate polio, and vaccines continue to arrive in Pakistan; as a result, cases are going down. Samples from sewerage now showed less percentage of positivity, the Unicef official said.

Official says with one case reported this year ‘we’re closest to the finish line’

About the Covid-19 pandemic, Mr Abdi, a national of Somalia who served in Unicef Pakistan 15 years ago, was pleased to note that Pakistan had remarkably responded to the pandemic with leadership coordination among different parts of the government at federal, provincial and district levels.

Mr Abdi also visited a vaccination centre in Islamabad and said it was encouraging to see that 30 million people in Pakistan were fully vaccinated, while over 60 million had received one dose of Covid-19 vaccine. As more vaccine doses arrive in the country, the rollout of the vaccine would cover a million people a day.

The Unicef official said that nutrition was an area where Pakistan continued to face significant challenges. The prevalence of stunting is very high — at about 40 per cent. Likewise, the prevalence of wasting is very high as the number of children under-weight is also very high.

Referring to his meeting with Minister for Poverty Alleviation and Social Safety Dr Sania Nishtar, the Unicef official stated that nutrition was not just related to access to food but it was a multi-sectoral issue, covering health, water and sanitation and they all together contributed to the nutritional status.

Mr Omar Abdi, who visited Afghanistan before traveling to Islamabad, said the migration of Afghans to Pakistan, Iran and other countries will begin if situation in Afghanistan did not improve.

Published in Dawn, October 10th, 2021

#ABOLISHTHEDEATHPENALTY

French EU presidency to seek global end to capital punishment

Despite widespread support within France for the death penalty, President Emmanuel Macron announced he will be campaigning on a global scale to end the practice.



Macron described the penalty as an "abomination"

France will seek a global end to the death penalty as part of its upcoming presidency of the European Union, President Emmanuel Macron said on Saturday.

Marking the 40th anniversary of the abolition of the death penalty in France, Macron said he would convene a summit in 2022 to campaign for the moratorium.

The conference will be held in Paris as France takes over the rotating presidency of the Council of the EU in the first half of 2022.

"As part of the French presidency of the European Union, we will organize... a meeting in Paris at the highest level, bringing together civil society members from countries that still apply the death penalty," Macron was quoted by broadcaster France 24 as saying.

He said the aim was to convince national leaders of the importance and urgency of abolishing capital punishment.
France divided on death penalty

France, a country once known for its infamous guillotine executions, abolished the death penalty in 1981 — when over 60% of its population still backed the execution of criminals.

It became the 35th country in the world to scrap the practice and introduced an article in its constitution that says "no one shall be sentenced to death".


Today, roughly half of France wants the penalty reintroduced, polls show.

Macron was speaking alongside Robert Badinter, the justice minister who steered the abolition under President Francois Mitterand and went on to campaign for a global abolition.

“I want to share with you my absolute conviction that the death penalty must disappear from the entire world as it is a shame for humanity," said Badinter. "The death penalty does not protect society, it dishonors it."

France's ministry for foreign affairs also put out an anniversary statementand said the death penalty constituted a "violation of human rights".
A global decline

While a total of 54 countries in the world still impose the death penalty in law or practice, the number of annual executions carried out has consistently shrunk over the last decade.

Describing the penalty as an "abomination", the French leader noted with regret that "483, certainly an underestimated number, executions" had been carried out worldwide in 2020.

China, Iran, Egypt, Iraq and Saudi Arabia, respectively carried out the most executions in 2020, according to Amnesty International.

In the EU, all member states have abolished the death penalty in line with the European Convention on Human Rights. While in Europe, Belarus is the last remaining country that continues to carry out executions.

Reuters contributed to this report.

ABOLIR LA PENA DE MUERTE

ABSCHAFFUNG DER TODESSTRAFE

ABOLIR LA PEINE DE MORT

ОТМЕНА СМЕРТНОЙ КАЗНИ

Abdul Qadeer Khan: 'Father' of Pakistan's atomic bomb dies at 85

Abdul Qadeer Khan was hailed as a national hero in Pakistan for making his country the world's first Islamic nuclear power — but regarded by the West as a dangerous renegade.

HE BROUGHT NUCLEAR DETERENCE TO THE REGION  WHICH SUFFERED UNDER  INDIA'S AGGRESIVE NUCLEAR PROGRAM. 

PAKISTAN SIGNED THE NON PROLIFERATION AGREEMENT, 

INDIA LIKE ISRAEL DID NOT!

    

A.Q. Khan was educated in Europe

Abdul Qadeer Khan, revered as the founding 'father' of Pakistan's nuclear program, died in Islamabad on Sunday morning. 

The Pakistani atomic scientist, 85, is considered a national hero for making Pakistan among the world's first Islamic nuclear power.

However, Khan is seen as a disgraced scientist by the West as he was the center of a nuclear proliferation scandal. 

He was admitted to hospital in Islamabad on August 26 after testing positive for COVID-19, according to the Associated Press of Pakistan news agency. The state-run agency added that Khan had been moved to a military hospital in Rawalpindi later.

Pakistani PM commemorates 'national icon'

Pakistan's Prime Minister Imran Khan said he was saddened by the nuclear scientist's passing. He praised Khan for being a national icon and for providing Pakistan with security against an "aggressive much larger nuclear neighbour."

Prime Minister Khan said Khan's body would be buried in Faisal Mosque in Islamabad.

Pakistani President Arif Alvi also offered his condolences, saying he knew Khan personally since 1982. He added that Khan developed "nation-saving nuclear deterrence" and Pakistan would forever be indebted to him for that.

But Abdul Qadeer Khan has been at the center of controversies

Abdul Qadeer Khan was accused of illegally trading nuclear technology to Iran, Libya, and North Korea. 

In 2004, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the nuclear watchdog of the United Nations, pulled up Khan as a primary suspect of a nuclear proliferation ring that involved sales of nuclear technology to several countries.

The IAEA was trying to resolve how Iran and others had gotten hold of nuclear technology to create weapons.

In 2004, Khan confessed to having shared nuclear secrets with those countries on national TV. 

Pervez Musharraf, who was Pakistan's president at the time, said he would accept a written apology from Khan. He added that proliferators would be severely punished.

However, Musharraf pardoned Khan and placed him under house arrest for five years.

While confessing to his actions on TV, Khan said he had acted alone and without the knowledge of state officals. Later, Khan said he was scapegoated.

"I saved the country for the first time when I made Pakistan a nuclear national icon and saved it again when I confessed and took the whole blame on myself," he told AFP news agency in an interview in 2008.

He lived mostly out of the public eye after his house arrest was lifted in 2009

Nuclear scientist Dr Abdul Qadeer Khan passes away at 85 in Islamabad

Dawn.com Published October 10, 2021 -

This file photo shows nuclear scientist Dr Abdul Qadeer Khan. — AFP/File

Nuclear scientist Dr Abdul Qadeer Khan passed away in Islamabad on Sunday morning at the age of 85.

According to Radio Pakistan, he was admitted to a local hospital where his health deteriorated early morning. PTV said that he died after being transferred to a hospital with lung problems.

Interior Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed said that under the directions issued by Prime Minister Imran Khan, Dr Khan would be given a state funeral.

Speaking to the media in Islamabad, he said that the premier had also directed cabinet ministers to attend the funeral. The interior minister said that the Chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee and the services chiefs would also be in attendance.

He said that the funeral prayers will be held at Faisal Mosque at 3:30pm. "The general public will be allowed to attend," he said.

He said two graves were being prepared, one at Faisal Mosque and one at Islamabad's H-8 graveyard. His family will decide where to bury him and that will be implemented, he said.

"The whole nation is grieving," the minister said, adding that the flag would be flown at half-mast.

He said that he had also directed law enforcement agencies and the Islamabad commissioner to make security arrangements.

'National icon for Pakistanis'

Prime Minister Imran Khan said Dr Khan was loved by the nation because of his critical contribution in making Pakistan a nuclear weapon state.

"This has provided us security against an aggressive much larger nuclear neighbour. For the people of Pakistan he was a national icon," he said, adding that he would be buried in Faisal Mosque "as per his wishes".

President Dr Arif Alvi said that he had personally known Dr Khan since 1982. "He helped us develop nation-saving nuclear deterrence, and a grateful nation will never forget his services in this regard," he said.

Last month, Dr Khan had complained that neither PM Imran nor any of his cabinet members inquired after his health while he was under treatment at a hospital.

According to the state-run Associated Press of Pakistan, Dr Khan had been admitted to Khan Research Laboratories Hospital on August 26 after he tested positive for Covid-19. Later, he was shifted to a military hospital in Rawalpindi but was discharged after recovering from the virus.

'A huge loss for Pakistan'

According to a statement issued by the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR), Chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee General Nadeem Raza and all services chiefs expressed sorrow over Dr Khan's passing.

The ISPR statement also quoted Chief of Army Staff General Qamar Javed Bajwa as saying that he had rendered invaluable services to strengthen Pakistan's defence capabilities.

Leader of the Opposition in the National Assembly Shehbaz Sharif said that the nation had lost "a true benefactor who served the motherland with heart and soul."

"The passing of Dr Khan is a huge loss for the country. His role in making Pakistan an atomic power remains central," he said.

Defence Minister Pervez Khattak said he was "deeply grieved" over his passing and called it a "great loss".

"Pakistan will forever honour his services to the nation! The nation is heavily indebted to him for his contributions in enhancing our defence capabilities," he said.

Planning and Development Minister Asad Umar said that Dr Khan had played an important role in making the country "invincible". He also offered prayers for the deceased.

Born in 1936 in Bhopal, India, Dr Khan had immigrated along with his family to Pakistan in 1947 after partition of the subcontinent.

After learning of India's nuclear test in 1974, he had joined his nation's clandestine efforts to develop nuclear power. He had founded the Khan Research Laboratories in 1976 and was its chief scientist and director for many years, according to Radio Pakistan.

He was awarded the Nishan-i-Imtiaz for his services to the country.

In 2004, Dr Khan was at the centre of a massive global nuclear proliferation scandal in 2004. In a series of dramatic developments, he was accused by then army chief and president Pervez Musharraf of running a rogue proliferation network for nuclear material.

Shortly after Musharraf’s announcement, a recorded confession by Khan was aired in which he took sole responsibility for all the nuclear proliferation that had been revealed.

 

 

 

Sand crisis: Mafias thrive as shortages loom

Demand for construction sand is rising faster than supply, pushing even countries in the Middle East to import it from as far away as Australia and Canada.



Mining so much sand is destroying ecosystems and fueling violence

It makes up the concrete of our houses, the tarmac of our roads, the glass in our windows and the silicon chips in our phones.

But sand, a building block of modern life that sits at the heart of a destructive and sometimes illegal industry, is in increasingly short supply — and nobody knows how soon it will run out.

Sand is the most used material on the planet but also one of the least well monitored. Unlike most other commodities, policymakers only have rough estimates of how much of it is used each year. A landmark report from the UN Environment Program (UNEP) in 2019 had to rely on data for cement — which sand and gravel are mixed with to make concrete — to land on a ballpark figure of 50 billion tons.

Researchers say that's more sand than can be responsibly used each year, even though more sand can be made by crushing rocks. In some regions, the shortages have already fueled targeted killings and the destruction of habitats.

Sand mining is not well monitored

"The nature of the crisis is we don't understand this material well enough," said Louise Gallagher from the Global Sand Observatory in Geneva, who co-authored the report. "We don't understand the impacts enough of where we're taking it from. Sometimes we don't even know where it's coming from, how much is coming out of rivers. We don't know. We just don't know."
Extracting sand

What experts do know, though, is that extracting sand in unparalleled quantities comes at a growing cost to people and the planet.

Sand mining destroys habitats, dirties rivers and erodes beaches, many of which are already losing ground to rising sea levels. When miners dig out layers of sand, riverbanks become less stable. The pollution and acidity can kill fish and leave less water for people and crops. The problem is made worse when dams upstream prevent sediments from replenishing the river.

"It has so many other impacts that are not taken into consideration," said Kiran Pereira, an independent researcher who has written a book on solutions to the sand crisis. "It's definitely not reflected in the cost of sand."

Watch video02:32
   Sand mining puts homes along the Mekong at risk of collapse


Eroded river banks have destroyed the habitats of the critically-endangered gharial crocodile in the Ganges river in India

Worse, much of the impact may not be immediately visible, which makes it hard to know exactly how bad it is, said Stephen Edwards, who leads research on extractive industries at the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN). "It certainly is something that is rising to a level that we really need to be paying closer attention to."

According to an article published in the journal Nature in 2019, sand mining has helped push fish-eating gharial crocodiles in the Ganges river to the brink of extinction — fewer than 250 adults remain in the wild — and destabilized riverbanks in the Mekong whose collapse could force half a million people from their homes.

One reason the damage from mining has been ignored is that although sand is in objects all around us, it's "hidden in plain sight", said Chris Hackney, a geographer at the University of Newcastle in the UK, who studies the issue and co-authored the Nature article. "Ask people to name the most important commodity on the planet and sand is probably not the one that gets mentioned."

Concrete boom

Sand shortages even sound counterintuitive. Although one-third of the Earth's land surface is classified as desert, much of it sandy, Middle Eastern countries like Saudi Arabia import sand from as far away as Canada and Australia. The 830m-tall Burj Khalifa, a skyscraper in the neighboring United Arab Emirates, was built using imports from the other side of the world.

This is because desert sand holds little value for the construction industry.

When winds blow over dunes, they shape sand particles into spheres. These round balls have less grip than the jagged grains found on riverbeds, beaches and sea floors, which have the friction needed to make concrete strong.

"As I grew up in Bangalore, I constantly read reports about the rivers being decimated due to sand mining," said Pereira, the researcher, adding that some of her earliest memories involve waking up at 2:00 a.m. to fetch water from a crowded public tap. "At the same time, I remember seeing hundreds and hundreds of trucks filled with sand flying up and down the roads, supplying all the construction sites."

China used more than half the cement the world made in 2019

Most of the demand comes from China, which made more cement in the three years from 2011 to 2014 than the US did in the entire last century. India, the next-biggest cement producer, is projected to overtake China as the world's most populous country by 2027.

As people across Asia and Africa move to cities and the world population swells to 10 billion people by the middle of the century, demand for sand is projected to keep rising.

And it's not just for making concrete. In 2011, 20 million cubic meters of sand was dredged from the sea floor on the coasts of the Netherlands to form a natural barrier protecting against erosion and climate change. Over the last half century Singapore has built artificial islands that have increased its land mass by a quarter using sand imported from Cambodia, Vietnam, Indonesia and Malaysia. Dubai's artificial Palm Islands, visible from space, were made with sand dredged from the bottom of the Persian Gulf.

The world's tallest skyscraper was built in the UAE, which is partly desert, using sand imported from Australia

Dubai has built artificial islands using sand dredged from the sea floor

Sand mafias

And then there's the human cost.

As sand prices have risen, police officers in countries from South Africa to Mexico have kept reporting dead bodies at the hands of miners.

Nowhere is the violence worse than in India, home to the world's deadliest "sand mafias." Criminal gangs there have burned journalists alive, hacked activists to death and run over police officers with trucks. A report last year from the South Asia Network on Dams, Rivers and People, an environmental group based in Delhi, counted 193 people who died through illegal sand mining in India over the last two years. The main causes of death were poor working conditions, violence and accidents.

Watch video 03:08  Kenya: Illegal sand mining threatens environment

While some miners dive to the bottom of rivers hundreds of times a day without protective clothing, and there are reports of child labor from India to Uganda, the industry has rarely been held accountable.

In late February, a special court in Delhi jailed the boss of Indian beach sand giant V.V. Minerals and a former director of the environment ministry for bribery. The mining baron, who has denied allegations of illegal sand mining that stretch back decades, had been caught paying the university tuition fees of an official's son in exchange for an environmental clearance, in a case that one local news outlet compared to notorious American mobster Al Capone being jailed for tax violations.

To solve the sand crisis, experts say world leaders need to better regulate the industry and enforce laws against corruption, as well as monitoring global sand production. They would need to cut demand for sand by finding alternatives to concrete and building more efficiently with materials like timber. The waste from demolished buildings could be reused as aggregate for roads, for instance.

Some researchers are exploring ways to make the world's abundant desert sand suitable for building, by heating and crushing the grains, and are now looking to make the processes cheap enough to be practical.

"Our ability to construct does not depend on our need for sand," said Pereira. "We can decouple these two and still build and allow for human prosperity without destroying our ecosystem."

AFRICA'S INNOVATIVE GREEN ARCHITECTURE

Learning in a green-minded building

The University of Agostinho Neto in Angola is considered one of the greenest buildings in all of Africa. Designed by Perkins+Will Architects, it positions classrooms to make the best use of natural ventilation and cooling by drawing breezes directly into the building. Trees arranged in a line create a funnel, through which winds blow.

123456

After deadly shooting, migrants in Libya just want to leave

Issued on: 09/10/2021 

Libyan authorities round up migrants who attempted to join a mass breakout from an overcrowded Tripoli detention centre after guards shot dead six inmates Hussam

AHMED AFP

Tripoli (AFP)

After escaping, with hundreds of others, from an overcrowded Libyan detention centre where guards shot dead six migrants, Sudanese refugee Halima Mokhtar Bshara says she just wants to leave the country.

"They attacked us, humiliated us, many of us were wounded," said the 27-year-old from Sudan's war-torn Darfur region.

"We're at the end of our tether."

The Al-Mabani facility in the capital Tripoli was at triple its capacity following police raids against migrants last week, when guards shot six people dead on Friday.

The shooting was "related to overcrowding and the terrible, very tense situation," the International Organization for Migration (IOM) said.

Some 2,000 migrants and refugees escaped in the chaos, including Bshara and her three children.

She was among hundreds taking part in a sit-in in front of the office of the UN refugee agency (UNHCR) in Tripoli on Saturday.

Dozens of destitute migrants and refugees, including young children, have been sleeping rough in front of the building for days, in the hope of receiving assistance.

"We're extremely tired. But we have nowhere to go, we are even being chased off the pavement," Bshara told AFP tearfully.

"For our security, we ask to be evacuated," one banner at the site says.

"Libya is not a safe country for refugees," reads another.

- 'We have nothing' -

In chaos since its 2011 revolution,  THE NATO WAR ON GADDAFI Libya has long been a favoured departure point for migrants -- many from sub-Saharan Africa -- fleeing violence and poverty in their own countries and hoping to reach Europe.

Libya is a favoured departure point for migrants from sub-Saharan Africa risking the perilous sea crossing to Europe and many are held in overcrowded detention centres after being intercepted on the high seas 

Mahmud TURKIA AFP/File

Hundreds die each year trying to make the dangerous Mediterranean crossing in rickety, overcrowded boats, while NGOs say those waiting to leave are often subject to violence and abuse.

Late last week, Libyan authorities raided multiple houses and makeshift shelters in a poor suburb of Tripoli, in what it said was an anti-drug operation.

The UN said the raids, mostly targeting irregular migrants, left at least one person dead, 15 wounded and more than 5,000 detained.

Doctors without Borders (MSF) decried "violent mass arrests".

"There were 39 of us living in the same building" before the raids, Bshara said.

At first, she said she and her family evaded authorities by hiding in a well, but they were eventually found and placed in the Al-Mabani detention centre.

There were so many people there that it was impossible to sleep, said Ismail Derrab, another of those who escaped the facility on Friday.

"We have nothing. We would like to get out of this country," said the young Sudanese man.

- 'Not a safe country' -

Official migrant detention centres in Libya are riddled with corruption and violence, including sexual assault, according to the United Nations and human rights groups.

African migrants demonstrate outside the Tripoli office of the UN refugee agency demanding repatriation after Friday's shooting deaths again highlighted the appalling conditions they endure in Libya

 Mahmud TURKIA AFP

The UNHCR had said before Friday's shooting deaths that it was "increasingly alarmed about the humanitarian situation for asylum seekers and refugees in Libya".

It temporarily suspended its activities at its Tripoli office this week, citing mounting tensions.

"We renew our appeal to the Libyan authorities to allow the resumption of humanitarian flights out of the country, which have been suspended for almost a year," it said in the earlier statement.

Waffagh Driss, another Sudanese migrant, said that Libyan authorities had targeted migrants "according to the colour of their skin".

"The situation in Tripoli for black people is terrible," the 31-year-old said.

"We are exposed to every kind of danger. Our life is at risk."

"I am asking to leave Libya because it is not a safe country."

© 2021 AFP

'Squid Game' is a global sensation. But at home, it's delivering hard truths.

Jennifer Jett and Stella Kim 

HONG KONG — Why are South Koreans watching “Squid Game”? Because everyone else is.

© Provided by NBC News

The nine-episode horror series on Netflix has hit No. 1 in 90 of the streaming service’s markets around the world, including South Korea, where it was made.

“I got to the point where I could not hold a conversation without watching the show,” said Jung Dunn, a security analyst in Seoul, the South Korean capital.

But the show also strikes a nerve because it unflinchingly addresses a problem that is particularly entrenched in South Korea: debt and the never-ending struggle to pay it off.

The cast of “Squid Game” features some of South Korea’s biggest stars, including Lee Jung-jae as the protagonist, Seong Gi-hun, a hopelessly indebted father who receives a business card from a stranger offering him a way out. Along with 455 other contestants — from all walks of life but all deeply in debt too — he agrees to compete for a cash prize of 45.6 billion won (about $38 million) by playing a series of traditional Korean children’s games, only to discover that elimination from each round means death.

© Youngkyu Park

 A card with a phone number on one side is given to the game's 456 participants 

“There’s this dissonance between Korean pride that this Korean show is dominating Netflix all around the world, and the discomfort with what the show appears to expose about Korea,” said CedarBough Saeji, an assistant professor of Korean and East Asian studies at Pusan National University in Busan, South Korea. “Koreans love to be No. 1, but No. 1 at the cost of kind of airing your dirty laundry is a somewhat different thing.”

That South Korea also produced “Parasite,” the 2020 Oscar winner for best picture that also focused on themes of inequality, has probably accentuated this discomfort, Saeji said.

Still, “Squid Game” is wildly popular in its home country.

The show was released on Sept. 17 just before Chuseok, a Korean holiday similar to Thanksgiving when families gather, the perfect time for binge-watching. The surge in network traffic led one internet service provider to sue Netflix to cover its costs.

The fervor has also spilled over into real life. A street vendor in Seoul who provided the makers of “Squid Game” with dalgona, a brittle sugar candy at the center of one of the games, told Reuters that he had seen a boom in business

.

© Youngkyu Park One of the games in Squid Game

Thousands of curious South Koreans also tried the eight-digit phone number that appears on the business card, which the show’s makers didn’t realize would reach an actual person. The owner of the number, and even people with similar numbers, have been inundated with calls and messages at all hours.

On Wednesday, Netflix said it was working with the show’s local production company to address the issue, including editing scenes to remove the number.

Park Sae-ha, a senior studying economics at Yonsei University in Seoul, said “Squid Game” was “spell-binding because it was so explicit and blunt.”

“Although I am young, I could easily relate to the hard reality of a very competitive society,” she said.

That intense competitiveness may be one reason South Korea has been so successful, with a period of rapid industrialization starting in the 1960s that turned it into the world’s 10th-largest economy. But as in many other countries, a university degree and a white-collar job don’t guarantee the financial security they used to, Saeji said. With an average income of about $42,000 a year, many Koreans now find they have to borrow to keep up.

Fueled by low interest rates, household debt in South Korea has grown significantly in recent years, and is now equal to the country’s annual GDP. (In the U.S., by contrast, household debt is about 80 percent of GDP.) People may rack up debt because of credit card spending, unemployment or gambling losses, but a large chunk of it is tied to real estate.

Housing prices have been rising fast, especially under President Moon Jae-in, and the average price of an apartment in Seoul is nearing $1 million. Lending curbs and efforts to cool the housing market have done little to rein in household borrowing. In addition to housing, some Koreans, especially young people, borrow money to invest in cryptocurrency.

© SeongJoon Cho People look at a city skyline from an observation deck of Woomyeon mountain at dusk in Seoul, South Korea, on July 9, 2020. (SeongJoon Cho / Bloomberg via Getty Images file)

Many Koreans start out by borrowing from legitimate financial institutions like banks, said Koo Se-Woong, a commentator on Korean culture based in Germany. When that avenue is exhausted, they may move on to second-tier lenders that charge higher interest.

In the worst-case scenarios, he said, borrowers turn to loan shark operations that can charge triple-digit interest rates, “and then you are pushed into situations from which you really cannot get out.”

According to some estimates, there are 400,000 Koreans in debt to loan sharks.

“When you look at the characters in the show who are participating in this game, they represent that demographic of the Koreans who are in the worst possible situation because of their personal debt,” Koo said.

In a recent widely shared Facebook post, Koo said he was shocked when a friend told him he was living paycheck to paycheck, despite having a good job.

The friend “doesn't strike anyone as extravagant,” Koo said, but struggles to afford the trappings of middle-class life: an apartment, a car and occasional travel with his wife and children.

"It's all paid for by loans, I am telling you," Koo said his friend told him. "We just have no money."

Jung, the security analyst, said the plot of “Squid Game” was easy to accept because “it dealt with such familiar stories of debt-ridden people you come across in real life.”

© Youngkyu Park A scene from Netflix's Squid Game

“The story stems from a deeply rooted perception of how society looks at failure, especially individual financial failure,” he said.

Bankruptcy in South Korea is generally seen not as a chance to start over but as a devastating fate. That is underlined in “Squid Game,” Saeji said, when contestants are given the option to leave but choose to keep playing even at the risk of their lives.

“In the regular world it’s not just the death of their body, it’s the death of their pride. It’s the shame of having to be such an unsuccessful person in front of your family,” she said.

Viewers in South Korea say the show is all the more disturbing because it injects death and violence into playground games like Red Light, Green Light and tug of war.

The show plays on childhood nostalgia “and along with it the innocent times when you had no problems,” said Kim Hern-sik, a pop culture critic in Seoul. “Yet the story tells you that escaping from reality is not the answer.”

“Squid Game” is “fundamentally a Korean story, featuring games people would remember playing as kids,” Don Kang, vice president of Korean content at Netflix, told NBC News in an email. “So we knew it would resonate with our members here.”

© Netflix The doll acts as the person who is in the game

Its popularity in the West came as more of a surprise. But Korean cultural exports have been sweeping Asia for years, and Netflix was already betting on their growing appeal. The company is spending $500 million this year on Korean content, almost as much as it spent in the last five years.

Saeji said that after decades of Western cultural influence, the success of “Squid Game” shows that South Korea can make a TV show with a Hollywood feel “and they can do it better.”

While “Squid Game” is not the first story about a fight to the death, director Hwang Dong-hyuk, who has a film degree from the University of Southern California, made it influential in his own way, said Oh Dong-jin, a prominent film critic in South Korea.

“Every movie borrows this and that from other movies. What matters, therefore, is how creatively you can borrow from different references,” he said. “So, even from this standpoint, the traditional children’s games the show uses make 'Squid Game' quite original.”

Margie Kim, a housewife in Seoul who is watching “Squid Game” with her family, said that while she enjoyed its intensity and pop-art-influenced visuals, the underlying messages were also important.

“I do feel the pain of what our society is going through,” she said. The show deals with so many pressing issues, she said—income inequality, youth unemployment, a rapidly aging society—that it’s something her entire family can relate to and talk about.

“So many middle-class, ordinary people live with so much debt,” she said. “I could totally empathize with people who joined the game.”

Jennifer Jett reported from Hong Kong, and Stella Kim reported from Los Angeles.

Six Days in Fallujah: This video game is an 'Arab murder simulator,' critics say

By Alaa Elassar, CNN 

Najla Bassim Abdulelah grew up in a war. The regular sight of dead bodies and the memory of her friend being shot next to her as they walked to school stained her childhood.

© Victura, Inc. A scene from the video game "Six Days in Fallujah."

Children's laughter was replaced with an incessant soundtrack of exploding bombs, and she lived with a crippling fear of losing her family.

So when Abdulelah, who now lives in Atlanta, Georgia, heard that "Six Days in Fallujah," a first-person shooter video game set during the Iraq War's bloodiest battle, was on the verge of being released, she was horrified.

"I am disgusted that this is something that will be producing profit when people like me suffered the consequences of this war and will have to watch people play it for fun," Abdulelah, 28, told CNN. "I just can't get past the inhumanity."

For Abdulelah and other Iraq War survivors, the imminent release of "Six Days in Fallujah" threatens to reopen old wounds and trivialize their pain.

They want the game shelved.

But the creators of the video game say it's grossly misunderstood, and that they're merely using gameplay -- the way players interact with a video game -- to teach history.

'A massive killing of Arabs'

Part documentary and part video game, "Six Days in Fallujah" uses gameplay to recount history and recreate true stories from the Second Battle of Fallujah. The offensive, code named Operation Phantom Fury, saw the US Marines lead a joint force of American, British and Iraqi troops into the ancient city.

The battle lasted from November 7 to December 23, 2004, and, according to the US Army, is widely regarded as the US' toughest urban battle since Huế, Vietnam, when ferocious fighting between American troops and North Vietnamese soldiers resulted in the deaths of hundreds -- if not thousands -- of citizens, who were buried in unmarked mass graves by the communist forces.

In Fallujah, US-led forces went house to house hunting for suspected insurgents. Fighters on both sides, as well as thousands of innocent Iraqis caught in the crossfire, did their best to avoid snipers and booby traps.

"We were told going into Fallujah, into the combat area, that every single person that was walking, talking, breathing was an enemy combatant. As such, every single person that was walking down the street or in a house was a target," Jeff Englehart, a former US soldier with the 3rd Brigade, 1st Infantry Division, said in the 2005 documentary "Fallujah, The Hidden Massacre."

© Victura, Inc. A scene from "Six Days in Fallujah." Developers say they collaborated with more than 100 service members to recreate real events.

US-led forces used more than 300 bombs, 6,000 rounds of artillery and 29,000 mortar rounds, according to the US Marines. Military officials also confirmed that troops used white phosphorous, a highly controversial incendiary weapon that burns the skin.

Ross Caputi, a former US Marine with the 1st Battalion, 8th Marines, recalls some of the controversial tactics used during the battle, including firing grenades or gun rounds into homes before entering, in case insurgents were hiding inside.

"These tactics were meant to keep us safe. But I learned later that tens of thousands of civilians were still hiding in their houses during the operation, so these tactics would have put them in a lot of danger," Caputi told CNN. "The hardship that Phantom Fury imposed on Fallujans and the destruction it caused made me feel really ashamed of what we were doing."

© Mahdi Mohammad Iraqi-American Mohammed Husain wants "Six Days in Fallujah" shelved.

In the end, more than 80 American soldiers were killed, CNN reported. The number of civilian casualties remains unknown, but at least 800 innocent Iraqis were killed, according to the Red Cross. Local NGOs estimate the battle killed up to 6,000 Iraqis, mostly civilians, The Guardian has reported.

Describing the aftermath, Englehart said, "It seemed like just a massive killing of Arabs. It looked like just a massive killing."


A 'new way to understand' history

"Six Days in Fallujah" was originally developed by Atomic Games and set to be released by Japanese game publisher Konami in 2010. But the Tokyo-based company withdrew from the project a year early due to widespread criticism that it was offensive. Atomic Games went out of business and the project was shelved.

In February 2021, developer Highwire Games and publisher Victura, founded by former Atomic Games CEO Peter Tamte, announced they were resurrecting "Six Days in Fallujah."

The game is set to be released by the end of 2021.

"It's hard to understand what combat is actually like through fake people doing fake things in fake places," Tamte said in a statement announcing the game's release. "This generation showed sacrifice and courage in Iraq as remarkable as any in history. And now they're offering the rest of us a new way to understand one of the most important events of our century. It's time to challenge stereotypes about what games can be."

To that end, the developers say they collaborated with more than 100 service members who provided testimony, photographs and videos to recreate real events "with authenticity and respect." They also interviewed 27 Iraqis, 23 of whom are from Fallujah.

© Victura, Inc. A scene from "Six Days in Fallujah" shows a US serviceman aiming his weapon at an Iraqi man wearing a traditional headdress.

In the game, a player can choose to be a US serviceman leading a team on missions against insurgents, or an unarmed Iraqi father trying to escape with his family to safety. While playing, gamers will hear from real US service members, who narrate the missions, and Iraqi civilians, who relay their experiences.

© Courtesy Arny Soejoedi Iraqi-American Najla Bassim Abdulelah says "Six Days in Fallujah" is offensive to Iraq War survivors.

"Players will encounter civilians during gameplay, and these people also speak directly to players through video interviews," Tamte told CNN. "We want players to get to know these people as real human beings, rather than just avatars on a computer screen. And we want players to hear these Iraqis' perspectives and stories in their own words."

Developers regularly consult with Iraqis on how they are portrayed in the game, Tamte says. If a player shoots an Iraqi civilian, the mission ends in failure. The only Iraqis who are allowed to be killed are insurgents.

'An Arab murder simulator'

Abdulelah understands the premise of "Six Days in Fallujah" and Victura's rationale for releasing the game. She's a gamer herself.

But she says that taking a real life event, in which people suffered and died, and turning it into a game trivializes the experience.

There are more respectful and credible ways to learn about what happened in Fallujah, she says, pointing to news stories, books and documentaries produced about the battle.

"I got chills in my spine thinking about the idea that they can use the scenario of someone escaping something so tragic for a game," Abdulelah said, referring to the scenario in which a player can choose to be an Iraqi father fleeing with his family. "It brings me to tears. How is this okay?"

Mohammed Husain, also an Iraqi-American, says he was "hurt and disturbed" by news that the game will be released. He worries that the game will lessen the battle's significance, especially among young players.

"Instead of a historical incident, now they'll see it as a game," Husain, 26, told CNN.

Husain, whose parents are Iraq War refugees, also worries that insurgents in the game look like typical Iraqi men, which he said could lead to bias in the real world. Screenshots from the game show some insurgents distinguished by black and white headdress, which is common attire in Iraq and other Arab countries.

"It dehumanizes Iraqi people, showing how some are insurgents, some are Al-Qaeda, some are civilians, with no way of differentiating them. It desensitizes this generation to this kind of violence against our people," he said.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the nation's largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization, worries that the game could reinforce harmful stereotypes of Iraqis, as well as other Arabs and Muslims.

CAIR and Veterans for Peace (VFP) repeated calls on Friday to shelve "Six Days in Fallujah." In August, they issued a public letter denouncing it as a game that "glorifies violence that took the lives of over 800 Iraqi civilians, justifies the illegal invasion of Iraq and reinforces Islamophobic narratives."

In April, the two organizations partnered to launch a petition calling on video game companies -- including Microsoft Corporation (Xbox), Sony Interactive Entertainment (PlayStation) and Valve Corporation -- not to host or digitally distribute the game.

Garett Reppenhagen, VFP's executive director, is a former US Army sniper who served in the Sunni Triangle during the Second Battle of Fallujah.

"As a combat veteran and gamer, I find it troubling to see what amounts to an Arab murder simulator, which fails to acknowledge the impact of siege warfare against an unarmed and trapped civilian population," Reppenhagen told CNN.

When asked about criticism of "Six Days in Fallujah" and the petition, a Microsoft spokesperson told CNN: "We're aware of concerns and are looking into the content."

Neither Sony nor Valve responded to CNN's request for comment.

'How would you feel?'

Victura is standing firm in its decision to release "Six Days in Fallujah." It insists the game provides a new and exciting way for people to learn about what happened there.

"When we originally announced Six Days in Fallujah in 2009, we learned that some people believe video games shouldn't tackle real-life events. To these people, video games seem more like toys than a medium capable of communicating something insightful. We disagree," the makers said in a statement in February. "Video games can connect us in ways other media cannot."

Critics want people to learn about the tragedy that unfolded in Fallujah, too. But they say that turning it into a first-person shooter game that's played for entertainment is insensitive and disrespectful, especially when many Iraqis are still reeling from the destruction.

"Six Days in Fallujah" is a "disgrace" to the gaming industry, says Abdulelah. The trauma of Iraqis like herself, she says, should not be "turned into a show and tell."

"This isn't honoring the innocents who died. It's very disrespectful to their memory. Not to mention, this is very recent history. People are still living through and digesting the trauma they've acquired in the Iraq War," she said. "My family and I witnessed mortifying, horrible things ... It's not a memory we want to sit or revisit or talk about."

Hospitals in Fallujah have reported spikes in birth defects and cancer cases since 2005, according to a 2010 study in which some medical experts suggested the use of depleted uranium may be to blame.

Many Iraqis who lived through the war also suffer from post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and have yet to receive any type of care for their mental health, according to researchers.

A 2014 study in Baghdad showed that over 80% of the participants reported experiencing at least one traumatic event that led to them suffering from PTSD and other mental health issues.

Husain, who avoids documentaries about the war due to PTSD from his yearly trips to Iraq, including one in which he says he nearly died in a car explosion, says shelving the game "should not be a debate."

When asked if he had a message for Highwire Games and Victura, Husain posed a question of his own:

"Have you people not lost loved ones?" he asked. "How would you feel if you were on the receiving end? If you saw a game about a tragedy that impacted your family, your people? How would you feel?"

TOLD TO STEP DOWN

Iain Stewart to step down as head of Public Health Agency of Canada

CBC/Radio-Canada 

© National Research Council/Twitter Iain Stewart will leave his role as president of the Public Health Agency of Canada next week. He's being replaced by Dr. Harpreet S. Kochhar, who is currently an assistant deputy minister of health.

Iain Stewart is out as president of the Public Health Agency of Canada, after leading the agency through much of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Stewart was also the focus of an extraordinary moment in parliamentary history earlier this year, when he was publicly admonished by MPs in the House of Commons for failing to turn over documents related to the firing of two scientists from the National Microbiology Laboratory in Winnipeg.

Stewart will become president of the National Research Council of Canada, a role he previously held. Dr. Harpreet S. Kochhar, currently an assistant deputy minister of health, will replace Stewart starting next week.

Kochhar, a veterinarian by training, has served in a variety of senior roles in the public service, including as Canada's Chief Veterinary Officer and as associate vice-president of operations at the Canadian Food Inspection Agency.

In a news release on Friday, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau thanked Stewart and "recognized his leadership in successfully implementing the COVID-19 vaccine rollout."

Stewart joined PHAC from his previous role as president of the research council after his predecessor, Tina Namiesniowski, stepped down as president of PHAC in September 2020.

© Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press Stewart, right, approaches the bar in the House of Commons to be admonished by the Speaker of the House of Commons, Anthony Rota, in Ottawa on June 21, 2021.

In June 2021, he was called to appear before the bar in the House of Commons, a procedure not used against a civilian for nearly a century and intended to publicly shame a person who has committed "an offence against the dignity or authority of Parliament."

Stewart, citing privacy and security concerns also put forward by Health Minister Patty Hajdu, refused to provide unredacted documents related to the firing of scientists Xiangguo Qiu and her biologist husband, Keding Cheng, who were escorted off the premises in 2019 and officially fired in January of this year.

That question eventually wound up in court, but the case was discontinued shortly after the election call in August.

Stewart was also head of PHAC during a continuing controversy over the role of Maj.-Gen Dany Fortin as head of Canada's vaccine task force. Fortin recently argued in court he should be reinstated in a job reflecting. He was removed after being accused of sexual assault tied to an alleged incident decades ago and subsequently charged.

The move to replace Stewart as head of PHAC was part of a wider shuffle of senior public servants announced Friday.

Lisa Ling: It's time to rethink how we are teaching history in our schools

By Lisa Ling

CNN

Less than a year out of high school, I was given a book that would rock my world and propel me to question everything I ever learned about US history. It was Howard Zinn's "A People's History of the United States."

© Provided by CNN this is life lisa ling vincent chin clip 4_00001629.png

On the very first page, Zinn recounted what Christopher Columbus wrote in his log about the Arawak people he encountered upon reaching the new world:

"They ... brought us parrots and balls of cotton and spears and many other things, which they exchanged for the glass beads and hawk's bells. They willingly traded everything they owned ...They were well-built, with good bodies and handsome features ...They do not bear arms, and do not know them, for I showed them a sword, they took it by the edge and cut themselves out of ignorance. They have no iron. Their spears are made of cane ...They would make fine servants ...With fifty men we could subjugate all of them, and make them do whatever we want."

Up until that moment, Columbus Day, the second Monday in October, was in my mind always reserved for parades or barbecues -- a day to celebrate America's origins. After reading Zinn's book, the holiday became something else: a reminder of the conquest, displacement and even the genocidal origins of our nation. This knowledge would compel me to want to know more about -- and to even advocate for -- our native brothers and sisters who were violently driven off the land that we call home.

Not long after reading Zinn's book, I learned about another dark episode in American history that pertained to people who look like me -- something that took place during World War II. After the Japanese government bombed Pearl Harbor in 1941, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066 that forcibly removed Americans of Japanese descent from their homes and into prison camps.

That order imprisoned 120,000 people, including 17,000 children, for years. Across the country, fear spread that anyone who was even 1/16th Japanese could commit espionage against the United States government.

I don't have the words to describe how it made me feel as I read about this period of American history.

As a young Asian American growing up in Carmichael, California -- a less diverse suburb of Sacramento -- I was conflicted about my identity: I never felt totally American because I didn't look like most in my community, nor did I know anything about being Chinese because I wasn't from China.

There was nothing in my history books about the contributions of Asians Americans or the discrimination and violence directed at Asians dating back over 100 years. There was just nothing.

When there is no reference to one's inclusion, it can become easy to overlook and even dehumanize an entire population. One of the reasons why Asians have been so easy to scapegoat in the wake of the Covid pandemic, is because it is a community that some may not recognize as belonging here.

In June of 2020, I opened social media and I saw people posting about Juneteenth. Though I had heard the word before, I didn't realize what a significant moment in American history it was: the official end of slavery. I was ashamed to have not known about it, but I don't recall it ever being included in my history books either.

Author of the epic bestselling book, "Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents," Isabel Wilkerson recently posted to her social media something that gave me immense pause: "It will not be until the year 2111 that African Americans will have been free as long as they have been enslaved. No adult alive today will see the day when African Americans will have reached parity between freedom and bondage."

That was the catalyst for wanting to dedicate this season of my show "This Is Life" to exploring events in American history that didn't make it into many history books but still impact our country today.

The inner drive I felt to revisit these histories is one reason why, to me, the current opposition to teaching what many call "Critical Race Theory" is confounding. The term, which actually applies to a set of academic principles born in legal theory, has come to mean for some the teaching of all race-related issues in school. When immigration and race have played such significant roles in the evolution of our nation, what happens when we are afraid to address past errors around these issues head on?

My high school US history classroom experience was pretty limited. Upon getting seated in class, I would listen as my teacher would assign a couple of chapters of a dryly written history textbook. We were instructed to answer the questions at the end of each one. Much of what I read highlighted the country's pioneers, the victors, the politicians, the heads of industry and inventors.

It wasn't that these historical figures didn't deserve to occupy space in my textbooks. In fact, as I write this, I am sitting on an airplane flying from the West Coast to the East Coast and marveling at the ingenuity of my means of transport.

But it never occurred to me as a school-aged girl that there might be other sides to the stories I learned in my history class -- the stories of the enslaved, the immigrants, the imprisoned, and the exploited.

As Americans, we must continue to ask ourselves: In our quest to democratize this nation and even dominate the world, whose sacrifices may have been overlooked? How can we ensure their stories are never left behind?

When we leave out large swathes of stories of the diverse peoples who call our country home, we effectively erase their contributions and their struggles -- and it becomes a lot easier to continually repeat the same mistakes.