Brewing deception: North Korea’s dark and dubious peddling of tiger bone wine

DPRK folk remedy is widely available in China despite wildlife trafficking concerns, but it may all just be a scam

Ifang Bremer 

July 4, 2024


North Korean tiger bone wine packaging | Image: Foreign Trade of DPR Korea, edited by NK News


Despite sanctions and pandemic restrictions, a shadowy trade continues to thrive on the Chinese web for an unusual North Korean product that could be contributing to wildlife smuggling — tiger bone wine.

This traditional alcoholic beverage, which purportedly uses tiger bones as a primary ingredient, has its roots in ancient Chinese medicine. It is believed to enhance strength and vitality, promote healthy blood circulation and act as an aphrodisiac.

The production and sale of the wine raise concerns about the possible exploitation of endangered big cats and Pyongyang’s participation in illegal wildlife trafficking.

But there’s a catch: North Korean tiger bone wine may be among the country’s best-performed scams, with producers tricking customers — mainly from China — into buying a potent brew of unknown ingredients.

ALTERNATIVE MEDICINE

It’s unclear when North Korea started selling tiger bone wine, but production appears to go back decades.

A 1995 article by The Independent named Pyongyang Zoo Pharmaceutical Factory as a brewer, and labels on bottles of North Korean tiger bone wine have also identified other major manufacturers, including Pyongyang Medical University, Tucheng Pharmaceutical Factory and Wannian Trading Company.

The wine is marketed as an alternative medicine, mainly to treat rheumatism and arthritis, rather than a spirit for casual drinking. Labels on the bottles suggest diluting 8-20 ml of the wine with an equal amount of water and taking it up to three times a day.

One bottle seen by NK News listed wood claw, omija berries, parsnip root, gastrodia elata and angelica root — all used in traditional Asian medicine — among its ingredients, in addition to tiger bone.

Nowadays, North Korean tiger bone wine is mainly sold on Chinese webshops — usually by private sellers — and by vendors in Southeast Asian countries, mainly in Laos.

The DPRK is also known to sell the alcoholic tonic out of its overseas restaurants, which it operates in violation of international sanctions that prohibit North Koreans from working abroad.

But tiger bone wine is illegal or heavily regulated in many countries due to its putative use of body parts from a highly endangered animal.

Beijing is a member of the Convention on International Trade of Endangered Species (CITES), which precludes the import of tiger bone wine. While the DPRK is not a signatory, the use of actual tiger bones would fly in the face of North Korea’s professed commitment to wildlife conservation.

Two years ago, North Korea’s ambassador to Russia pledged that Pyongyang would help Moscow protect the few remaining Siberian tigers in Northeast Asia.

“Tigers have historically been the symbol of the Korean nation,” he said.

The two countries are also exploring another project to protect Amur leopards, another endangered big cat that once roamed the Korean Peninsula.

A taxidermied tiger at the zoo in Pyongyang | Image: NK News (Sept. 2017)

NO BONES ABOUT IT

It’s far from certain that any tiger bones are actually used in the production of the North Korean tonics, however.

North Korean tiger bone wine is widely sold on Chinese websites, with prices ranging from around $20 per bottle up to $200, suggesting that production is high while raising questions about how the DPRK could farm enough tiger bones to brew so much.

On the one hand, the fact that Pyongyang Zoo Pharmaceutical Factory is a major producer of the wine implies that it uses the bones of tigers kept at the country’s biggest animal park.

But Rowan Beard, a tour operator at Young Pioneer Tours, told NK News that there are only “a few tigers” at the Korea Central Zoo — most likely not enough to support wine production.

Beard said he has asked North Koreans about where the country gets tiger bones for the wine before and that he was told they come from “specially farmed tigers up in the northeast.”

“But I can’t possibly imagine a farm specifically for farming tigers in North Korea,” the tour operator said.

DPRK state media has not reported on tiger farms in the country, and none are known to exist.

One possibility is that the DPRK producers reuse tiger bones over and over, rather than adding new bones to each batch. Images of whole skeletons in vats of tiger bone wine in China appear to support the theory that bone could be reused somewhat like a whisky cask.

However, wildlife trafficking investigator Karl Ammann told NK News he had 10 samples of tiger bone wine — including one North Korean bottle — tested by the forensic lab at the University of Zurich as part of his research for a documentary on tiger trafficking, and the results “did not show any evidence of any tiger DNA” were present in the samples.

Iraqi Kurdistan fails to protect domestic violence survivors: Amnesty International

PATRIARCHIAL MISOGYNIST BARZANI CLAN RUNS THE STATE

Amnesty International's latest report criticises Iraqi Kurdistan Region's authorities for their failure to adequately protect survivors of domestic violence.

Dana Taib Menmy
Iraq
04 July, 2024


Despite some legislative progress in combating domestic violence, the report highlights significant obstacles faced by survivors in accessing justice and protection. [Getty]

The Kurdistan Region of Iraq is failing to hold perpetrators of domestic violence accountable and is imposing arbitrary restrictions on survivors seeking protection in shelters, according to a new report by Amnesty International released today.

Despite some legislative progress in combating domestic violence, the report highlights significant obstacles faced by survivors in accessing justice and protection. It criticises the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) authorities for lacking the political will to prosecute offenders and for offering insufficient support to women and girls.

Amnesty International’s Deputy Regional Director for the Middle East and North Africa, Aya Majzoub, stated that survivors face daunting obstacles that leave them vulnerable and allow perpetrators to remain unpunished. Shelters for survivors are described as having prison-like conditions, often compelling women and girls to return to abusive environments.

"I do not say that everything in the report is correct, but it is realistic and includes key issues that we as women's organizations talk and work on constantly," Bahar Munzir, General Director of People's Development Organisation (PDO), a local organisation working on women's rights in the Kurdistan region, told The New Arab in an interview.

The report, based on interviews and field research, underscores the need for the Iraqi Kurdistan's authorities to enforce its progressive domestic violence laws, increase funding for support institutions, and improve shelter conditions. It also calls for eliminating mandatory reconciliation processes at the Directorates for Combating Violence Against Women and the Family (DCVAW) before criminal proceedings and removing court order requirements for shelter access.

"We are always supportive of the existence of the reconciliation committees because every case is different from another, and the committee's role is only advisory. The KRG should further support these committees," Munzir noted.

The findings reveal a justice system that perpetuates impunity, with survivors often required to file their own criminal complaints, facing lengthy court proceedings and biased judges. Amnesty International urges the Iraqi Kurdistan authorities to take concrete action against gender-based violence and improve protection mechanisms for women and girls.

Munzir also highlighted the role of reconciliation committees in advising on individual cases but stressed the need for clearer procedures and support for women filing criminal complaints. She pointed out concerning practices in the justice system, such as judges suggesting marriage between rape victims and offenders, urging reforms to better protect women and girls.

Although comprehensive statistics on gender-based violence are unavailable, government officials reported 30 women killed in 2023 and 44 in 2022. NGO workers informed Amnesty International that actual numbers are likely significantly higher. The Directorate for Combating Violence Against Women and the Family (DCVAW) received 15,896 domestic violence complaints in 2022, but figures for 2023 were not disclosed to Amnesty International.

Germany’s first MP born in Africa steps down amid racist harassment

But Karamba Diaby says racist threats ‘not main reason’ for his decision

Maroosha Muzaffar
Thursday 04 July 2024

open image in galleryKaramba Diaby (Getty)


The first African-born member of parliament in Germany has announced that he will not stand in the next federal election in 2025, just weeks after receiving a death threat.

Karamba Diaby, 62, said such racist threats were “not the main reason” for his decision. He simply wanted to spend more time with his family and make room for younger politicians.

“After months of consideration and weighing, I, in consultation with my family, have come to the decision not to run for the Bundestag again,” he wrote in a letter to his party colleagues, the German Press Agency reported.

“I look back on 11 enriching and successful years in federal politics. After three legislative periods, it’s time to make way for the next political generation and explore new paths.”

Mr Diaby, a member of the centre-left Social Democrats representing Halle since 2013, has endured many racist attacks and threats over the years, including several on his office.

“Of course, I will remain active and engaged in the SPD. We face big challenges and hard work,” he said.

“At the same time, I’m looking forward to having more time for my family and friends and our allotment.”

Mr Diaby was born in Senegal and is the only member of the German parliament with African heritage.

He was seven when he lost both his parents and was brought up by his older sister and her husband. He moved to Germany on a study grant in 1985.

In spite of the attacks and insults he has faced in Halle over the years, Mr Diaby told Der Spiegel last year: “I feel very comfortable in Halle.”

But the “unpleasant incidents”, he said, made him “sad and worried”.


open image in galleryKaramba Diaby speaks in the Bundestag on 28 May 2020 (Getty)

In several interviews, Mr Diaby has noted the increasingly hostile atmosphere he has had to contend with in the parliament and society, attributing it to the 2017 entry of the populist AfD party into the Bundestag.

“Since 2017, the tone in the German parliament has become harsher,” he told the Berlin Playbook podcast of Politico’. “We hear aggressive speeches from colleagues of the AfD. We hear derogatory and hurtful content in these contributions. That is truly a totally new situation compared to the period between 2013 and 2017. This aggressive style of talking is fertile breeding ground for the violence and aggression on the streets.”

More recently, after receiving a death threat, the MP wrote on Instagram: “For me the level of hatred and agitation has reached a new level. I now encounter it every day in the news and commentaries, but also in the German Bundestag.”


open image in galleryBullet holes in the window of Karamba Diaby’s constituency office in Halle (Getty)

“I won’t let myself be intimidated. I am fighting back. The hatred that the AfD sows every day with its misanthropic narratives is reflected in concrete psychological and physical violence! This jeopardises cohesion in our society.”

He said this latest threat against him “crossed a new red line”.

“My coworkers are also threatened and blackmailed,” he said.

Mr Diaby’s absence from the 2025 Bundestag election will leave a void as the parliamentarian has been an outspoken advocate for social justice and a key figure in combating racism within German politics, German newspaper Aussiedlerbote noted.

MAKING AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE IN CANADA: THE BATTLE OF THE PLAINS OF ABRAHAM

D. PETER MACLEOD

JULY 4, 2024

Forget Lexington. Forget Bunker Hill. The first battle of the American Revolution — the one that made revolution possible, although not inevitable — was James Wolfe’s posthumous triumph on the Plains of Abraham in 1759.

This engagement, frequently personalized as a duel between the opposing commanders, Wolfe and Louis-Joseph de Montcalm, is best known as a clash between French and British empires that resulted in the British conquest of Canada.

But it was much more than that. The Plains of Abraham was also an American battle, the culmination of a campaign in which thousands of American sailors and soldiers served in the Royal Navy and British Army and on American merchant ships. These Americans helped shape the future of the British empire and in so doing helped set the stage for colonial independence.

The Nine-Year Seven Years’ War (1754–1763)

In the North American component of the Seven Years’ War, France, Britain, and their Indigenous allies fought to control the territories occupied by French colonies and Indigenous homelands to the north, east, and west of British America. The British sought land for a growing colonial population by expelling the Acadians in the east and occupying the Ohio valley in the west. They also sought security for their colonies by invading Canada. The French, fearing the growing power of Britain’s expanding trans-Atlantic realm, sought to prevent British settlement beyond the Appalachians.

Dramatic victories by the French-Indigenous alliance dominated the early years of the war. But the British responded to each defeat by doubling down and sending more troops and more ships to North America. In 1759, Britain launched a massive land and sea offensive aimed at nothing less than the total elimination of French power from northeastern North America. The central element of this offensive was an amphibious assault on Quebec led by Wolfe and Vice Adm. Charles Saunders, an assault that relied heavily on the participation of American colonials. Occupying Quebec, Canada’s sole Atlantic port, would break the colony’s link with France. With supplies and reinforcements from France cut off, the French presence in Canada and the Ohio valley would collapse.

Bluejackets and Merchant Mariners

Britannia may have ruled the waves in the 18th century, but the British could not have gone to Quebec without the support of the American merchant marine. Seventy-four of the 139 transports that carried troops and supplies from Halifax to Quebec came from Boston, New York, and Philadelphia.

Once the British-American force reached Quebec, they were sustained by provisions from the Thirteen Colonies carried in American merchant vessels travelling in Royal Navy convoys. The contribution of these ships cannot be overestimated. While the French in Canada, cut off from the outside world, strove desperately to feed their army at Quebec, the British and Americans fought at the end of a logistics fire hose that delivered “frequent supplies of all kinds of refreshments” throughout the campaign. On a single day, Thursday July 12, the master of HMS Scarborough, escorting a nine-vessel convoy from Boston to Quebec, counted a total of 25 ships in sight.

The Royal Navy itself would have been far less effective during the Quebec campaign without American assistance. Severely short of naval personnel, the British secured the services of American mariners, known as the “New England Volunteers,” who filled the gaps in Saunders’ crews. Like Americans in provincial units serving alongside the British Army in the interior, the New England Volunteers joined the Royal Navy for a single campaign season, then returned home.

The most prominent of these temporary Jack Tars, at least as far as historians are concerned, was Ashley Bowen of Marblehead, Massachusetts, an acting midshipman aboard HMS Pembroke. A diarist, autobiographer, and watercolorist, Bowen provides an American account of the naval side of the assault on Quebec, illustrated by paintings that made him one of America’s first naval war artists and enlivened by vignettes of encounters with campaign celebrities.

As the fleet approached Quebec, Bowen joined the first of these celebrities, James Cook, the future Pacific explorer, in charting a dangerous stretch of river. “At 4 A.M.,: he wrote, on June 14th, “… I went with our Sailing Master [Cook] in our cutter a-sounding for the channel through the Traverse.” Bowen must have made a good impression on the famous navigator, for he further noted that “Mr. Cook would have me go with him wherever he went a-sounding or discovering … and he did not forget me on Banian Days [days when meat was not included in the ship’s rations] to dine with him.”

A month later, after landing artillery from HMS Pembroke’s pinnace (a small sailing boat) at the British encampment at Montmorency, Bowen ran into none other than Wolfe. Their conversation provides a rare glimpse of an American participant in the campaign describing who he was and why he had come to Quebec.

I advanced towards him and the General hailed me. “Who are you?”

I answered him “A friend!”

“What department are you of?”

I said of the Marine Department.

“What ship?”

I answered, “His Majesty’s Ship Pembroke.”

“What are you on board the Pembroke?”

My answer was “Acting Midshipman.”

“Where is your uniform?”

I said, “I have none. I come from New England with a company of volunteers to serve His Majesty in the reduction of Canada.”

Celebrity encounters aside, his time on HMS Pembroke gave Bowen a master class in naval support for army operations. The core purpose of ships of the line like HMS Pembroke at Quebec was to give Saunders the capacity to counter an attack by a French fleet. In the absence of French naval intervention, HMS Pembroke’s activities included, but were not limited to, transporting troops to from Halifax to Quebec, acting as a mobile base for the “flat bottomed boats” that ferried troops, artillery, supplies, and messages throughout the area of operations, landing regulars and rangers to secure French islands, sending the ship’s marines ashore to reinforce army units, conducting shore bombardment and counterbattery fire, fending off attacks on British vessels by flotillas of French rowboats, providing guard boats, charting the St. Lawrence River and buoying safe channels, rescuing grounded transports, and dodging French fireship attacks.

When Wolfe landed above Quebec and advanced to the Plains of Abraham, HMS Pembroke and Bowen played a key supporting role. On the night of Sept. 12–13, Bowen was in one of the ship’s boats from HMS Pembroke and other vessels that hovered off the coast below Quebec as if they were about to disembark a landing force. Their presence provoked considerable confusion among the French and drew French attention away from the real attack. Bowen’s account of this venture was concise and to the point. “At 6 P.M. Admiral [Saunders] made a signal for all boats manned and armed, and we went and made a feint at the River St. Charles, and at 11 I repaired on board our ship Pembroke.”

Rangers in Action

The highest profile Americans at the siege of Quebec were the 600 rangers who appear in pretty much every history of the campaign. The special forces of their day, the rangers provided Wolfe’s army with scouts and raiders, most notably in a major operation to burn farm buildings (but not churches) and watercraft along the south shore of the St. Lawrence River. Wolfe hoped that this destruction would either force Montcalm to abandon his fortified position and fight a battle in the open or, should the expedition fail, to reduce Canada’s value as a French base of operations. He had planned for this contingency while en route to Canada, proposing that, “If … we find, that Quebec is not likely to fall into our hands (persevering however to the last moment)” his army would “destroy the Harvest, Houses, & Cattle, both above & below [Quebec] … &… leave famine and desolation behind me.”

Ranger David Perry provides a vivid description of how this worked out in practice:

The main party marched up the river, burning and destroying everything before them: and our company followed on some distance in the rear, collecting the cattle, sheep and horses, and burning the scattering buildings, &c. In this way we continued our march at the rate of about twelve miles a day. Every six miles we found large stone churches, at one of which we generally halted to dinner, and at the next to supper, and so on. We lived well, but our duty was hard — climbing over hills and fences all day; always starting in the morning before break of day.

At the end of the campaign, the commander of this force, which included light infantry and sailors, reported that:

… we marched fifty two miles, and in that distance burnt nine hundred and ninety eight good buildings, two sloops, two schooners, ten shallops, and several batteaus and small craft, took fifteen prisoners (six of them women and five of them children), killed five of the enemy, had one regular wounded, two of the rangers killed and four more of them wounded.

American Redcoats

Yet for all the efforts of Wolfe and Saunders’ British and American sailors, soldiers, and merchant mariners, by the end of the August it looked like the campaign would end in ignominious retreat. Saunders’ fleet had brought the army to Quebec and carried soldiers wherever they needed to go along the St Lawrence River. Wolfe, for his part, had waged a brilliantly successful war against Canadian architecture, shelling much of Quebec’s urban landscape into rubble and destroying farmhouses and barns. But he hadn’t come even close to actually beating the French.

Then, on Sept. 9, Wolfe had an epiphany. His army would land at night at the Anse au Foulon, just above Quebec, seize a roadway (now the Côte Gilmour) leading up the cliffs, and deploy before the city, forcing Montcalm to come out and fight. The operation succeeded and on Sept. 13 Wolfe defeated Montcalm on the Plains of Abraham. This brings us to the final American element of the British forces, the regulars.

Just as the Royal Navy needed American sailors and American merchant ships, the British army needed American soldiers to fill the ranks of battalions that had landed in the colonies understrength or to replace the casualties of years of war. This meant that of the 9000 redcoats Wolfe brought to Quebec, 3000 had been recruited in the American colonies. (Note that this figure includes men who enlisted in Nova Scotia and many who were likely recent arrivals from Britain).

Six of Wolfe’s 10 battalions contained significant numbers of Americans. Three-quarters of the 47th and 48th, and half of the 35th and second and third battalions of the 60th, had enlisted in the colonies. So had almost all of the grenadiers of the 40th and 45th who formed two of the three companies of the Louisbourg Grenadiers, a composite battalion formed from the grenadiers of the Louisbourg Garrison. Three hundred more “provincial pioneers” provided labor for construction work.

When Wolfe reached the Anse au Foulon, his American redcoats landed alongside their British comrades. On the Plains of Abraham, the 47th occupied the center of Wolfe’s line and the Louisbourg Grenadiers stood with their general at its southern extremity. The 2/60th and 35th held Wolfe’s north and south flanks against continuous attacks by aggressive Canadian and Indigenous skirmishers, while the 48th formed a reserve line. West of the main body, the 3/60th guarded the Anse au Foulon and drove off an attack by a body of elite French troops from west of Quebec.

Just after 10:00 a.m., when Montcalm abandoned a strong position and launched a downhill charge against the British position, American redcoats took part in the eight-minute exchange of musket fire that shattered the French battalions. They followed Wolfe when he led a countercharge against the shaken remnants of Montcalm’s army. When Wolfe fell to the ground, mortally wounded, he did so amidst the American soldiers of the Louisbourg Grenadiers.

A Nation in Waiting

Americans at Quebec served and fought as proud British subjects. As Union Jacks rose above the city’s Upper and Lower Town, it could not have occurred to many American witnesses that in winning the Battle of the Plains of Abraham and capturing Quebec, they had unwittingly undermined the foundations of the British empire in North America.

For by the 1750s, Britain’s American colonies were powerful entities in their own right. Pehr Kalm, a Swedish botanist who visited the French and British colonies between 1748 and 1751, served as the pastor of a Swedish Lutheran church in New Jersey, and married an American, came to know the region and its people very well. ”I have been told by Englishmen,” he wrote, “and not only by such as were born in America but also by those who came from Europe, that the English colonies in North America, in the space of thirty or fifty years, would be able to form a state by themselves entirely independent of Old England.”

Economically and demographically robust, Britain’s American colonies were governed by elected assemblies, who used their control of finances to limit the influence of appointed governors and rule in the interests of colonial elites. At these assemblies, Kalm observed, “everything relating to the good of the province is … debated … the old laws are reviewed and amended, and new ones are made, and the regulation and circulation of the coinage together with all other affairs of that kind are determined.”

Long before the Seven Years’ War, the colonies had proved to be more than capable of converting their economic and demographic strength into military power and using this power to confront  European adversaries from Quebec to St. Augustine. Their greatest triumph came in 1745 when an army of 3,000 New Englanders, carried by a colonial armada of 90 transports and 13 armed vessels and supported by a Royal Navy squadron, captured Louisbourg in Quebec after a 46-day siege.

Yet the French presence in North America posed a major obstacle to any attempt to convert the colonies from potential to actual independent powers. In 1732, when James Logan, chief justice of Pennsylvania, confidently asserted that Americans would never reject the British empire, he added pragmatically that “While [French-controlled] Canada is so near, they cannot rebel.” Kalm agreed, writing, “As the whole country which lies along the seashore is unguarded, and on the land side is harassed by the French, these dangerous neighbours in times of war are sufficient to prevent the connection of the colonies from their mother country from being broken off.”

Brigadier James Murray, the British commandant of Quebec, expressed the same opinion in conversation with a French officer after the capitulation of Canada in 1760.

“Do you think,” he asked, “that we will give Canada back to you?”

“I am not,” replied the French officer, “sufficiently familiar with high policy to see so far ahead.”

“If we are wise, we won’t keep it. New England needs a bridle to keep it under control, and we will give it one by not holding on to this country.

Winning the War, Losing the Peace

Murray, it turned out, possessed a keen grasp of North American realities. So did Logan and Kalm. In capturing Quebec, Bowen, Perry, and their British and American comrades upset the longstanding equilibrium between latent American power and apprehended danger from the French in Canada.

That hadn’t mattered at the time. The conquest and cession of Canada triggered explosions of joyful loyalty among Americans. But winning the Seven Years’ War placed the British government in a rather awkward situation. The triumphant peace left Britain on the hook for a massive war debt and responsible for governing French-speaking, Catholic British subjects in Canada and managing new alliances with Indigenous nations in the west, Canada, and Nova Scotia.

Given that the outcome of the Seven Years’ War had generated immense benefits for American colonials, British officials seem to have blithely assumed that said colonials wouldn’t mind making sacrifices to help out and more tightly integrate the empire. Obeying, cheerfully or grudgingly, laws passed by a parliament in which they were not represented would be a small price to pay for the elimination of the perceived French threat to the colonies.

Except… apparently it wasn’t. Buying stamps or paying a tax on molasses or tea to help cover the cost of the war proved to be more than many Americans would tolerate. A series of similar Acts of Parliament culminated in the tactfully named “Coercive Acts” that locked down the port of Boston, gave the imperial governor control over the governance of Massachusetts Bay, allowed this governor to move trials outside the colony, and permitted the billeting of troops in unoccupied American-owned buildings. These measures, together with the Quebec Act that granted religious freedom and limited civil rights to Canadian Catholics, drove a strong plurality of white, male, propertied colonials to support military measures, first to assert their “rights as Englishmen,” then to fight for independence.

This fight succeeded in part because Parliament in its infinite wisdom had chosen the worst possible time to alienate Americans. The conquest and cession of Canada not only ended colonial reliance on British protection, it also gave France a massive incentive to avenge defeat in the Seven Years’ War and reduce British power by embracing American rebels. Supported by French subsidies, equipped with French weapons, and reinforced by French troops and warships, Americans won their independence and formed the United States of America.

Let’s be clear, the Battle of the Plains of Abraham had not in itself produced the American Revolution. Making something potentially possible is not the same as making it happen. But in the event, contingencies aligned in such a way that the British-American victory at Quebec ignited a slow fuse leading to the geopolitical powder keg that exploded at Lexington in 1775.

 

D. Peter MacLeod is the former Pre-Confederation Historian and Director of Research at the Canadian War Museum. He is the author of The Canadian Iroquois and the Seven Years’ War, Northern Armageddon: The Battle of the Plains of Abraham and the Making of the American Revolution, and Backs to the Wall: The Battle of Sainte-Foy and the Conquest of Canada.

 

Image: Woodville via Wikimedia Commons

Bridgerton star Nicola Coughlan raises $2m for Palestine

The  Palestine Children’s Relief Fund thanked the actor for her fundraising efforts and for using her voice to inspire support for peace.

Images Staff
04 Jul, 2024

DAWN


Irish actor Nicola Coughlan, best known for her role as Penelope Featherington in the hit Netflix series Bridgerton, has successfully raised $2 million for the Palestine Children’s Relief Fund (PCRF) through her social media efforts.

The PCRF expressed its gratitude to Coughlan on X, formerly known as Twitter: “Thank you to actress and ‘Bridgerton’ star Nicola Coughlan for your incredible support of PCRF and your fundraising efforts which totaled an astonishing $2M USD in support of our Urgent Gaza Relief and Recovery efforts. Thank you for using your voice to inspire support for peace and impacting the lives of thousands of displaced children and families in dire need, providing them with humanitarian aid and medical relief.”



The PCRF stats reveal that Coughlan’s fundraiser also received donations from the actor herself. The organisation says that through the support of people around the world, it provides food, water, clothing, medical care, and other essential aid to children in the Middle East.

Coughlan’s efforts have not only raised substantial funds but also increased awareness about the situation in Palestine, particularly during her promotional activities for Bridgerton.

She has consistently worn the Artists for Ceasefire pin during photoshoots and events, a symbol of her commitment to peace and justice.

In an earlier interview with USA Today, Coughlan explained her motivation: “I’m doing my dream job and I’m getting to travel the world, but then I’m hyper-aware of what’s happening in Rafah at the moment.”

Coughlan said her father was part of the UN’s Truce Supervision Organisation, a peacekeeping force in the Middle East. Her family also lived in Jerusalem in the late 70s, deepening her connection to the region.

Speaking to Teen Vogue in April, Coughlan expressed her sense of moral responsibility: “I think if I can hopefully raise funds for aid organisations, it would be a wonderful thing to do.”

Coughlan’s feat demonstrates the significant impact celebrities can have in advocating for global causes. Her dedication to supporting Palestinian children and families highlights the importance of using one’s platform for the greater good, inspiring others to contribute to humanitarian efforts around the world.

Pro-Palestine protesters scale roof of Australia's parliament


04 July 2024 -

BY PETER HOBSON AND ALASDAIR PAL

A pro-Palestinian protest banner hangs in the forecourt of the Australian Parliament House, in Canberra, Australia, on July 4 2024.
Image: REUTERS/Tracey Nearmy


Pro-Palestine protesters climbed the roof of Australia's Parliament House in Canberra on Thursday and unfurled banners, one saying Palestine will be free, and accused Israel of war crimes, in a serious security breach condemned by legislators.

Four people dressed in dark clothes stood on the roof of the building for about an hour, unfurling black banners including one reading “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free”, a common refrain of pro-Palestine protesters.


One of the protesters gave a speech using a megaphone accusing the Israeli government of war crimes, an accusation it rejects.

“We will not forget, we will not forgive and we will continue to resist,” the protester said.

A handful of police and security advised people not to walk directly under the protest at the main entrance to the building, while more were seen on the roof attempting to remove the protesters, a Reuters witness said.

The protesters packed up their banners before being led away by waiting police at about 11.30am local time (0130 GMT).

“This is a serious breach of the parliament's security,” opposition home affairs spokesperson James Paterson said in a post on social media platform X

“The building was modified at great expense to prevent incursions like this. An investigation is required.”

The war in Gaza began when Hamas gunmen burst into southern Israel on October 7, killed 1,200 people and took about 250 hostages back into Gaza, Israel says.

The offensive launched by Israel in retaliation has killed nearly 38,000 people, according to the Gaza health ministry, and has left the heavily built-up coastal enclave in ruins.

Both Israel and Hamas committed war crimes in the early stages of the Gaza war, a UN inquiry found last month, saying that Israel's actions also constituted crimes against humanity because of the immense civilian losses.

Since the war began Australia has been the site of several pro-Palestine protests, including weekly demonstrations in major cities and a months-long occupation of university campuses.


The ruling Labor Party indefinitely suspended a senator, Fatima Payman, on Monday after she crossed the floor of the Senate to vote in favour of a motion backing Palestinian statehood.

Australia does not currently recognise Palestinian statehood, though foreign minister Penny Wong said in May it could do so before a formal peace process between Israel and Palestinian authorities is complete.

Reuters

Researchers Make Breakthrough in Study of Mysterious 2000-Year-Old Computer Found in Shipwreck

Victor Tangermann
Tue, 2 July 2024 

Researchers say they've used cutting-edge gravitational wave research to shed new light on a nearly 2,000-year-old mystery.

In 1901, researchers discovered what's now known as the Antikythera mechanism in a sunken shipwreck, an ancient artifact that dates back to the second century BC, making it the world's "oldest computer."

There's a chance you may have spotted a replica, directly inspired by it and featured in the blockbuster "Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny" last year.

Well over a century after its discovery, researchers at the University of Glasgow say they've used statistical modeling techniques, originally designed to analyze gravitational waves — ripples in spacetime caused by major celestial events such as two black holes merging — to suggest that the Antikythera mechanism was likely used to track the Greek lunar year.

In short, it's a fascinating collision between modern-day science and the mysteries of an ancient artifact.

In a 2021 paper, researchers found that previously discovered and regularly spaced holes in a "calendar ring" were marked to describe the "motions of the sun, Moon, and all five planets known in antiquity and how they were displayed at the front as an ancient Greek cosmos."

Now, in a new study published in the Oficial Journal of the British Horological Institute, University of Glasgow gravitational wave researcher Graham Woan and research associate Joseph Bayley suggest that the ring was likely perforated with 354 holes, which happens to be the number of days in a lunar year.

The researchers ruled out the possibility of it measuring a solar year.

"A ring of 360 holes is strongly disfavoured, and one of 365 holes is not plausible, given our model assumptions," their paper reads.

The team used statistical models derived from gravitational wave research, including data from the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO), a large-scale physics experiment designed to measure ripples in spacetime millions of light-years from Earth.

The technique, called Bayesian analysis, uses "probability to quantify uncertainty based on incomplete data, to calculate the likely number of holes in the mechanism using the positions of the surviving holes and the placement of the ring’s surviving six fragments," according to a press release about the research.

Surprisingly, the inspiration for the paper came from a YouTuber who has been attempting to physically recreate the ancient mechanism.

"Towards the end of last year, a colleague pointed to me to data acquired by YouTuber Chris Budiselic, who was looking to make a replica of the calendar ring and was investigating ways to determine just how many holes it contained," said Woan in a statement.

"It’s a neat symmetry that we’ve adapted techniques we use to study the universe today to understand more about a mechanism that helped people keep track of the heavens nearly two millennia ago," he added.

It may not amount to the kind of discovery fit for a Hollywood action blockbuster script — but it's an intriguing new ripple in a mystery that has puzzled scientists for over a century nonetheless.

"We hope that our findings about the Antikythera mechanism, although less supernaturally spectacular than those made by Indiana Jones, will help deepen our understanding of how this remarkable device was made and used by the Greeks," Woan said.

More on ancient Greece: The Riddle of the Antikythera Mechanism Deepen

HOMUNCULUS
Work on synthetic human embryos to get code of practice in UK

Ian Sample Science editor
Wed, 3 July 2024

Stem cell-based embryo models made global headlines last summer when researchers said they had created one with a heartbeat and traces of blood.Photograph: Ahmad Gharabli/AFP/Getty Images


Biological models of human embryos that can develop heartbeats, spinal cords and other distinctive features will be governed by a code of practice in Britain to ensure that researchers work on them responsibly.

Made from stem cells, they mimic, to a greater or less extent, the biological processes at work in real embryos. By growing them in the laboratory, scientists hope to learn more about how human embryos develop and respond to their environment, questions that would be impossible to answer with real embryos donated for research.

Scientists have worked on stem cell-based embryo models, or SCBEMs, for many years, but the technology only made global headlines last summer when researchers said they had created one with a heartbeat and traces of blood. Made without the need for eggs or sperm, the ball of cells had some features that would typically appear in the third or fourth week of pregnancy.


The technology, which advocates believe could shed fresh light on potential causes of infertility, is so new that SCBEMs are not directly covered by UK law or regulations. The situation leaves the scientists pursuing the research in an uncomfortable grey area. The new guidelines, drawn up by experts at the University of Cambridge and the Progress Educational Trust, aim to clarify the situation by setting down rules and best practice.

Dr Peter Rugg-Gunn, a member of the code of practice working group, said the guidance took “stem cell-based embryo models out of the grey zone and on to more stable footing”. It should also reassure the public that research is being performed carefully and under proper scrutiny, added Rugg-Gunn, who is a group leader at the Babraham Institute.

The code reminds researchers that there may be “a range of emotional responses” to SCBEMs with heartbeats, spinal cords and other recognisable features, and urges them to be “aware of and sensitive to these concerns, irrespective of whether they are thought to be ethically or legally relevant”.

Under existing UK law, scientists can grow real human embryos donated for research for up to 14 days in the lab, though many argue for the limit to be extended to allow for the study of later stages of embryonic development.

The new guidelines establish an oversight committee that will decide on a case-by-case basis how long specific embryo models can be grown for. The code does not rule out experiments that grow them for more than 14 days, but Roger Sturmey, professor of reproductive medicine at Hull York medical school and chair of the code of practice working group said any such experiments “would have to be very well justified”.

The code prohibits any human SCBEMs from being transferred into the womb of a human or animal, or being allowed to develop into a viable organism in the lab.

Sandy Starr, the deputy director of the Progress Educational Trust, said he expected researchers, funders, research institutes, publishers and regulators to recognise the guidelines. Scientists who worked outside the code would “find it difficult to publish, find funding and face opprobrium from their peers”,” he added.

LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment: Search results for Homunculus 

Could Labour use public-private projects to fix England’s hospitals?

Denis Campbell Health policy editor

THE GUARDIAN
Wed, 3 July 2024 a


Patients were evacuated from Stepping Hill hospital in Stockport when some ceilings fell down.Photograph: Manchester Evening News Syndication


Scores of hospitals in England are so old and decrepit that some are falling down. The Conservative government recognised that the NHS needed a massive modernisation of its estate in 2019 when Boris Johnson promised 40 new hospitals by 2030.

But, with public spending due to be tight for the next few years, where would a new government find the money to enable these other projects to go ahead? NHS Providers, which represents trusts, has put forward a new wave of NHS/private-sector partnerships as a potential answer.
Why are so many hospitals in England in such a bad state?

That is partly because so many NHS premises are old, and also because the NHS’s capital budget – which it uses to pay for repairs, build new facilities and buy new equipment such as scanners – has been held down for many years. The cost of all the maintenance repairs needed across the NHS has soared from £4.7bn in 2011-12 to £11.6bn in 2022-23.
But are 40 new hospitals not due to be built by 2030?


Boris Johnson promised in 2019 to do just that, but the new hospitals programme has been beset by cost overruns, confusion over when promised new facilities would finally arrive and a growing number of trusts saying their schemes would not be ready until after 2030.

Plus, while 100 health trusts applied to join, 88 were refused entry, even though parts of some of them – such as Stepping Hill hospital in Stockport – are literally falling down.
So what is NHS Providers proposing?

That the Treasury overhauls the Department of Health and Social Care’s capital departmental expenditure limit (CDEL) rules, which restrict how much money the NHS can spend on building projects, even if some of that money comes from external sources.

Julian Hartley, the head of NHS Providers, wants the new government to apply “fresh thinking” and “imagination” to how the health service can access potentially billions of pounds to build new facilities – by collaborating with property developers, private healthcare companies, pension funds, drug companies, universities and local councils.
Critics claim this would just be a rerun of PFI. What is the concern?

The private finance initiative was used to build an array of new hospitals in the 1990s and 2000s. It was a way of keeping finance used to fund public infrastructure such as schools and hospitals off the Treasury’s balance sheet for reporting public debt.

But under it, developers made profits which, in some cases, were considered obscene. In 2019, the IPPR thinktank calculated that the NHS would end up paying £80bn for £13bn worth of new hospital buildings, so extortionate were the terms their private partners obtained. Trusts spend more than £2bn a year on PFI repayments.

The Commons public accounts committee found in a 2018 report that the “ongoing costs to the institutions at the frontline have been high and the contracts inflexible”. The committee concluded that the “deal is not working for the taxpayer”.

Keep Our NHS Public fears that new joint NHS/private arrangements would again lead to a “need to siphon off taxpayer money to private companies and their shareholders”.
Could Labour act on Hartley’s suggestion?

Wes Streeting, the shadow health secretary, has made clear that he expects the NHS to use the private sector to clear as much of the care backlog as possible. It is unclear, though, if he would see NHS/private sector collaborations as a viable way for health trusts to unlock much-needed funding to enable them to press ahead with building much-needed new facilities.

On Monday, the Health Service Journal asked him if he would relax the Treasury’s CDEL rules, so that trusts could more easily partner with property developers and pension funds on construction projects. He acknowledged trusts faced obstacles accessing capital spending which caused “immense frustration”, and that the shadow chancellor, Rachel Reeves, understood “the scale of the capital challenge in the NHS”.

But, he added, “Treasury rules exist for a reason” and there are “lots of competing demands” for capital, which Labour would have to consider.

However, it is not inconceivable that Labour, which mentioned “partnership” with business 18 times in its manifesto, may be persuaded to explore Hartley’s idea as a way of using private money to rebuild the NHS’s aged, crumbling infrastructure, given the financial position it will inherit.

NHS leader calls for partnership with private sector to build new hospitals

Denis Campbell Health policy editor

THE GUARDIAN
Wed, 3 July 2024


An artist’s impression of Birmingham’s private Harborne hospital, where the local NHS trust has leased 72 beds over two floors.Illustration: Harborne hospital

The NHS must be given the green light to partner with private health firms and property developers to build new hospitals to slash the care backlog, a health service boss has said.

The last Labour government was widely criticised over controversial private finance initiative (PFI) deals to erect scores of new NHS facilities that led to vast profits for major corporations.

But in a major intervention the head of NHS Providers, Julian Hartley, has urged the next administration to relax Treasury rules that limit health service trusts in England from entering into such collaborations and insisted that the NHS has “nothing to fear” from them.

He said: “We need to think outside the box when it comes to solving this double whammy of under-strain public finances and an NHS estate in desperate need of renewal.

“Collaboration with public and private partners such as ethical pension funds, property developers, universities, private healthcare providers and local councils could unlock opportunities for NHS trusts keen to build new hospitals or redevelop existing sites which have been stymied by rigid Treasury rules.”

However, Dr John Puntis of Keep Our NHS Public said most people would find his suggestion “appalling” and that it constituted “a shocking attack on the founding principles of the NHS” as it prepares to mark the 76th birthday of its creation on Friday.

Hartley cited recent partnerships between NHS trusts in Birmingham and Surrey and private health providers to run newly built facilities, which treat NHS and fee-paying patients, as “successful examples of NHS and private sector collaboration. We can draw positive lessons that this is doable, that the NHS and the private sector can work together, and that it supports the interests of NHS services”.

“This doesn’t have to be PFI Two. This is not about privatisation of the NHS; this is about strengthening and supporting the NHS through investment that creates better facilities for patient,” Hartley added.

University Hospitals Birmingham (UHB) trust has been given operational control of 72 of the 122 beds in the Harborne private hospital on its site, which opened in January in a partnership between it and HCA, a large American healthcare firm which operates a network of private hospitals in the UK. UHB did not contribute towards the £100m cost of building the hospital, which provides cancer, cardiac and orthopaedic care, but has taken a lease on two of its eight floors for its own patients.

The extra beds will let people in Birmingham and Solihull get quicker treatment “in world-class facilities, delivered by leading NHS specialists” by cutting its waiting list, it has said.

In a similar move the Royal Surrey NHS trust and Genesis Cancer Care have entered into an arrangement to run a new dedicated cancer centre, which opened in Guildford, Surrey in March. The £30m facility is providing oncology and radiotherapy to NHS and private patients.

Hartley urged whoever are the chancellor and health secretary after the UK general election to “have an open mind” on NHS tie-ups involving major injections of capital from drug companies, pension funds and universities. The new government should see the new wave of hospitals that would ensue as a boost to the economy and a way of the public sector leveraging private sources of funding at a time when government spending is likely to remain tight, he said.

He wants the Treasury to review the Department of Health and Social Care’s capital departmental expenditure limit (CDEL), which restricts how much health trusts and the NHS overall can spend on capital projects, even if some of the money has come from external sources. The backlog of repairs needed across the NHS in England has ballooned in recent years to £11.6bn.

Keir Starmer and the shadow health secretary, Wes Streeting, have said that under a Labour government the NHS will use the private sector as much as it can to cut a backlog that has spiralled to 7.6m procedures. Acting on Hartley’s idea would risk angering those anxious about NHS privatisation.

Hartley highlighted that scores of NHS trusts were left unable to rebuild or replace sometimes dangerously decrepit facilities when, of the 100 that applied to join the New Hospitals Programme, the scheme to implement the pledge of the then prime minister, Boris Johnson, to build “40 new hospitals” by 2030, only 40 were given entry because numbers were capped.

David Hare, chief executive of the Independent Healthcare Providers Network, which represents private health providers, said: “There is huge appetite in the independent sector to partner with the NHS and bring much-needed new capital, capacity and capability to support better access to NHS services for patients free at the point of use.”

But David Rowland, director of the Centre for Health and the Public Interest thinktank, warned that NHS/private partnerships would “hasten a two-tier health system”. He accused Hartley of displaying “astonishing naivete” in his attitude to “the for-profit sector, particularly those with private equity backers”. Such firms are only interested in the NHS so they can “use the highly trained NHS workforce to treat those patients who can afford to pay privately and jump the queue.

“The last Labour government thought that getting into bed with the private sector to finance, build and operate NHS hospitals under the PFI programme would bring in investment and expertise. In reality it has led to huge amounts of money leaking out of the NHS in the form of profits and has saddled NHS Trusts with massive, crippling debt repayments.

“The mistakes from this fiasco should not be repeated.”

General Election flashback to when voting was a privilege held by the few

In Plymouth, at the beginning of the 19th century, there were little more than two or three hundred ‘freemen’ who were empowered to vote.


Chris Robinson

4 JUL 2024

(Image: The Herald)

Up until the Reform Act of 1832, few people in this country could vote in parliamentary elections. In Plymouth, at the beginning of the 19th century, there were little more than two or three hundred ‘freemen’ who were empowered to vote.

The passing of the 1832 Act meant that virtually any man occupying a house worth £10 a year rent, whether freehold or leasehold, had the vote. There were great celebrations, however it still only meant that Plymouth had less than 1,500 voters out of a population of some 30,000 (one in 20).

Furthermore, it was to be another 34 years before voters could vote privately, by secret ballot, and in the meantime voting went on as it had long done, at public meetings like these, conducted outside the Theatre Royal.

Plymouth had been sending representatives to Parliament since at least 1298, but for over 500 years here, as elsewhere in the country, the right of election was in the hands of a very few men. Sometimes the matter was determined by the mayor and corporation on their own, sometimes by the freemen, either with or without the corporate body. There were four kinds of freemen; honorary, hereditary, apprenticed and purchased.

Prior to the Restoration, in 1660, there were very few honorary freemen; the hereditary title was passed on only to the eldest son and similarly the apprenticeship system tended only to apply to a freeman’s first apprentice. To purchase such an honour could cost anything from a few shillings to £25. Just before the 1832 Act was passed, a large number of these freedoms were purchased but they were to be of little use to the buyers – these new freemen had not voted prior to 1832 and, because they had not held the freedom for 12 months, the new Act extinguished them. The money raised was not handed back, it was put instead into the building of a new jail.

Hugh Fortescue was a figure of note in Plymouth politics in subsequent years. First elected in the Plymouth constituency as Viscount Ebrington in 1841, he was the son of the 2nd Earl Fortescue, who had first captured one of the Devon seats for the Reform cause back in 1818. Not that the nobility had that much difficulty finding seats, rotten boroughs (once populated areas where few people now lived and so there were few voters to win or buy over) and pocket boroughs (where voters were easily bought off) were to be found in all parts of the country.

Indeed, when the 2nd Earl Fortescue lost his Devon seat in 1820, the Duke of Bedford gave him the Tavistock seat that his own son, Lord John Russell, had just vacated.

Russell, a leading figure in the Reform movement, a future Prime Minister and grandfather of the philosopher Bertrand Russell, was first returned for the family borough of Tavistock in 1813, when he was just 21. In 1830, following the election occasioned by the death of George IV, Lord John was one of the four ministers entrusted with framing the first Reform Bill. It was ultimately his job to compose the document.

So it was that there was great disappointment among the Whigs and their many supporters when, in May 1832, it was learnt that the Reform Bill was being opposed in the House of Lords. In Plymouth, flags were put at half-mast and a meeting that drew 26,000 people from the Three Towns was held in the Bull Ring, under the Hoe (where the Belvedere was later constructed), all supporting the Bill. Great then were their celebrations when, on June 4, the Bill was finally passed.

In Plymouth, John Collier and Thomas Bewes, both ardent Reformers, were the first members to be sent up to Parliament. There was, however, no election on this occasion, as both were returned unopposed. Collier and Bewes then fought off two Tories in the election held after the accession of Queen Victoria in 1837, and four years later Thomas Gill and Viscount Ebrington held Plymouth for Liberals. In 1846, Ebrington was made a Lord of the Treasury and was obliged to stand again, and this time his only opposition was the Chartist, Henry Vincent, whom he defeated. In 1847, there were three candidates for the two seats, Ebrington (the 3rd Earl Fortescue), Roundell Palmer (Earl of Selborne), standing as a Liberal Conservative, and Charles Calmady.

Calmady was the chosen replacement for Gill and rather than go out and canvass, decided to trust ‘his admitted popularity’. The trust was misplaced and the Liberals lost a seat to the man who professed to be ‘free from all party engagements and opposed to all rash and fundamental changes’. The voting was Ebrington 921, Palmer 837 and Calmady 769. At the next election, in 1852, the Conservative candidate, Charles Mare, topped the poll, but he was subsequently unseated on a bribery charge.

Influence and intimidation still had its effect on elections, and it was not until the introduction of voting by ballot that unruly scenes outside the Theatre Royal came to an end. The last hustings were there were on November 30, 1868, for the South Devon elections, when Sir Massey Lopes was returned.