Bottom of gender rankings, Iraqi women defy critics to work




Safa al-Saeedi, 29, is one of just 180 women among the 5,000 employees of Iraq's Basrah Gas Company, a joint venture with Shell and Mitsubishi 

(AFP/Hussein Faleh)

Laure Al Khoury
Sat, January 29, 2022

Each working morning, oil engineer Safa al-Saeedi dons a safety helmet and heads into a gas complex for another day challenging conservative prejudices by being a professional woman in Iraq.

"Society does not accept that a girl can live outside the family home," said 29-year-old Saeedi, who works in Iraq's southern oil and gas fields around Basra.

Saeedi, one of just 180 women among the 5,000 employees of the Basrah Gas Company, sees herself as a change maker and encourages other women to join the industry.

For many, a single woman working away from home in a male-dominated sector is frowned upon, and it is a hard task for women to break out of the role of wife and mother traditionally assigned to them.

"I often hear them say to me: 'You are almost 30, you will miss the boat! You will end up single,'" said Saeedi. "It makes me laugh, but I do not answer."

The female labour force participation rate in Iraq is "one of the lowest in the world" at 13 per cent, according to a joint report last year by UN Women, the agency working for gender equality, and the UN Economic and Social Commission for West Asia (ESCWA).

At 13 percent, the female labour force participation rate in Iraq is one of the lowest in the world, according to a report by UN agencies published last year (AFP/Hussein Faleh)

- 'Discriminatory' -

The 2021 UN report said surveys had found that "most Iraqis agree that university education is equally important for both sexes".

But it also reported that "attitudes toward equal rights in employment are discriminatory against women".

The World Economic Forum ranked Iraq bottom in women's economic participation and opportunity, and put it 152nd overall out of the 153 nations assessed in its 2020 Global Gender Gap Index.

Saeedi, who graduated in 2014 after studying engineering at university in Basra, was immediately employed by oil giant Shell -- a job that "required spending some nights away from home".

Her mother opposed the job because she was "afraid of what people will say, and that it will affect my reputation and my chances of getting married", Saeedi said. "It was a challenge," she added.

But Saeedi pressed on, rising through the ranks to become a team leader in the Basrah Gas Company, a joint venture majority-owned by the Iraqi government, with Shell and Mitsubishi.

Chemical engineer Dalal Abedlamir, 24, says that when she started work, her first feeling was fear, but now her job has taught her never to doubt her abilities (AFP/Hussein Faleh)

- 'Powerful and brilliant women' -

Her job requires her to live on site for a month at a time, staying in company accommodation. After work, she plays sport, or jogs around the huge gas storage tanks.

On leave, she returns home to Basra -- if she is not indulging in her passion for travel, which has taken her so far to some 30 countries.

"I hope to reach a management position, because you rarely see women in these positions, even though Iraq has many powerful and brilliant women," Saeedi said.

It is a tough path to follow.

"I was initially overwhelmed with fear, because I was in a purely male environment," said chemical engineer Dalal Abdelamir. The 24-year-old works on the same site as Saeedi.

"At the beginning, I thought that I was inferior, that I would never have the required level. I was even worried to ask questions," she said.

"But this job and this position has taught me not to be afraid, not to hesitate and not to fear that I cannot do it, but to believe that I can."

Abdelamir joined the company via a graduate programme which hired 20 men and 10 women.

"We didn't go to Basra University saying we wanted to recruit women," said Malcolm Mayes, managing director of Basrah Gas Company.

"We went there saying we wanted the brightest students".

lk/gde/tgg/pjm/kir

Mexican town hopes pelicans will help tourism take off



A flock of white pelicans is seen on the shore of the Chapala lagoon in Cojumatlán de Regules, Mexico

 (AFP/ULISES RUIZ)


Sat, January 29, 2022, 

A town in western Mexico where thousands of American white pelicans migrate is hoping to turn the birds into a global tourist draw -- and recoup losses from the Covid-19 pandemic.

Petatan Island, located on Lake Chapala in Michoacan state, plays seasonal host to the birds, which head south in search of warmth and food.

Many locals note that the migration pattern is similar to the renowned monarch butterfly and takes place at the same time of year -- between October and April -- though they highlight the role they play in feeding these birds.

"Petatan is an island of fishermen, the fishermen go to the lagoon, collect the fish, extract the fillet and the bone... it is what serves as food when the pelicans are in season," explains Ana Lilia Manso, mayor of Cojumatlan de Regules, the town that includes Petatan.

The community welcomes the American white pelicans' arrival, which attracts tourists from nearby towns. They fill restaurants and pay for boat rides to get an up-close look at the flocks that adopt this region as their home for six months.

A man feeds fish to a group of white pelicans on the shore of Chapala lagoon in Cojumatlan de Regules, Mexico (AFP/ULISES RUIZ)

"We want the pelican phenomenon to be known at the state level, nationwide and around the world, because wherever you go they know the monarch butterfly phenomenon, but the pelican phenomenon is a bit forgotten," says Manso.

The birds, which can measure 1.75 meters (5.7 feet) long and up to three meters wide with outstretched wings, are characterized by the yellow color of their beaks and their white plumage.

Enrique Martinez, who filets the fish that are caught in the lake, estimates that daily they collect between one and two tonnes of backbones that end up becoming a delicacy for the pelicans, even though the winter months have the lowest volume of fishing.

He stresses that the island's population takes care of the birds and cares that they have food.

"It doesn't bother us at all, we like having them here," says Martinez, 41. But the town wants "people to come see them, so that there is more publicity."

Last year, Covid-19 forced the closure of the island of Petatan due to the high number of infections and deaths, while this year a regional festival scheduled for February was postponed due to the rebound in cases from the Omicron variant.

Yet Mayor Manso trusts that once the virus cases are under control, the event can be held again.

str-jla/mdl/bfm

PORTUGAL ELECTIONS

Portugal's PM Antonio Costa, a pragmatic Socialist


Prime Minister Antonio Costa led his Socialists to victory in 2019 (AFP/PATRICIA DE MELO MOREIRA) (PATRICIA DE MELO MOREIRA)


Thomas CABRAL
Sat, January 29, 2022, 11:38 PM·3 min read

Portugal's Prime Minister Antonio Costa, whose Socialists face a close-fought snap election on Sunday, is a pragmatic tactician who came to power with the support of the hard-left.

The former mayor of Lisbon took the reins in 2015 following a ballot in which his Socialists finished second behind a centre-right coalition that had overseen a harsh EU-imposed austerity programme.

In a surprise move, he convinced two smaller hard-left parties to support a minority Socialist government, the first time this had been tried in Portugal.

Many analysts predicted the government -- dubbed the "geringonca" or "contraption" -- would last six months at most, but it completed its four-year mandate.

Costa then led his Socialists to victory in the next election in 2019, although they fell short of an outright majority.

"Antonio Costa is a very experienced and very ambitious politician. In some contexts there are characteristics that are good qualities, in others they can be seen as flaws," said University of Lisbon political scientist Jose Santana Pereira.

- 'Annoying optimism' -

Riding the wave of the global economic recovery and a tourism boom, Costa, 60, managed to undo some of the austerity measures imposed by his predecessors even as his government balanced the books.

On his watch, Portugal in 2019 posted its first budget surplus in 45 years of democracy although the Covid pandemic has since caused the public deficit to balloon once again.

But in October 2021, Costa failed to secure budgetary support from the two smaller far-left parties propping up his government, prompting the snap polls that will be held on Sunday.

Although he has pledged to step down if his Socialists do not come out on top, he has again signalled his willingness to form alliances if his party wins but falls short of a majority again.

"Everyone knows I am a man of dialogue and compromise," the white-haired leader said earlier this year.

Portugal's conservative President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, who was Costa's professor at law school in Lisbon, once called the premier out for his "chronic and slightly annoying optimism".

- Family from Goa -

Born in Lisbon on July 17, 1961, Costa was raised in the intellectual circles frequented by his parents, Orlando da Costa, a communist writer descended from a family from Goa, Portugal's former colony in India, and Maria Antonia Palla, a journalist and women's rights advocate.

Nicknamed "babush", a term of endearment for a little boy in Konkani, a Goan dialect, Costa joined the youth wing of the Socialist Party in 1975 when he was just 14, a year after a coup ended a decades-long right-wing dictatorship.

After earning a law and political science degree, Costa was in 1995 named secretary of state for parliamentary affairs -- a key role in the Socialist minority government of Antonio Guterres, the current UN secretary general.

He was promoted to justice minister four years later.

Following a brief stint as a member of the European Parliament, he was appointed interior minister in 2005 in the government of Jose Socrates.

He stepped down after two years and made a successful run for mayor of Lisbon. He was re-elected to the post in 2009 and 2013.

The move to municipal politics allowed Costa to distance himself from Socrates, who stepped down as premier in 2011 after negotiating Portugal's international bailout.

Socrates was arrested in 2014, accused of corruption and tax evasion.

A fan of Lisbon-based Benfica, Portugal's most successful football team, the married father-of-two likes to relax by doing jigsaw puzzles.

bur-tsc/ds/pvh

EXPROPRIATE PRIVATE NURSING HOMES

French retirement home group Orpea fires chief amid allegations of patient abuse
FRANCE 24 

The chief executive of major France-based elderly care home group Orpea was dismissed on Sunday, the company board said in a statement following allegations of patient abuse and hygiene negligence.

© Alain Jocard, AFP

Orpea boss Yves Le Masne will leave the company with immediate effect, the statement said, without stating a reason but noting the non-executive chairman would replace him.

The company appointed the current non-executive chairman, Philippe Charrier, as new chief executive officer, it said in a statement.

"Mr. Charrier's mission will be to ensure, under the board’s control, that the best practices are applied throughout the company and to shed full light on the allegations made," the statement added.

Book reveals systematic mistreatment

The homes came under scrutiny following the publication of the book, "Les Fossoyeurs" (The Gravediggers) by independent journalist Victor Castanet, which cites employees and relatives claiming that residents are at times left for hours with soiled underwear or go days without care as managers seek to maximise profit margins.

Food and care products in an Orpea home in a wealthy neighbourhood close to Paris were being rationed although the residents paid monthly fees of several thousand euros, the book revealed.

The scandal has drawn widespread condemnation from officials and calls for inspections of the upscale Orpea homes by the authorities.

Orpea has contested the claims as "untruthful, scandalous and injurious". But under massive pressure from both the French government and shareholders, the company said last week it would hire two firms to look into mistreatment claims. These were still in the process of being designated, it said.

It also denied a claim by Castanet that he was offered €15 million ($17 million) by an "intermediary" to drop his investigation.

Orpea operates nearly 1,200 homes worldwide, with around 350 of them in France.

(FRANCE 24 with AFP and REUTERS)

IN PICTURES: Magical but messy Rome scares off its starlings

AFP/The Local
ben.mcpartland@thelocal.com
@mcpben
30 January 2022
EnvironmentRome

A murmuration of starlings is seen over pine trees and the equestrian statue of King Vittorio Emanuele II as night falls over Piazza Venezia in central Rome. (Photo by Vincenzo PINTO / AFP)

As the sun sets over central Rome, five figures in white overalls move under the trees. They wave speakers emitting a mix of sharp cries, and the birds rise into the air.

Every winter, the skies over Italy’s capital are filled with the mesmerising sight of thousands of starlings swooping and diving in unison.

But when they stop to rest on the trees, their droppings coat the pavements and cars below — prompting the city authorities, every year, to try to scare them away.

“We act on their fear reflex by using their own alarm call,” said Marianna Di Santo, clad head-to-toe in white protective clothing and heading towards the birds gathered in trees around Termini central train station.

“It’s as if they were warning each other that this is a dangerous place and they should move away,” said Di Santo, whose company, Fauna Urbis, is hired by the Rome authorities to disperse the starlings.


Members of the association Fauna Urbis carry out a wintering starlings removal operation on January 14th, 2022 at Piazza dei Cinquecento by the Termini railway station in downtown Rome, as part of the the capital’s removal programme, which is coordinated by the department of the environment. (Photo by Vincenzo PINTO / AFP)

Up to one million

Between October and February every year, millions of starlings migrate from northern Europe to Italy in search of warmer temperatures for the winter.

Their synchronised ballets — murmurations — over the Eternal City’s centuries-old churches, palaces and ruins entrances passers-by.

“I’ve never seen such a thing in my life. It’s spectacular,” said Spanish tourist Eva Osuna, taking out her phone to capture the magic.

The glossy dark-feathered birds, which measure up to 20 centimetres each, spend the day feeding in rural areas before heading back into town to sleep, explains ornithologist Francesca Manzia from Italy’s League for Bird Protection (LIPU).

“In the city, the temperatures are higher and the light helps them find their way around, and protects them from predators,” she told AFP.


Starlings fly over the Altare della Patria monument in Rome. (Photo by Tiziana FABI / AFP)

Warmer temperatures in northern European caused by climate change have shortened the starlings’ stay in Italy, but their sheer numbers make them a force to be reckoned with.

Between 500,000 and one million are believed to be in Rome this year, according to one expert.


Naturally “gregarious”, according to Manzia, they stick together at night, creating collective dormitories in the trees.

She insisted the starlings “do not carry diseases” but pose problems “because of their droppings, which make the roads slippery and smell very strong”.

In their nature
Such is the problem that, even on a clear day, it is not uncommon to see Romans walking along tree-lined streets with umbrellas as protection against the birds.

City authorities use sounds and also lights not to chase the birds out of the city, but to split them up into smaller, more manageable groups.


Members of Fauna Urbis hold speakers, which emit a mix of sharp cries, to encourage the birds to rise into the air. (Photo by Vincenzo PINTO / AFP)

Sounds are “the most simple and effective” way of moving the birds on, said Valentina de Tommaso from Fauna Urbis.

She works two or three times a week near Termini, which — with its lights and shelter from the wind — is a “comfortable” place for the birds to rest.

“We play recordings for about 10 minutes, with breaks in between so they do not get used to the noise” — a tactic that aims to be annoying but harmless, she said.


A murmuration of starlings as night falls over the Ancient Forum in Rome. (Photo by VINCENZO PINTO / AFP)

The piercing noise draws a small crowd, some of them approving, others less so.

“They pose lots of problems. Walking around under flocks of starlings is not really ideal,” said Francesco Fusco, a 55-year-old engineer.

“They are magnificent,” counters 16-year-old Alessio Reiti, saying he does not understand why they need to be scared away.

“It’s in their nature. We are not going to make them wear nappies!” he said, laughing.

Game of stones: Scottish island sweeps up Olympic curling

Stuart GRAHAM
Sun, January 30, 2022


The curling stones to be used at the Beijing Winter Olympics are handmade in Mauchline in Scotland

 (AFP/ANDY BUCHANAN)

In a factory outside Ayr in southwest Scotland, James Wyllie carefully lifts and caresses a curling stone, as well-used drilling and polishing machines grind in the background.

The 40-pound (18 kilogram) stone is made from unique granite rock harvested on Ailsa Craig, about 16 kilometres (10 miles) over a wild stretch of sea to the west of the mainland.

Wyllie, 72, is the retired owner of Kays Curling, which has been making curling stones since 1851 and has the exclusive right to harvest granite from the remote volcanic island.

The stones from his factory will be used at the Beijing Winter Olympics, which start with a mixed doubles event between Great Britain and Sweden on Wednesday.

"Ailsa Craig for probably almost 200 years now has been a unique source of granite for curling stones," Wyllie told AFP at the factory in Mauchline, 12 miles from Ayr.

"There has been no equivalent type of granite found anywhere else in the world so far which is suitable for the purpose of a curling stone.

"There have been one or two other sources tried with varying degrees of success but none of them has proved to be nearly as good as the Ailsa Craig stone."

- 'Paddy's Milestone' -

Ailsa Craig is known to locals as "Paddy's Milestone" for being a resting spot across the sea between Glasgow and Belfast.

It was a haven for Catholics fleeing persecution by Protestants during the Scottish Reformation in the 16th century.

Today it is uninhabited, serving as a nature reserve for colonies of gannets, puffins and seals, which watch over the granite quarries.

Kays Curling, which harvests the rock intermittently, has been involved in providing curling stones for the Winter Olympics since the Chamonix Games in 1924.

The quarries hold two types of granite ideal for the sport, which is believed to have first been played on iced-over ponds and lochs in Scotland around 500 years ago.

Blue Hone non-porous micro-granite, formed by volcanic eruptions 60 million years ago, has low water absorption, which prevents repeatedly freezing water from eroding the stone.

Ailsa Craig Common Green is more resistant to heat transfer, helping it to cope better with condensation and it does not splinter after contact with another stone in play.

The Blue Hone insert -- which is the part of the curling stone that makes contact with the ice -- is fitted to the Ailsa Craig Common Green stone body, in a technique called "Ailserts".

The bottom surface of the stone has to be extremely hard as ice can be very abrasive, says Wyllie.

Durability is vital in a sport in which players slide stones across sheets of ice about 150 feet (46 metres) long towards a target area of four concentric circles.

Curlers sweep the ice in front of the travelling stones with brooms to help them reach the intended target.

- Precision and harmony -

Precision and the granite's harmony with the ice are everything.

Even the slightest of bumps could mean the stone slipping off course and the difference between a gold medal and bitter disappointment.

"The running surface of the stone can wear out, believe it or not," Wyllie says.

"And in addition to that it has to be impervious to absorbing moisture.

"If moisture from the ice gets into the surface of the stone, then eventually that can freeze and expand and causes damage to the running surface."

Kays Curling managing director Jim English says the curling stones are exported to 70 countries.

Demand for stones, which each take five hours to produce, is growing, he says.

"Canada, America, certainly the Swiss, Austria and Europe itself," he says of the market.

"But we sell as far as South America, all the way down to South Korea, Afghanistan and Nigeria."

In the yard outside the factory, a short distance from the home once owned by Scotland's national poet Robert Burns, Wyllie inspects a row of rejected curling stones that are destined to be used as garden planters.

"I have no doubt curling will grow in popularity after the Beijing Olympics," he says. "Demand for the stones is sure to be high in the months ahead."

As always, Wyllie will be watching the curling events at the Winter Olympics closely.

"Curling is simply too much fun to miss," he says with a smile.

srg/phz/jw/gj

North Korea confirms most powerful missile test since 2017

PROVING THEY HAVE ULTRA HIGH EXPOSIVES 

(NOT NUKES)

A combo picture released from North Korea's state-media KCNA shows the test-fire of a Hwasong 12 intermediate-range ballistic missile 

(AFP/STR)


Sunghee Hwang, Cat BARTON
Sun, January 30, 2022, 9:11 PM·3 min read

North Korea confirmed Monday it had fired its most powerful missile since 2017, capping a month-long blitz of launches that has raised the spectre of leader Kim Jong Un restarting nuclear tests.

Pyongyang conducted a record seven weapons tests in January, the most ever in a calendar month, as it threatened to abandon a self-imposed moratorium on launching long-range and nuclear weapons, blaming US "hostile" policy for forcing its hand.

North Korean state media said Monday that the country had test-fired a Hwasong-12 intermediate-range ballistic missile, last launched in 2017, which is powerful enough to put the US territory of Guam in range.

The test "confirmed the accuracy, security and effectiveness of the operation of the Hwasong 12-type weapon system under production," the official Korean Central News Agency said Monday.

The test was conducted in a manner that ensured the "security of neighbouring countries," KCNA said.

State media released images purportedly taken by a warhead-mounted camera while it was in space, and others showing the missile blasting off from land. There was no mention of whether leader Kim attended the launch.

South Korea said the Sunday test was of an "intermediate range ballistic missile" that flew around 800 kilometres (497 miles) and reached a maximum altitude of 2,000 kilometres (1,200 miles).

With the launch, Pyongyang has "come close to destroying the moratorium declaration," South Korean President Moon Jae-In said after an emergency National Security Council meeting Sunday.

Moon noted the North was showing a "similar pattern" to 2017, when it raised regional tensions by launching intermediate range missiles and following them up with intercontinental ballistic missile tests.

In 2017, the launch of the Hwasong-12 was quickly followed by the test-firing of the Hwasong-15, an Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM) which is powerful enough to hit the US mainland, said Hong Min of the Korea Institute for National Unification.

With the Sunday launch of the Hwasong-12, North Korea is "signaling the possibility of an ICBM launch and an imminent destruction of the moratorium," he said in a note.

- 'Addicted' to weapons -

With peace talks with Washington stalled, North Korea has doubled down on Kim's vow to modernise the regime's armed forces, flexing Pyongyang's military muscles despite biting international sanctions.

Domestically, North Korea is preparing to celebrate the 80th anniversary of the birth of late leader Kim Jong Il in February, as well as the 110th birthday of founder Kim Il Sung in April.

With reports of soaring food prices and worsening hunger, an economically-reeling Pyongyang may be looking for a quick win, said Lim Eul-chul, a professor of North Korean studies at Kyungnam University in Seoul.

"He's addicted to advanced weapons," he said, referring to Kim Jong Un.

"He sees success in the military sector as the best weapon to restore his pride and elevate his status as a leader and of the nation to the highest level," he said.

North Korea was trying to build up its advanced missiles and weaponry to the extent that the US would be forced to "surrender" to Pyongyang's demands, he said.

"This is completely different from the past pattern of trying to create a favourable dialogue by attracting Washington's attention," he added.

The string of launches in 2022 comes at a delicate time in the region, with Kim's sole major ally China set to host the Winter Olympics next month and South Korea gearing up for a presidential election in March.

sh-ceb/ssy

Vaccines: two centuries of scepticism

AFP - Monday

Wariness and outright hostility to vaccines did not start with Covid-19 but date back to the 18th century when the first shots were given.

From real fears sparked by side effects to fake studies and conspiracy theories, we take a look at anti-vax sentiment over the ages:

- 1796: First jab, first fears -

Smallpox killed or disfigured countless millions for centuries before it was eradicated in 1980 through vaccination.

In 1796 the English physician Edward Jenner came up with the idea of using the milder cowpox virus on a child to stimulate immune response after he noticed milkmaids rarely got smallpox.

The process -- coined "vaccinus" by Jenner (from cow in Latin) -- was successful, but from the outset it provoked scepticism and fear.

One cartoon in 1802 showed vaccinated people turning into monsters that were half man, half cow.

Before Jenner, a riskier method of inoculation known as "variolation" existed for smallpox, introduced to Europe from Ottoman Turkey by the English writer Lady Mary Wortley Montagu.

Dried smallpox scabs or fluid from pustules were injected or rubbed into cuts on the skin. The resulting infection was usually mild but gave the person immunity.

- 1853: Mandatory shot -

Britain became the first world power to make the smallpox vaccine compulsory for children in 1853, following the example of Bavaria and Denmark, who introduced mandatory jabs more than three decades before.

Just like today, it triggered strong resistance.

Opponents objected on religious grounds, raised concerns over the dangers of injecting animal products, and claimed individual freedoms were being infringed.

Such was the clamour that a "conscience clause" was introduced in 1898 allowing sceptics to avoid vaccination.

- 1885: Pasteur and rabies -

At the end of the 19th century, the French biologist Louis Pasteur developed a vaccine against rabies by infecting rabbits with a weakened form of the virus.

But again the process sparked mistrust and Pasteur was accused of seeking to profit from his discovery and for creating a "laboratory rabies".

- 1920s: Vaccines' heyday -

Vaccines flourished in the 1920s -- shots were rolled out against tuberculosis with the BCG (1921), with vaccines for diphtheria (1923), tetanus (1924) and whooping cough (1926) also developed throughout the decade.

It was also when aluminium salts began to be used to increase the effectiveness of vaccines.

But more than half a century later these salts became the source of suspicion, with a condition causing lesions and fatigue called macrophagic myofasciitis thought to be caused by them.

- 1998: Fake autism study -

A study published in top medical journal The Lancet in 1998 suggested there was a link between autism and the measles, mumps and rubella shot -- known as the MMR vaccine.

The paper by Andrew Wakefield and colleagues was revealed years later to be a fraud and retracted by the journal, with Wakefield struck off the medical register.

Despite subsequent studies demonstrating the absence of any such link, the bogus paper is still a reference for anti-vaxxers and left its mark.

Wakefield's study re-emerged in the United States in 2016 in a controversial conspiracy theory film called "Vaxxed".

Measles killed 207,500 people in 2019, a jump of 50 percent since 2016, with the World Health Organization warning that vaccine coverage is falling globally.

- 2009: Swine flu scare -

The discovery in 2009 of "Swine flu", or H1N1, caused by a virus of the same family as the deadly Spanish flu, caused great alarm.

But H1N1 was not as deadly as first feared and millions of vaccine doses produced to fight it were destroyed, fuelling mistrust towards vaccination campaigns.

Matters were made worse by the discovery that one of the vaccines, Pandemrix, increased the risk of narcolepsy.

Of 5.5 million people given the vaccine in Sweden, 440 had to be compensated after developing the sleep disorder.

- 2020: Polio conspiracy theories -

Eradicated in Africa since August 2020 thanks to vaccines, polio is still a scourge in Pakistan and Afghanistan where the disease -- which causes paralysis in young children -- remains endemic.

Anti-vaccine conspiracy theories have allowed it to continue to destroy lives.

In Afghanistan, the Taliban were against vaccine campaigns, calling them a Western plot to sterilise Muslim children.

However, when they returned to power last year they decided to cooperate with the WHO and UNICEF.

ot-eab/fg/imm/rbu

FLANNEL MILLIONAIRE REACTIONARIES

Canadian truckers cause chaos in second day of anti-vaccine protests

Sun, 30 January 2022, 


A “Freedom Convoy” of trucks joined by thousands of demonstrators brought Ottawa to a virtual standstill for a second day Sunday to protest Canada’s vaccine mandates, as other sympathetic truckers blocked a border highway into the United States.

The chaos clogged the capital’s downtown near parliament throughout the weekend and brought criticism from officials including Ottawa’s mayor.

“This afternoon, a large presence of police continues throughout the downtown core and the movement of protestors and trucks continues to be managed,” the Ottawa police said in a statement.

“These high-risk situations were de-escalated and resolved with no arrests,” the authorities said, adding that “police resources are fully stretched” in dealing with the obstruction, which appeared to involve hundreds of trucks.

The boisterous protests threatened to disrupt business Monday, with authorities stating that City Hall will remain closed, traffic will be disrupted and some other services stalled.

The protest originated last week in western Canada, where dozens of truckers organized a convoy to drive from Vancouver to the Canadian capital to demonstrate against Covid-related restrictions, particularly a recent vaccination requirement for truck drivers crossing the long US-Canada border.

Multiple convoys began arriving in Ottawa on Friday, and were joined by thousands of other anti-vaccination protesters.

In solidarity with the convergence on Ottawa, truckers Sunday staged what police described as a “complete blockage” of Highway 4 in Canada’s western Alberta province along the US border. The road is a major artery for commercial goods between the nations.

“As of right now... the port of entry remains open technically speaking, however nobody would be able to get to them except on foot,” Curtis Peters, a spokesman for the Royal Canadian Mounted Police in Alberta, told AFP, adding that some 100 trucks were blocking the roadway.

In Ottawa, the desecration of a war memorial and harassment of some city officials and NGO volunteers sparked an angry response, and the police said they had launched “several investigations.”

“I am sickened to see protesters dance on the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier and desecrate the National War Memorial,” Wayne Eyre, chief of the country’s Defense Staff, said on Twitter.

“Those involved should hang their heads in shame.”

‘Show some respect’

Barricades were installed Sunday to block vehicle access to the area around the war memorial, after several illegally parked vehicles were towed away.

And an organization advocating for the homeless, Shepherds of Good Hope, said its workers had been “harassed” by protesters demanding meals on a particularly cold weekend.

It said it had briefly given free meals to some demonstrators in an effort to defuse tensions, but added, “This weekend’s events have caused significant strain to our operations at an already difficult time.”

With protesters gathering, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his family were moved Saturday to an undisclosed location in Ottawa, Canadian media reported.

Ottawa Mayor Jim Watson fumed over what he called “threatening” behavior by some of the protesters, particularly against the media.

“Stop the bully tactics and show some respect to fellow Canadians,” he said on Twitter.

Later, in an interview with the CBC, Watson said it was time for protesters to “move on” so Ottawa can return to normal.

“Quite frankly, (residents) feel they’re prisoners in their own home,” he said.

(AFP)

Hundreds of truckers block Ottawa in ‘Freedom Convoy’ to protest vaccine mandates

Issued on: 30/01/2022



Hundreds of trucks and thousands of people blocked the streets of central Ottawa on Saturday as part of a self-titled “Freedom Convoy” to protest vaccine mandates required to cross the US border.

Flying the Canadian flag, waving banners demanding “Freedom” and chanting slogans against Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, the truckers were joined by thousands of other protesters angered not only by Covid-19 restrictions but by broader discontent with the government.

An enormous clamor rang out as hundreds of big trucks, their engines rumbling, sounded their air horns non-stop.

Closer to Parliament, families calmly marched on a bitterly cold day, while young people chanted and older people in the crowd banged pots and pans in protest under Trudeau’s office windows.

Canadian media said the prime minister and his family had been escorted out of their home and taken to a secret location in the capital, with much of the protesters’ wrath directed at Trudeau

“I want it all to stop – these measures are unjustified,” said one demonstrator, 31-year-old businessman Philippe Castonguay, outside the Parliament building.

He had driven seven hours from northern Quebec province to make his feelings known: “The vaccination requirements are taking us toward a new society we never voted for,” he said.

The protest originated last week in western Canada, where dozens of truckers organized a convoy to drive from Vancouver to Ottawa to demonstrate against Covid-related restrictions, particularly a vaccination requirement for truck drivers.

Both Canada and the United States imposed that requirement in mid-January, affecting drivers who cross the 5,500-mile (9,000-kilometer) border – the world’s longest.

The movement rapidly gained steam as the original cross-country convoy was joined by others en route to the federal capital.

Their rallying point was Parliament Hill, in the heart of Ottawa.
Government ‘intrusion’

Stephen Penderness, an unvaccinated 28-year-old trucker from Ontario, said he was protesting for all Canadians, not just his fellow drivers.

“It’s actually for every single person... everybody on the road,” he said. “It’s all about your free choice.”

Angela Bernal, a 67-year-old retired teacher said she wanted “governments to lift the measures,” adding that “maintaining the restrictions is useless.”

With a strong police presence around the federal capital the protest went off without major incident despite initial fears there could be violence.

The zone around Parliament was closed for the weekend, and Ottawa police chief Peter Sloly described the situation on the ground as “unique, fluid, risky and significant.”

Police said they fear some demonstrators will stay beyond the Saturday protest, snarling traffic further.

Trudeau, who is currently in isolation after a Covid exposure, on Wednesday defended the vaccination mandate, noting that 90 percent of drivers are already vaccinated.

He called the truckers headed for the city a “small fringe minority” who do not represent the majority of Canadians.

Trudeau said Friday that the truckers’ views – which he described as anti-science, anti-government and anti-society – posed a risk not only to themselves but to other Canadians as well.

The leader of the Conservative opposition, Erin O’Toole, urged the protesters to remain peaceful. He has promised to meet with the truckers.

The movement received an endorsement Thursday from Tesla and SpaceX founder Elon Musk, who tweeted, “Canadian truckers rule.”

To date, 82 percent of Canadians aged five or older have been vaccinated against Covid-19. Among adults, the figure is 90 percent.

The Canadian Trucking Alliance, a major industry group, said the vast majority of the country’s truck drivers are vaccinated. It has “strongly disapproved” of the gathering in Ottawa.

(AFP)

‘No British justice’: Northern Ireland marks 50 years since ‘Bloody Sunday’

Issued on: 30/01/2022

A memorial engraved with the names of the 13 who died during the 1972 Bloody Sunday killings, and John Johnston who died later, in the Bogside area of Londonderry (Derry), in Northern Ireland on January 29, 2022. © Paul Faith, AFP

The Northern Irish city of Londonderry commemorates one of the darkest days in modern UK history on Sunday when, 50 years ago, British troops opened fire without provocation on civil rights protesters.

The anniversary of “Bloody Sunday” comes with Northern Ireland’s fragile peace destabilised by Brexit, and with families of the victims despondent over whether the soldiers involved will ever face trial.

Charlie Nash saw his 19-year-old cousin William Nash killed by one of more than 100 high-velocity rounds fired by members of the British Parachute Regiment on January 30, 1972.

“We thought there might be rioting, but nothing, nothing like what happened. We thought at first they were rubber bullets,” Nash, now 73, told AFP.

“But then we saw Hugh Gilmour (one of six 17-year-old victims) lying dead. We couldn’t take it in. Everyone was running,” he said.

“It’s important for the rest of the world to see what they done to us that day. But will we ever see justice? Never, especially not from Boris Johnson.”

A British soldier drags a Catholic protester during Northern Ireland's "Bloody Sunday" killings on January 30, 1972 - 

Copyright AFP/File THOPSON

Amnesty?

The UK prime minister this week called Bloody Sunday a “tragic day in our history”. But his government is pushing legislation that critics say amounts to an amnesty for all killings during Northern Ireland’s three decades of sectarian unrest, including by security forces.

Thirteen protesters died on Bloody Sunday, when the paratroopers opened fire through narrow streets and across open wasteland.

Some of the victims were shot in the back, or while on the ground, or while waving white handkerchiefs.

At the entrance to the city’s Catholic Bogside area stands a wall that normally proclaims in large writing: “You are now entering Free Derry.”

But this weekend, as relatives of the victims prepare to retrace the 1972 civil rights march, the mural says: “There is no British justice.”

After an initial government report largely exonerated the paratroopers and authorities, a landmark 12-year inquiry running to 5,000 pages found in 2010 that the victims were unarmed and posed no threat, and that the soldiers’ commander on the ground violated his orders.

“We in the inquiry came to the conclusion that the shootings were unjustified and unjustifiable,” its chairman Mark Saville, a former judge and member of the UK House of Lords, told BBC radio on Saturday.

“And I do understand, people feel that in those circumstances justice has yet to be done,” he said, while expressing concern that with the surviving soldiers now elderly, the government should have launched any prosecution “a very long time ago”.

Then as now, Londonderry – known as Derry to pro-Irish nationalists – was a largely Catholic city. But housing, jobs and education were segregated in favour of the pro-British Protestant minority.

Simmering tensions over the inequality made Londonderry the cradle of the “Troubles” in Northern Ireland starting in the late 1960s, which finally ended with the 1998 Good Friday Agreement.

‘Reckless’

The UK’s divorce from the European Union has unsettled the fragile post-1998 consensus.

Protestant unionists want Johnson’s government to scrap a protocol governing post-Brexit trade for Northern Ireland, which treats the province differently from the UK mainland (comprising England, Scotland and Wales).

The government, which is in protracted talks with the EU on the issue, is sympathetic to their demands.

Heading into regional elections in May, some nationalists hope that Brexit could help achieve what the Irish Republican Army (IRA) never did—a united Ireland, a century after the UK carved out a Protestant statelet in the north.

Sinn Fein, which was once the political wing of the IRA, is running ahead of the once dominant unionists in opinion polls.

“Northern Ireland finds itself again in the eye of a political storm where we appear to be collateral damage for a prime minister whose future is hanging in the balance,” said professor Deirdre Heenan, a Londonderry resident who teaches social policy at Ulster University.

“The government’s behaviour around the peace process has been reckless in the extreme,” she added.

Protestant hardliners have issued their own reminders of where they stand: leading up to the anniversary, Parachute Regiment flags have been flying in one unionist stronghold of Londonderry, to the revulsion of nationalists.

“How can they do that, this weekend of all weekends? These are innocent boys killed by the Paras,” said George Ryan, 61, a tour guide and local historian.

“Will any of the troops ever stand up in a court of law?” he added.

“It’s looking more unlikely than ever, but it’s important as ever.”

(AFP)

'Bloody Sunday': 10 minutes of killing that shook N.Ireland



'

Bloody Sunday: What happened on January 30, 1972

 (AFP/Kenan AUGEARD)

Sat, January 29, 2022

"Bloody Sunday" was a turning point in three decades of violence in Northern Ireland known as the "Troubles".

On Sunday January 30, 1972, British paratroopers shot dead 13 Catholic demonstrators in the province's second city, Londonderry.

Here is how events unfolded:


- Peaceful march -

The Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association (NICRA) organised an anti-internment march to take place that day in the city Catholics call Derry.

They were angry at the increasing internment without trial of Catholic nationalists since the previous August.

The march was illegal. Northern Ireland's Protestant authorities had declared a year-long ban on all marches amid spiralling unrest since civil rights protesters began demanding an end to voting, housing and job discrimination against the minority Catholic community in 1968.

Nevertheless, at least 15,000 people joined the march, which set off in a carnival-like mood from the Creggan Estate, a few kilometres from the city centre, through the Catholic Bogside district to Guildhall Square.

Crack troops from the British 1st Battalion Parachute Regiment, drafted in that day, were waiting at barricades to stop the march reaching the city centre.

- Confrontation -

A section of the crowd turned into William Street and youths began throwing stones at a British army barricade.

Troops were ordered to begin arrests and armoured cars drove into the crowd.

Around 4:10 pm soldiers started firing.

Within about 10 minutes 13 people were dead and a further 15 injured. Six of the dead were aged 17.

- 'Whitewash' -

The troops claimed to have come under sustained gunfire as well as attacks with nail bombs. They said they aimed away from the demonstrators.

Their claims, largely accepted in the official report by senior English judge John Widgery, published later that year, were not backed up by independent accounts.

No soldiers were injured in the operation and no guns or bombs recovered.

The victims' families derided the report as a "whitewash".

- Explosion in violence -

The killings proved a boon to the nascent Provisional Irish Republican Army, fighting for Northern Ireland's reunification with Ireland, whose ranks swelled with new recruits.

On February 2, an angry crowd set fire to the British embassy in Dublin.

On March 24, London suspended the Protestant-dominated Northern Ireland provincial government, leading to decades of direct rule from the British capital.

- Apology -

In June 2010 a new report published after a 12-year investigation said British troops fired first and had given misleading accounts of what happened.

The report by senior British judge Mark Saville concluded that none of the victims was armed, soldiers gave no warnings before opening fire and the shootings were a "catastrophe" for Northern Ireland and led to increased violence.

Following the report then British prime minister David Cameron apologised for the killings, saying: "There is no doubt... what happened on 'Bloody Sunday' was both unjustified and unjustifiable. It was wrong."

- Ex-soldier charged -

On March 14, 2018 an ex-paratrooper, known only as Soldier F, was charged with murdering two people and the attempted murder of four others.

But the charges were dropped in July 2021 after a backlash by MPs from Britain's ruling Conservative Party.

"Bloody Sunday", immortalised by a song by Irish rock group U2, was one of the darkest episodes in the conflict between Northern Ireland's Catholic nationalists -- who want a united Ireland -- and Protestant unionists loyal to Britain.

The victims have been remembered in gable-end murals and memorials in Londonderry (AFP/Paul Faith)

Northern Ireland marks 50 years since Bloody Sunday

A walk of remembrance has taken place for the 13 unarmed civilians killed by British soldiers in January 1972. The massacre was a major turning point in Northern Ireland's era of violence known as the Troubles.



Several hundred people, including relatives of the victims, retraced the fateful 1972 march that preceded the tragedy, walking in sombre silence

Commemorations took place in Northern Ireland on Sunday to mark the 50th anniversary of the Bloody Sunday massacre where British troops killed 13 unarmed protesters.

Families of the victims retraced the steps of the original 1972 civil rights march, through the city of Londonderry, also known as Derry.

In a show of solidarity, crowds lined the streets as relatives walked to the Bloody Sunday Monument, where the killings took place.

Children bearing white roses and portraits of the victims joined the poignant procession.

The anniversary comes as Northern Ireland's fragile peace has been destabilized by Brexit, and with families angry that no one has been convicted for the murders.

In a reminder of the tensions that remain in the province, protestant unionist hardliners flew flags of the British army's Parachute Regiment in an area of Londonderry ahead of the anniversary.


Some of the victims were shot in the back, or while on the ground, or while waving white handkerchiefs as the shots ripped through narrow streets
What happened on Bloody Sunday?

The killings were one of the darkest episodes in the conflict between Northern Ireland's Catholic nationalists — who want a united Ireland — and Protestant unionists loyal to Britain.

They occurred during a march on January 30, 1972, in opposition to the detention without trial of Catholic nationalists during the so-called Troubles that began four years earlier.

Despite a ban on protesting, more than 15,000 people set off from a housing estate towards the city center. When youths began throwing stones at a British army barricade, the troops were ordered to move in.

A few minutes later, soldiers started firing, killing 13 people and injuring 15 others.



The soldiers claimed to have been attacked by nail bombs and gunfire and insisted they aimed away from the demonstrators.

While their claims were accepted in the official report published later that year, they were not backed up by independent accounts.

The victims' families derided the report as a "whitewash," and the killings spurred recruitment to the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA), the paramilitary group fighting for reunification with Ireland.

The IRA stepped up its campaign of terror in Northern Ireland, the British mainland and abroad, which lasted until 1998 — the same year as the signing of the Good Friday Agreement peace deal.


Fourteen Catholic demonstrators were shot dead by British paratroopers during a peaceful but banned rally in Londonderry
What has happened since?

The UK government apologized in 2010 after a second official inquiry found that the soldiers fired without justification on unarmed, fleeing civilians and then lied about it for decades.

The 5,000-page report, which followed a 12-year inquiry, concluded that the protesters posed no threat, and that the soldiers' commander on the ground violated his orders.

But five decades on, relatives are still searching for the justice they believe is needed for a scarred society to heal.

One former British soldier was charged in 2019 in the killing of two of the protesters and the injury of four others.

But last year, the current British government announced a plan to halt all prosecutions of soldiers and militants in a bid to draw a line under the conflict.

The decision has angered victims' families and has been rejected by all the main political parties in Northern Ireland.

UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson told Parliament on Wednesday that Bloody Sunday was "one of the darkest days in our history" and that the country "must learn from the past."




How is Brexit threatening peace in Northern Ireland?

The UK's divorce from the European Union has unsettled the fragile post-1998 consensus.

Protestant unionists want Johnson's government to scrap a protocol governing post-Brexit trade for Northern Ireland, which treats the province differently from the UK mainland.

The government, which is in protracted talks with the EU on the issue, is sympathetic to their demands.

Heading into regional elections in May, some nationalists hope that Brexit could help achieve what the Irish Republican Army (IRA) never did — a united Ireland, a century after the UK carved out a Protestant statelet in the north.

Memories of Troubles slow to fade in Northern Ireland

Northern Ireland marks 50 years since Bloody Sunday

PHOTO'S   1 of 20

People take part in a march to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the 'Bloody Sunday' shootings with the photographs of some of the victims in Londonderry, Sunday, Jan. 30, 2022. In 1972 British soldiers shot 28 unarmed civilians at a civil rights march, killing 13 on what is known as Bloody Sunday or the Bogside Massacre. Sunday marks the 50th anniversary of the shootings in the Bogside area of Londonderry .(AP Photo/Peter Morrison)

LONDON (AP) — Hundreds of people gathered Sunday in Northern Ireland to mark 50 years since “Bloody Sunday,” one of the deadliest days in the conflict known as The Troubles.

Thirteen people were killed and 15 others wounded when British soldiers fired on civil rights protesters on Jan. 30, 1972, in the city of Derry, also known as Londonderry.

Relatives of those killed and injured half a century ago took part in a remembrance walk Sunday, retracing the steps of the original march. Crowds gathered at the Bloody Sunday Monument, where political leaders including Irish Premier Micheal Martin laid wreaths in a ceremony.

The names of those who were killed and wounded were read out during the 45-minute memorial service.

Britain’s government apologized in 2010 after an official inquiry found that the soldiers fired without justification on unarmed, fleeing civilians and then lied about it for decades. The report refuted an initial investigation that took place soon after the slayings that said the soldiers had been defending themselves against Irish Republican Army bombers and gunmen.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson told Parliament on Wednesday that Bloody Sunday was “one of the darkest days in our history” and that the country “must learn from the past.”

One former British soldier was charged in 2019 in the killing of two of the protesters and the injury of four others. But prosecutors decided last year not to proceed with the case because there was no longer a prospect of conviction. Families of one of the victims have brought a legal challenge against that decision.

Martin, the Irish leader, said Sunday that there should be full accountability in all legacy issues.

“I don’t believe this will be any amnesty for anybody,” he said after meeting with the families of victims. “It is important because time is moving on too for many, many families and families need closure.”

Michael McKinney, whose brother William was among the victims, criticized the British government’s plans to make it harder to prosecute military veterans for alleged offenses committed years earlier.

“They are trying to deny us justice because they are scared to face justice. But we want to send a very clear warning to the British government. If they pursue their proposals, the Bloody Sunday families will be ready to meet them head on,” McKinney said.

Irish President Michael D. Higgins is expected to deliver a message to the affected families later Sunday.

Elderly Ukrainian couple left behind in bombed out eastern village





Residents of a deserted village live near the frontline in the Donetsk region

Sat, January 29, 2022,
By Maksym Levin

NEVELSKE, Ukraine (Reuters) - Elderly couple Kateryna and Dmytro Shklyar are among the last residents of Nevelske, a village near the frontlines in east Ukraine where years of fighting have left them without running water, electricity or neighbours.

Nevelske sits some 25 km (15 miles) from Donetsk, the biggest city in the contested eastern Ukraine region where Russia has backed separatist rebels fighting government troops since 2014. The conflict has killed 15,000 people to date.

The village had around 300 inhabitants 20 years ago but most have fled. After the latest shelling in November, part of the most recent escalation of the conflict between Russia and the West over Ukraine, only five inhabitants are still here.

The Shklyars live without running water or a stable power supply, relying on the Ukrainian military and aid workers to deliver basic goods.



Their neighbourhood is mostly made up of destroyed houses. The nearest shop is too risky to reach across military roadblocks and the largely dormant but still dangerous line separating Ukraine from the territory under rebel control.

"It cannot get any worse," said Kateryna, her wrinkled face framed by a red hair scarf. "He is 86 and I am 76 years old. And we live on nothing. Well, we have of course our own potatoes carrots and onions. But that's all we have."

A little food cellar where they keep glass jars with pickled fruits and vegetables also serves as their bomb shelter. A cat and a dog are all the company they have left.

Russia has spooked Ukraine and the West in recent weeks by massing some 120,000 troops near its border with the former Soviet republic that now wants to join NATO.

Russia has already annexed Crimea from Ukraine in 2014 and the West has threatened Moscow with grave sanctions if it invades again, something Russia has repeatedly denied it plans to do.



Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Friday the West has not addressed Moscow's main security demands in the crisis over Ukraine but that he is ready to keep talking to avert a further escalation.

Kateryna Shklyar, sitting next to her husband in their house, its walls adorned with thick carpets, wiped away tears.

PEASANT FATALISM

"I don't have any words or tears anymore," she said. "Everybody has left. Those who had money and could afford to buy something somewhere - they all left. And where would we go, two old people, who needs us?"

"You'd better shoot us."

(Writing by Gabriela Baczynska; Editing by Christina Fincher)

Ukraine’s Top Military General Fighting Russia Said He Fears Washington Has Ghosted Him



Christopher Miller
Fri, January 28, 2022

BAKHMUT, Ukraine — Lt. Gen. Oleksandr Pavliuk, the top military commander on Ukraine’s eastern front, is used to getting what he asks for. So when he and his fellow military brass were asked by their American partners to provide a wish list of weapons needed to defend Ukraine against a potential large-scale Russian military offensive, he was sure he’d at least get a response.

But after weeks with no reply, he said, he now fears that he may have been ghosted by the Biden administration.

“We already declared to our partners which weapons we need … and we did it more than once,” Pavliuk, the head of Ukraine’s Joint Forces Operation in the eastern Donbas region, told BuzzFeed News in an interview inside a military base. “We are still waiting for a response.”

Pavliuk specified what exactly he would like to get from the US.

“We need weapons now,” Pavliuk said. “First of all it’s anti-aircraft equipment because we will need to fight back air attacks and ballistic cruise missiles.”

“Of course, we have some of our own such weapons but in the event of a massive attack from Russia we need more support,” he said. “And if we are able to fight back an air attack they will have very little opportunity to be successful over land.”

Pavliuk would not say who from the US sent the request or what channel he used to respond to them, saying it was sensitive information.

The US Department of Defense did not respond when asked specifically about Pavliuk’s comments. But a spokesperson referred BuzzFeed News to Pentagon press secretary John Kirby’s remarks on Thursday.

“We talked about the fact that we had an air and missile defense assessment team [in Ukraine] not long ago — in the last month or so. And they had extensive conversations with their Ukrainian counterparts about those very kinds of capability concerns,” he said. “This is an iterative process, it's ongoing.”

To be sure, the US has sent $2.7 billion of security assistance to Ukraine over nearly eight years. It’s also sent $200 million worth of aid, including lethal weapons, this month alone. The latest shipment arrived in Kyiv on Friday with more than 81 tons of military supplies, Defense Minister Oleksiy Reznikov tweeted.

As the US proclaims that Russian President Vladimir Putin is preparing for a new incursion into Ukraine — and that it is likely to happen in the coming weeks — Ukrainian leaders say that Washington should put up or hush up.

President Volodymyr Zelensky on Friday had sharp words for the country’s US and European allies, telling foreign reporters that Western powers were making loud pronouncements of impending war but, in his opinion, not helping Ukraine to the extent that they could. That, he said, only serves the Kremlin’s purposes and risks sowing panic and chaos when calm and unity are needed.

“We have to be very careful in how we speak out every day, every minute, when we are trying to say the war will happen tomorrow. We are getting ready for any scenario and we have several,” Zelensky said. “I think it has to be quiet military preparation and quiet diplomacy.”

The president also took a swipe at the West for threatening sanctions only after a new Russian attack, saying those “are not designed to help our country” but instead meant to help the European Union.”

Zelensky underscored that he and President Joe Biden, with whom he spoke by phone on Thursday, didn’t disagree on the seriousness of the threat posed by Moscow. But he said they each employ different tactics when speaking about it publicly.

“We don’t have any misunderstanding with the president, but I just deeply understand what is going on in my country, just as he understands what is going on in his country,” Zelensky said of Biden. “I’m the president of Ukraine and I’m based here, and I think I know the details better here.”

Zelensky conceded that the Russian threat “is imminent. The threat is constant.” But he emphasized that’s how it has been in Ukraine since 2014, long before Moscow’s latest decision to move more than 100,000 troops along with heavy weapons to Ukraine’s borders.

While Zelensky told the US to cool down the rhetoric, he asked for more military assistance to help his soldiers fighting the larger and more powerful Russian army and its separatist proxies in the snow-covered trenches of the Donbas. They may soon, he said, face tens of thousands more streaming across the border.

Ukraine’s military is much bigger, better trained, and more equipped than it was when Russia first invaded in 2014.

With just 6,000 battle-ready soldiers, it folded quickly when undercover Russian troops covertly invaded Crimea and then spilled into the Donbas, where they used pro-Russian separatist proxies to fill out an army and occupying force.

Today, Ukraine’s military is equipped with state-of-the-art Ukrainian-made weaponry, as well as top-notch lethal aid from the US, the UK, and other NATO countries, including anti-tank missiles, so-called bunker busters, and armed Turkish drones.

But it’s still no match for Russia’s massive military.

Nevertheless, Ukrainian military leaders and independent experts say, it could inflict serious costs against Russian forces should they begin streaming over the border.

In an interview in Kyiv on Friday, the secretary of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine, Oleksiy Danilov, said the Ukrainian army is composed of some 260,000 active-duty troops and an even larger community of some 400,000 battle-hardened veterans who have done stints at the front line over the course of Russia’s eight-year-long war. Then there are the National Guard, National Police, newly formed Territorial Defense Forces, and, Danilov noted, “1 million registered hunting gun owners.”

“The Russian Federation can have several plans and we do understand them fully,” Danilov said. The possibilities, he added, included a full-scale, multipronged invasion of Ukraine; a combination of cyberwar, conventional war, and a limited incursion into some area of the country; an escalation of hostilities in the Donbas war zone; and several other potential and complex scenarios. “But as of today, the full-scale invasion of our country, with the resources they have on our borders, will definitely be insufficient."

“Only time will tell what happens,” he added. “But we are the bulwark for Europe against authoritarianism. And if this bulwark folds, other countries will fold.”

More on this

NATO Won’t Put Troops In Ukraine, But Western Foreigners Are Volunteering To Join The Fight Against Russia Christopher Miller · Jan. 28, 2022


Some Ukrainians Are Angry About Washington Ordering Diplomats’ Families To Leave The US Embassy Christopher Miller · Jan. 24, 2022


“Russia Controls Everything Here”: Patrolling The Sea of Azov With Ukraine’s Maritime Guards Christopher Miller · Jan. 24, 2022

AstraZeneca China summoned over suspected fraud

CRIMINAL CAPITALI$M WITH CHINESE CHARACTERISTICS

An AstraZeneca sign is seen at the third China International Import Expo (CIIE) in Shanghai

Sat, January 29, 2022

BEIJING (Reuters) -Chinese authorities summoned officials of AstraZeneca China regarding an investigation of suspected medical insurance fraud by the company's employees, the National Healthcare Security Administration (NHSA) said on Saturday.

The regulator of the state medical insurance fund said authorities ordered the arrest of all suspects, but did not give details of the suspected violations or the size of funds involved.

It demanded that AstraZeneca China close loopholes in supervision of marketing activities, the NHSA added.

In a statement on Friday, the company said some employees in the southern city of Shenzhen had altered or participated in altering patients' testing reports, and were suspected of medical insurance fraud.

The NHSA and public security ministry held a meeting with company officials in December to brief them on the investigation, it added.

"AstraZeneca China takes such employee misconduct seriously and welcomes the recommendations by the NHSA and MOPS," it said.

An AstraZeneca spokesperson said all employees involved in the Shenzhen case were Chinese nationals.

The company has taken disciplinary action against those employees and has reported their violations to the authorities, the statement said.

Authorities will launch nationwide campaigns to stamp out fraud that involves altering genetic test results, the NHSA added, urging those responsible for such violations to turn themselves in.

(Reporting by Roxanne Liu and Brenda Goh; editing by Clarence Fernandez and Jason Neely)

Why Ethiopia has turned its back on one of its own, WHO chief Tedros

Sun, January 30, 2022

In 2017, when Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus was appointed the World Health Organization's director general with an overwhelming two-thirds majority vote, Ethiopia was ecstatic.

One of their own, and the first African, had become the head of the UN health agency as the world was battling disease outbreaks such as Ebola.

But now the tide has turned in Addis Ababa, with Ethiopia accusing Tedros of supporting the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF), a group that the Ethiopian government defines as a terrorist organisation.

Ethiopia says it mobilised African and friendly nations to win Tedros his first term at the WHO, but as soon as the TPLF engaged in conflict, "he showed his true colours" - he chose his political affiliation to the TPLF over his country, the Ethiopian Permanent Mission to the United Nations in Geneva said.

The mission alleges that Tedros, who previously served as the Ethiopian health minister and foreign minister in the TPLF-dominated ruling coalition, "abused his office and the international nature of the director general to advance the TPLF's propaganda".

Ethiopia said it submitted a formal complaint to the WHO's executive board and was still waiting for acknowledgement of receipt of its complaint.

Its ambassador to the UN in Geneva, Zenebe Kebede Korcho, also tried to deliver a speech criticising Tedros but was cut off by the WHO executive board chairman.

On the first day of the executive board meeting on Monday, the chairman postponed a decision on a request from Addis Ababa to investigate Tedros over allegations that he had interfered in the internal affairs of Ethiopia and the Tigray war.

The civil war erupted in November 2020 after Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed's government accused the TPLF, a leftist political party, of attacking its military base to steal weapons.

Months of fighting followed, with thousands killed and millions displaced. The Ethiopian military withdrew from most of Tigray at the end of June but Tedros, an ethnic Tigrayan, accused Abiy's government of blocking humanitarian access to northern Ethiopia, especially Tigray. At a briefing in mid-January, Tedros said people in Tigray were living under de facto blockade for over a year and were dying from lack of medicine and food.

"Nowhere in the world are we witnessing hell like in Tigray. Even in Syria, we have access during the worst of conflicts in Syria. In Yemen the same, we have access," Tedros said.

The Ethiopian government has denied the allegations and refused to nominate Tedros for a second term - usually a formality by the home country.

Instead, Tedros was nominated unopposed by 28 other countries including Germany, France, Kenya, Rwanda, Botswana, Indonesia and Oman.

That nomination was approved at a WHO executive board on Tuesday and will be put to the World Health Assembly in May for formal endorsement, according to WHO election protocol.

Millions of people have been displaced by the conflict in Tigray. 

Photo: Reuters

Lawrence Gostin, director of the O'Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law at Georgetown University in Washington, said the lack of support from Addis Ababa was unlikely to make much difference to the outcome.

"Ethiopia's refusal to support Tedros is a political and reputational problem but it is unlikely to affect his re-election as WHO director general," Gostin said.

"He is running unopposed and thus far there have been no major political calls for him to step aside from key member states."

Neither China nor the United States have formally opposed his re-election, and Tedros will attend the opening of the Winter Olympics in Beijing this week.

"China has probably soured on Tedros but that is only because he has recently stood up to the Chinese government," he said.

"All in all, I expect Tedros to be re-elected and think he has earned it. I wish there were a contested election because I think it is good for the democratic future of the WHO. Once he is re-elected I don't expect the issues with Ethiopia to affect his performance as DG."

Tedros has committed to building "a WHO that is even more effective, more efficient, more accountable and more transparent".

"After witnessing up close the world's response to the pandemic, I have a unique understanding of the dynamics that have brought us to where we are, and a deep commitment to making the global system fit for purpose, with WHO at its centre," he said, making the case for his re-election.

The re-election comes two years into the world's battle against the coronavirus pandemic. More than 350 million cases and over 5.5 million deaths have been reported - " and the numbers are an underestimate", according to Tedros.

Mukesh Kapila, professor emeritus in global health and humanitarian affairs at the University of Manchester, writing for the Australia-based website The Conversation, said "Ethiopia's endorsement is not needed to re-elect Tedros as his first-term performance stands on its own merits, and no candidates oppose him".

Nevertheless, "Ethiopia is determined to embarrass him, as a distracting political manoeuvre on the global stage", said Kapila.

He said Addis Ababa was acutely embarrassed when Tedros drew attention to the catastrophic health and humanitarian situation in Tigray, calling it a "hell" that is an "insult to humanity".

Astonishingly, Ethiopia's government is leaving no stone unturned to block Tedros's re-election, according to Seifudein Adem, a professor of global studies at Doshisha University in Japan.

"It is as though the government is eager to clip the wings of one of its most successful citizens," Adem, an Ethiopian, said.

"Tedros may be, for obvious reasons, sympathetic to the TPLF. And there can be question marks, too, on his record when he served as Ethiopia's minister of health."

But Adem questioned whether this disqualified him from continuing to serve as an African face on the global stage.

"In any case, has Prime Minister Abiy not asked the Ethiopian people for forgiveness on behalf of the ruling party in 2018 for the dismal record of the previous government?"
Sole candidate Tedros Ghebreyesus set to remain WHO chief

On whether Beijing would support Tedros's re-election, Adem said: "It is going to be a hard choice for China."

On the one hand, Tedros is a China-friendly director of the WHO, and, on the other, China's relationship with Ethiopia is strong, according to Adem.

"I think from China's point of view, at the end supporting Dr Tedros's re-election would be logical, both in terms of consequence and appropriateness," he said.

Still, Tedros' time at the WHO has not been plain sailing. Before he was appointed director general, there were allegations of cover-ups of cholera epidemics in Ethiopia.

And when the coronavirus struck, he came under heavy fire from the United States for defending China's handling of the pandemic.

In early 2020, the US accused the UN agency of "failing to obtain crucial information" from China about ­Covid-19, and for allegedly "colluding" with China in the early days of the pandemic.

As a result, the US president Donald Trump froze the US funding for the health body until that decision was overturned by his successor Joe Biden.

Copyright (c) 2022. South China Morning Post Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved.