It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
Thursday, December 24, 2020
US targets ripple crypto creators
Ripple is a crypto currency rival to the likes of bitcoin and ethereum—but regulators are turning the screw
The US financial watchdog is chasing the firm behind a major crypto currency, accusing it of failing to respect regulations on offering unregistered digital assets.
HOW CAN YOU REGULATE UNREGULATED MARKETS? YOU CAN'T SO YOU CALL IT A CRIME, YOU CAN DO THAT AS THE STATE.
The US Securities and Exchange Commission charged that Ripple Labs, which markets the XRP token, had raised $1.3 billion in the form of "digital asset securities."
XRP is a rising star in the digital currencies sphere behind bitcoin, and US regulators are racing to tighten oversight of the highly volatile sector.
Whereas bitcoin is produced by a decentralised network of 'miners', Ripple's XRP token is mainly controlled by the firm that bears its name.
The SEC maintains that former Ripple head Christian Larsen and current chairman Brad Garlinghouse "failed to register their offers and sales of XRP or satisfy any exemption from registration."
Following the SEC statement, the value of XRP tokens slid by 21.77 percent to 33 US cents per unit.
The slump left Ripple's market capitalisation based on units in circulation at $16.8 billion.
That compares with $69.6 billion and $440 billion respectively for main crypto rivals ethereum, and bitcoin which surpassed $23,000 per unit in recent days. Garlinghouse criticised regulators for viewing XRP as a security and not a form of currency, thereby subjecting the digital unit to a welter of regulations.
"Let me be clear: Ripple, Chris and I may be the ones named in the filing, but this is an assault on crypto at large," Garlinghouse said in a statement.
Garlinghouse said the SEC move put Ripple at a disadvantage to its rivals, which he said benefited from having earned the SEC's "seal of approval," to the point that "they're creating an unfair advantage to companies here in the US."
"We remain confident after reviewing the SEC's complaint today that we are on the right side of the law and of history," Garlinghouse said.
THE VERY DEFINITION OF A TRUST Google, Facebook, coordinated antitrust response: report
Google and Facebook deny wrongdoing in their accords on digital advertising cited in a reported draft of an antitrust complaint
Google and Facebook worked together to help fend off an antitrust investigation into the two tech giants which dominate digital advertising, according to a media report citing a draft of a state lawsuit.
The Wall Street Journal, which cited a draft version of the complaint filed by 10 US states without redactions in the public version, said Tuesday the two firms agreed to "cooperate and assist each other" in responding to an antitrust probe.
The case filed last week was among three separate actions filed by state and federal antitrust enforcers against Google. A separate case has been filed against Facebook over its acquisition of two rival messaging applications.
Facebook dismissed the allegations, saying agreements between the two firms were not aimed at harming competition but offered choices and benefits for advertisers and publishers.
"Any allegation that this harms competition or any suggestion of misconduct on the part of Facebook is baseless," a Facebook spokesperson said.
Google did not immediately respond to an AFP query. But the Journal quoted the tech firm as saying there was nothing improper or exclusive about its arrangement with Facebook.
The claims "are inaccurate. We don't manipulate the auction," the Google spokesperson said.
According to the Journal, the unredacted draft suggested Facebook would win "a fixed percentage" of advertising auctions and that an internal Facebook document described the deal as "relatively cheap" when compared with direct competition.
Google's documents, which were also not cited in the final version of the suit, suggested the deal would "build a moat" to avoid direct competition with Facebook, according to the report.
Russia's parliament backs law to block US social media apps
The bill's authors said YouTube, Twitter, Facebook and Instagram had failed to remove hundreds of URL pages containing prohibited content, as required by Russian law.
CONTENT LIKE LGBTQ RIGHTS, ENDING VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN, RELIGIOUS FREEDOM, PUSSY RIOT, BOURGEOIS DEMOCRATIC RIGHTS, ETC
A man walks along the Manezh Square with the State Duma building, Russian Parliament's lower chamber, left, in Moscow, Russia on Dec. 30, 2016 (AP)
Russia could gain powers to restrict access to US social media giants if they "discriminate" against Russian media and levy big fines on platforms that do not delete banned content, under bills passed by the parliament's lower house on Wednesday.
The authors of the two bills said infractions by YouTube and Facebook demonstrated the need for the legislation, which is part of a push to increase Russia's internet "sovereignty" and has fuelled fears of creeping China-style controls, which is also prevalent in the US.
The first bill would allow Russia to restrict or fully block websites following what lawmakers said were complaints from state outlets that their accounts were being treated with prejudice by Twitter, Facebook and Youtube.
Twitter began labelling the accounts of several Russian media outlets with the description "state-affiliated media", along with those of their senior staff and some key government officials in August, a move decried by Russia at the time.
The second bill would allow Russia to fine internet providers and sites between 10% and 20% of their previous year's Russia-based turnover for repeatedly failing to remove banned content.
The bill sets a maximum fine of 8 million roubles ($106,130) for the first time sites fail to delete content calling for extremist activity, information about recreational drugs and child sexual abuse.
The bill's authors said YouTube, Twitter, Facebook and Instagram had failed to remove hundreds of URL pages containing prohibited content, as required by Russian law.
The two bills are expected to become law, although they still need to be approved by the upper house and signed by President Vladimir Putin.
Sites such as YouTube have become vital resources for Kremlin critics who say they are effectively banned from state television that is broadcast across Russia's 11 time zones.
Google, Twitter and Facebook did not immediately respond to request for comment from Reuters.
An integrated biorefinery approach utilizing agriculture waste biomass to produce renewable biomethane along with other co-products (for soil amendment, nutrient recovery, and transportation biofuels). Credit: Nazih Kassem, with images from Cornell University, Department of Energy
Cornell University is developing a system to extract energy from cattle manure to meet the campus's peak demands for heat in the winter months. In the Journal of Renewable and Sustainable Energy, scientists involved with the project give a detailed analysis of the issues required to make this work, including scientific, economic, and energy policy considerations.
The university is already involved in an initiative to develop renewable energy sources and services, with the goal of reducing its carbon footprint by 100% by 2035. These goals are proving difficult to achieve in cold regions, such as Ithaca, New York, where the university is located, since over six months of winter heating is needed for its buildings and laboratories.
Heating needs are a significant portion of Cornell's energy usage, and a challenge occurs at peak heating times. The university is developing a geothermal project that provides heat from hot water extracted 3-4 kilometers underground. This will provide adequate base-level heating but would be economically unattractive to meet peak demand.
To meet the need for more heat in the depths of winter, the investigators are proposing a system to convert cattle manure from the school's dairy farms, which house 600 cows, to methane and other products. The method employs a three-stage process, where the manure is first biologically digested with microbes to produce biogas, a mixture of carbon dioxide and methane.
This is followed by a second stage that converts the digested manure into a type of biocrude oil plus a substance called hydrochar that makes a good soil amendment.
The final stage combines the carbon dioxide generated in the first step with hydrogen gas produced by renewable electrolysis of lake water to biologically generate renewable natural gas, RNG. This final product can be injected into the natural gas grid for New York state, in much the same way electricity from wind turbines and solar panels is returned to the electrical grid.
"The proposed system will produce about 909 million liters of RNG per year," said author Nazih Kassem. "This can provide 97% of the total annual peak heating demand. The remainder can be met by purchasing natural gas, increasing Cornell's dairy herd size, or using campus eateries' food wastes for co-digestion. Adding 19 more dairy cows would result in enough RNG production to meet the average annual peak heating demand."
The investigators' detailed economic analysis revealed the importance of state policies regarding the RNG price and other issues.
"If New York state were to adopt policies to create a carbon market and enable competitive RNG pricing, then the proposed biomass peak heating system would show profitability," Kassem said.
More information: "Sustainable district energy integrating biomass peaking with geothermal baseload heating: A case study of decarbonizing Cornell's energy system," Journal of Renewable and Sustainable Energy (2020). aip.scitation.org/doi/10.1063/5.0024841
Pilot redundancies dodged as Lufthansa inks deal with union
Credit: CC0 Public Domain
German airline Lufthansa said Wednesday it has reached a deal with a union that heads off any forced redundancies of pilots to March 2022, as the aviation giant struggles to stay solvent in the pandemic.
Under the deal affecting 5,000 pilots, a short-time programme putting them on curtailed work hours will be extended through 2021, along with accompanying cuts in salaries.
Collective pay increases will also be suspended during this time, according to the agreement with the union Cockpit (VC).
The deal would help the airline save more than 450 million euros ($547 million), said Cockpit.
The measures apply to pilots at Lufthansa, Lufthansa Cargo, Lufthansa Aviation Training and a subgroup of Germanwings pilots.
"I am pleased about the further substantial contribution of the cockpit employees to help manage the crisis," said Michael Niggemann, human resources and legal affairs chief at Lufthansa.
"We want to use the time covered by this crisis collective accord to agree on sustainable structural solutions with VC in response to the changed conditions and to be able to avoid layoffs even after the crisis agreement has expired."
The airline, which received a nine-billion-euro bailout from Germany, said in November that 27,000 jobs were at risk following a collapse in demand sparked by the pandemic.
It posted a loss of two billion euros for the third quarter.
Anti-Modi political alliance in Kashmir win big in local polls
Over 51 percent of nearly 6 million eligible voters across the region’s 20 districts cast their ballots, the Election Commission said, but it comes as many politicians and prominent leaders remain locked up indefinitely
.
Indian militants stand outside a counting centre for the District Development Council (DDC) polls in Srinagar on December 22, 2020 (AFP)
An alliance of political parties opposed to India's policies in Kashmir has won a majority of seats in local elections, the first since New Delhi revoked the disputed region’s semi-autonomous status in a controversial move and took direct authoritative control last year.
The alliance favours self-governance in Kashmir and won 112 out of a total of 280 seats in District Development Council elections, which were held in a staggered eight-phase process from Nov. 28 through December 19.
The New York Times reported that the election was called suddenly and only gave parties a week to register candidates before the first round of the eight-phase polling began, and it came as Kashmiri politicians and public figures remain in detention.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party, or BJP, won 74 seats. Independent candidates won 49 seats.
The BJP has a very small base in the Kashmir Valley, the heart of the decades-old minority region where it got only three seats. Most of the other BJP seats come from four Hindu-majority districts in the Jammu area where it has significant support.
Over 51% of nearly 6 million eligible voters across the region’s 20 districts cast their ballots, the Election Commission said, calling the vote “the biggest festival of democracy.” Results for a few remaining seats will be announced later.
The election is part of a process in which residents directly elect their village representatives, who then vote to form development councils for clusters of villages. Members for the larger District Development Councils are also directly elected but they have no legislative powers and are only responsible for economic development and public welfare.
India has repeatedly called such polls a vital grassroots exercise to boost development and address civic issues and a way to uproot corruption. Indian authorities have kept a tight grip on Kashmir since revoking its autonomy in August last year and have arrested most separatist leaders, who in the past have called for a boycott of elections.
New Delhi has annulled Kashmir's constitution, split the area into two federal territories — Ladakh and Jammu-Kashmir — and removed inherited protections on land and jobs.
Modi’s party flew some of its top national leaders to the troubled region and organised dozens of rallies to bolster its campaigning and broaden its base mainly in the Kashmir Valley. The BJP declared the results as a referendum in favour of its August 2019 changes.
“I feel this is the new beginning of Indian politics,” said Shahnawaz Hussain, the BJP national spokesman.
Many of the BJP opponents in the alliance accused the government of preventing them from campaigning and detaining some of them. Officials have denied the allegations.
One of those arrested before the vote for alleged links with Kashmir’s main rebel group was alliance candidate Waheed Ur Rehman Parra. He defeated his BJP rival. Parra’s party and family have denied police allegations.
Omar Abdullah, Kashmir’s former top elected official and an alliance leader, told reporters that the alliance was “born in adversity” and accused Modi’s party of throwing “the entire weight of the government of India behind their effort to defeat us.” He said the vote signaled rejection of the Indian government’s constitutional changes in Kashmir.
India’s main opposition Congress party won 26 seats.
“Undeterred by the denial of democratic rights, the voters of the Kashmir Valley have firmly rejected the BJP and its misguided Kashmir policy,” its top leader and former home minister P. Chidambaram said.
Kashmir is divided between India and Pakistan and both rivals claim the region in its entirety. Rebels have been fighting against Indian rule since 1989. Most Muslim Kashmiris support the rebel goal that the territory be united either under Pakistani rule or as an independent country.
New Delhi accuses Pakistan of sponsoring Kashmiri militants, a charge Pakistan denies. Tens of thousands of civilians, rebels and government forces have been killed in the conflict.
Video of police gunning down mother and son sparks outrage in Philippines
Footage shows Police Senior Master Sergeant Jonel Nuezca shooting Sonya Gregorio and her son Frank at point-blank range outside their house in Paniqui after a heated confrontation.
Protest in observance of Human Rights Day in Manila, Philippines, December 10, 2020. (Reuters)
A video showing a mother and son being gunned down by police in the Philippines has sparked outrage across the Southeast Asian country.
Local media reported Sonya Gregorio and her son Frank were shot by Police Senior Master Sergeant Jonel Nuezca on Sunday outside their house in Paniqui after a heated confrontation.
President Rodrigo Duterte said he had his mouth "left wide open" when he saw the video on Monday.
Duterte made the comments in his weekly televised message to the Southeast Asian nation on Monday evening, calling the killing "brutal" and "senseless".
Duterte called on police to act according to the law and asked national police to detain the officer without bail.
The heated exchange between the Gregorios and officer Nuezca, who was in civilian clothes, seemed to be about a boga, "a homemade noisemaker constructed from PVC piping that is traditionally played at Christmas time," the New York Times reported.
According to the report, tensions escalated between the suspect's daughter and Sonya before the former officer is heard saying “I will finish you now."
Nuezca is then seen shooting the mother and son in the head at close-range with his handgun.
Twitter users took to the platform to express their condolences for the victim's families and their frustrations against police violence and extrajudicial killings.
Using the hashtags #JusticeForGregorioFamily, #StopTheKillingPH and #PulisAngTerorista they demanded justice.
Duterte's ties with police
Last month, Duterte cleared his newly appointed police chief of any violation of Covid-19 rules when he celebrated his birthday in May during one of the world's strictest lockdowns.
In a national address, Duterte defended police chief Debold Sinas, promoted on November 9 to national police commander from Manila police boss, and noted his appointee's achievements despite a social media stir over perceived special treatment.
Sinas had led anti-drug operations in which thousands of people were killed.
"If he has (committed) any offence, he is pardoned already. I do not see any wrongdoing with moral implications and malice," Duterte said, adding that Sinas was not at fault for receiving a surprise festivity.
Sinas has been under investigation by the justice ministry for celebrating his birthday with fellow officers in May despite coronavirus curbs and at a time police were arresting thousands of people for quarantine violations.
He has apologised for "causing anxiety to the public."
Afghan women's rights activist Freshta Kohistani shot dead
Her murder follow a similar pattern seen in recent weeks, in which prominent
Afghans have died in targeted killings in broad daylight, several of them in the capital.
Afghans pray for TV anchor and human rights advocate
Malala Maiwand who was shot and killed by gunmen during
her funeral ceremony in Jalalabad, east of Kabul, Afghanistan,
Thursday, Dec. 10, 2020. (AP)
Gunmen on motorbike shot dead a women's rights activist and her brother north of Afghanistan's capital Thursday, officials said, as a wave of assassinations ravages the violence-wracked country.
Freshta Kohistani, aged 29, was the second activist to be killed in two days after a prominent pro-democracy advocate was gunned down in Kabul on Wednesday.
Their murders follow a similar pattern seen in recent weeks, in which prominent Afghans have died in targeted killings in broad daylight, several of them in the capital.
"Unknown gunmen on a motorbike assassinated Freshta Kohistani in Kohistan district of Kapisa province," interior ministry spokesman Tariq Arian told reporters.
Kapisa provincial governor Abdul Latif Murad told AFP that the shooting had taken place near Kohistani's home and that her brother was also killed in the attack.
Kohistani, who had campaigned for veteran leader Abdullah Abdullah during last year's presidential election, had enjoyed a relatively large following on social media, and regularly organised civil society events in Kabul calling for women's rights.
Abdullah said Kohistani was killed in a "terrorist attack".
In a Facebook post, he described Kohistani as "brave and fearless" activist who was at the forefront of civil and social life in Afghanistan.
"The continuation of such assassinations is unacceptable," said Abdullah, who leads the country's overall peace process.
Days before her death, Kohistani, who is survived by her husband and one child, wrote on Facebook that she had asked for protection from the authorities after receiving threats.
She had also condemned the ongoing wave of assassinations of journalists and other prominent figures.
"Afghanistan is not a place to live in. There is no hope for peace. Tell the tailor to take your measurement (for a funeral shroud), tomorrow it could be your turn," she tweeted in November.
The wave of assassinations have triggered fear across the country, especially in Kabul.
"The security situation is deteriorating day by day," said Ahmad Jawed, a government employee in Kabul.
"When we leave our homes in the morning, we are not sure we will return home alive by evening."
Journalists, politicians and rights activists have increasingly been targeted as violence surges in Afghanistan, despite peace talks between the government and the Taliban.
On Wednesday, Mohammad Yousuf Rasheed, who led an independent election monitoring organisation, was ambushed and shot in morning rush-hour traffic in Kabul along with his driver.
His murder came a day after five people, including two doctors working for a prison on the outskirts of Kabul, were killed by a car bomb.
A prominent Afghan journalist was also shot this week while on his way to a mosque in the eastern city of Ghazni.
Rahmatullah Nekzad was the fourth journalist to be killed in Afghanistan in the last two months, and the seventh media worker this year, according to the Kabul-based Afghan Journalists Safety Committee.
Nigeria school abductions sparked by cattle feuds, officials say Boko Haram reportedly claimed the kidnappings but parents are less concerned about who was behind the abductions as they reconsider sending their children back to school.
Habubakar Liti (L), Bello Ibrahim (C) and Isah Nasir, recently released students, arrive back home carrying boxes containing their school belongings in Ketare, Nigeria. December 19, 2020. (AP Archive)
The abduction of 344 schoolboys in northwest Nigeria had the appearance of a militant attack. There was even a video purporting to show some of the boys with members of Boko Haram, the radical outfit behind the 2014 kidnapping of more than 270 schoolgirls in the northeast.
But four government and security officials familiar with negotiations who secured the boys’ release told Reuters the attack was a result of inter-communal feuding over cattle theft, grazing rights and water access – not aimed at spreading extremism.
The mass abduction of children in Katsina state would mark a dramatic turn in the clashes between farmers and herders that have killed thousands of people across Africa's most populous nation in recent years, posing a challenge to authorities also battling a decade-long insurgency in the northeast. Officials in Katsina and neighbouring Zamfara, where the boys were released after six days, said the attack was carried out by a gang of mostly semi-nomadic ethnic Fulanis, including former herders who turned to crime after losing their cows to cattle rustlers.
"They have local conflicts that they want to be settled, and they decided to use this (kidnapping) as a bargaining tool," said Ibrahim Ahmad, a security adviser to the Katsina state government who took part in the negotiations through intermediaries.
Such groups are known more for armed robberies and small-scale kidnappings for ransom.
Cattle herders in the northwest are mainly Fulani, whereas farmers are mostly Hausa. For years, farmers have complained of herders letting their cows stray on to their land to graze, while herdsmen have complained their cows are being stolen.
Negotiations
Dozens of gunmen arrived on motorcycles at the Government Science Secondary School on December 11 in the town of Kankara in Katsina. They marched the boys into a vast forest that extends from Katsina into Zamfara.
Officials in both states told Reuters they established contact with the kidnappers through their clan, a cattle breeders' association and former gang members who participated in a Zamfara amnesty programme.
The intermediaries met the kidnappers in Ruga forest on several occasions before they agreed to release the boys, according to Zamfara Governor Bello Matawalle and security sources including Ahmad.
The gang accused vigilante groups, set up to defend farming communities against banditry, of killing Fulani herders and stealing their cows, Matawalle and Ahmad said. They also made similar accusations against members of a Katsina state committee set up to investigate cattle theft, Ahmad added.
He said he was not aware of any such incidents, but said a police investigation had been launched. No ransom was paid for the boys' release, according to officials in both states.
Reuters could not reach the gang for comment. A spokesman for the herders’ association, the Miyetti Allah Cattle Breeders' Association of Nigeria, declined to discuss the negotiations.
Gangs such as these have carried out attacks across the northwest, making it hard for locals to farm, travel or tap rich mineral deposits in some states. They were responsible for more than 1,100 deaths in the first half of 2020 alone, according to rights group Amnesty International.
Boko Haram, based in the northeast, has sought to forge alliances with some of them and released videos this year claiming to have received pledges of allegiance, said Jacob Zenn, a Nigeria expert at the U.S.-based Jamestown Foundation think tank.
A man identifying himself as Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau claimed responsibility for the schoolboys' kidnappings in an unverified audio recording. Soon after, the video started circulating on social media.
However, one boy who spoke in the video later told Nigeria’s Arise television that he did not believe the kidnappers when they told him to say he was being held by Boko Haram.
"Sincerely speaking, they are not Boko Haram... They are just small and tiny, tiny boys with big guns,” said the boy, who did not give his name.
Nigerian Information Minister Lai Mohammed also dismissed Boko Haram's claim at a December 18 news conference, saying: "They just want to claim that they are still a potent force.
"The boys were abducted by bandits, not Boko Haram," Mohammed said.
Independent security experts said the kidnappers appeared to have drawn inspiration from the militants and may have received advice, but most were sceptical of any direct involvement.
Cheta Nwanze, lead partner at Lagos-based risk consultancy firm SBM Intelligence, said direct Boko Haram involvement was unlikely because of the "logistics of getting to an area that is unfamiliar" to them.
"It’s beyond their current capabilities," he said. "The northwest is an ungoverned area controlled by other groups." Second kidnapping
Tension between farming and herding communities has been growing in the northwest, where population growth and climate change have increased competition for resources, analysts said.
The day after the boys were returned to their families in Kankara and other towns, another gang briefly abducted some 80 students who were returning from a trip organised by an Islamic school.
The kidnappers released the children after a gunfight with police and a local vigilante group, state police said.
"All the bandits were Fulanis and are over 100 in number," Abdullahi Sada, who led the vigilantes, told Reuters.
He said some of his men were armed with bows and arrows while others had guns made by local blacksmiths.
He denied any knowledge of attacks by vigilantes against Fulani herders, saying: "I have no idea of any such thing happening in my area."
Nastura Ashir Shariff, who chairs the Coalition of Northern Groups (CNG), an influential civil society group, blamed a scarcity of police for such clashes, saying communities were taking law enforcement into their own hands.
Whoever was responsible for the Kankara kidnappings, Ummi Usman, whose 14-year-old son Mujtaba was among those captured, said she was not sure whether to send him back to school.
"He is still in extreme fear whenever he remembers what they went through at the hands of their abductors," she said. "Some of them were threatening the students that they will be back."
Turkey's shining liver transplant industry has humble origins MURAT SOFUOGLU Yaman Tokat, a leading Turkish surgeon, speaks to TRT World and explains what made Turkey a global leader in the liver transplant industry.
Like a Sufi dervish following his master, Turkish surgeon Yaman Tokat followed Mehmet Muhlis Tekdogan, a well-known heart surgeon in Turkey.
The year was 1987 and Tekdogan had returned to Turkey after spending several years in the US, where he had earned fame as a professor at the University of Chicago. He returned to his homeland with a mission to develop a heart surgery department in the Ege University and slowly build an organ transplant discipline in the country's healthcare sector.
As Tekdogan met then-28-year-old Tokat, a native of Izmir’s Karsiyaka district, he saw in him a man who would fight all the odds and carry out ambitious surgical tasks assigned to him.
“One day the teacher (hoca in Turkish) called me. I was one of his first assistants. ‘My child, do a kidney transplant this week,’ he told me,” Tokat recalls.
It was a time when such transplant operations were neither performed at the Ege University nor in Izmir. Although such surgeries were performed in some other parts of Turkey, the results were mixed: some became successful, some resulted in failures.
“In Turkey, at the time, there was no such concrete medical concept like kidney transplant from a cadaver,” Tokat says.
In light of all the complexities and lack of resources, what Tekdogan demanded from Tokat was not an ordinary operation at all. Instead, it was a very fearful task for surgeons, which turned their dreams into nightmares.
“But in Turkish surgery, if you loudly question an instruction and say 'how the hell can I do this?', then, they [master surgeons] would not assign that task to you ever. If they offer you an assignment, you should just say under any conditions ‘Yes, I can do it’,” Tokat tells TRT World.
“You should not say ‘I don’t know’ or ‘I cannot do it’. That’s what I have learned [from my teachers],” Tokat said, his expressions underlining as if he was sharing the secrets of his surgical success in Turkey.
Turkish model
As Turkey lacked organisational structure in sectors like liver or kidney transplant, individual actions came first before a stable system supporting those crucial surgical procedures came into being, Tokat says. But in the developed world, where a stable system has already been in place, an intervention like Tekdogan's is not needed as their systems naturally decide the order of individual actions, he adds.
“In our case, someone, who knows the job, shows how it should be done, then, things begin to move towards establishing a system,” he explains. In Tokat’s case, it was Tekdogan who "led the charge."
“He came from the US to start this at the Ege University and led the charge. His ‘You-guys-will-do-this' determination made things move there. We could not achieve anything without his leadership and connections,” Tokat says.
While gaining speciality in general surgery for five years, he worked intensely on kidney transplantation. Tokat and his friends also opened Turkey’s first coordination centre in Izmir to organise people to donate their organs.
When Tokat completed his specialisation course, Tekdogan called him again.
“This time he told me ‘Ok, let’s do a liver transplant,’” he said, adding that he immediately followed the advice and researched on which institution was the best for liver transplant.
As he found Britain’s Cambridge University, he moved there in 1993 to deepen his knowledge and practice of liver transplant.
“I learned how to do a liver transplant there with its full procedure. In 1994, when I came back to Turkey, I started doing liver transplant operations. The first time in the country’s history, my team was able to conduct successful operations with patients living for longer periods afterwards,” Tokat says, referring to the surgeries he performed in the Ege University.
Before Tokat conducted liver transplants, Turkey had recorded a few surgeries in the field. In 1988, the first liver transplantation was performed by Mehmet Haberal, whose team also did the first deceased donor liver transplantation (DDLT) in 1990.
But no patients could live for longer periods afterwards, Tokat says, referring to previous operations. “I did the first successful liver transplant in Turkey with the patient living ten years after the operation on August 24, 1994,” says Tokat.
Fatma Akin was Yaman Tokat’s first liver transplant patient, who was also Turkey’s first long term transplant survivor. She became pregnant three months after the operation in 1994. She had a healthy boy named after Tokat’s first name, Yaman. The picture was taken in 2004. (Credit: Yaman Tokat / TRTWorld)
Under Tokat’s leadership, Turkey’s first successful DDLT program was established in 1994 in Izmir. Five years later, he also established the first live donor liver transplantation (LDLT) program in the Ege University. Leading the charge
From 1994 to 1997, Tokat’s team had conducted ten back-to-back liver transplants — each one showed amazingly successful results. The subsequent surgical feats shot him to fame in Turkey. In October 1997, one of Turkey’s private television channels even broadcasted one of his liver transplant operations live on TV.
“When people saw that a liver transplant is indeed possible and a patient could live after an operation, there was a real increase in the number of people donating their organs, making 1997 a turning point for the development of the country’s liver transplant sector,” Tokat says.
In 1998, a new development emerged across the world, which was the possibility of live donor liver transplantation (LDLT). Then, Tokat went to Japan’s Kyoto, which was known as the hub of LDLT, to learn this new technique. He stayed there for 15 days, joining a couple of operations. He came back with VHS footage of the operations.
“At the time, there was no Youtube or anything like that,” he says.
“When I was back in Izmir, I and one of my partners sat down on a weekend on one of the hottest days of the year, watching those 5-minute videos maybe forty times to memorise every move”.
(Musab Abdullah Gungor / TRTWorld)
The following year, in 1999, his team conducted Turkey’s first successful LDLT operation, taking the country to the new age of both organ donation and the LDLT. Both the techniques became popular in Turkey for reasons ranging from religious considerations to close family relations.
“We began doing like 100 operations per year,” Tokat says, referring to a period between 1999 and 2005, when he decided to move the whole liver transplant program to Istanbul’s Florence Nightingale Hospital. For 15 years, his team had worked there until he decided to establish a new center, International Liver Center, this year. He now performs all the liver transplantation operations in his new center.
More than three decades after he conducted the first kidney transplant operation in Izmir, Tokat is now considered to be one of Turkey’s leading liver transplant surgeons, who is also well-known across the world and has earned the reputation of being a fearless surgeon. Since 1994, he has done more than 1,500 liver transplants. He once performed 143 surgeries a year, he recalls. Turkey: a rising star
Thanks to Tokat and his other courageous and capable colleagues, Turkey has made an incredible improvement in the liver transplant industry, where the country is counted among the top three countries in the world in terms of recording the most liver transplant operations along with India and South Korea. (Musab Abdullah Gungor / TRTWorld)
Turkey’s success rate is also quite high in terms of live donor liver transplantation (LDLT), reaching 80 to 90 percent, according to Tokat. With the help of the Turkish health ministry, which accelerated its support to the industry in 2010, 49 liver transplant departments continue to operate across the country with varying degrees of success.
“The state’s decision to fully support organ transplantation ten years ago was a very big step. But we also need to implement that decision in a proper sense,” Tokat says.
“Turkey’s decision at the time was probably one of the best steps ever taken in the world, as it aimed to make all organ transplants free for all patients no matter where operations are done,” he sees.
“We grew up reading books in English and going to Western countries to learn more about the transplantation industry. But now, American and British surgeons are coming to Turkey to get training from us to learn more about LDLT operations,” he says.
In the Ege University in Izmir in 2002, Professor Yaman Tokat discusses with Ronald W. Busuttil, a well-known American professor, who is also the Dumont Professor of Transplantation Surgery and Chief of the Division of Liver and Pancreas Transplant in the Department of Surgery at the UCLA School of Medicine. (Credit: Yaman Tokat / TRTWorld)
Due to the pandemic, Turkey has particularly become an attractive destination for liver transplant operations, as Europe and the US have imposed various travel restrictions preventing people from considering them as an option.
“In LDLT operations, we are much better than Germany, Britain and the US. Our operational costs are also much lower than those countries. Due to the pandemic, India and China have also lost their appeal, making Turkey one of the best destinations for health tourism,” he says.
Tokat and his colleagues also established the International Liver Surgeons Union, where he is the deputy chairman now, bringing out many top liver transplant surgeons across the world. With his International Liver Center, which he ultimately wants to evolve into a university, Tokat aims to collect various data from different cases and a wide range of experiences from Turkey and the world.
“We want to leave Turkey a perpetual legacy and a large collection of data,” he says. If his centre turns into an international medical body, where the world’s top surgeons could find their voice, many patients across the globe would choose Turkey as their ultimate destination to cure liver diseases then, he believes. (Musab Abdullah Gungor / TRTWorld)
“Now I want to run for this dream. If you have dreams, you can find meaning in life,” he says.
Imagination is crucial for continuity, he says, recalling how modern medics in the early 1900s first thought about the possibility of organ transplant by seeing ancient pictures of mythological animals, who were kind of eclectic or hybrid entities created by using different body parts of different animals.
Tokat and his colleagues want to develop an international liver transplant centre, which could be an attractive point for Turkey’s surrounding region from the Balkans to the Middle East and Central Asia. A man of discipline and principle
While Tokat is now undoubtedly one of the biggest names in the liver transplant industry, he appears to have lost no love for what he does.
Tokat, a Turkish word which also means a slap in English language, comes across as a passionate man, who's deeply devoted to his job, liver transplant, one of the hardest surgical procedures, which saves thousands of lives every year.
But he doesn't like to attribute his success to the word 'passion'. Instead, he credits Tekdogan for shaping his career, as well as his middle-class background, which taught him to be honest and ethical no matter what.
“I began my career not as a passionate man but as a man on a mission,” he says, referring to the roots of his Turkish model. “I began this job because my teacher told me ‘Come and start this job’”.
“After my decades-long labour, I have also developed a love for my occupation. You love something if you labour so hard for it. If you don’t labour anymore, love breaks up,” he says.
“As much as I succeed, I learn more and help others and my occupation has turned into a passion for me, making myself a role-model for our society”.
Hospital volunteer Leonid Krasner decorates his single-use PPE suits with art before entering the Covid-19 wards
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Volunteer Leonid Krasner poses for a photo outside the City Clinical Hospital No. 52 treating Covid-19 patients in Moscow, Russia on December 9, 2020. (Reuters)
With medics and helpers covered in masks, medical glasses and protective suits, it is sometimes hard to convey festive cheer to the patients on Moscow's Covid-19 wards.
But Leonid Krasner, who has been volunteering at a hospital since the first wave, has found a way with the colourful pictures he draws on the back of his overalls to help patients recognise him and bring a smile to those being treated.
Krasner, 59, decorates his single-use suits before entering the wards every time he is in the hospital.
He once drew a cartoonish plane for a sick pilot and a congratulations card for a mother on Mother's Day.
"This is to boost your mood and your immune system," he told an old lady with an oxygen mask, charmed by the Christmas tree daubed on his back.
During the outbreak's second wave, Moscow has registered around 6,000-7,000 new infections every day, about a quarter of Russia's nationwide caseload, and it has had to open several temporary hospitals, including one on an ice rink. Cheer up!
Krasner and some of his fellow volunteers are tasked with looking after the weak patients discharged from intensive care units to regular wards.
They help them with every day things like combing their hair, brushing their teeth and shaving. A former businessman, Krasner was one of dozens of Muscovites with no prior medical experience who volunteered to help at coronavirus hospital number 52 in spring when the outbreak hit the Russian capital.
He ended up catching the virus himself shortly after his first shifts and it took him two weeks to recover at home before he could get back to his patients.
"Even if a person is in a bad way and is sick, they still need emotions ...This cheers people up," said Krasner outside a ward where he had been massaging the legs of a recovering patient.
Framed: What is justice to a man wrongly imprisoned in India for 23 years?
Forced into confessing to a crime he didn't commit, Nisar Mirza Hussain has no idea how to rekindle his relationship with freedom.
Srinagar, India-administered Kashmir — It is May 1996 and Mirza Nisar Hussain is 16. He has finally come to terms with losing his father to cancer in 1990.
A year later, Nisar quits school to help his brother, Mirza Iftikhar Hussain. Their business selling Kashmiri Pashmina shawls and carpets is booming: they are doing well not only where they live in Delhi, but also in Mussoorie (an Indian hill station) and even in Nepal.
Nisar has gone to Kathmandu to receive payment from a trader. He stays with few other Kashmiris in a rented room near a marketplace in Maharajganj. He makes his way to a telephone booth to place a call to his family in Srinagar, with friends in tow.
He enters the booth and realises that several police vehicles have suddenly surrounded the booth - he has no idea what is happening. Even before he can make the phone call, he and his friends are bundled into a police vehicle and taken to an unknown location. What he does notice is that it's not the Nepal Police, but the Delhi Police leading the operation.
Nisar and his friends are interrogated and asked about the purpose of their visit to Nepal. Then he is shown the photograph of the trader who owes him money. He recognises him. His friends also recognise the photo and tell the police how they know him. It still doesn't make sense to Nisar.
They reach the police station where Nisar is taken aback when he sees dozens of Kashmiris having been rounded up (whose fates are unknown to this day). It’s in this police station that Nisar overhears the Delhi Police explaining to the Nepal Police that these Kashmiris are being detained in connection with the Lajpat Nagar bomb blasts that had taken place on the evening of May 2, 1996, in the busy Central Market area of Lajpat Nagar in Delhi. An attack that killed 13 and injured 39 others.
Though just a teenager, Nisar is able to grasp the gravity of the situation. He and his friends are frisked, stripped naked and interrogated for several hours. They are then driven to the India-Nepal border in Sunauli.
An old photograph of Mirza Nisar Hussain in his teenage years, before he was arrested by Indian police in Nepal. (TRTWorld)
The journey is not easy – on their way to India, the police abuse them, some of them even beat them. As they cross the border, Nisar is frightened by the sight of dozens of police jeeps waiting for them. They are hooded, bundled into a police jeep and driven to an underground detention camp in Lodhi Road — and that is where Nisar's story begins. Torture and coercion
Nisar has no idea where he is, and as soon as he reaches the Lodhi Road detention camp, he is thrown into a cell and stripped naked. His friends, in other cells, face the same treatment.
Nobody says anything. A group of policemen barge in with wooden clubs and beat him occasionally. They hit him all over his body — his shrieks are confined to the concrete walls. He has, for now, disappeared from the face of the earth.
The more he pleads with his captors to stop, the more infuriated they grow and the more brutal they become, as if pleading for mercy triggers their mercilessness. He is not allowed clothes nor food, except on the rare occasion when he is given a cup of tea and bread, which is again followed by a harsh beating.
Nisar is unable to fall into a restful sleep. His friends in other cells meet the same fate. It dawns upon him how young men who disappear in Kashmir leave behind families in a miserable spiral of anticipation, and he could become one of those young men.
Tihar, Central Jail, New Delhi, India. (Arijit Sen / Getty Images)
Nine days pass and he is beaten to a point where he is ready to tell the police that he's willing to do anything they want. By this point, Nisar’s family and friends hear about his arrest. The media starts raising questions about arrests made in Nepal. Under pressure, the Delhi Police’s special cell produces Nisar and two others before the media, but claims to have arrested them on that day.
But before being paraded in front of the media, they are made to sign on a ream of over 200 blank pages. In exchange for no further beatings, they are told to memorise a story: confess in court to their involvement in the Lajpat Nagar bomb blast.
Nisar, who knows nothing about driving, is told to confess to having driven an explosives-laden car to Lajpat Nagar; another friend is asked to tell the court that he had procured explosives from a handler. They agree to confess but seek assurances they will not be beaten.
But Nisar is already broken. How does a boy who has not yet begun to dream, understand that this could be the end of his future? He resigns to his fate. He gives up on hope. He longs for death. Prays for death.
When Nisar and his friends are produced in court, the judge takes a look at them, sees their condition, and asks nothing. He orders them into 14-day police custody. During those two weeks, several agencies interrogate them, take their statements and confessions. They are asked to repeat the story the Delhi Police asked them to memorise. But the thing about lies is that you tend to forget them no matter how much you repeat them.
In every retelling they forget a detail or deviate from the plot, then they are beaten until they remember what they are told to say. As they keep repeating the coerced confession, their chances for freedom turn bleaker. It’s here that Nisar learns that his brother, Iftikhar, has also been arrested in the same case. The hope that Iftikhar could support his family comes crashing down.
Two weeks later, Nisar and others are produced in court again and are sent to Tihar Jail. His age is falsely mentioned as 19, snatching any chance of him being sent to a juvenile court where his prospects for release would have been higher. Jail diary
What would a 16-year-old, who had never even been in a fight before, do in a prison where hardened criminals, murderers and thieves were kept?
Two weeks later, Nisar finds himself in court again — and another shock awaits.
Nisar finds a team of Rajasthan Police in the court, demanding his custody. They claim Nisar’s involvement in a bomb blast on a bus in Samleti, Rajasthan that had taken place on May 22, 1996, and killed 14 people.
Nisar is shocked. He has never even been to Rajasthan, he tells the court. Even the Delhi Police, who had framed him, tell the court he should not be handed over to the Rajasthan Police. But the court sends Nisar into their custody and he's taken to Rajasthan in connection with the Samleti bomb blast case.
Nisar is taken to a jail in Rajasthan and put in a prison called Bandgaathi, a Hindi word for a ‘closed valley’, a name given by the prisoners to an isolation ward. It is a dark and dingy ward where each cell is devoid of any light and bereft of windows. They are so small that one feels the walls might just shrink. It has a heavy door with a small hole to peep through - that is his only window to the outside world. The cell is dusty, dark and humid. That is all there is: no separate space for a toilet, to bathe, to eat or sit.
Nisar eats, prays, sleeps and defecates within these four walls. All he gets is a small pot of water every day with which he washes and uses the rest of it to drink in the heat of the summer, in a region where the summer temperatures can touch 48 degrees celsius.
But the cell is so filthy that he gets lice in his hair, body and even in his eyebrows. A pot of water is not enough to get rid of the pests. The filth, lice and the sickness they cause is not where the torment stops.
Nisar is regularly beaten for three months, so much so that his left hip is broken. Every time the policemen leave the cell, he imagines himself dying. He imagines comfort in death. The police continuously force him to toe their line, confessing to having been part of the Samleti bomb blast.
How does one live with isolation? In that sweltering prison cell, Nisar survives by remembering the names and faces of all those he had loved. If there is a miracle that the weak and tormented can perform, it lies in summoning their imagination.
Three months later, Nisar is produced in a Rajasthan court where he sees his mother, sisters and uncle at a distance. As soon as they see each Nisar’s condition, they begin to wail - his sisters pull at their hair and fling their scarves; his mother falls unconscious and the uncle tries to console them as Nisar helplessly watches from a distance. That is all the consolation allowed.
Nisar is taken back to his cell
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Mirza Nissar Hussain, wrongly convicted in the '1996 Lajpat Nagar bomb blast case', seen after a hearing at Patiala Court in New Delhi on Thursday, April 8, 2010. The court convicted him along with 5 others in the case. (Perveen Negi / TRTWorld)
One day, when Nisar sees his elder brother, Zaffar Hussain, he breaks down and realises his helplessness. He pleads for him not to visit in the future and to let him be. He bids him farewell and resigns to his fate, again. He now realises the futility of hope.
The same evening, Nisar hears loud thuds, like gallops, approaching towards him. The heavy door of his cell is thrown open and he is dragged out. Dozens of policemen and several prisoners, holding wooden clubs, start beating him until he loses consciousness and is thrown back into the same cell.
Nine months later, Nisar is shifted back to Tihar where he stays until late 2012.
In Tihar, Nisar meets other Kashmiris who had been framed in the same cases. While there are no frequent beatings and torture in Tihar, life there is fraught with its challenges.
In a barrack with a capacity of not more than 50 people, the cell where Nisar is kept is packed with over 150-170 people. In Delhi’s simmering heat and humidity and the absence of any cooling arrangements, getting a moment’s sleep in these cells is unimaginable.
Nisar and his friend protest against going back to the overcrowded barrack. The jail in-charge, Subhash Sharma, who has earned the sobriquet ‘Saddam Hussain’ for his strictness, puts them in Kasuri ward, a cell reserved for those who violate prison rules. And it comes as a relief. The Kasuri ward is not overcrowded and has enough space for Nisar and his friend so that they can sleep and pray at ease.
Hope and despair
Life becomes fragile when you give up on hope. In his 23 years of prison life, more than 30 judges were changed as they kept dragging the case to a point where it became completely hollowed out. There was one instance in 2006 when a bench was hearing Nisar’s case on a day-to-day basis and his hope for freedom seemed to resurrect.
The 16 prime witnesses the Delhi Police had presented turned hostile. Nisar and others had learnt to hope again. One day, when Nisar was taken to the Patiala Court for the hearing, he found there was no judge. His rekindled hope had been doused again.
In 2010, his brother, Mirza Iftikhar, was acquitted of all charges and released. That revived hope. Soon after his release, Iftikhar moved the Delhi High Court in his brother’s case and challenged the lower court’s order.
Since the case had gone off the rails, the witnesses turned hostile and the case was cannibalised by its own loopholes. The High Court finally acquitted Nisar and his friend Ali Mohammad in 2012 of all charges in the Lajpat Nagar Bomb Blast case. Nisar’s good behaviour in court was duly mentioned and appreciated by the judge who pronounced the judgment.
Nisar waited in anticipation. He imagined himself walking out of the prison. He was eager and impatient. He had forgotten what it meant to be free. But it was still out of reach. Nisar and Ali were shifted to Rajasthan jail to await a verdict in the Samleti blast case.
An old photograph of Mirza Nisar Hussain (left) with his brother Mirza Iftikhar (Right). (TRTWorld)
As soon as he reached the jail, Nisar was struck by the realisation that maybe he is destined to die alone in a prison cell.
His time in Rajasthan jail was not easy. Whenever there were attacks on Indian forces in Kashmir or massive anti-India protests, Nisar and his fellow Kashmiris faced the brunt of it - the inmates called them terrorists, beat them up and abused them.
When a suicide bomber in Kashmir’s Pulwama killed over 40 Indian paramilitary troops on February 14, 2019, everything inside the jail changed. Emotions ran high. They were constantly abused and threatened.
In the aftermath of the February 2019 attack, Nisar recalls, some prisoners bludgeoned a Pakistani prisoner to death with a stone in a TV room because they wanted to avenge the deaths of Indian troops.
In such a hostile environment, Nisar was uncertain of his fate. But fate works in unusual ways. A former Delhi University Professor, the late SAR Geelani, helped to arrange for Nisar a reputed lawyer, Kamini Jaiswal, who represented Nisar and Ali in the Samleti blast case.
Again, judges were changed, the case dragged on and hearings were adjourned. It was finally in 2019 when a judge from Punjab heard the case on a day-to-day basis for 10 days and heard all the arguments. She acquitted Nisar and Ali and they walked free from Rajasthan jail on July 23, 2019. Hope had finally outlived injustice.
Freedom?
“Sometimes I think I was better off in jail,” Nisar says as he reflects on his life. “I knew my fate when I was in jail. Here I am uncertain. There is too much to worry about.”
It has been more than a year since he was released, but Nisar hasn't found a way to earn. “Soon after I was released, the entire Kashmir was put under a lockdown and the government had other priorities. Any chances of being compensated for my 23 years of wrongful confinement were lost. It was followed by the coronavirus (pandemic),” he says.
Mirza Nisar Hussain at his home in Srinagar's Shamswari, in India-administered Kashmir. (Haziq Qadri / TRTWorld)
It’s becoming increasingly difficult for Nisar to face his relatives, neighbours and acquaintances, for they keep asking about his plans to get married, a job and his future.
“There is no future. What should I tell them?” Nisar says.
Now whenever a guest or a relative visits his home in Srinagar’s old city, Nisar rushes off to another room and waits for the guest to leave so that he doesn’t need to speak about his future. “Who will marry a 40-year-old jobless man?” he asks.
When his brother, Iftikhar, was released, he bore some of the expenses of the case, even though Kamini Jaiswal did not charge anything from the Mirza family. He works at a private firm and they had loaned him money to meet the expenses of the case.
Now that Nisar has been released, half of Iftikhar’s salary is cut to pay back the loan. Whatever little is left, helps to run household expenses. Another brother, Zaffar Hussain, is a private teacher and earns a modest salary.
When Nisar and his brother were arrested in 1996, their shops and goods in Delhi were confiscated. Their family business could never be revived. “If we had not been falsely implicated, we would have been doing well right now. I would not have been begging for a job,” he says.
Every time he looks at his mother, Nisar says, a feeling of despondency dawns upon him. “She wants to see me have a future. She doesn't want me to suffer. She is tormented by questions people ask about me. That torments her. And her grief torments me,” Nisar says. “Life outside the jail is not so free after all.”
Mirza Nisar Hussain with his brother Mirza Iftikhar (left) at his residence in Srinagar's Shamswari in india-administered Kashmir. (Haziq Qadri / TRTWorld) Justice?
People in their forties might reflect back on their lives and sift through all the memories, good and bad. But what if there is only one memory that permeates throughout your entire life?
What if there is no memory except those of cold concrete grey walls; of years and years of hopelessness; of ageing without dreams; of stolen adolescence; of deceit and betrayal; of being reduced to a number? Then it’s not a memory. It’s not life. It’s a dark spell that makes you believe in the futility of existence, of everything good, like hope. And what if this dark spell lasts a lifetime?
It’s not that Nisar is not happy to be ‘free’, but what does justice mean to him? Does freedom after 23 years offer a semblance of justice? What should one call it?
Nisar sums it up with just a handful of words: “Justice died in prison.”
Qadri Inzamam is a freelance journalist based in Indian-administered Kashmir. His stories have been published in the BBC, Al Jazeera, The Diplomat, The New Arab, Caravan, Scroll and several national and local media publications.
(Musab Abdullah Gungor / TRTWorld)
(Musab Abdullah Gungor / TRTWorld)
