In Afghan hospital, unpaid doctors and rigid Taliban clash


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Afghanistan Hospital Taliban TakeoverMastora holds her 1-year-old son Mohebullah, who almost died of malnutrition, inside the hospital in Mirbacha Kot, Afghanistan on Sunday, Oct. 24, 2021. Health care workers continue to work without salaries, without medicine and with frequent power cuts as Afghanistan's economy crumbles. (AP Photo/Bram Janssen)More

SAMYA KULLAB and BRAM JANSSEN
Mon, November 1, 2021, 

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — The Taliban-appointed supervisor of a small district hospital outside the Afghan capital has big plans for the place — to the dismay of the doctors who work there.

Mohammed Javid Ahmadi, 22, was asked by his superiors, fresh off the fields of battle from a war that has spanned most of his life, what kind of jobs he could do. On offer were positions in an array of ministries and institutions now under the Taliban’s power following their August takeover and the collapse of the former government.

It was Ahmadi’s dream to be a doctor; poverty had kept him from gaining admission to medical school, he said. He chose the health sector. Soon after, the Mirbacha Kot district hospital just outside of Kabul became his responsibility.

“If someone with more experience can take this position it would be better, but unfortunately if someone (like that) gets this position, after some time you’ll see that he might be a thief or corrupt,” he said, highlighting a perennial problem of the former government.

It’s a job Ahmadi takes very seriously, but he and the other health workers in the 20-bed hospital rarely see eye-to-eye. Doctors are demanding overdue salary payments amid critical shortages of medicine, fuel and food. Ahmadi’s first priority is to build a mosque inside the hospital quarters, segregate staff by gender and encourage them to pray. The rest will follow according to the will of God, he tells them.

The drama in Mirbacha Kot is playing out across Afghanistan’s health sector since the Taliban takeover. With power changing hands overnight, health workers have had to contend with a difficult adjustment. The host of problems that preceded the Taliban’s rise were exacerbated.

The U.S. froze Afghan assets in American accounts shortly after the takeover, in line with international sanctions, crippling Afghanistan's banking sector. International monetary organizations that once funded 75% of state expenditures paused disbursements, precipitating an economic crisis in the aid-dependent nation.

Health is acutely affected. World Bank allocations funded 2,330 out of Afghanistan's 3,800 medical facilities, including the salaries of health workers, said the Taliban’s Deputy Health Minister Abdulbari Umer.

Wages had been unpaid for months before the government collapsed.

“This is the biggest challenge for us. When we came here there was no money left,” said Umer. “There is no salary for staff, no food, no fuel for ambulances and other machines. There is no medicine for hospitals; we tried to find some from Qatar, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, but it's not enough."

In Mirbacha Kot, doctors have not been paid in five months.

Disheartened staff continue to attend to up to 400 patients a day, who come from the neighboring six districts. Some have general complaints or a heart condition. Others bring sick babies.

’What can we do? If we don’t want to come here there’s no other job for us. If there was another job, nobody can pay us. It’s better to stay here,” said Dr. Gul Nazar.

Every morning, Ahmadi makes his rounds. His small frame, topped by a black turban, is a sharp contrast to the sea of white coats that routinely rush in and out of the facility to tend to patients.

The first order of the day is the registration book. Ahmadi wants every doctor to sign in and out. It’s a formality most health workers are too busy to remember, but neglecting it is enough to inspire Ahmadi’s ire.

Second, the mosque.

Workers come to the hospital to take measurements for the project and Ahmadi gives them orders.

“We are Muslims, and we have 32 staff members, and for them, we need a mosque,” he said.

There are many benefits, he added. Relatives can stay with sick patients overnight, sleeping in the mosque, as the hospital lacks extra beds especially during the winter months. “And this is what is needed the most,” he said.

Dr. Najla Quami looked on, bewildered.

She, too, has not been paid in months and routinely complains of medicine shortages in the maternity ward. They have no pain medication for expectant mothers. The pharmacy is stocked only with analgesic and some antibiotics. Is this the time for a mosque, she asked.

But Ahmadi said it was the responsibility of non-governmental organizations to resume their aid programs to finance these shortages. The money for the mosque will come from local donations.

Afghanistan Hospital Taliban TakeoverTaliban member Mohammad Javid Ahmadi watches while patients being treated for drug addiction play a game inside the Mirbacha Kot hospital in Afghanistan on Sunday, Oct. 24, 2021. Ahmadi, who has no medical training or experience, was appointed as the new manager of the hospital. (AP Photo/Bram Janssen)

His arrival ushered in other sweeping changes.

Men and women were told to stay in separate wards. Female doctors are forbidden to go to the emergency room. Ahmadi ordered them to wear a head covering and focus on female patients.

“We can’t go to the other side of the hospital,” said Dr. Elaha Ibrahimi, 27. “Woman is woman, man is man, he told us.”

Due to shortages, doctors advise patients to find medications elsewhere and return. Ibrahimi said Ahmadi often scrutinizes her prescriptions.

“He isn’t a doctor, we don’t know why he is here, we ask ourselves this all the time,” he said.

But Ahmadi is quick to allege deeply entrenched corruption in the hospital under the former hospital administrator, his predecessor from the former government.

He said he was aghast to uncover an entire warehouse full of medical equipment, furniture and other stolen goods to be sold in the market for personal profit. He could not offer proof that this was the intention of the previous administrator.

He sees his job to meticulously ensure that never happens again, echoing the Taliban’s broader aims for the nation.

Doctors are routinely lambasted by angry patients, most of whom can’t afford to pay for the life-saving medicines. “All of them fight with us,” Ibrahimi said.

Staff working the night shift say there is no food. The power shuts off for hours in the day with generator fuel quickly running out.

Quami holds a mobile phone for light as she makes her way to check on malnourished babies.

“Every doctor here is in a deep depression,” she said.

Ahmadi, by contrast, said his dreams were finally coming true.

Working in the hospital has afforded something life growing up poor never could: A medical education.

He claims that in the past two months he has learned how to administer injections and prescribe basic pharmaceuticals. He said that's part of the reason why he scrutinizes Ibrahimi’s prescriptions.

“I know the names of the medicines needed for different conditions,” he said proudly. Recently, after a car accident, he was on the scene to provide an injection of painkillers, he added.

Ahmadi still dreams of being a doctor, and, like the health workers he supervises, hopes the money comes through somehow.

Decades-long communist rebel leader killed AMBUSHED AND MURDERED in Philippines


 Communist rebel Jorge Madlos delivers a speech during the celebration of the 42nd anniversary of the Communist Party of the Philippines Sunday, Dec. 26, 2010, at Mt. Diwata in the southern Philippines. Philippines Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana announced Monday, Nov. 1, 2022, that military forces have killed the rebel commander Madlos in a Saturday clash in the mountainous hinterlands of Bukidnon province, saying it was a major blow to the already battered New People’s Army guerrilla group. (AP Photo/Pat Roque, File)


JIM GOMEZ
Mon, November 1, 2021

MANILA, Philippines (AP) — Philippine forces have killed a key communist rebel commander in one of Asia's longest-running insurgencies, in what the military described as a daring raid in the country's remote southern region, but what guerrilla leaders said was an ambush.

Jorge Madlos, who used the nom de guerre Ka Oris, was for many decades a leading figure and spokesman for the communist fighters in the southern Philippines' mountainous hinterlands.

Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana on Monday said government forces killed Madlos in Bukidnon province on Saturday. He described the rebel's death as a major blow to the already-battered New People’s Army guerrilla group.

Regional military commander Maj. Gen. Romeo Brawner said villagers tipped off the military about the presence of about 30 rebels, who were holding discussions with residents in a remote village near Impasug-ong town. Fighter planes were deployed to fire rockets at the rebel position, which the military said was protected by land mines, before a ground assault was ordered.

After a gunbattle that lasted less than an hour, troops found the bodies of Madlos, 72, and his medical aide, their assault rifles and ammunition, Brawner said.

“Justice has been served for those innocent civilians and their communities he terrorized for several decades,” Brawner told reporters.

The guerrillas, however, said in a statement on a website linked to the group that the long-ailing Madlos was traveling with a rebel medic on a motorcycle to get medical treatment when government forces gunned them down. The rebels said both Madlos and his companion were unarmed and that no military airstrike or gunbattle took place.

Military commanders have blamed Madlos and his forces for years of deadly assaults against security forces, as well as attacks on mining companies and pineapple and other agricultural plantations to extort money, or what the guerrillas call “revolutionary taxes,” from local and foreign-owned businesses.

Madlos was blamed by the military for helping to plot a 2011 attack by more than 200 guerrillas on three nickel mining complexes in southern Surigao del Norte province which the rebels ransacked the site after disarming guards and holding several employees at gunpoint. One of the companies that came under attack, the country’s biggest nickel producer partly owned by Japan’s Sumitomo Corp., was forced to temporarily halt operations following the raid.

Madlos was a student activist who quit university and went underground after then-Philippine dictator Ferdinand Marcos declared martial law in 1972. Distinguished by his trademark Mao-style cap, goatee and folksy manners, Madlos stuck it out with the insurgency even after falling ill more than a decade ago. In an interview with The Associated Press in 2010 from a rebel mountain camp in the south, he said that only one thing could make him leave his comrades.

“Our retirement comes in death,” Madlos said then.

The military says about 3,500 to 4,000 communist fighters remain despite years of rebel setbacks, surrenders and factionalism. Peace talks brokered by Norway collapsed between President Rodrigo Duterte’s administration and the guerrillas after both sides accused each other of renewed deadly attacks.

Mexican journalist dies from wounds; 2nd slain in week

Sun, October 31, 2021

MEXICO CITY (AP) — Photojournalist Alfredo Cardoso died in a hospital Sunday two days after being shot in Acapulco, the second Mexican journalist to be killed during the week, a international journalism group said.

Jan Albert Hootsen, Mexico’s representative for the Committee to Protect Journalists, reported Cardoso's death, saying he had direct confirmation from Cardoso’s family.

Prosecutors in Acapulco said Friday that Cardoso, who worked for a news portal, had been found sitting on a city street with gunshot wounds and was taken to a hospital. According to the National Union of Press Editors and information from the family relayed by CPJ, Cardoso had been taken from his home earlier Friday by armed men.

On Thursday, reporter Fredy López Arévalo, who contributed to several local, national and foreign media outlets, was shot to death when he arrived at his home in San Cristobal de las Casas in Chiapas state.

During the first three years of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador's administration, 47 journalists and 94 human rights defenders have been slain in Mexico, according to data offered in early October by the the undersecretary of human rights, population and migration, Alejandro Encinas.

Mexico is the most violent country in the Western Hemisphere for journalism, according to CPJ, a New York-based press protection group.

AMERIKAN TALIBAN
GOP senator Josh Hawley says men watch pornography and play video games because of ‘attacks on manhood’


GOP senator Josh Hawley says men watch pornography and play video games because of ‘attacks on manhood’
Andrew Feinberg
Mon, November 1, 2021

Senator Josh Hawley on Monday suggested that men are viewing more pornography and playing more video games because of efforts to combat toxic masculinity that amount to attacks on “manhood”.

Mr Hawley, a Republican who serves as Missouri’s junior senator, made the bizarre charges in a speech to the National Conservatism Conference in Orlando Florida, in which he offered no evidence or sources for his claims, but nonetheless suggested that “the left” is trying to bring about “a world beyond men”.

“Can we be surprised that after years of being told that they are the problem, that their manhood is the problem, more and more men are withdrawing into the enclave of idleness and pornography and video games?” he said. “While the left may celebrate this decline of men, I for one cannot join them. No one should.”

Mr Hawley also claimed, without evidence, that boys “are increasingly treated like an illness in search of a cure” by American culture, and for good measure took a shot at America’s film industry, which he said “delivers the toxic masculinity theme ad nauseum in television and film”.

In addition to video games and pornography, the first-term senator – one of seven whose push to throw out the results of the 2020 election gave rise to the mob that stormed the US Capitol on 6 January – suggested that unemployment and people waiting longer to get married are the result of attacks on traditional masculinity, which he called “vital to self-government”.

As part of his prescription for the problem, Mr Hawley and his wife are launching a podcast focused on family values. 

The senator received criticism for his tacit support of the 6 January demonstrators when the show was announced.

I THOUGHT THE RULING CLASS WAS ALWAYS RIGHT

Sen. Josh Hawley says 'the Left,' which 'controls the commanding heights of American society,' wants to 'give us a world beyond men'

Bryan Metzger
Mon, November 1, 2021

THE BANALITY OF EVIL

Republican Senator Josh Hawley of Missouri 

Ken Cedeno/AFP/Getty Images

Sen. Hawley delivered a speech on "The Future of the American Man" at a nationalist conference in Orlando.

Hawley argued that "the Left" wants to "give us a world beyond men" by assaulting traditional masculinity.

He also criticized 'X' gender passports and said vaccine mandates were an attack on working class men.

Republican Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri said on Sunday that "the Left" - encompassing lawmakers, Hollywood, media organizations, universities, and even sports teams - want to usher in a "world beyond men" as part of a broader effort to "deconstruct America."

Hawley made the remarks at the National Conservatism conference in Orlando, a gathering of right-wing activists and intellectuals who promote a nationalist brand of conservatism as an alternative to the "excesses of purist libertarianism." Other speakers at the conference include Sens. Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz, Ohio Senate candidate and "Hillbilly Elegy" author J.D. Vance, and tech billionaire Peter Thiel.

According to Hawley's prepared remarks, the Missouri senator opened his speech by arguing that "the Left" controls the "commanding heights of American society" and wants to usher in the total deconstruction on America through the power it currently wields.

WELL IT IS 
"They believe that America is a systemically racist, structurally oppressive, hopelessly patriarchal kind of place.

 It's a dystopia, if only Americans would get woke enough to see it," said Hawley. "It's a nation that needs to be taught how unjust it truly is and after that, rebuilt from top to bottom."

The focus of Hawley's speech was the "future of the American man," and the senator said that "deconstruction of America begins with and depends on the deconstruction of American men." He noted that women were also central to the history of America, but that the assault on men was "already far advanced" compared to women.

Hawley argued that an array of disparate forces, including a "gender equity" agenda touted by the White House, the addition of a new 'X' gender marker to passports, the teachings of university professors, ADHD diagnoses among young boys, a 2019 Gillette ad about toxic masculinity, and even new vaccine mandates issued by the Biden administration were part of a broad attack on men and traditional masculinity.

"Working class men have been a particular target for this Administration," said Hawley. "President Biden's illegal vaccine mandate on private citizens puts millions of working class men squarely in the cross hairs. Shut up, get the jab, or get lost."

Men, particularly those without college degrees, are a key demographic within the Republican Party, though President Joe Biden ate into some of that support base in 2020. 

Hawley, who was the first senator to announce that he would challenge states' election results on January 6, is a self-styled populist and proponent of traditional values.

The senator also claimed that much of the ideologies at the heart of the purported assault on traditional masculinity were derived from the works of Karl Marx, French philosopher Jacques Derrida, and New Left German philosopher Herbert Marcuse.

MARCUSE EMBRACED THE STUDENT YOUTH REVOLT OF 1968 AND WAS SEEN AS A CONTRIBUTOR. HE MENTORED ANGELA DAVIS. HE WAS A MEMBER OF THE FRANKFURT INSTITUTE 

"While Marx pinned his hopes on working class men, the proletariat, Marcuse saw those same men as the problem," Hawley said. "They were too culturally conservative. Too hidebound. Too traditional. Marcuse concluded the revolution would only come from the well-educated elite, who could see beyond mirages like manhood."

The Missouri senator highlighted as "particularly heartbreaking" a recent report in the Wall Street Journal about American men increasingly declining to go to college, falling into pathologies of despair and retreating into watching pornography and playing video games.

Hawley concluded his speech by calling for "explicit rewards in our tax code for marriage" and "requiring that at least half of all goods and supplies critical for our national security be made in the United States" as a way to support American men and make them into an "unrivaled force for good in the world."

"To each man, I say: You can be a tremendous force for good. Your nation needs you. The world needs you," Hawley said.

The US Navy has figured out what a nuclear-powered attack submarine ran into in the South China Sea: report

Ryan Pickrell
Mon, November 1, 2021

The Seawolf-class attack submarine USS Connecticut has been battling bed bugs. US Navy WTF DOES THAT HAVE TO DO WITH ANYTHING IN THIS STORY

The US Navy has completed its investigation into a mysterious submarine incident in the South China Sea.

USS Connecticut grounded on an uncharted seamount, USNI News first reported.

The investigation has been sent to the fleet commander, who will consider accountability actions.

The US Navy investigators have determined what a nuclear-powered attack submarine hit in the South China Sea last month, USNI News reported Monday, citing defense officials familiar with the investigation and a legislative official.

IT COULD HAVE BEEN A KRAKEN

The Seawolf-class nuclear-powered attack submarine USS Connecticut collided with an unidentified object on October 2, the Navy revealed five days after the incident. Investigators have reportedly determined the submarine ran aground on an undersea mountain, a seamount, the location of which was uncharted.

The earlier Navy statement on the incident left a lot to the imagination, stating only that the the boat struck something while operating in international waters, there were no life-threatening injuries, the sub was in stable condition, and the nuclear propulsion systems were not damaged.

The sea service did not say where the incident occurred, though Navy officials speaking on the condition of anonymity provided that information to some reporters following the release of the statement.

As of last Wednesday, the US Navy still was not quite sure what the submarine collided with, though defense officials told USNI News that early indications suggested that Connecticut collided with a seamount, an undersea feature that rises from the ocean's depth. It can also pose a risk to ships on the surface depending on how close its summit is to the surface.

China, often at odds with the US in the South China Sea, has capitalized on the limited information provided by the Navy about the incident, with Chinese officials accusing the US of a cover-up and calling it "cagey" and "irresponsible."

The US military has denied that it is trying to cover up the incident. After a Chinese foreign ministry spokesman first made the allegations, Pentagon press secretary John Kirby said: "It is an odd way of covering something up when you put a press release out about it."

But Beijing, both the foreign ministry and the defense ministry, has continued to criticize the US for a "lack of transparency" while repeatedly calling the US "the biggest force for militarization of the South China Sea," an accusation typically aimed at China.

The conclusion of the command investigation into the USS Connecticut incident takes some of the mystery out of things. The investigation, according to USNI News, has been passed up to the 7th Fleet commander, who will make decisions about potential accountability actions.

As the investigation into the incident has not yet been publicly released, information is still limited on how the submarine ran into an seamount and to what degree members of the crew and command are responsible.

The submarine, one of only three in the powerful Seawolf class, is in Guam, where it is undergoing repairs, likely initial work before more extensive repairs can be completed elsewhere.

There are concerns that if the Connecticut has to be taken back to a public shipyard for additional repairs, it could throw a wrench into a submarine maintenance backlog that has long been problematic.

Insider reached out to 7th Fleet for comment on the results of the investigation but did not immediately receive a response.

KRAKEN

The kraken is a legendary sea monster of gigantic size and cephalopod-like appearance in Scandinavian folklore. According to the Norse sagas, the kraken dwells off the coasts of Norway and Greenland and terrorizes nearby sailors. Authors over the years have postulated that the legend may have originated from sightings of giant squids that may grow to 13–15 meters (40–50 feet) in length. The sheer size and fearsome app…

Seamounts — undersea mountains formed by volcanic activity — were once thought to be little more than hazards to submarine navigation. Today, scientists recognize these structures as biological hotspots that support a dazzling array of marine life. The biological richness of seamount habitats results from the shape of these undersea mountains.

What is a seamount?

oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/seamounts.html

In one tweet, Elon Musk captures the everyday sexism faced by women in STEM

He doesn't see what's wrong.

FROM OUR OBSESSION
Modern Leadership
The people and companies that are shaping ideas about how companies should be run.

By Ananya Bhattacharya
Tech reporter
Published November 1, 2021

The world’s richest man’s poor sense of humor is exposing how much of a boys’ club tech still is.

In an Oct. 29 tweet, Musk proposed opening a school called the Texas Institute of Technology and Science. In a thread, he added, “it will have epic merch, universally admired.” When someone earnestly suggested swapping “technology” and “science” so the latter came first (on the premise that “technological breakthroughs almost always follow scientific breakthroughs”), Musk shot back, “Nope, T is def first.”

Why? Because if you swapped the letters, the acronym would no longer be TITS.

PHOTO REUTERS/MIKE BLAKE

Biden apologizes for Trump exit from climate accord


US President Joe Biden: 'Every day we delay, the cost of inaction increases' 

(AFP/Brendan Smialowski)

Mon, November 1, 2021

US President Joe Biden on Monday apologized to world leaders for his predecessor Donald Trump's withdrawal from a global climate accord and said fighting the crisis should be seen as an economic opportunity.

In a reference to Trump, who withdrew from the Paris climate deal on world action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, Biden told the COP26 summit in Glasgow that he was sorry.

"I guess I shouldn't apologize but I do apologize for the fact that the United States in the last administration pulled out of the Paris Accords and put us sort of behind the eight ball a little bit," he said, noting that one of his first actions on taking office this January was to re-enter the accord.

Trump had argued that the Paris accord killed jobs.

But in his main speech to the UN COP26 summit in Glasgow, Biden said that fighting climate change will boost, not hurt economies.

"Within the growing catastrophe I believe there's an incredible opportunity — not just for the United States, but for all of us," he said in his speech to the summit.

He promised US leadership and "action, not words."

"The United States is not only back at the table but hopefully leading by the power of example. I know that hasn't been the case and that's why my administration is working overtime," he said.

Biden pushed back against criticism that reducing greenhouse gases and reliance on fossil fuels will hurt jobs, arguing that "it's about jobs".

Electrifying transport, building solar panels and wind turbine networks "create good, paying union jobs for American workers".

Continuing down the current path is already causing economic damage, Biden said.

"We're standing at an inflection point in world history," Biden said, citing the proliferation of wildfires, droughts and other climate-related disasters.

"Climate change is already ravaging the world," he said. It's not hypothetical. It's destroying people's lives and livelihoods.

"We have the ability to invest in ourselves and build an equitable, clean-energy future and in the process create millions of good paying jobs and opportunities around the world.

"We meet with the eyes of history upon us," Biden told the summit in Glasgow, Scotland. "Every day we delay, the cost of inaction increases, so let this be the moment when we answer history's call, here in Glasgow.

"God bless you all and may God save the planet," he said in closing.

sms/pvh

Cambodian court sentences autistic teenager for Telegram posts

Author: AFP|

Update: 01.11.2021 


Kak Sovann Chhay was arrested in late June after posting messages on a private Telegram group / © COURTESY OF PRUM CHANTHA/AFP/File

A Cambodian court sentenced an autistic teenager to eight months in prison on Monday, with part of the term suspended, for sending Telegram messages that were deemed insulting to the government, his mother said.

The son of an opposition figure, 16-year-old Kak Sovann Chhay was arrested in late June after posting messages on a private Telegram group, and has been detained for more than four months.

Phnom Penh Municipal Court on Monday sentenced him to eight months in prison, under incitement charges and for insulting public officials.

Most of the remainder of his term -- taking into account time served -- has been suspended for two years.

"My son will be released on November 9," his mother Prum Chantha said.

"It is unjust for my son because he did not commit any crime like the court had charged."

She added that she had not decided whether to appeal the guilty verdict.

The municipal court's spokesperson declined to comment on the case.

The teenager's arrest and detention drew outcry from the UN's special rapporteur on human rights in Cambodia, Vitit Muntarbhorn.

He urged the government in September to release the teenager, adding that children with disabilities should "be treated in line with the best interests of the child".

The boy's father, Kak Komphea, is a former member of the now-dissolved opposition Cambodian National Rescue Party and has been in jail since June last year.

Kak Komphea is among more than 150 opposition figures facing a closed-door trial for allegedly agitating for the toppling of the ruling party, which is led by Prime Minister Hun Sen.

Herself an activist, Prum Chantha had said that her son was only defending himself and his relatives in Telegram messages after he was bullied by people who called him the "son of a traitor".

Strongman Hun Sen, one of the world's longest-serving leaders, has been in power for 36 years, during which his critics say he has wound back democratic freedoms by jailing political opponents and dissidents.

US judge dismisses most money-laundering charges against Maduro ally Saab

Author: AFP

|Update: 01.11.2021 


Colombian businessman Alex Saab is still facing one accusation of money laundering in a Florida court / © AFP/File

A US judge on Monday dismissed seven of eight money-laundering charges against Alex Saab, a businessman close to the regime of Venezuela's Nicolas Maduro, a court filing showed.

On trial in Miami, Florida following his extradition from Cape Verde earlier this month, the Colombian businessman still faces one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering, which could carry a 20-year jail term.

Judge Robert Scola of the Southern District of Florida signed the order at the request of the prosecution.

On September 7, 2020, during the extradition process, the United States "sent an assurance" to Cape Verde that it would not "prosecute or punish defendant Alex Nain Saab for more than a single count of the indictment," the prosecution said in its request to Scola.

The decision was made "in order to comply with Cabo Verdean law regarding the maximum term of imprisonment," the request said.

Saab, a Colombian national, and his business partner Alvaro Pulido are charged in the United States with running a network that exploited food aid destined for Venezuela, an oil-rich nation mired in an acute economic crisis.

They are alleged to have moved $350 million out of Venezuela into accounts they controlled in the United States and other countries.

Saab, who also has Venezuelan nationality and a Venezuelan diplomatic passport, was indicted in July 2019 in Miami for money laundering, and was arrested during a plane stopover in Cape Verde off the coast of West Africa in June 2020.

He was extradited to the United States on October 17.

Venezuela's opposition has described Saab as a frontman doing shady dealings for the populist socialist regime of Maduro.

The prosecution said that the dismissal of charges only affects Saab, not Pulido.

The accused was due to appear before Scola on Monday to attend the arraignment and plead guilty or not guilty.

But the hearing was postponed until November 15 to allow Saab to meet for the first time in person with his lawyer, Henry Bell.

That meeting has not yet taken place because Saab was quarantined upon his arrival in Miami as a precautionary measure due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Venezuela reacted furiously to Saab's extradition, suspending talks with the US-backed opposition on ending the country's political and economic crisis.

Maduro's government, which gave the Colombian Venezuelan nationality and an ambassadorial title, fought unsuccessfully to prevent his transfer to the United States.

Caracas also accused Washington of abducting the businessman, and Maduro ordered the suspension of the government's negotiations with the opposition in Mexico.

MUTUAL AID/SELF ORGANIZATION

New York food delivery workers mobilize against attacks, theft

Author: AFP|

Update: 01.11.2021 

Vicente Carrasco, originally from Mexico, formed a group to help protect fellow New York delivery workers from assault and bike theft / © AFP/File

"A colleague needs help to recover his bicycle!" says a message in the WhatsApp group of the Delivery Boys United, a team of food delivery workers in New York who are organizing to defend themselves following attacks and thefts.

Vicente Carrasco, a 39-year-old from Mexico, formed the group in March after he was assaulted. They aim to protect themselves and their electric bikes, which cost around $3,000 and, along with their phones, are their livelihoods.

Every night after a long day riding around the Big Apple, Carrasco and other "deliveristas," mostly men, meet under the Queensboro Bridge on the Manhattan side of the East River where they wait to come to the aid of any colleague in trouble.

"If there is a bicycle stolen with GPS we follow it," he tells AFP, stressing they never go alone.

"When there are many of us, we will always try to get it back. We don't want to risk our lives too much. You don't know if people are armed. We do what we can do."

There have been several reports of attacks on delivery personnel in New York this year. In October a 51-year-old rider was stabbed to death and had his e-bike stolen in Chinatown.

In April, a deliverista was shot dead in a Harlem. That same month, another on his scooter was hit by a vehicle in Queens.

Eric Adams, expected to be elected New York's next mayor Tuesday, has pledged to make the city's streets safer should he take office in January.

For now, Carrasco's group is working alongside three other organizations that bring together more than 1,000 delivery riders across Manhattan, Brooklyn and Queens.

"This is my way of life," says another organizer Jose Rodrigo Nevares, whose friend was killed during a theft of his bicycle.

"With my bike, I feed my family, I pay my rent. I can't just leave it so someone takes it away," he adds.

Every night, groups of "deliveristas" meet under a Manhattan bridge where they stand ready to come to the aid of any colleague in trouble / © AFP/File

There are roughly 65,000 deliveristas in New York, according to official figures.

With their frustration building over how police have handled cases, Carrasco and the other groups decided to take safety into their own hands.

"We did this because when you call the police when you've been robbed, they never arrive," he says. "We organize ourselves to be able to defend ourselves, to be faster."

For its part the New York Police Department says its "Operation Identification" helps recover registered stolen bicycles, and that NYPD duly investigates such crimes.

"The NYPD takes these crimes very seriously and will exhaust all leads available in order to catch those responsible," spokesman Sergeant Edward Riley tells AFP.

Some 80 percent of the deliveristas are undocumented immigrants, according to rights groups, meaning they are often reluctant to contact police.

Nevares, who became a deliveryman after losing his waiter job during the Covid-19 pandemic, says that reluctance is "out of fear, because you know that you are going to get into trouble."

- 'Not violent' -

While Carrasco's group sometimes recovers stolen bikes on their own, the operations have raised safety concerns.


There are an estimated 65,000 food delivery riders in New York / © AFP/File

"Our fear is that someone will end up injured," says Ligia Guallpa, from the Labor Justice project, who has been fighting for years to improve conditions for undocumented workers.

Many who support the workers distance themselves from the self-defense groups.

But Carrasco dismisses suggestions that the men are vigilantes.

"We are not violent," he states.

Food delivery workers -- many of whom are of Latino, African or Asian origin -- average $2,345 a month, below the hourly $15 minimum wage in New York's service sector.

They receive no social security, no health insurance and no overtime. Nor do they have a right to unionize.

Guallpa calls the working conditions "inhumane."

Only from next year will they be allowed to use the restrooms of restaurants where they collect food, after a campaign by Guallpa's organization.

A sticker of the New York delivery workers self-defense group -- most deliveristas are undocumented immigrants, meaning they are often reluctant to contact police 

/ © AFP/File

Revenue from food delivery apps has surged more than 200 percent over the past five years, with profits skyrocketing during the lockdown.

It's been a win-win for the apps, which earn fees from customers and restaurants while having no commitments to the freelance deliveristas, according to a 2020 survey conducted by the Labor Justice Project and Cornell University.

Activists say it's time to give the riders the same protections as other workers.

Almost half of the survey's 500 respondents said they had had an accident, including being run over, while working -- and three quarters of those paid their medical expenses themselves.

Fifty-four percent of respondents had their bicycles stolen -- and one third of them had been victims of assault during the robbery.

"We have to change the system, otherwise we are not changing the root problem," says Guallpa.