Midwife on the frontline of climate change on Pakistan’s islands


By AFP
Published July 1, 2024

Each week Neha Mankani comes by boat ambulance to Baba, an old fishing settlement and reportedly one of the world's most crowded islands - Copyright AFP Rizwan TABASSUM
Sabina QAZI

On a densely populated island off Pakistan’s megacity of Karachi, a group of pregnant women wait in a punishing heatwave for the only midwife to arrive from the mainland.

Each week Neha Mankani comes by boat ambulance to Baba, an old fishing settlement and reportedly one of the world’s most crowded islands with around 6,500 people crammed into 0.15 square kilometres (0.06 miles).

Climate change is swelling the surrounding seas and baking the land with rising temperatures. Until Mankani’s ambulance launched last year, expectant mothers were marooned at the mercy of the elements.

At the gate of her island clinic waits 26-year-old Zainab Bibi, pregnant again after a second-trimester miscarriage last summer.

“It was a very hot day, I was not feeling well,” she recalled. It took her husband hours of haggling with boat owners before one agreed to ferry them to the mainland — but it was too late.

“By the time I delivered my baby in the hospital, she was already dead,” she said.



– Summer heat hits pregnancies –



Heatwaves are becoming hotter, longer and more frequent in Pakistan, one of the countries most vulnerable to extreme weather conditions resulting from climate change.

In May and June, a string of heatwaves have seen temperatures top 52 degrees Celcius (126 degrees Fahrenheit) for days.

“Climate change doesn’t affect everyone equally,” 38-year-old Mankani told AFP during the 20-minute boat journey.

“Pregnant women and newborns, postpartum women are definitely more affected,” she said.

“In the summer months, we see a real increase in low-birth weights, preterm births, and in pregnancy losses.”

Women are at higher risk of stillbirth when exposed to temperatures above 90 percent of the normal range for their location, according to experts published in the British Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology last year.

“Before we didn’t have the evidence, a lot of it was anecdotal,” said Mankani. “But we’ve been seeing the impact of climate change for a while.”

In Pakistan, 154 women die for every 100,000 live births -— a high maternal mortality rate shaped by socioeconomic status, barriers to healthcare access and limited decision-making powers, especially among young women, according to the United Nations.

Mankani began her 16-year career as a midwife in a Karachi hospital, where she worked at a high-risk ward, often treating women from the five islands dotted off the coast.

She founded the Mama Baby Fund in 2015 and set up the first clinics on the islands for expectant and new mothers. “Everyone opened their homes to us,” she said.

The free 24/7 boat ambulance followed last year, crucially equipped to navigate rough seas in a region increasingly prone to flooding.

Sabira Rashid, 26, gave birth to a girl she named Eesha two months ago, following one stillbirth and a miscarriage at seven months — painful losses she blames on not reaching the hospital in time.

“At the dock, they make us wait because they don’t want to ferry only two or three people. They told us to wait for more passengers, no matter what the emergency,” she said.



– Rising, dirty waters –



Girls on the impoverished islands are often wed as young as 16, with marriage considered the source of security for women in an area where polluted water is killing off the fishing trade.

“Most of these girls don’t know how to take care of themselves, they get severe infections from the dirty water they are constantly exposed to,” said Shahida Sumaar, an assistant at the clinic, wiping the sweat from her face.

The 45-year-old said basic advice is offered to young mothers during heatwaves, such as using dry, clean towels to wrap their newborns in, washing their breasts before feeding and staying hydrated.

But with no access to running water and little electricity, warding off heat stress is a challenge for all the islanders.

Women are at particular risk, typically responsible for cooking over open flames in small rooms with no fans or proper ventilation.

Ayesha Mansoor, 30, has four children and lives on the fringes of Baba, with just four to five hours of electricity a day.

The path to her home is covered by a carpet of discarded plastic bags which disappear underwater when the tide is high.

“Only those who have solar can deal better with the heat. We can’t afford it,” she said, swatting away flies that settled on her baby.

Mariam Abubakr, an 18-year-old assistant at the clinic who has grown up on the island, hopes to become its first full-time midwife.

“I used to wonder why we women didn’t have any facilities here, a clinic that could just cater to us,” she said.

“When Neha opened her clinic, I saw a way that I could help the women of my community.”

The Indian women campaigning to criminalise marital rape

By AFP
July 2, 2024

Lawyer Karuna Nandy is challenging India's penal code which permits the rape of a wife over the age of 18 by her husband - Copyright AFP Shubham KOUL
Aishwarya KUMAR

Raped by her husband on her wedding night aged 17, Divya described her repeated suffering — an all-too-common account in India, permitted by a terrifying colonial-era legal loophole.

“I told him I have never had sex, and asked him if we can take it slowly and try to understand it,” 19-year-old Divya said.

“He said: ‘No, the first night is very important for us men’.”

He then slapped her hard, ripped her clothes off and forced himself on her.

What followed her arranged wedding in 2022 was 19 months of sexual and physical abuse.

“If I was hurt, it was invisible to him,” said Divya, whose name has been changed to protect her identity.

“He used to have sex with me ruthlessly”.

Six percent of married women aged 18-49 report spousal sexual violence, according to the government’s latest National Family Health Survey.

In the world’s most populous country, that implies more than 10 million women have been sexual victims of their husbands.

Nearly 18 percent of married women feel they cannot say no if their husbands want sex, according to the health survey.

And 11 percent of women thought a husband was justified in beating his wife if she refused, it found.



– ‘Victorian mentality’ –



Under India’s inherited British-era penal code, an exception clause stated that “sexual acts by a man with his own wife, the wife not being under fifteen years of age, is not rape”.

India introduced a new penal code on Monday but the exception clause remains — although it does raise the minimum age that a man can rape his wife to 18.

Lawyer Karuna Nundy is challenging that.

Nundy, who has a case for the All India Democratic Women’s Association (AIDWA) rights group at the Supreme Court, condemned the clause as “colonialism from a Victorian mentality”.

She holds a “fervent hope” for change, mentioning some of the more than 50 nations who have outlawed it.

Chief Justice D. Y. Chandrachud called it an “important issue” this year.

But the decade-long case has made painfully slow progress.

In May 2022, a two-judge bench in the Delhi High Court issued a split verdict.

One judge, C. Hari Shankar, said that while “one may disapprove” of a husband forcibly having sex with his wife, that “cannot be equated with the act of ravishing by a stranger”.

The other judge, Rajiv Shakdher, disagreed.

Shakdher said it “would be tragic if a married woman’s call for justice is not heard even after 162 years”, referring to the British-era statute.

Monika Tiwary from Shakti Shalini, a rights group which supports sexual violence survivors, said marriage should not shield a crime.

“How can marriage change the definition of rape?” she said.

“Getting married does not take away the rights over your body.”



– Arranged marriages –



“Most of the survivors do not really have this understanding that it is not okay, and it is marital rape,” Tiwary added.

“The moment we label it and attach a law to it, people start recognising it, awareness increases”, Tiway added.

Divya’s marriage was arranged, like many in India.

But her family did not pay the usual hefty cash dowry to the husband — something he used against her.

“He would taunt me by saying ‘It’s not like your parents gave any dowry, I can at least do this’,” Divya said.

“At times he would put a knife on my throat and dare me to say no. (He would say) ‘You are my wife, I have full rights on you’.”

Swati Sharma, a 24-year-old mother of two, said she married a man for love.

The first time her husband assaulted her was after their first daughter was born.

“I used to think: ‘Okay, we are married, so we can do this’,” she said.



– Death threats –



When he was angry, he would take it out on her. If she refused sex, he accused her of having an affair.

The tipping point came when he stripped her naked in front of their children, waiting until they slept.

“Then he proceeded to have sex with me,” she said. “He didn’t leave me till he had his way.”

She packed her bags, took her children and left.

But despite the abuse, some women return to violent husbands fearing for their children, and under intense social pressure.

Sharma also returned to her husband, after he went to counselling and persuaded her to come back.

While Divya escaped, she still lives in fear.

Her husband messaged her mother threatening that he “will not let her live”.

But she says she is “proud” that she left.

“There are many girls who still endure this, happening to them day and night,” she said.

“Such men should be punished.”

‘Can’t go back’: Myanmar conscription exiles struggle in Thailand


By AFP
July 2, 2024

Tens of thousands of young people rights groups estimate have fled Myanmar since the military introduced conscription - Copyright AFP Lillian SUWANRUMPHA

When Myanmar’s junta announced a conscription law to help crush a popular pro-democracy uprising, Khaing knew there was only one way to escape its clutches, and began planning her escape.

Weeks later the former teacher was hidden in a smuggler’s van heading into Thailand with little more than some clothes, cash and an ID card, not knowing when she would be able to return.

Now scraping a living in Bangkok without papers, Khaing worries constantly about a tap on the shoulder by Thai police and deportation back to the junta.

She is one of tens of thousands of young people rights groups estimate have fled Myanmar since the military introduced conscription in February to shore up its depleted ranks.

The junta is battling widespread armed opposition to its 2021 coup and its soldiers are accused of bloody ramapages and using air and artillery strikes to punish civilian communities.

It says it wants to enlist 5,000 people aged between 18-35 a month, but details on how they will be chosen, and where and how they will serve are vague.

Media reports of young men being dragged off the streets and into the army — which the military denies — have further added to the panic.

“The conscription law means we have to kill each other,” said Wai Yan, 26, from eastern Karen state, who crossed into Thailand in May.

“We are not fighting a war against foreign enemies,” he said from the Bangkok restaurant where he also works without documents.

“We are fighting each other.”



– Smuggled for $220 –



Shortly after enacting the law, the junta tightened requirements for people crossing Myanmar’s land borders, and temporarily halted issuing foreign work permits for young men.

Yangon-based film critic Ngwe Yan Thun, a pseudonym, said he had “no choice” but to leave illegally.

Through friends he contacted a “broker” who said he could be smuggled over the border into Thailand for around $220.

Ngwe Yan Thun sold off all of his belongings, arranged for friends to look after his dog and bought an air ticket to Tachileik on the Thai border.

At the airport, he had to pay “tea money” to officials at the airport who were suspicious of why he was travelling to the remote provincial town.

He was dropped at a safehouse near the border where around 30 others were waiting to be taken into Thailand.

Then, at short notice, he was crammed into a car with eleven others and they set off.

“I didn’t feel like a human being, I felt like I was black market goods,” Ngwe Yan Thun said from Thailand’s Chiang Mai.



– ‘Am I in Myanmar?’ –



Thailand has long been home to a sizeable Myanmar community, with a bustling market in Bangkok and towns along the border.

The conflict has made it difficult to conduct surveys or verify how many young people had fled abroad to escape conscription, said an official from the International Labour Organization.

But, the organisation said had received estimates from ground sources that suggested “hundreds of thousands” had fled the law.

Wai Yan said he was surprised at how many people from Myanmar were in Thailand.

“I even joke with my friends ‘Am I still in Myanmar?'”



– ‘Cried every day’ –



After arriving in Bangkok, Khaing was unable to reach her parents as fighting around her home village cut internet and mobile networks.

“I was worried about getting caught by the Thai police. So, I didn’t dare to go outside when I arrived,” she told AFP.

“I cried every day in my first month here.”

She found part-time work at a friend’s shop and returns in the evenings to her sparse room where she sells medicine and beauty products on TikTok.

A large teddy bear gifted to her by a friend who knew she was feeling lonely takes up much of the bed.

The first batch of conscripts finished their training and would soon be sent to their posts, state media reported last week, as fighting rages in the west and north of the country.

Ngwe Yan Thun is grateful he is far away, but is kept up at night wondering what to do next.

“I think about what I should do if I don’t get a job and official documents to stay,” he said.

“I can’t go back to Myanmar. I feel overwhelmed by thoughts and worries all the time.”

ZIONIST AGRESSION AGAINST LEBANON

Lebanon says Israeli GPS jamming confounding ground, air traffic

By AFP
July 2, 2024

Whacky location data on apps have caused confusion in Lebanon, as fears have grown of all-out war between Israel and Hezbollah - Copyright AFP JOSEPH EID
Laure Al Khoury

Uber driver Hussein Khalil was battling traffic in Beirut when he found himself in the Gaza Strip — according to his online map, anyway — as location jamming blamed on Israel disrupts life in Lebanon.

“We’ve been dealing with this problem a lot for around five months,” said Khalil, 36.

“Sometimes we can’t work at all,” the disgruntled driver told AFP on Beirut’s chaotic, car-choked streets.

“Of course, we are losing money.”

For months, whacky location data on apps have caused confusion in Lebanon, where the Hezbollah militant group has been engaged in cross-border clashes with Israel.

The near-daily exchanges started after Hamas, Hezbollah’s Palestinian ally, launched an unprecedented attack on Israel on October 7, triggering the ongoing war in Gaza.

In March, Beirut lodged a complaint with the United Nations about “attacks by Israel on Lebanese sovereignty in the form of jamming the airspace around” the Beirut airport.

Khalil showed AFP screenshots of apps displaying his locations not only in the Gazan city of Rafah — around 300 kilometres (185 miles) away — but also in east Lebanon near the Syrian border, when he was actually in Beirut.

With online maps loopy, Khalil said “one passenger phoned me and asked, ‘Are you in Baalbek?'” referring to a city in east Lebanon.

“I told her: ‘No, I’ll be at your location (in Beirut) in two minutes’.”

Numerous residents have reported their online map location as appearing at Beirut airport while they were actually elsewhere in the capital.

Since Hamas’s October 7 attack, Israel has taken measures to disrupt Global Positioning System (GPS) functionality for the group and other opponents.



– Drones, guided missiles –



The Israeli army said in October that it disrupted GPS “in a proactive manner for various operational needs”.

It warned of “various and temporary effects on location-based applications”.

Specialist site gpsjam.org, which compiles geolocation signal disruption data based on aircraft data reports, reported a low level of disruption around Gaza on October 7.

But the next day, disturbances increased around the Palestinian territory and also along the border between Israel and Lebanon.

On June 28, the level of interference showing on the site was high above Lebanon and parts of Syria, Jordan and Israel.

An AFP journalist in Jerusalem said her location appeared as if she was in Cairo, Egypt’s capital about 400 kilometres away.

The interference has at times extended to European Union member Cyprus, some 200 kilometres from Lebanon, where AFP journalists have reported their GPS location appearing at Beirut airport instead of on the island.

“Israel is using GPS jamming to disrupt or interfere with Hezbollah’s communications,” said Freddy Khoueiry, global security analyst for the Middle East and North Africa at risk intelligence company RANE.

It is “also using GPS spoofing… to send false GPS signals, aimed at disrupting and hindering drones’ and precision-guided missiles’ abilities to function or hit their targets,” he added.

The Iran-backed Hezbollah has “a large arsenal” of such GPS-assisted weapons, he noted.

The cross-border exchanges have killed more than 490 people in Lebanon — mostly fighters — according to an AFP tally, with 26 people killed in northern Israel, according to authorities there.

Fears have grown of all-out conflict between the foes that last went to war in 2006.



– ‘Compass and paper map’ –



Asked about GPS jamming in northern Israel, where Hezbollah has concentrated its attacks, a spokesperson for Israel’s defence ministry told AFP’s Jerusalem office that “currently, we are unable to discuss operational matters”.

Lebanon’s civil aviation chief Fadi El-Hassan said that since March, the body has asked pilots flying in or out of Beirut to “rely on ground navigation equipment and not on GPS signals due to the ongoing interference in the region”.

Ground navigation equipment is typically used as a back-up system.

Hassan expressed frustration that “in this technological age, a pilot who wants to land at our airport cannot use GPS due to Israeli enemy interference”.

Lebanon is ensuring “the maintenance of ground navigation equipment at all times in order to provide the necessary signals for pilots to land safely,” he said.

Avedis Seropian, a licenced pilot, said he had stopped using GPS in recent months.

“We got used to the situation. I don’t rely on (GPS) at all… I fly relying on a compass and paper map,” he told AFP.

But he said not having GPS, even as a fallback, was disconcerting.

When geolocation data is wrong and visibility is poor, “you can suddenly find yourself in a state of panic”, he said.

“That could lead to an accident or a disaster.”

Israel prepares for possible war with Hezbollah as Hamas conflict drags on

LEBANON HAS THE RIGHT TO SELF DEFENSE 

Hamas has been weakened but could recover, concerned officials admit.

ByMatt Gutman
July 2, 2024

IDF orders more evacuations from southern Gaza
More than 250,000 civilians have been ordered to evacuate the southern city of Khan Younis as operations continue


TEL AVIV -- The Israeli military is preparing a phased pullout from Gaza and quietly pressing the government to broker a truce with Hamas as quickly as possible, as the military works to clear the decks ahead of what officials say could be a withering war with the powerful Iranian-backed Lebanese militia Hezbollah.

One Israeli official said today that if the barometer is destroying Hamas’s pre-war capabilities – which included clearly designated battalions with sophisticated coordination and communications – and removing Hamas from as Gaza's government, then Israel has already achieved that.

Multiple Israeli officials, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, have signaled that Israel will begin to draw down forces in Gaza as it enters into what it has called "Phase C" of its war, with a significantly reduced number of troops focusing on what one official described as “fighting Hamas hotspots and hunting high-value targets.”

Another Israeli official conceded to ABC News that “Hamas still has a large influence over what’s taking place in Gaza – that’s the main thing. We need to try to create an alternative.”


Black smoke billows following an Israeli air strike that targeted a house in the southern Lebanese villag...Show more
Rabih Daher/AFP via Getty Images

Israel’s own status map, which depicts the fighting condition of all of Hamas’ 24 pre-war battalions, designates one of the battalions in Rafah as green, which means operational, and another as orange, which is semi-operational.


Hamas' continued influence in Gaza has not fully mitigated lawlessness there. with European and Israeli officials warning for months that the Gaza Strip could turn into “Mogadishu on the Mediterranean,” a reference to the decades of internecine fighting and instability in Somalia’s capital.

In high-level meetings in Washington last week, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, U.S. National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan, and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin discussed potential "day after" plans for Gaza, according to four U.S. and Israeli officials who spoke to ABC News.

One of the plans would comprise an international "board of directors" that U.S. officials are likening to a steering committee of nations that would include the UAE, Egypt, and possibly Jordan. Morocco would send peacekeepers to Gaza, with the U.S. somehow providing general oversight and command and control. The response from Arab states to the proposal has been lukewarm, a senior official with direct knowledge of the situation told ABC News.

MORE: What is Hezbollah? Lebanon's militant group has long been one of Israel's biggest foes

The "board of directors" would be coupled with a new a "bottom up" force that the U.S. would train and that would include contingents from the Palestinian Authority to lend it legitimacy, though not so many Palestinian contingents that Netanyahu, who has publicly dismissed any Palestinian Authority role in a future Gaza, would reject the plan, a senior Israeli official told ABC News.


An Israeli flag flies from a pole as behind smoke plumes rise from a fire in a field after rockets launched
Jalaa Marey/AFP via Getty Images

The training of the Palestinian force in Gaza would be supervised by U.S. Lt. Gen. Michael Fenzel, United States Security Coordinator of the Israel-Palestinian Authority who is based in Jerusalem. These units would begin to operate in small enclaves in Gaza.


Officials said it remains doubtful that these kinds of alternatives could be stood up quickly, which would potentially leave Hamas to control the power vacuum in Gaza. But a group of top Israeli officials interviewed this week said crushing an already debilitated Hamas, currently capable only of small-scale attacks on Israel, should be sidelined in favor of countering Hezbollah, which poses an existential threat to the state.

MORE: Israel is 'closer to war' with Hezbollah than ever, senior Israeli official says

To that end, the officials said, Israel should muster forces and conserve ammunition for an impending confrontation with Hezbollah, which has boasted of tens of thousands of Iranian-trained fighters, many of them seasoned from fighting in Syria’s civil war, and further thousands of missiles and rockets that could well overwhelm Israel’s air defenses.

The Israeli officials said Israel has sufficient offensive munitions for a war with Hezbollah, but could use more from the U.S.

Hezbollah said it began its cross-border war with Israel on Oct. 8, following the Hamas terrorist attack on Israel on Oct. 7, out of solidarity with the Palestinians. Hezbollah’s deputy leader, Naim Kassem, told the Associated Press Tuesday, "If there is a cease-fire in Gaza, we will stop without any discussion.”


An Israeli army main battle tank moves along an area near the border with the Gaza Strip and southern
Jack Guez/AFP via Getty Images

But Hezbollah also has signaled that it wouldn't agree to the U.S.-brokered deal until Israel ends the war in Gaza. The Israeli sources told ABC News that Hamas was stalling on committing to terms on the internationally brokered cease-fire knowing that a potential war with Hezbollah would significantly weaken Israel.

MORE: US sends USS Wasp assault ship and Marines to eastern Mediterranean

The larger issue is that regardless of the approach, it will take time, which is working against the process, U.S. and Israeli officials say, but is working in favor of Hamas. Multiple, multi-day operations in which Israel has reentered areas it cleared months ago and where Hamas has since regrouped have shown that the terrorist group has slowly and quietly reasserted itself in Gaza.

“Hamas has a large influence over what’s taking place in Gaza and that’s the main reason we need to try to create an alternative,” an Israeli official told ABC News. "You even see that over the effort Hamas has taken to control the looting of aid convoys."

Right now, Hamas has a head start, and it’s unclear whether an international force can be deployed, or a suitable local force can be trained, before it regains a potentially indomitable level of local control.

New Dutch PM sworn in with mission to curb asylum


By AFP
July 2, 2024

Dick Schoof takes over after 14 years of Mark Rutte in power - Copyright AFP Randy Brooks

Richard CARTER

Dutch King Willem-Alexander swore in former spy chief Dick Schoof as new prime minister Tuesday, at the head of a right-wing coalition cabinet with a mission to implement the country’s “strictest-ever” immigration policy.

Two hundred and twenty-three days after far-right leader Geert Wilders swept to an election victory that stunned Europe and the world, Schoof took over from Mark Rutte after 14 years in power.

Schoof presented his ministers to Willem-Alexander in the ornate “Oranjezaal” in the royal palace, who each stepped forward to swear allegiance to the king and the constitution.

“I am very much looking forward to getting to work as prime minister,” Schoof wrote on X, formerly Twitter, under a picture of him signing decrees alongside the king.

“For a safe and just Netherlands with social security for everyone. A grip on migration, dialogue, making choices and being clear about it. You can count on me,” he added.

Wilders was forced to shelve his own ambitions to be prime minister to keep rocky coalition talks on track — some negotiation partners considered his anti-Muslim and eurosceptic statements too extreme to lead the nation.

Instead, the four coalition partners agreed their party leaders would not be in government, compromising on Schoof, 67, who was previously running the Dutch Secret Service.

Keen marathon runner Schoof will need all his stamina and experience in the halls of power in The Hague to keep the shaky coalition partners on track.

Schoof “will have a lot of work keeping ideological and personal conflicts under control”, Sarah de Lange, professor of political pluralism at the University of Amsterdam, told AFP.

He has vowed to implement “decisively” the coalition plans for the “strictest-ever admission policy for asylum and the most comprehensive package for getting a grip on migration”.

The 26-page coalition agreement, titled “Hope, courage and pride”, also called to examine the idea of moving the Dutch embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.

Schoof has said he aims to be “a prime minister for all Dutch citizens”, adding: “I am without a party. I don’t see myself kowtowing to Mr Wilders”.

De Lange said Wilders will have plenty of work keeping his own PVV (Freedom Party) in check and Schoof would be given space.

“Given his extensive experience leading government agencies, he will surely know how to defend his position,” she said.

“It is still an open question though, how he will respond if Wilders tries to put him under pressure by voicing public criticism of his functioning on X”, formerly Twitter.

A new Ipsos I&O poll published Tuesday showed confidence in the government had increased to 42 percent from a low of 29 percent in September 2022.



– ‘Little Tower’ –



Schoof has played a key role in crisis situations, leading the Dutch probe into the downing of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 in July 2014 over war-torn Ukraine.

All 298 people on board were killed — 196 of them Dutch — by a Russian-made BUK (medium-range) missile fired from territory held by pro-Russian fighters.

A former Labour Party member, Schoof has won the backing of left-wing opposition leader Frans Timmermans, who nevertheless described him as “emphatically Wilders’ candidate”.

The Dutch lurch to the right comes as far-right parties in several European countries have seen their popularity rise.

In France, the far-right National Rally (RN) party of Marine Le Pen won a resounding victory in the first round of parliamentary elections on Sunday.

The handover brings down the curtain on 14 years of Rutte in the “little tower” prime ministerial office — a national record.

Rutte, known for riding his bike to work, often crunching an apple on the way, will be the next secretary-general of the NATO alliance, based in Brussels.

His term was marked by a series of scandals that brought down his government, but he remained in power, earning the nickname “Teflon Mark” for his survival skills.

In a solemn farewell address Sunday, he apologised for a scandal in which thousands of parents were wrongly accused, in some cases after racial profiling, of fraudulently claiming child allowance.

Protest after Pakistan Christian given blasphemy death sentence


By AFP

July 2, 2024

Around 60 demonstrators gathered in the southern city of Karachi - Copyright AFP Rizwan TABASSUM
Sabina QAZI

Pakistan minority rights campaigners protested Tuesday after a Christian man was sentenced to death for sharing an allegedly blasphemous TikTok post.

The image included the accusation that the holy book was damaged by two Christian brothers and it was widely shared in August, after which a mob razed a Christian enclave.

On Tuesday around 60 demonstrators gathered in the southern city of Karachi, carrying banners decrying the “misuse of blasphemy laws”.

“Day by day, Pakistan is becoming a country where minorities aren’t safe anymore,” said Christian pastor Ghazala Shafiq.

“People can do whatever they want to do with us,” the 59-year-old told AFP.

More than 80 homes and 19 churches were ruined by crowds in the eastern city of Jaranwala last August.

The two Christian brothers were initially arrested for blasphemy but released after investigators believed they were framed over a personal grudge, according to domestic media.

The man convicted of blasphemy by the court in eastern Sahiwal city was 27-year-old Ehsan Masih, his lawyer Akmal Bhatti said.

“He shared the page on his TikTok without any understanding of what it was,” Bhatti said, explaining his client was illiterate.

“He did not write anything with that post, did not add anything himself that could be considered blasphemous,” added the lawyer.

Human Rights Watch warned in March that “Pakistan’s blasphemy law has long been used abusively to carry out personal vendettas or prosecute members of minority religious communities”.

Hundreds of Christians fled Jaranwala’s Christian quarter last summer when around 5,000 people surged in, setting churches ablaze and raiding homes.

The crowd was spurred on by announcements through the loudspeakers of mosques that a Koran had been torn, scrawled with offensive words and stuck to the walls of a local mosque.

Police in eastern Punjab province say only a dozen of those involved in the mob violence will face trial.

Christians, who make up around two percent of Pakistan’s population, occupy one of the lowest rungs in society and are frequently targeted with blasphemy allegations.

“The people responsible for the riots in Jaranwala are still awaiting trial, while he has already been given the death sentence,” said lawyer Bhatti.

“The judgment was biased due to his faith,” he added.

“It was the speeches from the mosques that instigated the riots, not this post on social media.”

The last executions in Pakistan took place in 2020, according to Amnesty International, and convicts can languish in dire conditions for years on death row.

CLIMATE CHANGE

Six passengers of turbulence-hit plane still in Brazil hospital: airline


By AFP
July 2, 2024


The Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner with 325 passengers on board, was diverted to the airport of Natal in northeast Brazil after heavy turbulence - Copyright AFP Drew ANGERER

Six passengers among dozens injured in severe turbulence on a flight from Madrid remain hospitalized in Brazil, where their plane had to make an emergency landing, Air Europa said Tuesday.

Of the rest, 303 have made it safely to their destination of Montevideo more than a day after the rattling experience Monday, it added in a statement.

The Uruguay-bound plane, a Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner with 325 passengers on board, was diverted in the early morning hours of Monday to the airport of Natal in northeast Brazil after experiencing “severe turbulence,” according to the airline.

Forty passengers were taken to hospitals and clinics in Natal for treatment of “abrasions and minor traumas,” the health secretariat of Brazil’s Rio Grande do Norte state said.

Air Europa said most of the injuries were “bruises and contusions.”

“At the moment, only six passengers remain in the hospital” in Natal along with some of their companions, said the airline.

Another 303 passengers arrived in Montevideo early Tuesday after being bused from Natal to Recife, and then flown to the Uruguayan capital in a fresh plane sent from Madrid.

“Air Europa deeply regrets what happened, as well as the inconvenience caused to its customers,” the airline said, and wished the injured “a quick recovery.”

Brazilian authorities have said that nationals of Spain, Argentina, Uruguay, Israel, Bolivia and Germany were among the injured.

In May, a 73-year-old British man died and several other passengers and crew suffered skull, brain and spine injuries when a Singapore Airlines-operated Boeing 777 hit severe turbulence on a flight from London and was forced to make an emergency landing in Bangkok.

A week later, 12 people were injured during turbulence on a Qatar Airways Boeing 787-9 flight from Doha to Ireland.

Air safety experts say passengers are often too casual about wearing seatbelts, leaving them at risk if the plane hits unexpected turbulence.

Scientists also say that so-called clear air turbulence, which is invisible to radar, is getting worse because of climate change.

Monday’s incident was the latest drama involving a Boeing plane, as the manufacturer faces intense scrutiny following a near-catastrophic event in January, when a fuselage panel blew out of an Alaska Airlines-operated 737 MAX.

80% of Gazans now displaced: UN humanitarian coordinator


By AFP
July 2, 2024

The United Nations has estimated that up to 250,000 people are impacted by the Israeli military order for civilians to leave - Copyright AFP Eyad BABA

The UN humanitarian coordinator for Gaza said Tuesday that 1.9 million people — 80 percent of the territory’s population — were now displaced, adding she was “deeply concerned” by reports of new evacuation orders for Khan Yunis.

The United Nations has estimated that up to 250,000 people are impacted by the Israeli military order for civilians to leave Al-Qarara, Bani Suhaila and other localities near the territory of 2.4 million’s second city of Khan Yunis.

“Over 1 million people have been displaced once again, desperately seeking shelter and safety (and) 1.9 million people are now displaced across Gaza… I’m deeply concerned about reports of new evacuation orders issued in the area of Khan Yunis,” Sigrid Kaag told the UN Security Council.

“Palestinian civilians in Gaza have been plunged into an abyss of suffering. Their home lives shattered, their lives upended. The war has not merely created the most profound of humanitarian crises. It has unleashed a maelstrom of human misery,” Kaag added.

She said that not enough aid was reaching the war-torn strip, and that the opening of new crossings, particularly to southern Gaza, was necessary to avert a humanitarian disaster.

Kaag said the Rafah crossing between Gaza and Egypt should be re-opened, and also pleaded with the international community to do more to fund relief efforts.

Aid volumes entering Gaza had “dropped significantly” since the start of the Israeli operation in Rafah, she added.

The UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres’s spokesman said “yesterday’s orders for the evacuations of 117 square kilometers in Khan Yunis and Rafah governorates apply to a about a third of the Gaza Strip, making it the largest such order since October.”

“An evacuation of such a massive scale will only heighten the suffering of civilians,” said the spokesman, Stephane Dujarric.

The war started after Hamas’s October 7 attack on southern Israel resulted in the deaths of 1,195 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli figures.

The militants also seized 251 hostages, 116 of whom remain in Gaza, including 42 the army says are dead.

Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed at least 37,925 people, also mostly civilians, according to data from the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory.

Israel has not specifically said there will be a military operation in southern Gaza, but so far nearly every evacuation order has heralded major battles.

Biden calls for lower prices of Ozempic, similar drugs


By AFP
July 2, 2024


US President Joe Biden and Senator Bernie Sanders accused pharma firms Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly of "price gouging" - Copyright AFP/File SEBASTIEN BOZON

US President Joe Biden on Tuesday called on pharmaceutical giants Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly to lower prices for diabetes and weight loss drugs such as Ozempic, saying firms must stop “ripping off the American people.”

In an article written with Senator Bernie Sanders, Biden said US patients pay several times more than those in Canada, Germany and Denmark for Novo Nordisk’s diabetes drugs Ozempic and Wegovy, which can also be used for weight loss.

A one-month supply of Ozempic in the United States last year was $936, compared to $169 in Canada and $103 in Germany, according to one study.

Eli Lilly was also charging “unconscionably high prices” for Mounjaro, a drug similar to Ozempic.

“Why should people in Burlington, Vermont, pay so much more than people in Copenhagen or Berlin for the same drug?” wrote Biden and Sanders, who chairs the Senate committee on health and education.

Such “price gouging” makes the drugs unaffordable to millions of Americans, they said.

“If the prices of these drugs are not substantially reduced, they have the potential to bankrupt the American health care system,” Biden and Sanders wrote. “We will not allow that to happen.”

In a statement to AFP, Novo Nordisk said it takes “patient access and affordability very seriously,” adding it was “disappointed that a very difficult and complex problem is being oversimplified and mischaracterized for political purposes.”

The cost of Ozempic and Wegovy has decreased approximately 40 percent since their launch, it added, while admitting: “Even when we lower our prices, patients in the United States often don’t receive the savings — this is a problem.”

Eli Lilly said it offers Mounjaro, marketed to diabetes patients, and Zepbound, sold as a weight loss drug, “for as low as $25 a month to those eligible for our savings card program.”

“Comparing list prices in the United States to other countries ignores patient affordability programs and hundreds of billions of dollars in discounts and fees” paid to intermediaries by pharmaceutical companies “that should lower the costs of medicines for Americans, but unfortunately this system can drive prices higher,” Eli Lilly said in a statement to AFP.

High prices for prescription drugs have been a long-standing problem for American patients, and Biden has focused on lowering health care costs as part of his campaign for reelection in November.

The piece in USA Today comes days after Biden’s weak performance during a televised presidential debate with Republican Donald Trump sparked sharp concern among Democrats.

Philippines says it agrees with China to ‘de-escalate’ South China Sea tensions


AFP
July 2, 2024


Chinese coast guard personnel clashed with Philippine navy boats on a resupply mission to a remote outpost in a disputed area of the South China Sea in June - Copyright ARMED FORCES OF THE PHILIPPINES/AFP/File Handout
Pam CASTRO

The Philippines and China agreed on Tuesday to “de-escalate tensions” over the South China Sea, Manila said, following a violent clash in the disputed waters last month.

Manila and Beijing have a long history of maritime territorial disputes in the hotly contested waterway but last month’s incident was the most serious in a number of escalating confrontations.

Chinese coast guard personnel wielding knives, sticks and an axe surrounded and boarded three Philippine navy boats on June 17 during a resupply mission to Second Thomas Shoal.

A Filipino soldier lost a finger in the clash, with Manila also accusing the Chinese coast guard of looting guns and damaging three boats as well as navigational and communication equipment.

Beijing insisted its coast guard behaved in a “professional and restrained” way and blamed Manila for the clash.

A handful of Filipino troops are stationed on a rusty warship deliberately grounded on Second Thomas Shoal in 1999 to assert Manila’s claims to the area.

Philippine foreign affairs undersecretary Theresa Lazaro and China’s vice foreign minister Chen Xiaodong had “frank and constructive discussions” on Tuesday, the Philippine foreign ministry said in a statement after the talks.

“The two sides discussed their respective positions on Ayungin Shoal and affirmed their commitment to de-escalate tensions without prejudice to their respective positions,” the statement said, using the country’s name for Second Thomas Shoal in the Spratly Islands.

“Noting recent incidents in the South China Sea, both sides recognised that there is a need to restore trust, rebuild confidence, and create conditions conducive to productive dialogue and interaction,” it said, adding that “significant differences remain”.

China claims almost the entirety of the South China Sea, brushing aside competing claims from several Southeast Asian nations, including the Philippines, and an international ruling that its stance has no legal basis.

Chinese forces have used water cannon and military-grade lasers and collided with Filipino resupply vessels and their escorts in previous confrontations near disputed reefs.

Philippine Navy Rear Admiral Roy Vincent Trinidad told reporters on Tuesday that the June 17 incident was “the most aggressive” in “recent history”.

“The reason why we are calling this out is because we don’t want any unintended consequence,” Trinidad told reporters.

“Basically their actions increase the risk for miscalculation.”

– ‘Actions speak louder than words’ –



The latest confrontation has fuelled concerns that the dispute could drag in the United States, which has a mutual defence pact with Manila.

The Philippine government has said that it does not consider the June 17 clash as an “armed attack” that would trigger a provision in the treaty for Washington to come to Manila’s aid.

In Washington, State Department spokesman Vedant Patel said that the United States “would welcome any efforts to de-escalate tensions in the South China Sea”.

But he added that in dealing with Beijing, “actions speak louder than words”.

The two sides signed an arrangement Tuesday on improving the Philippines-China Maritime Communications Mechanism and agreed to continue discussions between their coast guards.

China and the Philippines launched the consultative meeting in 2017 to promote the peaceful management of conflicts in the South China Sea.

Philippine Foreign Affairs Secretary Enrique Manalo said last week the Manila meeting would look to establish “confidence-building measures” that can create the basis for “more serious discussions”.

“We still believe in the primacy of dialogue, and diplomacy should prevail even in the face of these serious incidents, though I admit it’s also a challenge,” Manalo told a Philippine Senate public hearing on the Second Thomas Shoal confrontation.

Second Thomas Shoal lies about 200 kilometres (120 miles) from the western Philippine island of Palawan and more than 1,000 kilometres from China’s nearest major landmass, Hainan island.

China deploys coast guard and other boats to patrol the waters around the shoal and has turned several reefs into artificial militarised islands.