CRIMINAL CAPITALI$M
UK
£3.2m annual bill for storing PPE bought by Government from firm linked to Baroness Mone, judge told

Telegraph reporters
Thu, 7 December 2023
In this article:
Michelle Mone, Baroness Mone
British businessperson

Michelle Mone was made a Tory peer in 2015 - PA/PA

Taxpayers are paying about £3.2 million a year to cover the cost of storing millions of “sterile gowns” which were bought by the Government during the Covid crisis from a firm which allegedly has links to Baroness Mone.

Lawyers representing Victoria Atkins, the Health and Social Care Secretary, indicated on Thursday, at a High Court hearing in London, that the total storage bill had topped £10 million.

They told Mr Justice Bright the total spent on storage by the end of 2022 was about £6.9 million.

Mr Justice Bright was given figures while overseeing a pre-trial hearing in a £130 million damages dispute centred on the supply of personal protective equipment (PPE) during the pandemic.

The Government is suing PPE Medpro - the firm which supplied the gowns. The company, which has been at the centre of a Westminster controversy following allegations linking Conservative peer Baroness Michelle Mone to PPE Medpro, is fighting the case.

Reports, denied by Lady Mone, have suggested she may have profited from the firm winning contracts worth more than £200 million. News of the dispute emerged a year ago.

Barrister Paul Stanley KC, who led the Health Secretary’s legal team at Thursday’s hearing, told Mr Justice Bright that in June 2020 a contract had been forged for PPE Medpro to sell the Health Department 25 million sterile gowns.

Samples ‘failed dismally’

He said the Government is claiming the gowns, which were “manufactured and sterilised” in China, were “not sterile when delivered”. He said the Health Department had tested a “sample of gowns” and told the judge: “They failed dismally.”

Mr Stanley said PPE Medpro was suggesting that the gowns tested were “contaminated on the journey from China”, or “while stored in the UK”, or that “the testing was not done properly”.

He indicated that a judge would probably hear evidence at trial lasting more than two weeks.

Mr Stanley said one issue related to how many gowns needed to be “retained for the purposes of the case”. He said a judge may have to “grapple” with that issue if an agreement could not be reached.

He said the health department “and therefore the public purse” was continuing to “incur costs of storing” the gowns.

“Storage costs for the Medpro gowns is approximately £3.2 million per year, totalling some £6.9 million as at December 2022,” he said.

“The Department of Health and Social Care is naturally keen to begin orderly disposal of the gowns, both to mitigate its loss and minimise ongoing cost to the taxpayer, but it recognises that it must do that in a manner that is consistent with its obligation to ensure the fair determination of its claim.”
‘High-risk’ dash for PPE

In July, a cross-party committee of MPs found the Government’s high-risk dash to purchase PPE during the pandemic resembled “panic buying”.

The public accounts committee said a “rushed” approach led to “many risky contacts” and resulted in £9 billion being written off.

A committee report said officials had to work at a “very fast pace in extraordinary circumstances” to procure essential equipment.

Officials had “insufficient time and resources to reflect properly on each offer”, with the sudden pressure causing them to “accept very high levels of risk”, the report said.

The committee was unable to “comprehensively conclude” that emails from Lady Mone led to PPE Medpro being treated differently by the Government.

Thousands of pro-Palestine demonstrators to march in central London this weekend

The Palestine Solidarity Campaign announced it would be holding another protest in the capital following similar events in the past two months.

Jimmy Nsubuga and Andy Wells
Updated Fri, 8 December 2023 

The pro-Palestine march on Saturday comes a month after the protest held on Armistice Day. (PA) (Avpics)

Tens of thousands of pro-Palestinian protesters are expected to march in central London on Saturday to demonstrate against the resumption of Israel’s bombing of Gaza.

The Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC) has announced it will be holding another protest in the capital following similar events in the past two months. Supporters will meet in the City of London then march past St Paul's Cathedral, up Fleet Street then along Embankment and on to Whitehall. The march will finish in Parliament Square. An accessible route for people who want a shorter version will start under Waterloo Bridge then join the rest of the march.



In the last major protest on Armistice Day, organisers said more than 800,000 people attended. During the march, clashes erupted between police and far-right groups who were protesting against the demonstration, with over 120 arrests made.

There has been mounting pressure on the Met Police to take stricter action against incidents of antisemitism during the demonstrations, with critics claiming that changes of “from the river to the sea”, are antisemitic, while other protestors have been accused of showing support for Hamas.

Police made over 100 arrests as protesters and counter-protesters clashed on Armistice Day. (PA) (banksy)

Former home secretary Suella Braverman was blamed for inflaming tensions ahead of the march in an unauthorised article in which she had accused police of "double standards" at protests. Rishi Sunak later condemned the “wholly unacceptable” violence by far-right groups and “Hamas sympathisers” on the march on 11 November.

Saturday’s event is the latest protest since the start of the Israel-Hamas war in October. Tens of thousands of pro-Palestinian protesters also marched on 25 November during a temporary truce. Last week, demonstrators gathered across the UK, with the PSC arranging ceasefire rallies and vigils in London, Cardiff, Hull and Coventry.

The Israel bombardment began after more than 1,400 people in southern Israel were killed by gunmen from Hamas - the UK-proscribed terrorist organisation which runs Gaza - during its assault on 7 October.

Since then, the Hamas-controlled Gaza health ministry has said more than 16,015 Palestinians have been killed in Israel’s retaliatory strikes, which have caused destruction to civilian neighbourhoods.

Recommended reading

Pro-Palestinians being ‘allowed to march in favour of terrorists’, Truss claims (PA Media)


Who are the six groups organising the pro-Palestinian protests? (Yahoo News)


Police ‘surrounded’ by protesters at pro-Palestinian march in London (The Telegraph)


Police at ready as dozens of pro-Palestine protests to take place across UK this weekend (Evening Standard)

'Not forgotten'

PSC director Ben Jamal said: “This Saturday, ordinary people across the UK will come out again to show the vast majority of them support a permanent ceasefire. They will show their solidarity with Palestinians who are experiencing unbearable suffering.

“They will also demand the root causes are not forgotten - Israel’s decades-long military occupation of Palestinian territories and its system of apartheid against Palestinians. We demand justice for the Palestinian people – their right to self-determination and to live in freedom, dignity and with equality.”

A spokesperson for the Met Police told Yahoo News UK that updates about their plans for the march would be posted ahead of it taking place.

Yahoo News UK has contacted the PSC for further comment.

Tens of thousands attended the march against antisemitism in London last month. (PA) (Bjanka Kadic)

Response to pro-Palestine marches

While organisers of the pro-Palestine marches say they are only calling for Israel to stop their retaliatory strikes on Gaza, some members of the Jewish community say the protests have made London a “no-go zone for Jews”.

Organisers of the march against antisemitism in London last month called the rally, that was attended by tens of thousands of people, the largest gathering against antisemitism London had seen since the Battle of Cable Street in 1936.

That event saw hundreds of thousands of people blocked a planned march by Sir Oswald Mosley’s British Union of Fascists through an area populated by many Jewish families at the Cable Street march 87 years ago.

Former prime minister Boris Johnson was among the high-profile figures joining last month’s demonstration, a day after crowds gathered in the capital once again to demand a ceasefire in the Gaza conflict.

Organisers Campaign Against Semitism set up the protest amid fears about rising antisemitic incidents sparked by the crisis in the Middle East.

Chief rabbi Sir Ephraim Mirvis told the crowd that there had been “an alarming rise of antisemitism” since Hamas’ 7 October attacks.

The start of the march saw English Defence League founder Tommy Robinson, real name Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, arrested by police after he tried to join marchers.

UK
Two arrested after Starmer is accused of ‘facilitating genocide’ in Gaza

Telegraph reporters
Thu, 7 December 2023 

Sir Keir Starmer faces protests from pro-Palestinian supporters at Glasgow station

Two people have been arrested after Sir Keir Starmer was confronted by pro-Palestinian activists in Glasgow who accused him of “facilitating genocide” in Gaza.

Footage showed the Labour Party leader arriving at Glasgow Central Station, where a group of activists were waiting with Palestinian flags.

Sir Keir voted against a ceasefire in Gaza and has lost many councillors from mainly Muslim communities owing to his support for Israel during a war which has killed more than 16,500 Palestinians.

The backlash began during an interview with LBC where he claimed “Israel has the right” to withhold power and water from Palestinian civilians.

Most victims have been women and children, and starvation and waterborne illnesses are becoming widespread in makeshift camps.

As Sir Keir arrived, one protester shouted: “Keir Starmer, you are facilitating Israel’s genocide in Gaza. Stop the massacre of over 7,000 babies.

“Freedom for Palestine, stop the genocide. You’re responsible for killing babies in Gaza.”



Another shouted: “Starmer, why did you vote for continued genocide?”

Others cried: “War criminal” and “you should be in prison”.

After Sir Keir got into a Range Rover, activists surrounded it shouting “child murderer”.
Anas Sarwar criticised by protesters

The protest continued outside the Crowne Plaza, where Anas Sarwar, the Scottish Labour leader, also came in for criticism from protesters “for supporting genocide”.

Footage filmed on a train earlier, showed a passenger confronting Sir Keir over the “slaughter” of 7,000 Palestinian children.

The passenger can be seen saying: “Keir, how many more children in Palestine have to die before you call for a ceasefire?

“Over 7,000 children have died. Over 7,000 children have been slaughtered by Israel. This is unacceptable.

“What happened to human rights? What happened to democracy?”
‘Where is your humanity?’

The man goes on to say “20,000 people have died”, and asks: “Where is your humanity?”

A Police Scotland spokesman: “We are aware of an ongoing protest at a premises on Congress Road, Glasgow, and an earlier protest in the Gordon Street area of the city.

“Officers are in attendance at Congress Road and engaging with the crowd.

“Two people have been arrested in connection with assaulting police officers at Congress Road and inquiries are ongoing.

“There have been no reports of any injuries at either protest.”

2024 set to be ‘milestone in climate history’, says Met Office


Danny Halpin, PA Environment Correspondent
Thu, 7 December 2023 

Next year’s average global temperature may rise higher than 1.5C above pre-industrial levels for the first time in modern history, according to Met Office forecasts.

Limiting warming to 1.5C is a key goal of the Paris Agreement, but as that is measured over a period of around 20 years, exceeding 1.5C for one year does not mean the target has been missed.

(PA Graphics)

Temperature fluctuates naturally and it is likely that in the years immediately after 2024 the annual average will fall below 1.5C again.


It is a significant milestone, nevertheless, as it demonstrates how greenhouse gas emissions are heating the Earth towards an environment that human beings have never experienced before.

The Met Office believe 2024 will finish with an average temperature between 1.34C and 1.58C above the period between 1850-1900 – the 11th year in a row that temperatures will have exceeded 1C.

Forecasters also have tipped this year to finish with an average of 1.2C above pre-industrial levels and it is almost certainly going to be the hottest year on record, surpassing 2020 and 2016.

El Nino, a naturally-occurring phenomenon where heat rises in the tropical eastern Pacific Ocean, is adding further heat to the atmosphere this year and is set to continue into spring 2024, pushing up the average global temperature temporarily.

Dr Nick Dunstone, of the Met Office, said: “The forecast is in line with the ongoing global warming trend of 0.2C per decade and is boosted by a significant El Nino event.

“Hence, we expect two new global temperature record-breaking years in succession and, for the first time, we are forecasting a reasonable chance of a year temporarily exceeding 1.5C.

“It’s important to recognise that a temporary exceedance of 1.5C won’t mean a breach of the Paris Agreement. But the first year above 1.5C would certainly be a milestone in climate history.”

The average global temperature has been steadily rising with fluctuations (Met Office/PA)

Countries agreed in 2015 to stop the global temperature rising beyond 1.5C as this is the point at which the climate starts becoming dangerously unstable.

Melting of polar and mountain glaciers may become irreversible and trigger further warming regardless of whether human emissions are brought under control.

An overheating ocean may also kill off the world’s coral reefs, which form the basis of diverse ecosystems and the livelihoods of millions of people.

The Met Office’s Professor Adam Scaife said: “The main driver for record-breaking temperatures is the ongoing human-induced warming since the start of the industrial revolution.

“With a month to go, 2023 is almost certain to be the warmest year on record, exceeding the current record set in 2016 which was also boosted by an El Nino event.

“In addition to the El Nino event, we have anomalous high temperatures in the North Atlantic and Southern Ocean, and, together with climate change, these factors account for the new global temperature extremes.”

UK
'A total farce': Labour furious as govt reveals cost of Rwanda policy

Sky News
Updated Thu, 7 December 2023 



Rishi Sunak is facing fresh pressure over his Rwanda policy after it emerged the scheme has already cost £240m, despite never being used.

The government spent a further £100m in the 2023-24 financial year while flights remained grounded amid a series of legal setbacks - on top of the £140m previously paid out.

According to a letter from the Home Office to committee chairs, ministers expect additional costs of £50m in the coming year, which would bring the total to £290m.

It comes just hours after Mr Sunak vowed to "finish the job" of reviving his plan to deport some asylum seekers to Kigali - despite the prospect of a bitter parliamentary battle.

Home Office official Matthew Rycroft wrote to Home Affairs Committee chair Dame Diana Johnson, and Public Accounts Committee chair Dame Meg Hillier, on Thursday.

His letter said: "Ministers have agreed that I can disclose now the payments so far in the 2023-24 financial year.

"There has been one payment of £100m, paid in April this year as part of the Economic Transformation and Integration Fund mentioned above.

"The UK government has not paid any more to the government of Rwanda thus far.

"This was entirely separate to the treaty - the government of Rwanda did not ask for any payment in order for a treaty to be signed, nor was any offered."

Labour described the revelation as "incredible" - with shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper saying: "How many more blank cheques will Rishi Sunak write before the Tories come clean about this scheme being a total farce?

"Britain simply can't afford more of this costly chaos from the Conservatives."

The government hopes to rush emergency legislation through parliament for MPs and peers to declare that Rwanda is a safe destination for asylum seekers.

Mr Sunak earlier insisted his new law would end the "merry-go-round of legal challenges".

Read more:
Rishi Sunak facing political fight of his life

In the Commons, Tory right-wingers may seek to beef up the bill by calling for it to effectively override international law.

MPs will get their first chance to debate and vote on the Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Bill on Tuesday.

The prime minister dismissed suggestions he will make it a confidence vote, meaning that MPs would have the whip withdrawn if they defied him.

Under the government's plan first unveiled in April 2022, people who arrive in the UK by irregular means - such as on small boats - could be sent on a one-way trip to Rwanda, where the Kigali government would decide on their refugee status.

UK gives Rwanda another £100m before any asylum seekers sent there


Charles Hymas
Thu, 7 December 2023 

James Cleverly, the Home Secretary, and Vincent Biruta, Rwanda’s foreign minister, shake hands after signing a new treaty to revive the UK’s asylum policy - Ben Birchall/AFP

Britain has given Rwanda an extra £100 million this year – on top of the £140 million already paid – before any asylum seekers have been deported to the country, The Telegraph can reveal.

The payment, which had not been previously disclosed, was agreed in April as part of the deal under which illegal migrants relocated from the UK will claim asylum in Rwanda. The Government expects to pay Rwanda a further £50 million next year, taking the total to £290 million.

The agreement was upgraded to a legally binding treaty this week as part of Rishi Sunak’s efforts to get the first flights off by next spring after the deportation plan was ruled unlawful by the Supreme Court.

Last month, senior Home Office civil servants refused to tell MPs on the home affairs committee whether any extra payments had been made since the original £140 million was agreed in 2022. They said they would have to wait for the Home Office’s annual accounts next summer.

It is understood the committee has since asked the National Audit Office, the independent public spending watchdog, to urgently investigate the true costs of the Rwanda plan.


Tim Loughton, a former minister who is a member of the committee, said: “It is really important that there is full transparency so we can see exactly what we are paying for, and what our financial obligations are if we are to make this treaty work, and for the arrangement to come into effect as soon as possible.”

It comes amid a growing row over Rwanda’s threat to pull out of the agreement if the Government was seen to act unlawfully by exempting asylum claims from the European Convention on Human Rights.

On Wednesday, Rishi Sunak insisted Rwanda’s position supported his refusal to bow to demands from Right-wing MPs to exclude asylum claims from the convention. “If we go any further, the entire scheme will collapse, and there’s no point having a Bill with nowhere to send people to,” he warned.

Suella Braverman, sacked as home secretary by Mr Sunak after pushing for a harder line, said the argument was “intellectually incoherent” as the Bill declaring Rwanda safe already disapplied elements of international law including the Refugee Convention and the human rights convention.

“The measures that I’ve proposed do not breach international law. There is a perfectly legitimate basis in international law for justifying the measures that I’ve put forward,” she said. The bulk of the money handed to Rwanda is for economic development such as tech businesses, with £20 million to build housing for deported migrants. It comes under the five-year migration and economic development partnership signed by Dame Priti Patel in April 2022, when she was home secretary.

The extra payments pre-date the treaty. This week James Cleverly, the Home Secretary, said Rwanda had not received any additional funding for the new treaty it had signed to revive the Government’s asylum plan.

Mr Cleverly told a press conference in Kigali: “Let me make it clear – the Rwandan government has not asked for, and we have not provided, any funding linked to the signing of this treaty.”

However, he added that while Rwanda did not ask for money specifically for the treaty, “dealing with migration” was not a “cost-free option”.

“The financial arrangement which inevitably comes as part of an international agreement reflects the costs that may be imposed on Rwanda through the changes that this partnership has created in their systems – in their legal systems and their institutions,” he said.

In a letter sent to the home affairs committee on Thursday, the Home Office defended its decision not to disclose the payment. It said it recognised “the public interest in transparency and accountability” over spending taxpayers’ money, but added: “This must also be balanced against public interests, which work the other way.

“For example, you will recognise the importance of respecting commercial confidence and the maintenance of confidence between international partners.”

Documents released under Freedom of Information laws revealed that the Home Office has also spent more than £2.1 million so far fighting legal challenges to the Rwanda plan.

Yvette Cooper, shadow home secretary, said: “This is just incredible. The Tories’ have wasted an astronomical £290 million of taxpayers’ money on a failing scheme which hasn’t sent a single asylum seeker to Rwanda. How many more blank cheques will Rishi Sunak write before the Tories come clean about this scheme being a total farce? Britain simply can’t afford more of this costly chaos from the Conservatives”.

Public funeral for Shane MacGowan to take place in Ireland

Cillian Sherlock, PA
Thu, 7 December 2023 

Crowds of people are expected to gather in Dublin and Tipperary for the funeral procession of Shane MacGowan in Ireland.

The songwriter, who found fame as the lead singer of London-Irish punk/folk band The Pogues, died at the age of 65 last week.

Members of the public are expected to line the the streets to catch a glimpse of the procession, which will begin at St Lotts Road in Dublin City Centre at 11am.

A candle burns next to a photograph of The Pogues frontman Shane MacGowan at the Mansion House, in Dublin (Brian Lawless/PA)

The procession, reported to involve a horse-drawn carriage as well as the Artane Band and a piper, will then travel through the city across MacMahon Bridge and onto Pearse Street.

It will turn onto Westland Row, onto Fenian Street and conclude at Denzille Lane at approximately 11.45am.

MacGowan’s public funeral mass, which will be livestreamed, will take place at St Mary’s of the Rosary Church in Nenagh at 3.30pm.

Irish President Michael D Higgins is expected to attend alongside stars such as Jonny Depp and Nick Cave.

Following the funeral mass, the public will also have the opportunity to pay their respects as the funeral cortege moves through Nenagh town centre from Church Road to Market Cross.

A private cremation will follow.

MacGowan was born to Irish parents in 1957 in Pembury, Kent, and he soon moved to rural Tipperary where he was immersed in a culture of ceili bands and showbands.

The Pogues frontman, best known for hit festive song Fairytale Of New York, died “peacefully” at 3am on November 30 with his wife and family by his side, a statement from his relatives said.

He was due to celebrate his 66th birthday on Christmas Day.

Learn to forget? How to rein in a rogue chatbot

Joseph BOYLE
Thu, 7 December 2023 

As firms like Google and Microsoft rewire their search engines with AI technology, they are likely to face increasing issues with data privacy (OLIVIER MORIN)

When Australian politician Brian Hood noticed ChatGPT was telling people he was a convicted criminal, he took the old-fashioned route and threatened legal action against the AI chatbot's maker, OpenAI.

His case raised a potentially huge problem with such AI programs: what happens when they get stuff wrong in a way that causes real-world harm?

Chatbots are based on AI models trained on vast amounts of data and retraining them is hugely expensive and time consuming, so scientists are looking at more targeted solutions.

Hood said he talked to OpenAI who "weren't particularly helpful".

But his complaint, which made global headlines in April, was largely resolved when a new version of their software was rolled out and did not return the same falsehood -- though he never received an explanation.

"Ironically, the vast amount of publicity my story received actually corrected the public record," Hood, mayor of the town of Hepburn in Victoria, told AFP this week.

OpenAI did not respond to requests for comment.

Hood might have struggled to make a defamation charge stick, as it is unclear how many people could see results in ChatGPT or even if they would see the same results.

But firms like Google and Microsoft are rapidly rewiring their search engines with AI technology.

It seems likely they will be inundated with takedown requests from people like Hood, as well as over copyright infringements.

While they can delete individual entries from a search engine index, things are not so simple with AI models.

To respond to such issues, a group of scientists is forging a new field called "machine unlearning" that tries to train algorithms to "forget" offending chunks of data.

- 'Cool tool' -

One expert in the field, Meghdad Kurmanji from Warwick University in Britain, told AFP the topic had started getting real traction in the last three or four years.

Among those taking note has been Google DeepMind, the AI branch of the trillion-dollar Californian behemoth.

Google experts co-wrote a paper with Kurmanji published last month that proposed an algorithm to scrub selected data from large language models -- the algorithms that underpin the likes of ChatGPT and Google's Bard chatbot.

Google also launched a competition in June for others to refine unlearning methods, which so far has attracted more than 1,000 participants.

Kurmanji said unlearning could be a "very cool tool" for search engines to manage takedown requests under data privacy laws, for example.

He also said his algorithm had scored well in tests for removing copyrighted material and fixing bias.

However, Silicon Valley elites are not universally excited.

Yann LeCun, AI chief at Facebook-owner Meta, which is also pouring billions into AI tech, told AFP the idea of machine unlearning was far down his list of priorities.

"I'm not saying it's useless, uninteresting, or wrong," he said of the paper authored by Kurmanji and others. "But I think there are more important and urgent topics."

LeCun said he was focused on making algorithms learn quicker and retrieve facts more efficiently rather than teaching them to forget.

- 'No panacea' -

But there appears to be broad acceptance in academia that AI firms will need to be able to remove information from their models to comply with laws like the EU's data protection regulation (GDPR).

"The ability to remove data from training sets is a critical aspect moving forward," said Lisa Given from RMIT University in Melbourne Australia.

However, she pointed out that so much was unknown about the way models worked -- and even what datasets they were trained on -- that a solution could be a long way away.

Michael Rovatsos of Edinburgh University could also see similar technical issues arising, particularly if a company was bombarded with takedown requests.

He added that unlearning did nothing to resolve wider questions about the AI industry, like how the data is gathered, who profits from its use or who takes responsibility for algorithms that cause harm.

"The technical solution isn't the panacea," he said.

With scientific research in its infancy and regulation almost non-existent, Brian Hood -- who is a fan of AI despite his ChatGPT experience -- suggested we were still in the era of old-fashioned solutions.

"When it comes to these chatbots generating rubbish, users just need to double check everything," he said.

jxb/rl

Nepal calls on Russia not to deploy its Gurkhas in Ukraine war
Shweta Sharma
Tue, 5 December 2023


Nepal has called on Russia to stop sending its Gurkha soldiers to fight on the frontline in Ukraine after a series of losses sparked anger back home.

The Nepali government said six soldiers serving in the Russian military have died in Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine since February 2022, Nepali prime minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal said.

"The government of Nepal has requested the Russian government to immediately return their bodies and pay compensation to their families," the foreign ministry said late on Monday.

Nepal’s foreign ministry said that diplomatic efforts were underway for the release of one Nepali soldier from the Ukrainian army following his capture while fighting in the Russian army, the statement added.

The Gurkhas have long been known for their bravery and fighting skills on the battlefield, serving in the British and Indian armies under an agreement between the three countries since the independence of India in 1947.

The Himalayan state, which is wedged between India and China, has no such agreement with Russia.

Between 150 and 200 Nepalis are believed to have been working as mercenaries in the Russian army since the start of the war, said Milan Raj Tuladhar, Nepal‘s ambassador to Moscow, according to The Kathmandu Post.

“We are sending those who come [in] contact [with us] back to Nepal, telling them about the high risks associated with joining the Russian army,” Mr Tuladhar said.

The ambassador said that young Nepalis are being lured to fight in the war with attractive financial offers, and are effectively being trafficked into Russia.

“We have been sending back at least one Nepali national a day. They were all brought to Russia to serve in the army,” he said.

“If the individual does not possess a Nepali passport, we issue a travel document and send him back to Nepal.”

Nepal’s foreign ministry has urged its citizens not to join the army of any third country outside of its existing international agreements, and demanded Moscow return its nationals.

The bodies of two Nepali soldiers, Rupak Karki and Sandip Thapaliya, have already been buried after they were killed around mid-July this year while others are still in the mortuary, the report said.

It comes as Mr Putin has set his sights on boosting his ground troops capacity in Ukraine and signed a decree last week to increase recruitment by nearly 170,000 to reach a total of 1.32 million, as Russia suffers record losses in its 22-month-long war.

Russia’s campaign to attract more voluntary recruits has included advertisements promising cash bonuses, cold calls to eligible men by recruiters, and partnerships with universities and social service agencies to attract students and the unemployed across Russia.

Nepal police arrest 10 for smuggling Gurkhas to fight for Russia in Ukraine


Shweta Sharma
Wed, 6 December 2023 a


Nepal police have arrested 10 people for allegedly sending unemployed youths to Russia for illegal recruitment into Vladimir Putin’s army, amid Moscow’s ongoing war against Ukraine.

Kathmandu police said the suspects were charging up to $9,000 (£7,143) per person to traffic them to Russia on tourist visas and have them embedded in the Russian army.

The arrests are part of a police campaign to discourage vulnerable men from fighting on the front lines.

Nepal has been compelled to consolidate its diplomatic efforts following the deaths of at least six of its soldiers serving in the Russian military in Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine since February 2022. One Nepali soldier was captured by the Ukrainian army.

It prompted Nepal to call on Russia to stop sending its Gurkha soldiers to fight on the frontlines in Ukraine after a series of losses sparked anger among the families as they waited for the return of the last remains of slain combatants.

Kathmandu district police chief Bhupendra Khatri said: “We are discussing with the government lawyers about the case and will produce them to the court,” Mr Khatri said.

The men were being smuggled into Russia through the UAE, he said. “It is a case of human smuggling ... organised crime,” he added.

Scores of Nepali men have been drawn into the Russia-Ukraine war with mercenaries believed to be fighting on both sides. The young generation from the poor Himalayan nation are being lured into foreign countries for the prospect of a better future and a contract worth about $750 (£595) per month for fighting in the war.

In May, Mr Putin announced that foreigners who serve a year in the Russian military would have the process of their full Russian citizenship expedited.

Hundreds of Nepali soldiers are believed to be fighting on the front lines unofficially. But Nepal’s ambassador to Russia, Milan Raj Tuladhar, puts a conservative number between 150 and 200 of his country’s people embedded in the Russian army since the start of the war.

The country, which has a long tradition of serving in the foreign military, has no agreement with Russia for officially allowing youths to be employed in their army, unlike with the British and Indian armies.

The Nepali government has urged its people to not fight in the war and prime minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal said he is aware of people fighting in the conflict.

Nepal’s foreign ministry said diplomatic efforts were underway for the release of a Nepali soldier from Ukraine’s army following his capture while fighting on behalf of Russia.

"The government of Nepal has requested the Russian government to immediately return their bodies and pay compensation to their families," the foreign ministry said late on Monday.

Being Black and Pregnant in the Deep South Can Be a Dangerous Combination

2023/12/08

O’laysha Davis was a few weeks shy of her due date when in mid-August she decided it was time to switch doctors.

Davis had planned to give birth at a small community hospital about 20 minutes from her home in North Charleston, South Carolina. But that changed when her medical team started repeatedly calling her cellphone and pressuring her to come to the hospital and deliver the baby.

Davis said she’d told her doctor on more than one occasion that she was opposed to inducing labor early. Eventually, she reached her wits’ end.

“It was ridiculous,” said Davis, 33. “I don’t feel heard most of the time. I feel like it’s their way or no way, you know? Like you don’t have a choice.”

Davis had given birth twice before and knew from experience that Black women, like herself, and their infants face higher health risks during pregnancy and childbirth. In 2021, Davis lost a baby in the womb after a dangerous pregnancy complication in her first trimester.

“I was very fearful that the same thing would happen,” Davis said when she found out in late 2022 that she was pregnant again.

Her fears weren’t unfounded. Across South Carolina, Black infant and maternal deaths are troubling. About an hour and a half northwest of Charleston in Orangeburg County, the infant death rate was the highest in the state in 2021. Higher, in fact, than it was 50 years earlier in 1971, according to data KFF Health News obtained via a Freedom of Information Act request from the state health department. All but one of the 17 infants who died in 2021 in Orangeburg was Black.

Statistics like this scared Davis. But it was a horror story out of Georgia that really caught her attention: In July, a Black infant was decapitated during delivery by an obstetrician who allegedly used excessive force. Davis was eight months pregnant when the news broke.

“Something’s terribly wrong,” she recalled thinking.

‘Moving in the Wrong Direction’

Being Black has always been dangerous for pregnant women and infants in the South. The origin story of modern reproductive medicine can be traced to experiments conducted on Black enslaved women in Alabama during the 1840s by physician J. Marion Sims, the so-called Father of Gynecology,surgeon%2C%20teacher%2C%20and%20writer.), who subjected his patients to painful pelvic surgeries without anesthesia and drugged them with opium.

Sims, a native South Carolinian who is memorialized on the Statehouse grounds in Columbia, is credited with inventing an early version of the vaginal speculum, which he designed after probing an enslaved woman named Betsey with the bent handle of a spoon.

Fast-forward nearly 200 years, following a legacy of systemic discrimination that has prevented some Black families from getting health care: Poor outcomes for Black women and babies across the United States are alarmingly high compared with white patients.

These problems aren’t unique to the South. In places such as Kansas, Arizona, and Wisconsin, for example, Black infants die at more than double the rate of white babies. In Flint, Michigan, where more than half of residents are Black, the infant mortality rate for all babies in 2021 exceeded the rate in any Southern state.

But in Deep South states like South Carolina, Louisiana, and Mississippi, infant mortality rates in rural counties, especially for Black babies, often resemble those in much poorer parts of the world.

Things are poised to get worse. More than one year after the U.S. Supreme Court issued its decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, allowing state legislatures to outlaw abortion, most states in the South have passed either full or partial bans. Both research and preliminary data suggest this will further jeopardize Black women and babies.

In 2021, 42% of all reported abortions in the United States were obtained by Black women, accounting for a larger share than any other race, according to KFF data. And more than half of all Black Americans live in the South, where many of the country’s strictest abortion policies were enacted this year and last.

Already, birth rates in states that banned or restricted access to abortion have increased since the Dobbs ruling. State-level abortion bans will undoubtedly prove fatal for some people, particularly Black women and children, who are more likely to die before, during, and after childbirth than white women and children.

“There is so much anger,” said Kelli Parker, director of communications and marketing for the nonprofit Women’s Rights and Empowerment Network. “This type of legislation uniquely impacts women of color and other historically marginalized groups.”

In Texas, for example, infant mortality data from the Department of State Health Services shows the number of babies who died during their first year of life significantly increased after lawmakers passed a six-week abortion ban in 2021, according to data obtained by CNN through a public records request. In Texas, Black babies die before their 1st birthday at a rate more than twice that of white infants. That’s because the health of the mother often translates to the health of the infant, and Black women face much higher pregnancy risks, such as high blood pressure, stroke, and hemorrhage.

In South Carolina, where the state Supreme Court upheld a ban that outlaws abortion if fetal cardiac activity can be detected, non-Hispanic Black infants are also more than twice as likely to die during their first year than non-Hispanic white infants. And the state’s Black infant mortality rate increased by nearly 40% from 2017 to 2021.

Meanwhile, non-Hispanic Black women in South Carolina experienced a 67% higher pregnancy-related mortality ratio compared with their white counterparts in 2018 and 2019, according to the latest data from the state’s Maternal Morbidity and Mortality Review Committee.

“We have a lot of work to do,” said Sarah Knox, senior director of policy and advocacy at the nonprofit Children’s Trust of South Carolina. “Unfortunately, our latest data shows we are moving in the wrong direction.”

Most states haven’t released infant and maternal death data that reflects the impact of the Dobbs decision. But maternal health experts aren’t optimistic.

A KFF survey conducted this year of 569 OB-GYNs found that most doctors reported the Dobbs decision has worsened pregnancy-related mortality and exacerbated racial and ethnic inequities in maternal health.

But Dobbs isn’t the only factor. Across the South, public health experts point to a confluence of things: the closure of rural hospitals, the scarcity of doctors and midwives, the pervasiveness of obesity and chronic disease, and many states’ refusal to expand Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act.

In many cases, though, the intersection of poverty and structural racism in medicine is to blame for the deaths of Black women and their infants.

A KFF survey released this week found Black patients regularly said their health care provider assumed something about them without asking; suggested they were personally at fault for a health problem; ignored a direct request or question; or refused to prescribe them pain medication they thought they needed. More than half of all Black respondents also said they prepare to visit their health care provider by expecting insults or by being very careful about their appearance — or both.

“People are tired of being bullied by their providers,” said Tiffany Townsend, a midwife and the owner of De la Flor Midwifery in Columbia, South Carolina.

In the KFF survey, Black women reported the highest rates of unfair treatment, with 1 in 5 saying a health care provider treated them differently because of their racial or ethnic background. And about twice as many Black adults who were pregnant or gave birth in the past decade said they were refused pain medicine they thought they needed compared with white adults.

The nation’s Black maternal mortality rate is almost three times as high as the rate for white women. Townsend, one of the few Black midwives practicing in South Carolina, said that’s because doctors often ignore their patients’ complaints until it’s too late.

“They don’t listen,” she said.

‘Using Their Voice’

In March 2012, Kim Smith was about 22 weeks pregnant when she felt an “unbelievable pain” in the upper-right side of her abdomen. She was immediately admitted to a hospital in Lexington, South Carolina, where she was diagnosed with HELLP syndrome, a severe case of a pregnancy condition called preeclampsia, which is marked by high blood pressure. She’d been tested for preeclampsia a few weeks earlier and the results were negative.

While the preeclampsia rate is much higher among Black women than white women, the diagnosis still came as a shock to Smith, who liked to run, taught aerobics classes in college, and thought of herself as a healthy person. She hadn’t considered the possibility of a high-risk pregnancy.

“I was placed in a wheelchair and rushed to get an ultrasound,” she remembered after arriving at the emergency room. The first ultrasound showed a faint heartbeat, but within a few minutes, it had stopped. Smith was prepped for labor and delivery, but it was too late. The baby she had named Lauren Kelly didn’t survive.

More than half of all 516 fetal deaths reported that year in South Carolina were linked to Black mothers.

The loss of her daughter devastated Smith. She has since given birth to three boys and channeled the pain of her first pregnancy into the development of a patient navigation app called “Lauren,” funded by the South Carolina Research Authority, which she hopes will be used to spare other women from a similar loss.

The app is designed to allow pregnant and postpartum women to track their stress levels and vital signs, including their blood pressure, and to automatically relay those readings to their physicians. While not a diagnostic tool, Smith intends for the app to empower patients with real-time information so they can identify potential problems early and use it to advocate for themselves.

“You have to use your voice. You have to speak up,” said Smith, who wants the Lauren app to be made available free to pregnant women enrolled in Medicaid. “I’m still finding that people are not using their voice when they go into the doctor’s.”

New Research

Across the South, researchers are trying to identify solutions to improve health outcomes for mothers and babies. “Nothing seems to be moving the needle,” said Joseph Biggio, a maternal-fetal specialist at Ochsner Health in New Orleans.

The National Institutes of Health recently awarded Ochsner Health and its partners a $16.5 million grant to establish the Southern Center for Maternal Health Equity to address Louisiana’s high maternal mortality rate. Part of that research will involve finding ways to deliver care in rural parts of the state where hospitals have closed, high-risk specialists don’t exist, and pregnant women are disproportionately Black.

Biggio said the new research center will also compare birth outcomes in Louisiana to those in neighboring Mississippi, where infant and maternal mortality rates are the highest in the country, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

A key difference between these two Deep South states: Lawmakers in Louisiana have expanded access to the Medicaid program under the Affordable Care Act, while lawmakers in Mississippi haven’t.

Women in most states who qualify for Medicaid during pregnancy are also covered for 12 months after they give birth. But every year, many childless women in Southern states are not eligible for the low-income health insurance program until they become pregnant. Medicaid expansion, as it was designed under the Affordable Care Act, would fill this gap by loosening eligibility restrictions, but most states in the South haven’t adopted the expansion.

Some health care policy experts believe that covering women before they become pregnant and between pregnancies would reduce the burden of obesity, diabetes, and hypertension, and the risks those conditions pose to women and infants.

Tracking long-term improvement is crucial because success won’t be achieved overnight, said John Simpkins, president of the North Carolina-based MDC, a nonprofit focused on improving racial equity and economic mobility in the South.

“If we’re talking about population health improvements, then really the intervention should be beginning with kids who are being born right now, and following them through adulthood, and then probably their kids,” Simpkins said. Medicaid expansion, for example, could raise families out of poverty, but those benefits might not be realized for another generation, he said.

“I’ve found that the things that work the most are sustained investment over time,” he said.

But this work isn’t relegated to the South. In the majority-Black city of Flint, Michigan, for example, researchers are poised to launch in 2024 a multiyear project called Rx Kids to determine if direct, unrestricted cash payments to pregnant women and new moms improve birth outcomes.

“This is standard in other countries. This is common, basic sense,” said Mona Hanna-Attisha, a pediatrician and the associate dean of public health at the Michigan State University College of Human Medicine, who is leading the Flint research.

Poverty tends to peak just before a woman gives birth, she said, and the project in Flint will attempt to offset that hardship by offering every woman in the city who becomes pregnant, regardless of race, a payment of $1,500 at the halfway point of her pregnancy and then an additional $500 a month during the first year of her infant’s life, for a total of $7,500.

“This is designed to address this critical window, both economically and neurodevelopmentally,” Hanna-Attisha said. “It’s fundamentally how we are supposed to take care of each other. And it is not revolutionary.”

‘Extra Bad for Black Women’

Back in Charleston, the first seeds of concern had been planted during the first half of O’laysha Davis’ pregnancy when, she said, an OB-GYN prescribed a drug to control high blood pressure. She’d declined to take it — against her doctor’s guidance — because her blood pressure is normally “up and down,” she said. It wasn’t unusual for her reading to be high at the doctor’s office and normal at home, a common phenomenon known as “white coat hypertension.”

But high blood pressure during pregnancy, if left untreated, can be fatal for moms and babies. Along with medication, Davis’ doctor recommended delivering the infant a few weeks before her due date to avoid complications.

It wasn’t necessarily bad medical advice, but Davis feared the risks associated with inducing labor early, knowing that babies born after 39 weeks of gestation are generally healthier.

“I’m not getting an induction. Don’t schedule me,” she told the doctor.

Her OB-GYN scheduled one anyway. But on the morning of the scheduled induction, Davis received mixed messages from the hospital. First, there wasn’t a hospital bed available, so they told her not to come in. Later that day, though, in phone calls to Davis and her emergency contact, they advised that she come in immediately.

Finally, Davis said, she lost trust in her medical team. Compelled to find someone who would listen, she Googled the names of midwives in Charleston.

Davis reached midwife Nicole Lavallee by phone.

“I have the same conversation multiple times a week,” Lavallee said, with women who feel their medical team has stopped listening to them. “It’s extra bad for Black women.”

Lavallee connected Davis with a doula, then helped her make an appointment at another birthing hospital in Charleston.

Davis avoided an induction. She felt the first pains of labor at home and then delivered her baby — a girl named Journee Divine — on Aug. 31, a few days shy of her due date, at the Medical University of South Carolina.

“I labored at home, which is what I wanted to do to begin with,” she said. “I’m going to do it my way.”

KFF Health News is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs at KFF—an independent source of health policy research, polling, and journalism. Learn more about KFF.

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US wage growth, once an inflation risk, may now be the prop a soft landing needs

2023/12/08
By Howard Schneider

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Federal Reserve officials will look at new wage data due out Friday to confirm what many have come to suspect: That rising worker pay at this point is helping to keep the U.S. economy growing at a modest pace without fanning the inflationary pressures they are trying to squelch.

Wages last month likely rose at a 4% annual rate, according to a Reuters poll of economists, extending a slow decline in the pace of pay increases but still above the 3% level policymakers view as consistent with their 2% inflation target.

However alongside a recent jump in worker productivity and a moderation in the average number of hours worked by each employee, labor costs for each unit of output actually fell during the third quarter of the year, muting wage growth as a reason for companies to raise prices even as it left workers with more money to spend.

In remarks at Spelman College last week Fed Chair Jerome Powell noted while the pandemic-era savings that had been driving consumer demand may be about exhausted, rising pay had picked up the slack.

"As long as unemployment remains low...and wages are moving up above inflation, there's no reason why spending wouldn't continue to hold up," Powell said.

The hope for the Fed is that demand moderates enough to allow inflation to continue slowing without collapsing altogether in a slide towards recession.

'SUDDEN COLLAPSE LOOKS UNLIKELY'

The November payrolls report, including figures on hourly wages and hours worked, is among the last major data releases before the Fed's Dec. 12-13 policy meeting. Fed officials are expected to leave the benchmark interest rate steady at 5.25% to 5.5%, remaining on hold for the third meeting in a row.

Economists polled by Reuters estimate the economy added about 180,000 jobs in November, near the prepandemic average, with the unemployment rate unchanged at 3.9%.

Coupled with moderating wage growth, strong productivity, and other data depicting a labor market looking more like it did before the pandemic, that would bolster the Fed's current outlook of an economy gliding back to normal.

“In 2023, we saw a tailwind from consumer spending in the U.S. as a result of the stockpiled savings built up during the pandemic," Daniel McCormack, head of research with Macquarie Asset Management, told reporters on a conference call this week. "Looking ahead to 2024, we expect to see a slowdown in spending - it may not completely fall off a cliff, but with savings depleted we don’t expect the same level of spending to continue."

Indeed consumer spending grew just 0.2% in October, and its average growth over the past nine months has returned to the pre-pandemic trend.

Consumer credit grew by $5.2 billion in October, down from around $12 billion the month before as higher interest rates likely weigh on the ability or willingness of households to borrow, an impact the Fed expects to intensify.

Pantheon Macroeconomics economists Ian Shepherdson and Kieran Clancy said the performance of U.S. consumer credit, including a recent rise in delinquency rates, made them expect a "softening" in consumption only.

"We are not unduly alarmed at this point," they wrote about rising delinquency rates. "The trends in consumer credit supply and demand are consistent with a further softening in real consumption, but a sudden collapse looks unlikely."

'HOW LONG CAN THAT CONTINUE'

That is an outcome the Fed would welcome.

Officials have at times struggled to reconcile what they think the economy needs - slower wage and job growth, less overall demand, and even a modest rise in the unemployment rate - with the common-sense interpretation of more money and more jobs as good things.

Friday's wage data will help show if the job market continues to edge back towards balance. Some analysts, though, are skeptical, arguing that progress may be slowing and may leave the Fed still needing a further rise in the unemployment rate for inflation to continue to fall.

Data compiled by the Atlanta Fed, for example, estimates that as of October people who switched jobs were still commanding wage increases of 6.6%, far above the roughly 4% seen before the pandemic, and a possible concern even as the rate at which workers are shuffling among jobs has declined.

Torsten Slok, chief economist at Apollo Global Management, recently estimated that wage growth was "sticky" and lodged between 4% and 5%, enough for Fed officials to conclude "that a higher unemployment rate is needed to get wage inflation down to levels consistent with the Fed’s 2% inflation target."

After next week's meeting and Powell's press conference, it will become clearer if he sees that as the case.

But at the end of the Fed's last meeting he suggested that, for now, the wheels are turning in a good way - with wages rising enough to sustain spending and overall economic growth, even as changes elsewhere in the economy allow inflation to continue to fall.

"The dynamic has been really strong job creation with now wages that are higher than inflation...and that raises real disposable income, and that raises spending, which continues to drive more hiring," Powell said at his Nov. 1 press conference. "It has been good, and the thing is, we’ve been achieving progress on inflation in the middle of this...The question is, how long can that continue?"

(Reporting by Howard Schneider; Editing by Dan Burns and Andrea Ricci)

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