JESUS THE JESTER

Aloosh and the Gaza clowns: Men of peace, beyond Hamas and Israel's bombs

by Dario Salvi

The Italian Marco Rodari, known as 'Claun il Pimpa', talks about his bond with the artists of the Strip, a movement that he himself helped to create. Gifting a smile to a child can mean the difference between anger in the moment and hatred in the future. His personal remembrance of the Christian victims of the conflict, the parish of the Holy Family 'always an oasis of peace'.







Milan (AsiaNews) - "Extraordinary men of peace". This is how Marco Rodari, better known as “claun il Pimpa”, famous for having brought clowning and juggling to many theatres of war and violence, describes to AsiaNews the "mission" of Aloosh, Maroosh and the Gaza Circus School who, in these months of conflict (thanks to the coordination of the CISS Cooperazione Internazionale Sud) are trying to bring a smile to the Strip.

"The meaning of the word peace," he says, "I learnt it from them who, in spite of everything, manage not to hate, to contain their anger, and it is incredible that even this time they have managed to make children and adults smile. They have written to me a couple of times in the last period," he confides, "to tell me that they are alive and, I assume, constantly on the move. I get very short messages telling me that they are in Rafah' and that, although they cannot put on big shows, every now and then they 'manage to gather children and play with them', alleviating their suffering even for a few moments.

Claun the Pimpa experienced the 2014 war at first hand, sharing with the population of the Strip dramas and deaths, hopes and prospects for peace, and today he recounts: 'From the outside, you have no feeling of what is going on, while when you are involved from the inside, you understand nothing. A condition of total uncertainty'.

We caught up with Marco Rodari, 48, originally from Loggiano in the province of Varese (northern Italy), on the eve of his departure for a new adventure in another 'theatre of tension': the artist is heading to the Donbass, to give - as he has been doing for more than 15 years - a smile to the children (and adults) now victims of the Russian war in Ukraine, after having walked countless hospital wards with his red nose in the past to bring comfort to the sick.

From paediatric wards, he then set out to bring circus art and clown shows to Eastern Europe, Africa and the Middle East, to Gaza, where he first arrived in 2009. Thanks to a friendship consolidated over time with Fr. Jorge Hernandez first, Fr. Mario da Silva and Fr. Gabriel Romanelli later, all priests of the Incarnate Word, and parish priests of the Holy Family, "claun the Pimpa" started to promote shows in the Strip and contributed, with many other associations, to nurture a generation of local artists.

He also received recognition for his valuable work, the honorary title of Cavaliere della Repubblica from the President of the Italian Republic Sergio Mattarella in March 2023.

In the Strip, he strengthened his vocation of being a 'clown in the theatres of war', so much so that he experienced numerous conflicts first hand: in Gaza in 2014, then Iraq, Syria, Ukraine, where he arrived thanks also to the collaboration of the different Churches.

He has also left his mark, so much so that he is still remembered today from Baghdad to Aleppo, all the way to the Strip. It is his desire 'to be close to a population that I have come to know over time, appreciating its resilience: it is able to feel anger, rage, but without allowing itself to be dominated by a blind hatred that admits of no hope'.

Through his presence in Gaza, over the years Marco Rodari - who created the association 'Make the Sky Smile' in 2015 - has not 'only' served to entertain the younger generation. In fact, he has promoted and supported the birth of a local circus school and laid the foundations of a project that continues independently thanks to the dedication, and skill, of two now very popular clowns: Aloosh and Maroosh, who in these dramatic weeks of war have created improvised shows by reuniting the historic group of the Gaza Circus School.

"They stayed in the north until the situation became so difficult that they had to leave, when the population realised that it was no longer possible to stay, trying to act as human shields to their homes. And when they realised that the number of deaths among the children was becoming unbearable," he recounts.

"Imagine Aloosh who, thanks to his skill, is able to move and keep even 1,500 children entertained all at once. He who in these weeks of exodus, displacement and war has become a father for the second time, Maloosh and the other clowns have a joy inside that cannot wait to 'take revenge' on the horrors of the conflict. And that makes us realise,' he continues, 'that it is possible to put on shows even at this moment, in Rafah' while news reports announce the imminent ground operation by the Israeli army and more than 1.4 million refugees press the border with Egypt.

'I don't need many messages,' he explains, 'to know how they are, I only need to look at a photo of them smiling to catch their joy and that of the children. The great thing is that another four or five people who had stopped clowning to devote themselves to other activities, again linked to educating children, have resumed in these very weeks, to make a contribution too", rediscovering their former vocation.

"Among other things, this flight from north to south, because almost all of them are from the north of Gaza," he adds, "meant that they could not bring anything but themselves, and pushed them to relive the clown experience with just a little make-up."

"Every child, because of what they are experiencing, will react differently, but it is important to giift them one beautiful moment that they will remember,' confides Rodari, who cites a personal anecdote from the harshest phases of the Syrian conflict: 'A 16-year-old girl from Damascus, whom I met years later at an event in an Italian high school, remembered the time I managed to bring a smile and a moment of joy to her while the battle raged outside. Sowing, 'even just one good memory in a child can make the difference, in the future, between feeling legitimate anger and going so far as to hate. A light of hope in the darkness of war, that is also the task of us clowns".

One last thought he would like to dedicate to the two women of the Holy Family parish who died during these months of conflict in Gaza, whom he knew and to whom 'I loved very much: seeing their son, who guided me around the Strip, bury his mother and sister' was a source of great suffering. The same applies 'to the killing of our organist [Elham Farah], the one who invented music in Gaza. It was her way of praying, this too is the drama of war'.

ESSAY

HOW SAMOANS RESISTED COCONUT COLONIALISM

In the Early 20th Century, the Fruit’s Farmers Sowed the Seeds of Today’s Global Labor Struggle

Samoan cooperatives helped coconut farmers resist colonial rule and seek greater economic self-determination, writes historian Holger Droessler. Large piles of coconut husks and shells from the copra-making process in Samoa. 

Courtesy of Museum of New Zealand/Te Papa Tongarewa.


by HOLGER DROESSLER | FEBRUARY 21, 2024

Coconuts are everywhere. If you walk into a grocery store pretty much anywhere in the United States, you’ll find a cornucopia of coconut products: coconut water, coconut oil, coconut macaroons, and, of course, husked coconuts themselves.

Most consumers spend little time thinking about where the coconuts in this “coco craze” come from. But according to a Samoan proverb, “The coconut is sweet, but it was husked with the teeth.”

For the Samoan farmers and workers of the early coconut industry, these sweet treats were a site of struggle against colonial rule and exploitative plantations. By launching cooperatives, Samoans proved themselves savvy participants in the expanding global coconut trade while seeking economic self-determination. Recalling that fraught history is a reminder of the importance of worker power in contemporary global supply chains—where many of the same inequalities persist.

Americans got their first taste of coconuts just over a century ago. In the mid-19th century, the U.S. Navy began eyeing the South Pacific islands of Samoa as a coaling station. Around the same time, British and French missionaries along with German traders opened the first trading stations in Samoa. They moved methodically to monopolize the import and export of goods essential to the Samoan economy, and by the late 19th century, coconuts and copra—the dried meat of the coconut—had become Samoa’s main export to Europe and the United States. There, the copra was processed into a variety of products, including high-quality soap, margarine, and even dynamite.

From the start, Samoans resisted the Euro-American monopoly of the lucrative copra trade. They quickly realized they were being cheated by outlanders. After weighing out copra at trading stations, Euro-American traders routinely paid Samoan producers 30-50% less than they should have.

In response, Samoans took out large lines of credit and endlessly deferred their payments, knowing that the lack of effective legal enforcement of debt defaults protected them from punishment. They also resorted to manipulating the quantity and quality of the copra they delivered to traders by soaking the copra in water or mixing in greener nuts of poorer quality.
Faced with Euro-American coconut colonialism, Samoans resisted by
holding on to their community-based farming practices, and succeeded
in protecting long-standing ways of life.

The U.S. Navy established formal colonial rule over eastern Samoa in 1900. The next year, hoping to raise revenues and increase copra production, the cash-strapped naval administration introduced a copra tax. In the eyes of U.S. officials, requiring taxes to be paid in copra protected the “child-like” Samoans from exploitation by unscrupulous traders.

Samoans were slow to pay this new tax. Many Euro-American traders even tried to keep the Samoans from cutting copra to pay taxes rather than sell it to them for export. By 1902, Samoans still sold copra below market price, keeping the prices artificially low as long as the naval government used the copra taxes to finance its operations. “In some villages,” Governor Uriel Sebree noted, “the natives have already resolved to sell wholesale rather than individually, and thus get a higher price.”

In 1903, the naval administration cut out the pesky traders and took over the sale of copra. From then on, Samoan producers brought their copra to government-run stations and received a standard price per pound somewhat lower than the projected annual bid. This margin allowed the government to pay expenses such as transportation and wages for the stations’ clerks. After the year’s copra output was awarded to the highest bidder—generally an American or Australian firm—any remaining surplus was returned to Samoan family chiefs. But instead of cash, they received copra receipts that could only be used to purchase goods in official stores.

By and large, Samoans did not object to the U.S. government’s takeover of the copra trade, because it increased their profit margins. Just the year before, Samoan copra producers had founded their own copra cooperative. In an effort to outcompete foreign traders, cooperative members from the main island of Tutuila and the smaller Manuʻa Islands 75 miles to the east pooled production and distribution of copra.

For a few years, the producer cooperative worked well. The company operated stores in several villages across the islands and owned three motorboats to ship copra to Pago Pago for export to San Francisco. Most importantly, the cooperative protected Samoan copra production by adding a crucial distribution mechanism. But because it allowed its Samoan members to buy goods on credit, company debt continued to rise.

By 1907, rumors of embezzled funds and skyrocketing debt led the U.S. naval government to become a trustee of the company. Then, on the brink of World War I, U.S. officials determined that the cooperative had failed economically and should be shut down as soon as remaining debts were collected. As Governor C.D. Stearns summed up with characteristic condescension, “The natives are absolutely incapable of managing their own affairs in financial matters and it is believed that permitting them to establish co-operative stores and co-operative schooners has been a mistake.”

Yet what looked like failure to paternalistic U.S. officials in Pago had provided Samoans in Manuʻa with a much-needed way to pool resources and mitigate risk. For the moment, they refused to let the cooperative venture sink.

As it turned out, the cooperative did not survive much longer. In January 1915, a tropical cyclone devastated Manuʻa. Half of the 1,500 inhabitants of the islands had to be relocated because most of the food crops had been destroyed, along with the majority of the cooperative’s copra stock. It took several years for agricultural production in Manuʻa to recover, but the copra cooperative never did. By 1919, the former store of the cooperative had become a naval dispensary and wireless radio office. The following year, the Manuʻa Cooperative Company officially folded.

While the cooperative movement eventually collapsed under political coercion, it helped form the nucleus of a more sustained challenge to colonial rule in the 1920s. To protest Navy mismanagement, American Samoans organized a copra boycott and practically shut down the naval government, which depended on the taxes drawn from the sale of copra.

Faced with Euro-American coconut colonialism, Samoans resisted by holding on to their community-based farming practices and succeeded in protecting long-standing ways of life. At the same time, they adapted selectively to the new colonial world by founding cooperatives whose worker mutualism aimed for greater economic self-determination.

Remembering the deep colonial roots of coconuts—and many other products—on American shelves helps put current frustrations, whether about stocking speed or quality, in perspective. With colonized workers serving American consumers, early 20th-century coconut production in Samoa carried the seeds of today’s global division of labor. Then as now, American consumers should push for worker control over the means of production and distribution of the tropical fruits they have come to love.


HOLGER DROESSLER is a history professor at Worcester Polytechnic Institute. He is the author of Coconut Colonialism: Workers and the Globalization of Samoa.

Muslim charities in UK face debanking

‘Debanking results in lack of trust in charities, as one cannot rent office, pay bills, grants, salaries,’ says CEO of Cordoba Foundation

Omer Faruk Madanoglu |21.02.2024 - 

ISTANBUL

The money in the Cordoba Foundation's bank accounts was blocked via "debanking," as their balance was confiscated, causing a "difficult time."

"If you don't have a bank account, you can't rent an office, pay salaries, pay your taxes, pay your bills for electricity, for water, for gas, you can't pay anything. You can't operate, so what happens is you have to close down," Anas Altikriti, CEO of the London-based charity Cordoba Foundation, told Anadolu.

Altikriti stated that after the UK's amendment to the banking law in 2020, some banks closed the accounts of some of their customers without any given reason, noting that he believes banks employ "debanking" to about 1,000 accounts per day, most of those accounts belonging to Muslims.

He highlighted that the government enforced its own laws instead of the banking laws it used in common with EU countries after the UK's departure from the European Union through Brexit and that the people who were victimized by the practice due to the tightened debanking laws suffered difficulties because of litigation processes.

Altikriti pointed out that people who are debanked are put on the blacklist of all banks and their money flow is controlled, as banks restrict their facilities and do not tell customers that they have been debanked for a long time.

He underlined that most businesses in the UK do not accept cash and, instead, allow transactions to be made with debit or credit cards, saying: "Without a bank account in a country like the UK, which is moving more and more towards a cashless society, (with) all credit cards, all contactless payments, so, how do you operate without a bank account? You can't get a credit card (and) we now have many places where you go to get a cup of coffee, and you can't pay because they don't take cash, so having a card is essential to your life. You can't operate on an individual level (without a bank account), so imagine how that impacts yourself as an individual as well as your family and community."

'Debanking is driven by political reasons'

Altikriti mentioned that the banks debank the bank accounts of Muslim non-governmental organizations (NGOs) directly linked to the government and that "it is driven by political reasons."

He emphasized that many Muslim organizations in the UK were targeted by banks due to the government or politicians targeting them, adding that the Cordoba Foundation was also subjected to account closures.

Altikriti reminded that the foundation's accounts were frozen when they were going to organize a forum in London in June 2022 in order to come up with solutions for the political tension in Tunisia, without any warning from the bank, or any reason provided for the closures, as when he consulted the bank in person, he was not told as to why the foundation's accounts were frozen.

He said that the accounts of the donors to Cordoba were also being closely monitored after banks closed the accounts accepting donations for the forum, causing great concern for the Muslims in the UK, as the donors who wanted to pay the forum's suppliers from their accounts were not successful in sending funds.

Altikriti pointed out that the Cordoba Foundation was cut off from all banks and the decision was not made by a single bank, and he added that they had a difficult time when the money was confiscated, leading donors to be scared for the credibility of the foundation, saying:

"When I hear that a charity that I give money to has no bank account, I will think, maybe they are doing something wrong, maybe they are not trustworthy. I continue to campaign for the rights of Muslims and also to campaign against government policies, and against the media and how they show and tell stories of 'Muslims doing this, Muslims doing that, Muslims are suspects, Muslims are this and that," as well as now, we have the issue of the of debanking, (ultimately), it has an impact on the public who are listening to this, (as) we are seeing the rise of this Islamophobia and discrimination against Muslims across Europe."

Practice of debanking

The UK amended its banking law to toughen "debanking," which allows banks to close the accounts of customers who damage the banks' reputation without giving a reason, following Brexit on Feb. 1, 2020.
Banks have the power to close the accounts that the government wants for reasons such as anti-corruption, money laundering, political prohibitions, and anti-terrorism, according to the law.

UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak stated that he would bring the issue to parliament to soften the debanking practice after one of the UK's leading banks, NatWest, closed the accounts of politician and commentator Nigel Farage in June 2023.

UK banks closed over 343,000 accounts in 2022 without providing a reason, according to a report published by the Financial Conduct Authority in September 2023.

The authority reported that most of the accounts were closed because they could pose a "potential threat."

The UK-based umbrella organization, Muslim Council of Britain, made a statement on Aug. 1, 2023, saying that Muslims and Muslim organizations were most affected by the debunking and that the situation is causing deep concerns in society.

*Writing by Emir Yildirim

US 'strongly' urges Israel to investigate reports of violations against Palestinian women

'We strongly urge Israel to thoroughly and transparently investigate credible allegations,' says State Department spokesman

WHO DETERMINES CREDIBILITY?!

21/02/2024 Wednesday
AA



The US on Tuesday "strongly" urged Israel to "thoroughly and transparently investigate credible allegations' of human rights violations against Palestinian women and girls in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.

State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said he has seen the allegations but cannot "independently confirm the reports."

"I will say that we have been clear that civilians and detained individuals must be treated humanely and in accordance with international humanitarian law," he said. "And that will continue to be our position," he added.

UN experts expressed alarm Monday about "credible allegations" of egregious human rights violations that Palestinian women and girls continue to face in Gaza and the West Bank.​​​​​​​


The experts said that they were shocked by reports of the deliberate targeting and extrajudicial killing of Palestinian women and children in places where they sought refuge or while fleeing.

"On at least one occasion, Palestinian women detained in Gaza were allegedly kept in a cage in the rain and cold, without food," said experts.

They said at least two female Palestinian detainees were reportedly raped, while others were allegedly threatened with rape and sexual violence.

South Korea orders striking doctors to return to work as their walkouts burden hospital operations

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

February 21, 2024 

Trainee doctors attend a meeting at the Korea Medical Association building in Seoul, South Korea, Feb. 20, 2024. (AP Photo)

SEOUL--South Korea on Wednesday officially ordered thousands of striking doctors to return to work immediately, a step that could lead to legal punishments if the doctors don’t end their walkouts, which have caused numerous cancellations of surgeries and other treatments at hospitals.

About 7,800 medical interns and residents in South Korea have walked off their jobs this week to protest the government’s push to recruit more medical students.

Officials say they want to increase the nationwide medical school admissions cap by 2,000 from next year to brace for South Korea’s rapidly aging population. But doctors’ groups have refuted the plan, saying universities aren’t ready to offer quality education to that many students. They also say the government’s plan would lead to increased public medical expenses since it lacks measures for how to raise low medical fees in some key professions.

The 2,000 additional admissions “is a nonsensical figure,” the Korean Intern Residents Association said in a statement Tuesday. “We hope the government will rethink its plan and formulate a policy that reflects the voices of trainee doctors.”

Junior doctors typically support senior doctors during surgeries and treat patients in hospitals. Their joint walkouts have burdened hospital operations. The Health Ministry said Wednesday that authorities have received 58 public complaints over the walkouts, mostly regarding indefinite delays of surgeries and cancellations of other medical treatments.

The government on Wednesday accused the trainee doctors of putting their rights before the lives of patients.

“The fundamental responsibility of medical personnel is caring for the lives and health of the people. I would say once again that any collective action that threatens this cannot be justified,” Vice Health Minister Park Min-soo told reporters.

Park said as of Tuesday night about 8,820 out of the country’s 13,000 trainee doctors have submitted resignations to their hospitals. None of their resignations has been approved, but about 7,810 of the doctors have left their work sites, Park said.

Park said the government issued an official order for most of the striking doctors to return to work.

South Korea’s medical law allows the government to issue such back-to-work orders to doctors and other medical personnel when there are concerns about public health. If they refuse to abide by the order, they could face up to three years in prison or 30 million won ($22,480) in fines, a punishment that would also lead to the revocation of their medical licenses, according to the law.

Park didn’t detail possible punishments but said the government would enforce the law in a principled manner. He called for dialogue with the striking doctors.

Trainee doctors said the government’s return-to-work order was intimidation and must be withdrawn immediately.

To deal with the trainee doctors’ walkouts, the government has opened military hospitals to the public, extended the operating hours of public medical institutions and had emergency medical treatment centers stay open around the clock. But observers say if the walkouts are prolonged or joined by senior doctors, that could cause major disruptions in South Korea’s overall medical service.

South Korea has a total of 140,000 doctors. The Korea Medical Association said it plans to hold rallies to support the trainees but hasn’t determined whether to launch strikes

More doctors in South Korea join protest, authorities warn patients at risk

Medical workers walk at a hospital in Seoul, South Korea, Feb 19, 2024.
PHOTO: Yonhap via Reuters

PUBLISHED FEBRUARY 21, 2024 

SEOUL — Thousands of trainee doctors at South Korea's biggest hospitals joined a walkout on Wednesday (Feb 21) to protest a plan to admit more students to medical school, disrupting treatment for scores of patients, health authorities said.

The government wants to increase medical school admissions from 3,000 now to 5,000 from the 2025 academic year, and then add 10,000 more by 2035, in a bid to boost healthcare in remote areas and cope with the increasing demands of one of the world's most rapidly ageing societies.

Doctors and medical students who have joined the protest, however, say South Korea has enough doctors, and the authorities should first improve pay and working conditions, especially for specialists in demanding fields such as paediatrics and emergency medicine, before recruiting more students.

Park Min-soo, a vice health minister, called on the protesters to prioritise their patients over collective action.

A patient is wheeled at Pusan National University Hospital in Busan, South Korea, Feb 21, 2024.
PHOTO: Reuters

The protests began earlier this week, and the health ministry said that so far a total of 7,813 doctors had left their jobs, in defiance of a government order for them to stay at work. Doctors say the order is unconstitutional.

"I'd like to say once again that the basic calling of medical professionals is to protect the health and lives of the people, and any group action that threatens that cannot be justified," Park told reporters.

Due to the walk out, many hospital emergency rooms are now overcrowded, and five major hospitals in Seoul were cancelling a third to half of scheduled surgeries, local media said.

About 76 per cent of South Koreans back the government's plan to increase the number of medical students, a Gallup Korea poll showed last week, amid concerns over an acute staff shortages in paediatrics, emergency units and clinics outside the greater Seoul area.

A medical worker walks at Pusan National University Hospital in Busan, South Korea, Feb 21, 2024.
PHOTO: Reuters

South Korea's population of 52 million had 2.6 doctors per 1,000 people in 2022, far below the 3.7 average for peers in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).

The Korea Interns and Residents Association, a group of doctors taking part in the protest, said they deserved better treatment including more pay.

The group also criticised the government's plan to increase the number of medical school students as a political ploy ahead of the April general election.

"We couldn't just sit back and watch medical policies built only for the sake of winning the general election. Even in a collapsing training environment, not a single resident wanted to leave the hospital," the association said in a statement.

ALSO READ: South Korea trainee doctors stage walkout over medical school quotas

Source: Reuters

Operations cancelled as South Korea doctors’ strike grows


Doctors hold placards reading ‘Stop populist medical policy!’ during a rally to protest against the government’s plan to raise the annual enrolment quota at medical schools. — AFP pic

Wednesday, 21 Feb 2024 

SEOUL, Feb 21 — Pregnant women had C-sections cancelled and cancer treatments were postponed today as the number of South Korean trainee doctors to walk off the job over proposed reforms swelled, officials and local reports said.

More than 8,800 junior doctors — 71 per cent of the trainee workforce — have now quit, said Seoul’s Second Vice Health Minister Park Min-soo, part of a spiralling protest against government plans to sharply increase medical school admissions.

Seoul says the reforms are essential, citing the country’s low doctor numbers and rapidly ageing population, but doctors claim the changes will hurt service provision and education quality.

Critics say doctors are mainly concerned the reform could erode their salaries and social prestige, and the plan enjoys broad public support among South Koreans, especially those in remote areas where quality service is often inaccessible.

Park said Wednesday that 7,813 trainee doctors had not shown up for work — an almost five-fold increase from the first day of the action Monday — despite the government ordering many of them to return to their hospitals.

“The basic calling of medical professionals is to protect the health and lives of the people, and any group action that threatens this cannot be justified,” Park said.

The doctors’ walkout was a violation of South Korean law, as medical workers cannot refuse so-called return to work orders “without justifiable grounds”, he said.

South Korea’s general hospitals rely heavily on trainees for emergency operations and surgeries, and local reports said cancer patients and expectant mothers needing C-sections had seen procedures cancelled or delayed, with scores of cases causing “damage”, Park said.

Hong Jae-ryun, a brain cancer patient in his 50s from Daegu, said that his chemotherapy had been postponed without clear future dates due to the current situation, even though the cancer has spread to his lungs and liver.

“It’s absurd. In the midst of the conflict between the government and doctors, what can powerless patients say? It feels like a betrayal,” Hong told AFP.

“When there is no one to trust and rely on other than doctors, it seems excessive to handle things in this manner.”

A user on South Korea’s Naver web portal said her mother’s long-awaited cerebral aneurysm surgery had been abruptly delayed.

“I’m furious that (the doctors) can act so irresponsibly,” user @488653 wrote.

AFP has reached out to several trainee doctors who have resigned but was informed that they have decided not to give individual interviews.

‘Neglected’

Junior doctors say the new medical education reforms are the final straw in a profession where they already struggle with tough working conditions.

“Despite working more than 80 hours a week and receiving compensation at minimum wage level, trainee doctors have been neglected by the government until now,” the Korea Interns and Residents Association said in a statement.

The over-reliance on trainee doctors in the current healthcare system was not reasonable or fair, they added, claiming the government was treating them as if they were “criminals”.

Nurses, who have been left in charge during the strike, urged doctors to return to work, even as they sympathised with their fight against the reform.

“Do not ignore your conscience toward the patients being left behind,” the Korean Young Nurses Association wrote in a social media post.

Kim Jae-heon, the secretary general of an NGO advocating for free medical care, which also includes some medical doctors as members, said the trainee doctors’ mass resignation “lacks justification”.

While it is true that trainees often suffer from gruelling hours, “opposing the expansion of medical school admissions to ensure greater profitability by reducing competition when they establish their own practices in the future is unlikely to garner public support”, he told AFP. 

— AFP

 

Pablo Neruda: Investigation reopens into mysterious death of poet in Chile - 50 years on

Tests carried out in Danish and Canadian labs indicated a "great quantity of Clostridium botulinum" was found in Neruda's body. The powerful toxin is incompatible with human life, and can cause paralysis in the nervous system.

Connor Sephton
News reporter @ConnorSephton
Wednesday 21 February 2024 

Pablo Neruda in 1971. Pic: AP

An investigation has been reopened into the mysterious death of a poet in Chile.

Pablo Neruda was a Nobel Prize winner, and complications from prostate cancer were listed on his death certificate when he passed away in 1973.

He died 12 days after a military coup that toppled his close friend President Salvador Allende and put General Augusto Pinochet in power.

For decades, his driver Manuel Araya had argued the poet had been poisoned - and last year, forensic experts uncovered evidence supporting this theory.

Tests carried out in Danish and Canadian labs indicated a "great quantity of Clostridium botulinum" was found in Neruda's body.

The powerful toxin is incompatible with human life, and can cause paralysis in the nervous system.

Pablo Neruda was exhumed in 2013 for a fourth time - and reburied in 2016. Pic: AP

Last December, a judge rejected a request by Neruda's nephew Rodolfo Reyes to reopen the case and look for other causes of death - but at an appeals court on Tuesday, that decision was overturned.

A calligraphic analysis of his death certificate will now be carried out, and evidence will be sought from bacteria experts.

Neruda's body was exhumed in 2013 for further investigation - and two years later, the Chilean government said it was "highly probable that a third party" was responsible.

He has since been reburied in his favourite home overlooking the Pacific coast.

:Neruda's driver Manuel Araya - and his family - had long argued the poet had been poisoned. Pic: Reuters

Best known for his love poems, Neruda had planned to go into exile after Pinochet's coup, where he would have been an influential voice against the dictatorship.

A day before he was due to leave, the poet was taken by ambulance to a clinic in Santiago where he had been treated for cancer and other illnesses, and died there.

Suspicions that the dictatorship had a hand in the death remained long after Chile returned to democracy in 1990.

Death of Chilean poet Pablo Neruda should be reinvestigated, court rules

FEBRUARY 21, 2024
By The Associated Press




Nobel Prize-winning poet Pablo Neruda sits in Paris in October 1971.MICHEL LIPCHITZ/AP

SANTIAGO, Chile — The death of Nobel laureate Pablo Neruda days after Chile's 1973 military coup should be reinvestigated, an appeals court ruled Tuesday, saying new steps could help clarify what killed the poet.

Last December, a judge rejected a request by Neruda's nephew to reopen the case to look for causes other than cancer, which was listed on his death certificate. The nephew, Rodolfo Reyes, said forensic experts from Canada, Denmark and Chile had found evidence pointing to Neruda being poisoned.

Reyes said forensic tests carried out in Danish and Canadian labs indicated Neruda's body had "a great quantity of Cloristridium botulinum, which is incompatible with human life." The toxin can cause nervous system paralysis and death.
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Famous poet Pablo Neruda was poisoned after a coup, according to a new report

The ruling was the latest turn in one of the great debates of post-coup Chile. The long-stated official position has been that Neruda died of complications from prostate cancer, but his driver argued for decades that he was poisoned.

In December, a judge ruled that the forensic results had already been carried out or were "late," and didn't lead anywhere.

Several years earlier, other international forensics experts had already rejected the official cause of death as cachexia, or weakness and wasting of the body due to chronic illness — in his case, cancer. But at that time they said they had not determined what did kill Neruda.

On Tuesday, the appeals court in Santiago unanimously revoked the judge's resolution and ordered that the procedures requested by the nephew be done. These steps include a calligraphic analysis of the death certificate, a meta-analysis of the test results carried out by foreign agencies, and subpoenas for statements from Chile's documentation project and an expert on Clostridium botulinum.

Neruda was best known for his love poems and accumulated dozens of prizes, including the 1971 Nobel Prize for Literature.

He was also a Communist Party member and friend of Chile's President Salvador Allende, whose government was toppled in the coup that put Gen. Augusto Pinochet in power. Allende killed himself rather than surrender.

Neruda was traumatized by the military takeover and the persecution and killing of his friends. He planned to go into exile in Mexico, where he would have been an influential voice against the dictatorship.

But a day before his planned departure, he was taken by ambulance to a clinic in Santiago, where he died Sept. 23, 1973.

Suspicions that the dictatorship had a hand in his death have remained long after Chile returned to democracy in 1990.

Neruda's body was exhumed in 2013 to determine the cause of his death, but those tests showed no toxic agents or poisons in his bones. His family and driver had demanded further investigation.

In 2015, Chile's government said it was "highly probable that a third party" was responsible for Neruda's death. In 2017, authorities reported the discovery of fragments of the Clostridium botulinum bacteria in skeletal remains and teeth.

Neruda was reburied in his favorite home overlooking the Pacific Coast.

Former Honduran president accused of running his country as a ‘narco-state’ stands trial in New York City

AIDED AND ABETTED BY THE U$A




By —Philip Marcelo, Associated Press

 Feb 20, 2024 

NEW YORK (AP) — Former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández was once touted by U.S. authorities as a key ally in the war on drugs. Now, federal prosecutors say the political leader ran his Central American nation as a “narco-state,” collecting millions of dollars from violent cartels to fuel his rise to power.

Nearly two years after his arrest and extradition to the U.S., Hernández went on trial Tuesday in Manhattan federal court on drug trafficking and weapons charges. Jury selection began late in the morning for a trial Judge P. Kevin Castel projected would last two to three weeks.

It’s a stunning fall from grace for a political leader long viewed — by Democratic and Republican administrations alike — as beneficial to American interests in the region, including combatting the illegal drug trade and helping slow the waves of migrants crossing the southern U.S. border.

That Hernández is being tried in the U.S. rather than his native country underscores Honduras’ institutional weakness, says Raúl Pineda Alvarado, a Honduran political analyst and former three-term congressman from Hernández’s National Party.

“For Hondurans it signifies how weak our democracy is in terms of the separation of powers,” he said. “Politicians are not subject to any control.”

Federal authorities say that for nearly two decades, Hernández profited from drug trades that brought hundreds of thousands of kilos of cocaine into the U.S., even at times working with the powerful Sinaloa cartel in Mexico.

The millions of dollars in drug money that began flowing to Hernández starting around 2004, in turn, powered his rise from a congressman representing his rural home province in western Honduras to president of the National Congress and then two consecutive presidential terms from 2014 to 2022, prosecutors say.

READ MORE: Mexico demands investigation into U.S. military-grade weapons being used by drug cartels

In exchange for bribes that propped up his political aspirations, U.S. prosecutors say, drug traffickers were allowed to operate in the country with near impunity, receiving information to evade authorities and even law enforcement escorts for their shipments.

During his first winning presidential campaign, Hernández solicited $1.6 million from a drug trafficker to support his run and those of other politicians in his conservative political party, federal prosecutors say.

His brother also received a $1 million campaign donation from notorious Sinaloa boss Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzmán on the promise the cartel’s drug shipments would find safe passage through Honduras if Hernández was elected.

Federal prosecutors in New York spent years working their way up through Honduran drug trafficking organizations before reaching the person many believed was at the very pinnacle — Hernández.

He was arrested at his home in Tegucigalpa, the Honduran capital, in February 2022, just three months after leaving office, and was extradited to the U.S. in April that year.

U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland said at the time that Hernández abused his position as president “to operate the country as a narco-state.”

Hernández’s lawyers declined to comment ahead of the trial, in which prosecutors are expected to rely on testimony from drug traffickers and corrupt Honduran law enforcement officials and politicians.

The former president, who earned a master’s degree from the State University of New York at Albany, has steadfastly maintained his innocence, saying the allegations are revenge from drug traffickers he had extradited to the U.S.

Hernández faces federal charges including drug trafficking conspiracy and possession of machine guns and destructive devices.

Meanwhile his co-defendants — the former head of the Honduran national police, Juan Carlos Bonilla, and Hernández’s cousin, Mauricio Hernández Pineda — both pleaded guilty in recent weeks to drug trafficking charges in the same Manhattan courthouse where his trial is occurring.

Associated Press editor Christopher Sherman in Mexico City contributed to this report.

 UK

'Prolific' thief found with almost 3,000 rare bird eggs illegally hoarded at home

Feb 20, 2024

A prolific egg collector was found to have illegally hoarded housands of rare birds’ eggs in Norfolk. Daniel Lingham, 71, of Newton St Faith pleaded guilty to five offences on Tuesday 20 February including taking eggs from a non-schedule 1 wild bird namely a Nightjar and possessing an egg or its parts of a non-schedule 1 wild bird. The 71-year-old, who has two previous convictions for similar crimes, was caught after on a wildlife trap camera filmed him stealing two eggs from a Nightjar nest in Holt Lowes. A police search found 2995 eggs at his home, including some of non-native species and 2429 native birds’ eggs protected by the Wildlife and Countryside Act.

A Colorado man is dead after an ILLEGAL pet Gila monster bite



A Gila monster is displayed at the Woodland Park Zoo in Seattle 

A 34-year-old Colorado man has died on Friday, Feb. 16, 2024, after being bitten by his pet gila monster in a very rare occurrence. Gila monster bites are often painful to humans, but normally aren’t deadly, experts say. (AP Photo/Ted S. Warren, File)

BY MEAD GRUVER

February 20, 2024

A Colorado man has died after being bitten by his pet Gila monster in what would be a rare death by one of the desert lizards if the creature’s venom turns out to have been the cause.

Christopher Ward, 34, was taken to a hospital shortly after being bitten by one of his two pet Gila monsters on Feb. 12. He was soon placed on life support and died Friday, Lakewood Police Department spokesman John Romero said Tuesday.

Jefferson County coroner’s officials declined Tuesday to comment on the death, including if tests showed yet whether Ward died from the pet’s venom or from some other medical condition.

Ward’s girlfriend handed over the lizard named Winston and another named Potato to Lakewood animal control officer Leesha Crookston and other officers the day after the bite.

Ward’s girlfriend told police she had heard something that “didn’t sound right” and entered a room to see Winston latched onto Ward’s hand, according to Crookston’s report

She told officers Ward “immediately began exhibiting symptoms, vomiting several times and eventually passing out and ceasing to breathe,” according to the report.

Ward was placed on life support in a hospital. Within days, doctors had declared him brain dead.

Ward’s girlfriend reportedly told officers they bought Winston at a reptile exhibition in Denver in October and Potato from a breeder in Arizona in November, according to the animal control officer’s report. Told that Gila monsters were illegal in Lakewood, the woman told officers she wanted them out of her house as soon as possible, the report said.

Officers working with the Colorado Department of Natural Resources sent the lizards to Reptile Gardens outside Rapid City, South Dakota. Twenty-six spiders of different species also were taken from the home to a nearby animal shelter.

Gila monsters are venomous reptiles that naturally inhabit parts of the southwestern U.S. and neighboring areas of Mexico. Their bites can cause intense pain and make their victims pass out but normally aren’t deadly.

US Sees China Taking 'Concrete Steps' to Counter Drug Trade

February 20, 2024 
By Jeff Seldin

Chinese Public Security Minister Wang Xiaohong, right, held a meeting with U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas in Vienna, Feb. 18, 2024.

 (Screenshot of China Central Television via Reuters Connect)

WASHINGTON —

A high-level meeting between the top U.S. homeland security official and his Chinese counterpart is giving Washington reason to hope that current talks may eventually help stem the flow of drugs such as fentanyl into the United States.

U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas met with Chinese Public Security Minister Wang Xiaohong in Vienna on Sunday for talks focused on stopping the spread of fentanyl and the chemicals used to make the powerful synthetic opioid.

A U.S. readout of the meeting with the People's Republic of China official described the talks as "candid and constructive," and senior officials told reporters Tuesday that there were signs progress is being made.

"This was a really productive set of meetings," a senior U.S. official told reporters, agreeing to brief them on the meeting under the condition of anonymity.

The official said the initial meeting between Mayorkas and Wang lasted about four hours, with discussions continuing over dinner.

The officials also said the two sides left Vienna with a commitment for scientists from the two countries to have further talks later this month to review "emerging trends" when it comes to the development and trade of the chemicals needed to manufacture fentanyl and other drugs.

Sunday's meeting in Vienna follows a virtual meeting last month between Mayorkas and Wang as well as a January 30 meeting of the U.S.-PRC Counternarcotics Working Group.

"There have been concrete specific actions," the senior U.S. official said Tuesday, explaining the guarded optimism.

"We saw the PRC take action with respect to particular companies. We know that they also shared information with the International Narcotics Board, which helps other countries also track actors and chemicals of concern," the official said.

"Ultimately, obviously, our goal is to stop the flow of precursor chemicals from the PRC to Mexico and then finished products up from Mexico to our country," the official said. "We are focused on the kind of the concrete work of the working group on specific steps that we can take that will help us advance those goals."

Top Diplomats From US, China Hold 'Constructive' Talks in Germany

According to China's state-run Xinhua news agency, Chinese officials also described the meeting in Vienna as constructive but said Chinese officials were focused on U.S. visa restrictions for Chinese students.

The PRC's Wang told Mayorkas that the U.S should "stop harassing and interrogating Chinese students for no reason and ensure that Chinese citizens enjoy fair entry treatment and full dignity."

A second senior U.S. official who briefed reporters Monday acknowledged the Chinese officials raised concerns about current U.S. visa restrictions but declined to elaborate, saying the focus of the meeting was counternarcotics.

Sunday's meeting between Mayorkas and Wang in Vienna came two days after talks in Munich between U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi on a variety of issues — including Beijing's counternarcotic efforts and U.S. searches of Chinese nationals.