Thousands march in India as doctors resume strike

Kolkata (AFP) – Tens of thousands of people packed the streets of one of India's biggest cities after doctors resumed a strike and called fresh rallies over the rape and murder of a colleague.


Issued on: 02/10/2024 - 

Doctors in Kolaka walked off the job again on Tuesday, saying pledges by the West Bengal state government to improve safety and security at hospitals had been unmet © DIBYANGSHU SARKAR / AFP

The discovery of the 31-year-old's bloodied body at a state-run hospital in Kolkata two months ago rekindled nationwide anger at the chronic issue of violence against women.

Doctors in the eastern city went on strike for weeks in response and walked off the job again on Tuesday, saying pledges by the West Bengal state government to improve safety and security at hospitals had been unmet.

They were joined on Tuesday evening by thousands of people from all walks of life for a huge protest march, with many carrying the Indian tricolour flag and some staying out until dawn on Wednesday.

"We want to send out the message that our protests will not end until we get justice," rally organiser Rimjhim Sinha, 29, told AFP at the march.

Kolkata is days away from the start of a festival held in honour of the Hindu warrior goddess Durga, the city's biggest annual religious celebration.

Sinha said that the dozens of civil society groups backing doctors' calls for public protests would use the occasion to demand an end to violence against women.

"The festival of worshipping Goddess Durga epitomises the victory of good over evil," she said. "This year it will turn into the festival of protests."

With further demonstrations called over the coming days, a senior police official told AFP on condition of anonymity that more than 2,500 extra officers had been put on active duty around Kolkata.

The victim of the August attack is not being identified in keeping with Indian laws on media reporting of sexual violence cases.

Her father attended Tuesday's march and told AFP that his family was still "devastated" two months after her death.

"My daughter's soul will not rest in peace until she gets justice," he said.

Doctors had briefly returned to limited duties in emergency departments last month, only to strike again in defiance of a September order from India's top court to fully return to work.

They say that the state government's promises to upgrade lighting, CCTV cameras and other security measures in hospitals have not been fulfilled.

Tens of thousands of ordinary Indians took part in the protests that followed the August attack.

One man has been detained over the murder but the West Bengal government has faced public criticism for its handling of the investigation.

Authorities sacked the city's police chief and top health ministry officials.

The gruesome nature of the attack drew comparisons with the 2012 gang rape and murder of a young woman on a Delhi bus, which also sparked weeks of nationwide protests.

© 2024 AFP

India: Police detain 600 striking Samsung workers at protest

Thousands of employees of the South Korean company have been on strike since September 9. They are demanding better wages, 8-hour working days, and union recognition.

Strikers have been protesting for the past four weeks in a makeshift tent near the Chennai factory

Mahesh Kumar A./AP Photo/picture alliance


Indian police on Tuesday detained around 600 employees of Samsung Electronics, one of the world's largest semiconductor and computer chip manufacturers, and union members for organizing a street protest.

For the past four weeks, thousands of employees of the South Korean company in India have been on strike over their working conditions near the factory in Chennai and at other locations.

According to senior state police official Charles Sam Rajadurai, the protesters were detained because their march was causing public inconvenience.
What are the protesters demanding?

The workers are asking for a wage increase, working days capped at eight hours, and recognition of the factory's main union, CITU.

The Chennai plant is Samsung's second-largest in the country and generates nearly one-third of Samsung's annual revenue in India, which amounts to $12 billion (€10.8 billion).

According to the union, Samsung workers in Chennai earn an average of 25,000 rupees (roughly $300) per month and want that figure to increase to 36,000 rupees within three years.

When did the protests begin?

The strike began on September 9. Since then, thousands of Samsung workers in India have been demonstrating in a makeshift tent near the factory.

The union claims that police are detaining thousands of workers. "Since September 9, at least 10,000 workers have been detained," said union member S. Kannan to the EFE news agency, albeit adding that most were soon released.

Local media have also reported hundreds of arrests in recent weeks.

So far, negotiation attempts have failed, increasing tension between the company and the strikers.

Why companies harm the planet by hindering phone repair 03:34

How has Samsung reacted?

Samsung has threatened striking workers with dismissal, although it says it is open to negotiating a consensus solution with them.

According to the company, workers at the Chennai factory earn nearly twice as much as similar workers in the same region.

The South Korean company also operates another factory in India, located in Noida, near New Delhi.

Samsung employees at factories in South Korea, the country’s largest company, also went on strike earlier this year.

The National Samsung Electronics Union (NSEU) represents 24% of the company's workforce there, with around 31,000 members.

fmf/msh (Reuters, EFE)

Shrinking lake on Albanian-Greek border struggles to survive

Buzëliqen (AFP) – Plants and reeds have sprouted up as the waters of Little Prespa Lake on the Albanian-Greek border recede, their beauty overshadowing a painful truth: the lake is slowly dying.


Issued on: 02/10/2024 - 

The once crystal-clear Little Prespa Lake has mostly been transformed into a marshy watering hole in this corner of southeastern Albania

 © Adnan Beci / AFP

The once crystal-clear lake has mostly been transformed into a marshy watering hole in this corner of southeastern Albania.

"A few years ago, this was a lake with pure water. Fishing was our life. But today we have nothing left. The lake is dead," said local resident Enver Llomi, 68.

Abandoned boats are now stuck in the mud or rot in the sun on dry land.

Cows have replaced the fish, and wander around without venturing too close to the retreating water.

The majority of Little Prespa Lake, also known as Small Lake Prespa, sits in Greek territory, with just its southern tip crossing into Albania. It is a smaller cousin of the larger Great Prespa Lake to the north.

According to experts, of the 450 hectares (1,100 acres) of Little Prespa Lake in Albania, at least 430 hectares have been transformed into swamps or dried up.

For the inhabitants, the beginning of the misfortune dates back to the 1970s, when communist authorities diverted the Devoll River to irrigate fields around the nearby Albanian city of Korca.

The majority of Little Prespa Lake, also known as Small Lake Prespa, sits in Greek territory, with just its southern tip crossing into Albania © Adnan Beci / AFP

"A few years ago, we could catch up to 10 kilos (22 pounds) of fish per day, we could use the water to irrigate," Llomi told AFP with a bitter smile.

Climate change has exacerbated the problem, experts say. Rising temperatures and increasingly mild winters with little snowfall and a scarcity of precipitation have battered the lake.

"If this year the winter is dry it will be even worse. And if next summer it is also hot and dry – everything would be over," said local park ranger Astrit Kodra.
'Repercussions'

Environmentalists say the fate of the lake should serve as a dire warning for the rest of the Balkans -- a region rich in water but where resource management is largely lacking.

"The death of a lake will have repercussions" on the neighbouring lakes of the larger Prespa and Ohrid, said Kodra.

The water levels at Great Prespa Lake -- one of the oldest in Europe, straddling the borders of Albania, Greece and North Macedonia -- are also in steep decline, reaching their lowest level in decades.

"The water in the lake on the Albanian side is today 10 meters (33 feet) lower than its level at the end of the 1970s," said Vasil Male, a manager of protected areas in Korca.

Male says the main cause is climate change.

"The reduction in precipitation is drying up water resources and has led to a decline in the level of Great Prespa Lake by 54 centimetres (21 inches) in the last four months alone," said environmental expert Llazi Stojan.

On the Greek side, the situation is also critical.

According to data from the National Lake Water Monitoring Network of Greece, "the level of the two lakes, the Small and Large Prespa, last August was at its lowest point since 2021".

Environmentalists say the fate of the lake should serve as a dire warning for the rest of the Balkans -- a region rich in water but where resource management is largely lacking 

© Adnan Beci / AFP

In a 2022 report, NASA said satellite images showed that the larger Lake Prespa had lost seven percent of its surface area and half its volume between 1984 and 2020.

"And if Prespa shrinks further, the no less sublime Lake Ohrid, located just 10 kilometres (six miles) away, could also be affected," warns Stojan.

Experts in the region however say little can be done unless the countries that share the lakes cooperate to save them.

"We must intervene, we must act together as long as it is not too late," said Kodra.

"Humans and science can find solutions to save nature."

© 2024 AFP

Africa roads among world's deadliest despite few cars

Addis Ababa (AFP) – Africa has the fewest roads and cars of any region, and yet the largest ratio of vehicle deaths, caused by the usual suspects -- unsafe habits, speeding and drinking -- but also poor infrastructure, scant rescuers and old cars.


Issued on: 02/10/2024 -

A bus veered off the Queen Elizabeth bridge in Johannesburg in February 2015 © MUJAHID SAFODIEN / AFP

As everywhere, speed, alcohol and not wearing a seat belt or helmet are among the main causes of death and injury, say experts.

But in Africa, where there are 620 traffic deaths every day, these problems are compounded by bad roads, outdated vehicles, minimal prosecutions and a shortage of emergency services.

A recent World Health Organisation report found that Africa surpassed the rest of the world, including Southeast Asia -- which recorded the most road deaths -- with a record ratio of 19.5 people killed per 100,000 inhabitants in 2021.

Home to only around four percent of the world's automobiles, Africa accounted for 19 percent of road deaths last year.

"What is worrying is the upward trend in Africa," said Jean Todt, a former head of the International Automobile Federation and now the United Nations(UN) special envoy for road safety.

Attempts at change failed after a deadly Senegal crash in 2023 © Ousseynou Diop / AFP

The continent is the only region where road deaths increased between 2010 and 2021 -- up 17 percent to 226,100. The spike was seen in more than half of Africa's countries (28 out of 54).

The biggest victims are pedestrians, accounting for a third of fatalities due to a lack of adequate pavements, compared to 21 percent worldwide.

"We need to have better designed streets with sidewalks, adequate signage and pedestrian lanes, particularly around schools," Todt said.

He also bemoaned the shortage of public transport for the rapidly urbanising continent.

Urban planning is also at fault.

"Many African countries continue to design their infrastructure for motor vehicles and not for individuals, and without safety being the main concern," said Haileyesus Adamtei, a transport expert at the World Bank.
'Never been implemented'

One major culprit is the quality of the cars plying Africa's roads, with many more than 15 years old, according to the UN Road Safety Fund.

A transport ministry spokesperson in Senegal told AFP that faulty brakes and worn tires were common -- and often deadly.

"The dilapidated state of vehicles is a major factor in the lack of safety," the spokesperson said.

The West African country introduced a raft of new rules after a head-on crash between two night buses in January 2023 killed 40 people.

A relative mourns the 45 victims of a bus accident in Botswana in May © Monirul Bhuiyan / AFP

"But most have never been implemented," the ministry spokesperson admitted.

Some rules, such as a ban on loading luggage on the roof of buses, which could unbalance the vehicle, were fiercely opposed by operators.

It does not help that drivers can often get a licence with only perfunctory lessons and testing -- often avoided altogether with a bribe.

Corruption also means that permissive law enforcement often sweeps many road safety violations under the carpet.

The UN has called for a "decade of action" to halve the number of road deaths by 2030.

Todt insists the aim is achievable and should top government agendas.

"Beyond the human tragedy, road crashes are also a major cause of slowdown in the development of a country, costing on average four to five percent of GDP, sometimes much more in Africa," he said.

burs-ayv/er/ju

© 2024 AFP

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Why are Thailand's roads so deadly?

Bangkok (AFP) – A horrifying fire on a Thai school bus this week that killed at least 23 people, most of them children, underscores how the kingdom's roads are some of the deadliest in the world.


Issued on: 02/10/2024 - 

A fire that ripped through a Thai school bus killing at least 23 people, underscores how deadly the kingdom's roads are © Manan VATSYAYANA / AFP

AFP looks at the poor safety record, why there are so many deaths and what the Thai government is doing about it.

How bad is it?

Around 20,000 people are killed every year on Thailand's roads -- an average of more than 50 a day.

This means Thailand has the second-deadliest roads in Asia after Nepal, and ranks 16th in the world for traffic mortality, alongside Chad and Guinea-Bissau, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).

There were 25.7 deaths due to traffic injuries per 100,000 people in 2021 in Thailand, compared with a global average of 15.

Road safety watchdog Thai RSC says that already this year there have been more than 10,000 fatalities and 600,000 injuries on the country's roads.

More than four out of five deaths involve motorbikes, the RSC says, compared with a global average of one out of five.

Accident rates and deaths soar around major celebrations such as New Year and Songkran, the annual Thai water festival.

In 2021, the WHO said traffic-related incidents accounted for nearly a third of all deaths in Thailand. About three-quarters of those killed were male.

The economic losses caused by traffic deaths and injuries amounted to around $15.5 billion in 2022 the WHO says -- equivalent to more than three percent of the country's GDP.

- Why is it so bad? -

Speeding, drink driving, poor road design and unsafe vehicles all contribute to the problem

.

Around 20,000 people are killed every year on Thailand's roads -- an average of more than 50 a day 

© Lillian SUWANRUMPHA / AFP/File

Enforcement of safety rules has long been undermined by a culture of low-ranking traffic cops taking bribes to turn a blind eye to infractions such as speeding or motorcyclists not wearing helmets.

Vehicle safety checks have also been weakened by graft.

Last month, local media reported that two highway officials had been arrested on allegations of taking hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes to allow unsafe overloaded trucks to pass checks to use the roads.

In Bangkok and other cities, motorbikes and mopeds weave in and out of heavy traffic, but helmet-wearing is lax.

While hospitals in Thailand are generally good, in rural areas they are spread out and often less well-equipped than city facilities.

Anyone involved in an accident on one of the countless narrow country roads snaking through steep jungle-clad hillsides could find themselves waiting a long time for emergency services to arrive.

- What is being done about it? -

The country has set a five-year National Master Plan on Road Safety which aims to slash the road mortality rate to 12 per 100,000 by 2027 -- which would equate to fewer than 8,500 deaths per year.

In Bangkok and other cities, motorbikes and mopeds weave in and out of heavy traffic, but helmet-wearing is lax

 © MANAN VATSYAYANA / AFP/File

Police regularly mount drives to encourage helmet-wearing and to catch drink drivers, particularly around around major festivals.

Thai RSC oversees road safety and raises public awareness to reduce road accidents, including pushing for helmet use on motorbikes and mopeds.

There have been efforts to tackle poorly lit roads, with Bangkok Governor Chadchart Sittipunt last year vowing to make the capital's streets brighter by replacing streetlamp bulbs with newer LEDs.

And there has been some improvement -- Thailand's road mortality rate fell from 39 per 100,000 people in 2000, a relative decline of 17 percent, according to WHO data.

© 2024 AFP

'Humiliated' profession - Afghan media says abuses rising

Kabul (AFP) – Afghan journalists have reported hundreds of cases of abuses by government officials, including torture and arbitrary detention, as well as tightening censorship since the Taliban authorities returned to power.


Issued on: 02/10/2024

Afghanistan's journalists say they are frequently rounded up for covering attacks by militant groups or writing about the discrimination of women 

© Wakil KOHSAR / AFP/File

Reporters say they are frequently rounded up for covering attacks by militant groups or writing about the discrimination of women, and some report being locked up in the same cell as Islamic State fighters.

"No other profession has been so humiliated," said a journalist from the north who was recently detained and beaten.

"Me and my friends no longer want to continue in this profession. Day after day new restrictions are announced," he told AFP, asking not to be named for security reasons.

"If we cover (attacks) or topics related to women, we expose ourselves to threats by phone, a summons or detention."

When the Taliban authorities seized power in 2021 after a two-decade-long insurgency against foreign-backed governments, Afghanistan had 8,400 media employees, including 1,700 women.

Only 5,100 remain in the profession, including 560 women, according to media industry sources.

Only 5,100 journalists remain in the profession, including 560 women, according to media industry sources © Wakil KOHSAR / AFP/File

"We have recorded around 450 cases of violations against journalists since the collapse, including arrests, threats, arbitrary detention, physical violence, torture," said Samiullah, an official at a journalists' association in Afghanistan, whose name has been changed for his protection.

The Taliban authorities have not responded to several requests for comment on the reports.

However, Hayatullah Muhajir Farahi, the deputy minister of information, recently said in a statement that media were allowed to work in Afghanistan on condition that they respect "Islamic values, the higher interest of the country, its culture and traditions".
New laws and regulations

In September, new regulations were slapped on political talk shows, media executives told AFP.

Guests must be selected from a Taliban-approved list, the themes sanctioned and criticism of the government prohibited.

Shows must not be aired live, allowing for recordings to be checked and "weak points" to be removed.

The state radio and television station RTA no longer allows women to work as journalists, according to an employee within the organisation who asked not to be named.

In southern Helmand province, women's voices are banned from television and radio.

Surveillance of journalists continues on social networks and the press survives through self-censorship.

Afghanistan's press survives through self-censorship © Wakil KOHSAR / AFP/File

The London-based Afghanistan International channel, for which no Afghan is allowed to work anymore, accused Kabul in September of jamming its frequencies.

A recent law on the "promotion of virtue and prevention of vice" which formalises the strict interpretation of Islamic law has further worried journalists.

The law prohibits taking pictures of living beings and women from speaking loudly in public.

Although the authorities "assure us that it will not affect the work of journalists, we see on the ground that it really has an impact," said Samiullah, from the journalist association.

"In July, we had two or three cases of abuse against journalists. In August, 15 or 16 cases and in September, 11 had been reported," he said.

"When we talk to the Ministry of Information, we receive assurances that things will improve," said Samiullah.

"But then we see how (intelligence officers) behave in the provinces, and it is worse."
'Alone, lost, defenceless'

Meena Akbari worked for Khurshid TV but had to flee the country in 2021 -- like hundreds of other Afghan journalists -- "due to numerous threats to (my) security".

She said she still receives death threats on social media and is receiving psychological support.

Arrested in 2023 for "espionage", the French-Afghan journalist Mortaza Behboudi, who worked for several French media outlets, was detained in Kabul for 10 months and said he was routinely tortured.

Dozens of media outlets, also faced with economic hardship, have closed and Afghanistan has slipped from 122nd place to 178th out of 180 countries in a press freedom ranking compiled by Reporters Without Borders (RSF).

Afghan journalists told RSF that they had been locked up in cells with detainees from the Islamic State group © Wakil KOHSAR / AFP/File

Journalists told RSF that they had been locked up in cells with detainees from the Islamic State group.

However, reporters are rarely held for long periods of time, RSF told AFP.

"They don't need to fill the prisons with journalists to have a deterrent effect," said Celia Mercier, the head of the RSF's South Asia team.

"Keeping them in detention for a few days can break them psychologically. After such an ordeal, journalists will try to leave the country," she added.

Another law being prepared is intended to regulate the functioning of the media, according to the information and culture ministry.

"Journalists are very afraid," Samiullah said "They feel alone, lost, defenceless."

© 2024 AFP

INTERVIEW

What does the EU embezzlement trial mean for Le Pen and the French far right?

Marine Le Pen and other senior figures within France’s far-right National Rally party are standing trial on charges of having embezzled millions in European Parliament funds to finance the party’s own political activities. Marta Lorimer, lecturer in politics at Cardiff University, discusses what the trial could mean for the party’s future – and Le Pen’s own presidential ambitions.

Issued on: 02/10/2024 -

Marine Le Pen, a two-time presidential runner-up, attends her trial in Paris on September 30, 2024. 

© Benoit Tessier, Reuters

By :Paul MILLAR
AFP/FRANCE24

The nine-week trial of Marine Le Pen and her far-right National Rally (RN) party opened in Paris on Monday, promising more than two months of very public scrutiny of the party’s use of European Parliament funds over more than a decade.

Le Pen and more than two dozen figures within the party stand accused of having embezzled millions of euros in European Parliament funding to finance the party’s private political activities, funnelling money meant for parliamentary assistants to instead pay the salaries of party staffers that the cash-strapped RN – previously known as the National Front – was otherwise struggling to afford.

The consequences could be severe. If found guilty, each of the co-defendants could be sentenced to up to a decade in prison, or face fines upwards of a million euros each. Le Pen herself is facing the threat of being barred from running for public office for up to ten years, putting her long-held presidential ambitions in jeopardy.

Le Pen and her co-defendants have repeatedly denied the allegations, saying that the staffers in question were legitimately employed as parliamentary aides. The RN has paid back more than one million euros to the EU parliament, an act that it maintains is in no way an admission of guilt.

10:24





Le Pen has gone head-to-head with French President Emmanuel Macron in the final round of two previous presidential elections, each time inching closer towards the Elysée Palace. With Macron’s public support at an all-time low, the 2027 presidential election is seen by many as Le Pen’s to lose.

The trial – which has been in the making since the allegations were first raised in 2015 – comes at the height of the far-right party’s power. The RN won historic support in the European elections earlier this year, prompting a humiliated Macron to call snap legislative elections in the hopes of catching his rising adversaries off guard.

Instead, the RN handily won the first round of the elections, only to fall to third place in the second round as left-wing and centrist voters backed each other’s candidates where necessary to block the party’s ascent. Although the left-wing New Popular Front coalition holds the most seats in the National Assembly, the RN is now the largest single party in the lower house.

Now, after months of political deadlock, the RN holds the whip hand over the newly formed government of arch-conservative Michel Barnier. The party has threatened to join forces with the left in the National Assembly to topple the fragile government with a no-confidence vote if it strays from their uncompromising anti-immigration agenda.

With the party wielding unprecedented political power within the fractured republic, a highly public embezzlement trial stretching over nine weeks seems like it couldn’t have come at a worse time.

FRANCE 24 spoke with Marta Lorimer, lecturer in politics at Cardiff University and a specialist in far-right movements in France and Italy, about what the trial could mean for the RN’s political ambitions.

FRANCE 24: The opening of this trial comes at a moment when the RN is more influential than it has ever been before, effectively holding the fate of the Barnier government in its hands. What impact, if any, will it have on the party’s ability to pursue its agenda under the new government?

Marta Lorimer: The National Rally is probably not very happy with the timing of this trial – because of the risks associated with it. The absolute worst thing that could happen in this trial is that Le Pen is not able to run – she could be judged ineligible for up to ten years.

I doubt they would go for the ten years, but even if she is declared ineligible for one year, two years, or if she has to appeal the decision, this really puts her in a difficult position for the next legislative elections – presumably happening within the next year – and for the presidential election in 2027, depending on exactly when the ineligibility would start.

So I think that for the party it is absolutely not a great time. Then again, I don’t think there is ever a good time for this kind of trial to hit them.

FRANCE 24: The RN has been consistently critical of the EU and its institutions, painting it as an antidemocratic body of bureaucrats that prevents member states from acting in their own national interests. To what extent does this trial, directly pitting the RN against the EU, play into this narrative, and what are the chances that it increases Le Pen’s support among her broadly eurosceptic base?

Lorimer: I think what’s interesting about this trial of course is that the National Rally is using everything in its power to basically suggest that this is not your standard judiciary trial, but that it is a deeply political one – so that the reason that they are being persecuted is that they are being critical of the European Union.

I don’t know how much that narrative will fly given that the MoDems, which are very pro-EU, faced very similar trials recently. But their base is likely to buy into the narrative that if there is a sanction that is particularly strong, there are political reasons behind that. [Editor’s note: centrist politician François Bayrou was acquitted in February of similar charges of embezzling money meant for parliamentary aides, having pleaded ignorance of the scheme. Eight people among the accused were fined and issued with suspended prison sentences, and the MoDem party was ordered to pay back €350,000]

Read moreHow far to the right? France's new centre-right coalition

And that could actually work against the National Rally. There’s this idea that because some of the new voters it has acquired are more your standard conservatives, more law and order types, they would probably not be particularly happy with a leader who’s been convicted of embezzlement.

But it just seems to me that it’s unlikely to have that effect – I do suspect that the way most supporters of the National Rally will read this is that if it’s true that the National Rally misused EU funds, well, that’s probably good, because we don’t really like the EU. It’s not really a crime if you steal from a criminal.

So I think that might be some of the reading that they get, and that part of it is politically motivated, and that the timing has been set so as to ruin the party. So I think there’s a variety of ways that they can use this to actually stoke even more anger in their political base.

FRANCE 24: We’ve seen these kinds of charges have a serious impact on the political future of French politicians at the national level, such as the fake job scandal involving former French prime minister François Fillon and his wife. How heavily are these charges likely to weigh on the mind of the average French voter?

Lorimer: It seems to me that they are unlikely to weigh particularly heavily on them. With Fillon, it was very easy to see it as “someone rich does something bad”. And that is particularly strong at the national level, something that is felt very strongly.

I think with what the National Rally [allegedly] did, there’s probably going to be some sympathy from its electorate concerning the fact that the reason they did this was partly because the party had no money. But also, they were doing political work, or work that is associated with the party. I mean, their voters didn’t care when they got money from Russia, so that’s the baseline we’re talking about.

But I think the idea is that they were just using a different pot of money to pay for them. And again, if you don’t recognise the authority of the European Union, why would you care if the money isn’t being better spent focusing on your national priorities?

This interview has been lightly edited for clarity.

CHAINSAW MILEL

Scientists fear underfunded Argentina research on verge of collapse

Buenos Aires (AFP) – Argentine biochemist Alejandro Nadra worries that President Javier Milei's budget cuts will undo his scientific quest to unravel the cause of genetic diseases that disable and kill millions.

Issued on: 02/10/2024 - 

The gross monthly salary of a research assistant today at Argentina's Conicet research council is about 30 percent less, around $1,180, than a year ago 

© JUAN MABROMATA / AFP

Since taking office last December, budget-slashing Milei has frozen public university and research budgets even as annual inflation stands at 236 percent.

This meant real spending on science and technology fell 33 percent year-on-year in August, according to the CIICTI research center.

Nadra said he has already had to stop some of his experiments with the proteins responsible for gene mutations that cause diseases.

"We are on the verge of collapse," Nadra told AFP from his laboratory at the University of Buenos Aires, home to three Nobel Prize laureates in science.

Along with artists, teachers, pilots, social workers and countless other professionals affected by Milei's drive to curb flyaway inflation and public debt, scientists fear for their future in Argentina.

"People are leaving, and they aren't applying for scholarships or teaching positions anymore because they can't make a living," said Nadra.

Those who do often end up working in labs without the necessary equipment or supplies.

"If things don't change, the time is near when everything disintegrates," said Nadra.

Nadra said he has not been able to buy anything he needs for his research since last November.
Biochemist Alejandro Nadra warns the sector is 'on the verge of collapse' © JUAN MABROMATA / AFP

"So, if I run out of supplies, I either borrow from someone who still has some, or I stop doing those experiments."

The gross monthly salary of a research assistant today at Argentina's Conicet research council is about 30 percent less, roughly $1,180, than a year ago, according to the RAICYT network science institutes.

Official figures released last week showed that 52.9 percent of people live in poverty in Milei's Argentina.
'Drastic reduction'

Biologist Edith Kordon works at the IFIBYNE state research institute, where she investigates breast cancer.

"This is the first time this has happened to me. I mean, it has always been very hard to get funding, it has always been very hard to get scholarships, but now there is this practical certainty that we have nothing... I've never had so little money to do anything," she told AFP.

Former science minister Lino Baranao recently highlighted that even before Milei's cuts, Argentina spent about 0.31 percent of GDP on science compared to 1.21 percent in Brazil, 3.45 percent in the United States and 4.9 percent in South Korea.

In March, 68 Nobel Prize laureates expressed concern in a public letter about Argentina's public research system approaching 'a dangerous precipice' © JUAN MABROMATA / AFP

Today, it is even less, at about 0.2 percent.

"Never in the recent history of Argentina has there been such a drastic reduction in the (scientific) budget," Baranao told La Nacion newspaper.

In a more prosperous past, state funding of research had made possible the development of a transgenic wheat strain resistant to drought by a Conicet research team, among other life-changing breakthroughs.

Last week, Milei's government adjusted Conicet's working budget upward to just over $100,000 for 2024, a figure which physicist Jorge Aliaga considers "irrelevant" in its inadequacy.

"It doesn't change anything," he told AFP.

In March, a group of 68 Nobel Prize laureates from around the world expressed concern in an open letter about Argentina's public research system approaching "a dangerous precipice."

Self-described "anarcho-capitalist" Milei, for his part, has hit out at "the so-called scientists and intellectuals who believe that having an academic degree makes them superior beings."

© 2024 AFP

Extreme heat another form of death sentence in Texas jails

Huntsville (United States) (AFP) – Prison cells so hot that inmates splash themselves with toilet water. Jails described as ovens where convicts are baked to death.


Issued on: 02/10/2024 - 

Amite Dominick, founder and president of Texas Prisons Community Advocates, says inmates are suffering in high heat in the state's penitentiaries © Francois PICARD / AFP


An advocacy organization is suing the US state of Texas to mandate air conditioning for tens of thousands of inmates, arguing that temperatures reaching 120 degrees Fahrenheit (49 Celsius), according to convicts, are cruel and unconstitutional.

The suit, filed by Texas Prisons Community Advocates, follows three inmate deaths in the state's prison system in 2023 that officials admitted were partly due to extreme heat.

Fifty-year-old Patrick Womack died after being denied a cold water bath. John Castillo, 32, who suffered from epilepsy, fetched water 23 times before he died with a body temperature above 105.8 degrees Fahrenheit.

And days before her death, Elizabeth Hagerty, 37, warned prison officials that she was at a higher risk of a heat stroke because of her obesity and diabetes.

"In Texas, every summer we get triple digit weather. Every summer we have high humidity, and every summer we lose lives," the group's director Amite Dominick told AFP. "Because we are baking people in that brick building."
'A matter of surviving'

As temperatures rise in the southern United States, helped by global warming, inmates' families are never sure if their loved ones will survive another summer.

With only a third of the state's prison population of 134,000 inmates having adequate air conditioning, Dominick's group wants US District Court Judge Robert Pitman to require Texas to maintain temperatures of between 65 and 85 degrees Fahrenheit inside the cells.

The heat and humidity cause inmates to become more aggressive, and fuel suicide attempts and trauma which then spread to their communities, she warned.

"We do see both assault numbers and aggressive behavior in general and suicide rates increasing every summer," Dominick said. "It really is a matter of surviving each summer."

She added: "Ninety-five percent of these individuals are coming home. The question is, what condition are they going to be coming back to our communities in?"

At least three deaths

An advocacy group is suing the state of Texas to see air conditioning mandated for tens of thousands of prisoners, including those housed in this unit in Huntsville © Francois PICARD / AFP

Official attitudes toward the problem have been changing in Texas in recent years.

In 2012, then Texas senator John Whitmire said that Texans "are not motivated" to pay for air conditioning for "sex offenders, rapists, murderers" at the expense of regular citizens who may also need air conditioning.

But at a court hearing in early August, TDCJ director Bryan Collier acknowledged the gravity of the situation and said that "heat contributed to the death" of the three inmates in 2023.

Since 2017, the agency has been asking the state legislature for funding. A part of the requested sum was finally disbursed last year and the agency is currently building 1,760 additional climate-controlled beds.

While Collier urged lawmakers to approve more funding, he said prisons will continue relying on fans, ice water, cold baths and temporary transfers to air-conditioned common areas such as the library or medical center to help inmates deal with the heat.
A humanitarian right

Meanwhile, the suffering continues.

Marci Marie Simmons, 45, who spent 10 years in a women's prison in Texas for accounting offenses, said at one point she saw the reading on a thermometer in her jail dormitory -- 136 degrees Fahrenheit.

It would get so hot that she would "use toilet water because the toilet water was cooler than the water that came out of the tap."

"We believe that safe temperatures, that's a humanitarian right," Simmons, who is now a spokeswoman for the Alliance of Women Impacted by Justice, told AFP.

From her home in Weatherford, Texas, Simmons uses social media to talk about the deadly heat in prisons.

"You are not asking for a privilege. You are asking for something human, humanitarian consideration for people who (are) inside the prison under extreme heat," she said.

Samuel Urbina, 59, was recently released from jail after serving a sentence for drug offenses. He recalled serving time in a jail in Brazoria county in Texas, where the temperature would climb to 120 degrees Fahrenheit.

"It's extremely hot, very humid," Urbina told AFP, before hugging his daughter who came to pick him up. "It was miserable. I would not come back."

© 2024 AFP

DOJ: 'Horrific and inhumane' Georgia prisons violate Constitution

UPI

Oct. 1, 2024 


"People are assaulted, stabbed, raped and killed or left to languish inside facilities that are woefully understaffed," Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke Clarke said in a report Tuesday about the Georgia state prison system. 

Photo by Judson McCranie/Wikimedia Commons

Oct. 1 (UPI) -- Georgia state prisons subject inmates to "horrific and inhumane" conditions in violation of the Eighth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, the Department of Justice said Tuesday.

The DOJ published a 93-page report on the state's prison system Tuesday after an investigation.

"Our statewide investigation exposes long-standing, systemic violations stemming from incomplete indifference and disregard to the safety and security of people Georgia holds in prisons," Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke said in a press release.

"People are assaulted, stabbed, raped and killed or left to languish inside facilities that are woefully understaffed," Clarke said. "Inmates are maimed and tortured, relegated to an existence of fear, filth and not-so-benign neglect."

Clarke said the conditions in Georgia's prisons harm inmates and put prison employees and the broader community at risk while violating "standards of decency and respect for basic human dignity."

Georgia has the nation's fourth-largest prison population, with about 50,000 inmates, but violates their constitutional rights by not protecting them from violence, the report said.

The Eighth Amendment protects U.S. citizens, including inmates, against cruel and unusual punishment.

The inmates are subjected to an "unreasonable risk of harm from sexual abuse" throughout the state's prison system, including LGBTQ inmates, the report said.

Understaffed prisons and deficient housing and oversight enables prison gangs to influence prison life and control entire housing units while operating "unlawful and dangerous schemes" inside and outside the prisons, which causes harm to inmates and the general public, according to the DOJ report.

"Our constitution requires humane conditions in prisons that ... ensure people in custody are safe," Northern Georgia U.S. Attorney Ryan Buchanan said.

Instead, the Georgia Department of Corrections subjects inmates to "disturbing and increasing frequencies of deaths" due to "failures to safeguard the men and women housed in its facilities," Buchanan said.

The DOJ's report is not tied to a criminal investigation, but Buchanan said it should alert Georgia officials to the need to improve conditions in the state's prison system.

Investigators with the DOJ's Civil Rights Division and the Special Litigation Section investigated Georgia's penal system and compiled the report.

Anger meets tear gas as Nigeria hardship protests fizzle out


By AFP
October 1, 2024



Protesters run for safety after Nigerian police fire tear gas at demonstrators - Copyright AFP Philip FONG

Aminu ABUBAKAR, Laurie CHURCHMAN, Tonye BAKARE, Leslie FAUVEL, Laurie CHURCHMAN

Rallies over economic hardship struggled to build momentum in Nigeria on Tuesday as the country battles its worst economic crisis in a generation.

Police fired tear gas to break up small crowds in the capital Abuja, while turnout was low across the country.

Dubbed the “National Day of Survival,” the demonstrations followed larger rallies in August, when security forces killed at least 21 protesters in a nationwide crackdown, according to Amnesty International.

After coming to power last year, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu brought in reforms billed as a way to revive the economy and attract foreign investment.

But Nigerians have seen fuel prices soar and inflation hit a three-decade high since Tinubu ended a fuel subsidy and floated the naira currency.

The demonstrators on Tuesday called for an “end to hunger and misery” and lower fuel, electricity and food prices, as well as the release of protesters arrested in August.

– ‘Are we not suffering?’ –


In Abuja, AFP journalists saw police firing volleys of teargas canisters at a crowd of around 50 peaceful protesters near Utako market.

“Why are they firing?” said Moses, 39, a driver working at the market. “Are the protesters not telling the truth? Are we not hungry, are we not suffering?”

“I’m angry. It’s unfair — they do violence on you and there is nothing you can do about it. We are helpless.”

The October 1 rally took place as Nigeria marks its 64th anniversary of independence from British colonial rule.

In an address to the nation, the president said that “since independence, our nation has survived many crises and upheavals.”

“I am deeply aware of the struggles many of you face in these challenging times,” Tinubu said.

“Once again, I plead for your patience as the reforms we are implementing show positive signs, and we are beginning to see light at the end of the tunnel.”

Rex Elanu, a chicken farmer and activist at the protest in Abuja, has seen the price of poultry feed soar under Tinubu.

“It’s a failed state, we must be sincere with ourselves,” the 39-year-old said.

He called for the president to address hunger and insecurity, and said he was frustrated the demands of the #EndbadGovernance protesters in August weren’t met.

“Sometimes I feel hopeless — but not everybody is going to stay quiet and docile,” he said.

– ‘The hunger is too much’ –

Turnout was lower than at the August rallies. There was calm in the northern city Kano, which previously saw intense clashes.

In the economic hub Lagos, hundreds of demonstrators gathered under the Ikeja bridge and marched to the headquarters of the Lagos State government.

The demonstration ended peacefully under a heavy security presence. “As Nigerian people, we are not surviving. We are hungry. The hunger is too much,” said Lagos protest leader Hassan Taiwo.

“We are demanding that all the policies that have led to this hunger must be removed.”

France’s richest man takes control of Paris Match magazine

ByAFP
October 1, 2024


Bernard Arnault is France's richest man - Copyright AFP ALAIN JOCARD

Aurélie Carabin

Paris Match, a glossy French weekly known for its celebrity exclusives on Tuesday became part of the media empire of France’s richest man Bernard Arnault, after a stint under right-wing tycoon Vincent Bollore’s ownership.

The LVMH luxury conglomerate headed by Arnault, who regularly vies with the likes of Elon Musk for the title of the world’s richest man, acquired the magazine in a deal worth 120 million euros ($133 million) first announced in February.

A statement from LVMH on Tuesday said Paris Match had officially passed under the group’s control.

Bollore, whose conservative views are reflected by the CNews TV channel that he owns, has for the last years been accused of interference in the editorial line of the magazine, which still shifts 440,000 print copies every week.

A staple of French newsstands, Paris Match is widely read for insights into the life of the country’s cultural and political elite and shows an insatiable interest in the British royal family and other European monarchies.

But it is also known worldwide for the quality of its photojournalism, including from war zones.

Contacted by AFP, LVMH, which already owns the Le Parisien daily and Les Echos business newspaper, said it did not want to comment for now on the future strategy of the magazine.

A Paris Match journalist, who asked not to be named, told AFP there was a “desire to restore the Paris Match of its heyday” and “therefore to rehire” after the many staff departures in recent years.

Despite expectations in some quarters of a shift from the line under Bollore, “we don’t yet have a very clearly stated editorial strategy,” the journalist added. The editorial team was also invited to a meeting on Tuesday.

But the change was “something of a relief for the newsroom”, the journalist said, pointing to the number of covers in recent months devoted to subjects on the Catholic faith to which Bollore belongs.

A summer 2022 cover devoted to the ultra-conservative cardinal Robert Sarah caused particular disquiet. The political and economic editor-in-chief Bruno Jeudy was then replaced by former CNews anchor Laurence Ferrari.

Bollore, whose Vivendi group has swallowed the media interests of his fellow tycoon Arnaud Lagardere as well as CNews, now controls Sunday paper JDD and weekly JDNews which have a considerable right-wing spin.

CNews is meanwhile regularly accused by critics of being a mouthpiece for France’s far right.

But Arnault, who regularly meets centrist President Emmanuel Macron, has also been criticised for his attitude towards freedom of the press.

According to the specialist publication La Lettre, the billionaire has banned LVMH executives from speaking to to seven blacklisted media outlets.