9 minute read
Global
India Consumed by Covid Casualties
India has canceled final year exams for medical school students, allowing them to join the fight against the country’s out of control Covid-19 epidemic.
The 25,000 medical students who have already completed their studies were informed by the government that they can skip the final licensing exam if they work with Covid-19 patients for a year. Another 90,000 doctors who studied in overseas universities but have not yet taken the exam to convert their licenses are also eligible for the new initiative.
In addition, nurses in their final year of training can now assist in hospitals and will be prioritized when applying for positions at government medical centers if they volunteer for over 100 days at a Covid-19 ward.
The new measures are expected to lighten the load on India’s medical professionals who have struggled to contain the world’s worst Covid-19 outbreak. Monday saw India record 300,000 new cases for the 12th straight day, bringing the total number of infections to 20 million.
The skyrocketing infection rate has overloaded hospitals and caused a severe shortage of oxygen cylinders. New patients are being forced to wait hours and even days for a bed in hospital ICUs due to the lack of sufficient medications, medical staff, and ventilators.
“Every time we have to struggle to get our quota of our oxygen cylinders,” said Narayan Rao, a health official from the hard-hit southern town of Chamarajanagar. “It’s a dayto-day fight.”
In the capital of New Delhi, crematoriums have been constructing makeshift funeral pyres as they run out of space for bodies. In the South Indian state of Karnataka that has seen 200,000 daily cases, crematoriums have put up “house full” notices on their doors.
Officials are attempting to introduce innovative solutions in order to lighten the burden on cemeteries and crematoriums. In New Delhi, the Sarai Kale Khan crematorium in the capital has received permission to build 27 new pyres in a nearby park. The Health Ministry is now allowing Indians to use hiking trails and private property as makeshift cemeteries.
“There has been a steady rise in the number of deaths due to Covid-19 infection in the state,” read the order by India’s Health Ministry. “It is prudent to swiftly and respectfully dispose of the body in a decentralized manner keeping in view the grieving circumstance and to avoid crowding in crematoriums and burial grounds.”
Germany to Return Artifacts to Nigeria
Germany will return the Benin Bronzes, a series of ancient artifacts looted by British soldiers during a military operation in 1897, to Nigeria.
Dating back to the 16th-18th century, the golden plates and statues once decorated the royal palace of the Kingdom of Benin and are considered among the most impressive works of African art. The pieces are currently located in dozens of museums scattered across Europe.
Germany’s Ministry of Culture announced last Thursday that it would work towards “substantive returns” of the Benin Bronzes before 2022. The move came after the government reached a deal with museum curators regarding compensation for the artifacts and the timetable of the return.
As per the agreement, museums will have until June 15 to inventory the items followed by a meeting on June 29 to hammer out the logistical details. A new website will be established in order to catalogue the arti-
facts and document the provenance of the Benin Bronzes as well as other “collections from colonial contexts.”
German authorities and European museums in possession of the Bronzes will work to repatriate the pieces together with a consortium of Nigerian partners led by the Edo Museum for West African Art in Benin City.
German Culture Minister Monika Grütters hailed the breakthrough agreement as a “historic milestone.”
“We face a historic and moral responsibility to shine a light on Germany’s colonial past,” said Grütters. “We would like to contribute to an understanding and reconciliation with the descendants of the people who were robbed of their cultural treasures during the colonial era.
Russia Tracking Demonstrators
Activists are crying foul over Russia’s new state-of-the-art surveillance system, alleging that it is being used to systematically hunt down opponents of President Vladimir Putin. In September, Moscow finished installing 100,000 advanced closed circuit television (CCTV) cameras in the capital. The cameras were part of an advanced security system utilizing facial recognition that was touted by police as a major crime-fighting tool.
Yet activists opposing President Vladimir Putin contend that the software is being used to crush his local political opposition. They say that rather than be deployed to catch fare beaters or car thieves, the facial recognition technology has become a key tool for security forces to round up protesters who demonstrate against the Russian president.
With the software enabling police to track Russians from demonstrations to their homes, activists have been experiencing a wave of arrests. The detentions increased following last week’s rallies supporting jailed political prisoner Alexei Navalny, with detectives using the technology to track down and detain 50 demonstrators.
The majority were arrested not at the rally itself but after arriving home, something the activists point to as proof that police are using facial recognition technology to stifle political dissent.
“The authorities’ intention to expand the use of invasive technology across the country causes serious concern over the potential threat to privacy,” said Hugh Williamson, a senior executive at Human Rights Watch. “Russia’s track record of rights violations means that the authorities should be prepared to answer tough questions to prove they are not are undermining people’s rights by pretending to protect public safety.”
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Swiss Diplomat Dies in Iran
A Swiss woman who was the first secretary at the Swiss Embassy in Iran died in Tehran after falling from the upper floors of a 20-story building in which she lived. Iranian police said on Tuesday that they will investigate her suspicious death.
A worker discovered her missing on Tuesday morning and called authorities.
The Swiss Foreign Ministry in Bern acknowledged in a statement that an employee “died in a fatal incident on Tuesday.”
Iranian emergency services spokesman Mojtaba Khaledi said the diplomat’s body was found by a gardener after an employee who arrived at her apartment early on Tuesday noticed she was missing, the news agency Fars reported.
The Swiss Embassy has represented American interests in Tehran since the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
Tragic Train Collapse in Mexico
At least 23 people were killed and dozens more were injured after an overpass for the Mexico City Metro collapsed on Monday night, sending
a subway car full of passengers plunging toward a busy street below.
The collapse occurred at around 10:30 p.m. local time on the newest of Mexico City’s subway lines, Line 12. The line runs underground but emerges onto elevated structures in some areas. A support beam collapsed just as the train passed over it in the southern borough of Tlahuac.
Emergency crews worked through the night to remove people from the scene.
At least 49 of the 65 people injured were transported to hospitals, including seven who were in serious condition and undergoing surgery.
“There are, unfortunately, children among the dead,” the mayor said.
Mexican Foreign Relations Secretary Marcelo Ebrard, who was Mexico City’s mayor from 2006 to 2012, when Line 12 was built, called the incident “a terrible tragedy.” Soon after Ebrard left office as mayor, the subway line became plagued by structural issues, technical faults and corruption allegations, leading to a partial closure in 2013 so tracks could be repaired.
Border Bungle?
All it took was a rock to change the border between France and Belgium.
A Belgian farmer had moved a stone that was blocking his tractor’s path. Unfortunately, the stone was not just a large rock. It was marking the boundary between Belgium and France.
A local history enthusiast was walking in the forest when he noticed the stone marking the boundary between the two countries had moved 2.29 meters.
“He made Belgium bigger and France smaller, it’s not a good idea,” David Lavaux, mayor of the Belgian village of Erquelinnes, told French TV channel TF1.
The border between France and Belgium, which stretches 620km, was established under the Treaty of Kortrijk, signed in 1820 after Napoleon’s defeat at Waterloo five years earlier. It was marked out by stone borders which have remained in place ever since.
“I was happy – my town was bigger,” the Belgian mayor added with a laugh. “But the mayor of Bousigniessur-Roc didn’t agree.”
“We should be able to avoid a new border war,” the amused mayor of the neighboring French village, Aurélie Welonek, told La Voix du Nord.
Local Belgian authorities have contacted the farmer to ask him to return the stone to its original location. If that does not happen, the case could end up at the Belgian foreign ministry, which would have to summon a Franco-Belgian border commission, dormant since 1930.
Protesting in Colombia
Frustrated by new and expanded taxes on citizens and businessowners, people in Colombia are taking to the streets. But the protests have not been tranquil. At least 19 people have died and hundreds more have been injured in protests against right-wing President Iván Duque Márquez’s tax overhaul, which was intended to aid economic recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic.
Although Duque said the objective of the reforms – aimed at raising the equivalent of 1.4 percent of GDP, or $4.1 billion – were to stabilize the country’s economy, the plan has been criticized for favoring the wealthy and placing more strain on the working and middle classes.
The protests have drawn tens of
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