Family members of Israeli captives rush Gaza border fence
NewsFeed Family members of captives held by Hamas rushed a border fence with Gaza and entered a military no-go zone in a protest to demand a ceasefire and captive return deal. Published On 29 Aug 202429 Aug 2024 Adblock test (Why?)
South Korea arrests battery maker CEO over fire that killed 23
Aricell CEO Park Soon-kwan arrested over alleged violations of industrial safety law. The head of a South Korean lithium battery maker has been arrested over alleged violations of industrial safety law following a factory fire that killed 23 people. Suwon District Court approved a warrant to arrest Aricell CEO Park Soon-kwan over his role in the June blaze late on Wednesday, a court spokesperson said. The court also issued a warrant for Park’s son, who is an executive at Aricell, the spokesperson said. South Korea’s Ministry of Employment and Labor said Park had been arrested on charges of “causing the deaths of 23 people” by employing unskilled contract workers to handle materials that posed a serious fire risk. Park’s arrest marks the first time that a company head has been held responsible under legislation introduced in 2022 to penalise management for industrial accidents. The Serious Disasters Punishment Act carries penalties of one year in prison or one billion won ($835,000) in fines for business owners and management for accidents that cause death or serious injury. Police said last week that the fire at the factory in Hwaseong, about 45km south of Seoul, broke out as the company raced to meet a deadline without taking steps to address signs of serious quality failures. South Korea has a long history of deadly incidents blamed on companies cutting corners. In 2014, 476 people, including 325 high school students, died when the Sewol ferry capsized following modifications to the vessel to increase its cargo capacity. In 1995, more than 500 people died following the collapse of the Sampoong Department Store, which subsequent investigations revealed had been built without sufficient support columns. Adblock test (Why?)
Las Vegas politician jailed for life for killing investigative journalist
Former public administrator Robert Telles sentenced to life after being found guilty of 2022 murder of Jeff German. A Las Vegas politician has been jailed for life for killing an investigative journalist who wrote critical articles detailing wrongdoing in the department he headed. Robert Telles, a former Democratic public administrator, lay in wait outside the suburban home of 69-year-old reporter Jeff German and then stabbed him to death on September 2, 2022. “Justice has been served,” Clark County prosecutor Steve Wolfson told reporters. “Today’s verdict should send a message, and that message is a clear message that any attempts to silence the media or to silence or intimidate a journalist will not be tolerated.” Telles, 47, bowed his head as a clerk read the verdict of first-degree murder, which carried a possible life sentence without parole. He was later sentenced to life with a minimum term of 20 years. In the public gallery, German’s family members wept and hugged one another. Employees from the Clark County public administrator’s office, some of whom had asked German to investigate Telles, embraced and wiped away tears, all wearing red shirts and badges showing the reporter’s face. “Jeff was killed for doing the kind of work in which he took great pride: His reporting held an elected official accountable for bad behaviour and empowered voters to choose someone else for the job,” Glenn Cook, executive editor of German’s newspaper, the Las Vegas Review-Journal, said in a statement. “In many countries, the killers of journalists go unpunished,” Cook added. “Not so in Las Vegas.” Telles was sentenced to life in prison with a minimum term of 20 years [KM Cannon/Las Vegas Review-Journal via AP Photo] DNA evidence ‘insurmountable’ The two-week trial heard how the veteran Las Vegas Review-Journal reporter had spent months investigating allegations that Telles oversaw an abusive workplace and had an inappropriate relationship with a member of staff. The article was published in June 2022, a month before an election in which Telles was running for another term in office. He denied the allegations but lost his re-election bid in the primaries. The jury of seven women and five men heard how an irate Telles had driven to German’s home where he hid in some bushes before launching a frenzied and fatal knife attack. Telles’s DNA was found underneath German’s fingernails and video of the attacker’s car matched a vehicle registered to Telles’s wife. He denied carrying out the murder, arguing that the police had ignored evidence that other people could have been responsible and that he had been framed. Las Vegas defence lawyer Robert Langford, who was not involved in the case, said the DNA evidence under German’s fingernails was “an insurmountable bit of evidence”. The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) says 15 media workers have been killed in the United States in connection with their work since 1992. German was the only journalist murdered in the US in 2022, among 69 media workers and journalists killed worldwide, according to the press group’s data. “The conviction sends an important message that the killing of journalists will not be tolerated,” said Katherine Jacobsen, US, Canada and Caribbean coordinator for the CPJ. Adblock test (Why?)
Dozens injured, power cut as Typhoon Shanshan hits southern Japan
Powerful storm with gusts of up to 216km per hour made landfall near Satsumasendai city in southwestern Kyushu. Dozens of people have been injured and power was cut to a quarter of a million households after Typhoon Shanshan struck southwestern Japan. The typhoon, bringing gusts of up to 252 kilometres (157 miles) per hour and torrential rain, made landfall near Satsumasendai city on Kyushu island at about 8am on Thursday morning (23:00 GMT on Wednesday), the Japan Meteorological Agency said. It warned up to 60 centimetres (23.6 inches) of rain could fall in Kyushu over 24 hours. Public broadcaster NHK reported one person was missing and 39 injured in Kagoshima and Miyazaki prefectures. Aoi Nishimoto, who lives in Kyushu’s main city of Fukuoka, said he had called his family back in Miyazaki. “Our home is fine, but there was a tornado in Miyazaki and power went out in some places. It’s worrying,” the 18-year-old student told the AFP news agency. A Level 5 emergency warning was issued for the city of Yufu in Oita Prefecture after the Miyakawa River burst its banks, the Japan Times said. High waves whipped up by Shanshan in Ibusuki in Kagoshima Prefecture [Kyodo/via Reuters] The same warning was in place in the city of Usa, also in Oita Prefecture, because of possible flooding from the Yakkan River. Level 5 alerts are rarely issued and indicate a life-threatening situation. Power supply was cut to more than 250,000 households across seven prefectures on the island, the Kyushu Electric Power Company said. The weather agency expects Shanshan to move through Japan’s central and eastern regions, including the capital Tokyo, in the coming days. Officials have issued evacuation orders for millions of people. “The risk of a disaster due to heavy rain can rapidly escalate in western Japan as Friday approaches,” it warned. Torrential rain brought by Shanshan has drenched large parts of Japan since Tuesday. Japan has been experiencing heavy rain linked to Shanshan since Tuesday. Authorities said three people were killed after a landslide struck their house in Gamagori on Tuesday [JIJI Press via AFP] Three members of a family were killed when a landslide buried their house in Gamagori, a city in central Aichi prefecture, late on Tuesday, according to local media. Carmaker Toyota has suspended production at its 14 factories across Japan as a result of the typhoon, while Nissan and Honda have stopped operations at their Kyushu plants. Japan Airlines and ANA have together cancelled hundreds of domestic flights that were scheduled for Thursday and Friday. Some rail services have also been affected. Shanshan is the third major storm system to hit Japan this month. Typhoons in the region have been forming closer to coastlines, intensifying more rapidly and lasting longer over land due to climate change, according to a study released last month. Adblock test (Why?)
What is the deadly ‘Triple E’ mosquito virus spreading in northeastern US?
The United States has recorded this year’s first death from a rare mosquito-borne virus. Officials in New Hampshire announced the patient’s death on Tuesday, marking the state’s first human case in a decade and the fifth US case of the virus this year. Mosquitoes in several areas within the state are believed to be infected with the virus while surrounding areas are on high alert, particularly in the neighbouring state of Massachusetts. What is the mosquito-borne virus, and how far could it spread? What is the virus? The virus is officially called eastern equine encephalitis virus (EEEV), also known as “Triple E”. Rare but severe, it was first identified in horses in Massachusetts in 1938. Since then, there have been 118 human cases and 64 deaths from the virus in the state, based on data from the Massachusetts Department of Public Health. In humans, the virus attacks the central nervous system and can cause inflammation or swelling of the brain. Where is the virus found? The virus is found in North America and the Caribbean while human cases primarily occur in eastern and Gulf Coast states of the US. This can be attributed to a “complex ecology of several different bird species and mosquitoes which are reliant on arboreal swamps for breeding”, said Verity Hill, associate research scientist at Yale University’s School of Public Health. Moreover, the black-tailed mosquito – the main carrier of the virus – is found primarily in the eastern US, Mexico and the Caribbean. How does the virus spread? The virus typically circulates in birds located in hardwood swamps. Mosquito species that feed on both humans and mammals spread the virus when they bite an infected bird and then a mammal and inject the virus into its bloodstream. Unlike birds, infected humans and horses are “dead-end hosts”, meaning they do not have enough virus in their blood to transmit EEEV to a mosquito that may bite them, Hill told Al Jazeera. This means they cannot pass on the virus to other animals or humans. Infections tend to be asymptomatic in birds but deadly in horses. The most common carrier of EEE is the black-tailed mosquito (Culiseta melanura) while others include Aedes, which transmits the dengue virus, and Coquillettidia. Summer to autumn is mosquito season in the US, making it a particularly risky time for such viruses. What are the symptoms? Symptoms in humans typically appear four to 10 days after infection. These include: Sudden onset of fever and chills Headache Vomiting and diarrhoea Seizures and behavioural changes Drowsiness and disorientation In severe cases, brain swelling (encephalitis) EEE is diagnosed by observing symptoms and testing spinal fluid or blood, which can show if the virus or viral antibodies are present. How many cases are there of the encephalitis virus this year? There have been five confirmed human cases of EEEV in the United States in 2024 – one each in Massachusetts, New Jersey, Vermont, Wisconsin and New Hampshire. In Oxford, Massachusetts, an 80-year-old man was infected in mid-August, becoming the first human case in the state since 2020. The only death reported so far has been the one in New Hampshire. How common and dangerous is the virus? EEE is rare in humans. From 2003 to 2023, there have been 196 cases across the US, according to data collected by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The country reports an average of 11 cases annually. The largest outbreak occurred in 2019 with 38 cases and 12 deaths nationwide. Public health authorities consider it a serious disease because of its impact on the brain and 30 percent mortality rate. Even in the event of survival, many of those who have been infected go on to experience long-term neurological problems. How can the virus be controlled or treated? Public health authorities have said prevention is crucial because there is no specific treatment or vaccine for humans. Control measures include: Applying government-approved insect repellents Carrying out mosquito control programmes, including aerial and truck-mounted spraying of pesticides Wearing long sleeves and pants during peak mosquito hours (dusk to dawn) Installing anti-mosquito screens on windows and doors Draining standing water around homes Avoiding outdoor activities during peak mosquito times Treatment focuses on managing symptoms and providing supportive care, such as prescribing painkillers. Mosquito and tick bites can cause serious illnesses like EEE and Lyme disease. When outdoors, use EPA-approved repellent, applied slowly and evenly to the face, neck, arms & legs. When possible, wear full-length protective clothing. More info: https://t.co/DD6BYzyvj2. pic.twitter.com/84eMaxr1Kg — Mass. Public Health (@MassDPH) August 25, 2024 What action are authorities taking? States are taking several measures to curb the spread of the virus, which includes varying levels of lockdowns. The town of Plymouth in Massachusetts is closing public outdoor facilities from dusk to dawn. The northeastern state has also urged residents to avoid outdoor activities during those peak mosquito hours. Aerial and truck-mounted spraying of insecticides is also being conducted in several areas. What other viruses or diseases are spread by mosquitoes in North America? The mosquito-borne but less deadly West Nile virus has infected 289 people in the US this year. The country has also recorded 3,861 dengue fever cases this year, already exceeding the 3,352 cases reported across all of 2023. Dengue fever causes high fevers and muscle and joint pain and has been reaching record levels across the world, according to the CDC. Mortality rates can be up to 13 percent in untreated patients. Is climate change causing the spread of this virus? Experts have been warning that climate change is lengthening the duration of mosquito season, which is characterised by a certain level of humidity and hot temperatures. The prevalence of the virus within mosquitoes may also be an indicator of risk to humans. “Years with large populations of infected mosquitoes tended to have more human/horse cases,” Hill said, adding that climate change may foster larger populations of mosquitoes that can carry EEEV but would not introduce more of the virus. This
Hasina, floods, visas: What’s troubling India-Bangladesh relations?
Last September, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi hosted his Bangladeshi counterpart Sheikh Hasina as a special guest on the margins of the G20 Summit in New Delhi. It was a gesture of warmth towards a neighbour that India viewed as an especially close partner. Now, a year later, that proximity to Hasina has turned into a headache for India. Earlier this month, student protests forced Hasina out of power after 15 years. Hasina fled to India. And weeks after Hasina’s overthrow, anti-India sentiment in Bangladesh remains high — visible in everything from growing calls for New Delhi to extradite Hasina to accusations that India is using visas and water alike to target its neighbour. Here’s a breakdown of all that is ailing relations between the two countries: Opposition demands for Hasina’s extradition Hasina fled Bangladesh on August 5 by military helicopter and landed at a military base close to New Delhi, where she was greeted by India’s National Security Adviser Ajit Doval. She is since believed to have been living in and around the Indian capital. But calls for Hasina’s extradition back to Bangladesh are growing. On Monday, the general secretary of the main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir, told Indian media that Hasina must be extradited and tried in Bangladesh. Muhammed Quader, the chairman of the Jatiya Party, echoed this demand on the same day. Quader was the opposition leader of the Bangladesh parliament dissolved on August 6. “India should help Bangladesh seek accountability from her as she has evidently done great deal of harm to Bangladesh,” Alamgir was quoted as saying by Indian media. A slew of legal cases, including murder probes, face Hasina. Last week, Bangladesh’s interim government under Nobel laureate Mohammed Yunus cancelled Hasina’s diplomatic visa. Without that, it is unclear how long Hasina can legally stay in India. The Indian government has not commented on the issue. Ali Riaz, professor and political scientist at Illinois State University, said that people in Bangladesh were seeking Hasina’s extradition to hold her accountable for alleged enforced disappearances and extrajudicial killings that took place in Bangladesh during her 15 years of rule. The Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) paramilitary force was sanctioned by the United Nations for its involvement in the killings and disappearances. Since Hasina rose to the top job in 2009, “over 600 disappearances” were committed by security forces, according to Human Rights Watch last year. Is India responsible for the floods in Bangladesh? Bangladesh, alongside parts of northeast India including Tripura, Assam and Meghalaya experienced a downpour of heavy rainfall during the month of August. Bangladesh’s Ministry of Disaster Management and Relief said on August 23 that approximately 190,000 people were taken to emergency relief shelters. Of Bangladesh’s 64 districts, 11 were hit by the flooding, the ministry said. More than one million people have been cut off from the rest of the country by the flooding. On Bangladeshi cyberspace, however, rumours started circulating that the floods were caused by India’s deliberate opening of the Dumbur Dam, which is upstream of the Gumti River in India’s Tripura State. The Gumti River flows from India to Bangladesh. There is no evidence so far to back this assertion. India’s Ministry of External Affairs released a statement on August 22, saying that the flooding was from excessive rain and water from large catchments downstream of the dam. “We remain committed to resolving issues and mutual concerns in water resources and river water management through bilateral consultations and technical discussions,” said the statement. There are 54 transboundary rivers between India and Bangladesh. Earlier this week, Pranay Verma, India’s high commissioner to Bangladesh, told Yunus that the water from the dam was “released automatically” due to elevated levels. Officials at Bangladesh’s Flood Forecasting and Warning Centre in Bangladesh have, however, told Al Jazeera that unlike in the past, India did not issue a warning to its neighbour on the release of water. That warning, he added, could have helped prevent deaths and destruction. Regardless of what what caused the flooding, many Bangladeshis have been quick to blame India because of past experiences with water sharing, said Riaz. Bangladesh has long sought access to more water from their shared rivers — a pact for one such agreement has been in limbo for more than a decade, a sore point for Dhaka. “Previously during monsoon, we have seen that Bangladesh is inundated with water whereas during the dry season, Bangladesh never got what they wanted,” said Riaz. What is happening in Indian visa centres in Bangladesh? Indian visa application centres (IVACS) remained closed in Dhaka and Sathkira in southwestern Bangladesh on Tuesday. This was a day after hundreds of people protested against delays in the processing of their visas. India has scaled back its diplomatic presence in Dhaka amid security concerns following Hasina’s overthrow. At the protests, people demanded that their their passports be returned. About 1.6 million Bangladeshis visited India in 2023 — the top destination for the country’s citizens. Tourism and medical treatment rank as the biggest reasons that draw Bangladeshis to India. 1 Kilometres Long Line Outside Indian Visa Center At Asias Largest Mall Jamuna. The Line Started Inside, Involved Many Corridores, Then Came Out side, Went To Main Road, It Kept Going, Going And Going 🤣 Who Will Process Ur Visa Bro? Majority Of Staff Went Back To India, The… pic.twitter.com/PkXAcbCoOC — বাংলার ছেলে 🇧🇩 (@iSoumikSaheb) August 26, 2024 Why is the relationship between Bangladesh and India troubled? New Delhi and Dhaka have long shared strong diplomatic and trade relations. The Indian army played a critical role in helping Bangladesh gain independence from Pakistan in 1971. However, in recent decades, it has increasingly viewed Hasina and her secular Awami League party as better aligned with India’s interests. Many of Hasina’s critics have accused India of trying to prop up her regime, despite mounting evidence of undemocratic acts, including the crushing of dissent, arrests of critics and alleged attempts to manipulate elections. Riaz said that anger
Swiss court convicts two executives of embezzling $1.8bn from 1MDB
Court sentences PetroSaudi executives to six and seven years in Malaysia investment fund fraud case. The Swiss Federal Criminal Court has convicted two executives from an oil exploration company for embezzling more than $1.8bn from Malaysia’s state investment fund 1MDB. The verdict on Wednesday was the latest episode in the 1MDB scandal, a complex tale of international corruption that has buffeted a slew of financial institutions and individuals across the globe since allegations of wrongdoing first surfaced in 2015. Prosecutors alleged that Swiss-British national Patrick Mahony and Swiss-Saudi Tarek Obaid had helped set up a joint venture with 1MDB by creating the impression that their company, PetroSaudi, was backed by Saudi Arabia’s government. This was not the case, but the accused managed to persuade 1MDB’s board into signing up to the scheme in 2009 before going on to defraud the fund, prosecutors said. According to the indictment, the two executives defrauded the wealth fund of $1.8bn to enrich themselves with Obaid getting at least $805m and Mahony at least $37m. Obaid was sentenced to seven years in prison while Mahony received a sentence of six years. Lawyers for the two men, who had denied wrongdoing, could not immediately be reached for comment by the Reuters news agency. Prosecutors said the two men created the fraudulent scheme with fugitive Malaysian financier Jho Low, an adviser to former Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak, who is in prison over his role in the multibillion-dollar scandal. Initially extracting $1bn from 1MDB so it could buy a stake in their venture, the accused took a further $830m from the fund from 2010 to 2011 as part of an Islamic loan that followed on from their tie-up, prosecutors said. From September 2009 to at least July 2015, the accused arranged for bank accounts to be opened in Switzerland to help launder the money, prosecutors said. They used it to buy real estate in Switzerland and London, jewellery and private equity as well as to develop the PetroSaudi business, from which they received a sizeable income, and to maintain “a lavish lifestyle”, prosecutors said. This year, 1MDB filed a lawsuit against Mahony seeking the return of the $1.83bn. The 1MDB board lauded the convictions. “We welcome today’s verdict in Switzerland’s Federal Criminal Court, which means that Patrick Mahony and Tarek Obaid will face justice for their role in embezzling and defrauding the people of Malaysia,” a 1MDB spokesperson said on Wednesday. Malaysian and US investigators estimated a total of $4.5bn was syphoned away from 1MDB after its inception in 2009, implicating figures ranging from Razak, Goldman Sachs staff and high-level officials elsewhere. Last year, a US court sentenced Ng Chong Hwa – known as “Roger Ng” – a Malaysian citizen and former manager at Goldman Sachs to 10 years in jail “for conspiring to launder billions of dollars embezzled” from 1MDB. In June, the US Department of Justice said it helped recover an additional $156m in 1MDB funds for Malaysia, bringing the total money returned to Kuala Lumpur to about $1.4bn. US prosecutors say 1MDB officials and their associates embezzled the money and spent it on a “variety of extravagant items, including luxury homes” and fine art. Adblock test (Why?)
Russia-Ukraine war: List of key events, day 915
As the war enters its 915th day, these are the main developments. Here is the situation on Wednesday, August 28, 2024. Fighting At least six people were killed across Ukraine, including in the central city of Kryvyi Rih and in the southern city of Zaporizhzhia, in a second day of Russian missile and drone attacks. At least nine people were injured. On Monday, Russia launched its biggest aerial assault since the start of its invasion in 2022. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Ukraine would retaliate against Russia for its attacks. The air force said Ukraine brought down five out of 10 missiles and 60 out of 81 drones Russia fired on Tuesday, with some of them destroyed by Western-supplied F-16 fighter jets. It said it lost track of 10 more drones and they probably came down somewhere on Ukrainian territory. One more crossed into neighbouring Belarus. Ukraine’s commander-in-chief, Oleksandr Syrskii, said Ukraine had captured 594 Russian soldiers and taken control of 1,294 sq km (almost 500 sq miles) and 100 settlements since launching its incursion into Russia’s western Kursk region on August 6. Rafael Grossi, director general at the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), visited the Kursk Nuclear Power Plant. He said it was vulnerable to a serious accident because it lacked a protective dome that could shield it from missiles, drones and artillery amid the fighting in the region. Vyacheslav Gladkov, the governor of Russia’s western Belgorod region, said the situation on the border with Ukraine was “difficult but under control” after reports on Russian Telegram channels that Ukraine attacked a border checkpoint at Nekhoteyevka before being pushed back. Speaking on television, Ukraine’s Syrskii said the situation around Pokrovsk in eastern Ukraine was “fairly difficult” with Russia trying to disrupt Ukraine’s supply lines to the front. “The enemy is using its advantage in personnel, weapons and military equipment, it is actively using artillery and aviation,” he said. Earlier, Russia’s Ministry of Defence said its forces had captured the village of Orlivka, which is near Pokrovsk. Politics and diplomacy Zelenskyy said he would present a “victory plan” to United States President Joe Biden and his two potential successors, probably while he is in New York for the United Nations General Assembly next month. The plan was designed to ensure Ukraine was in a strong position going into eventual talks to end the war. “The main point of this plan is to force Russia to end the war. And I want that very much – [that it would be] fair for Ukraine,” he told reporters in Kyiv. China’s Special Envoy for Eurasian Affairs Li Hui called on more countries to endorse its peace plan for Ukraine, after a round of diplomacy with Indonesia, Brazil and South Africa. “They have maintained communication with both Russia and Ukraine and stay committed to a political settlement to the crisis through dialogue and negotiation,” Li said. China did not attend the peace summit organised by Switzerland in June. It issued a joint peace plan with Brazil earlier this year. Moscow said Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Russian President Vladimir Putin had “exchanged perspectives” on the war in Ukraine. Modi was in Kyiv last week. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov condemned Ukraine’s move to ban a Russia-linked branch of the Orthodox Church, describing it as an attack on Christianity and a blow to freedom of religion. Kyiv has accused the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC) of abetting Moscow’s 30-month-old war by spreading pro-Russian propaganda and harbouring spies. Russia’s FSB security service said it had opened criminal cases against two more foreign journalists who crossed the Russian border to report from the Kursk region after Ukraine’s incursion. The Interfax news agency said the journalists included a reporter for German broadcaster Deutsche Welle and a correspondent for Ukraine’s 1+1 TV channel. The FSB has now brought criminal cases against at least seven foreign journalists who have reported from Kursk. Weapons Zelenskyy said the military had recently carried out the first successful test of a domestically-produced ballistic missile. He said he was not able to share more details. Adblock test (Why?)
‘I wish I was listened to’: NSW to respond to landmark birth trauma inquiry
Sydney, Australia – Sam Hall, an Aboriginal woman from Ormiston in southeast Queensland, was 40 weeks pregnant when she felt her baby’s movements slow. She was already anxious about her son’s safety – earlier scans had found possible problems with her pregnancy, and her partner had genetic heart issues. But when she tried to raise her concerns with medical staff at her local hospital, she was dismissed and sent home. “I knew something was wrong,” Hall said. “I was made to feel like a nuisance. They put a lot of it down to me being a ‘paranoid mother’ so I was never taken seriously.” The next night, she went into labour. Terrified, she called the stand-in midwife she had been assigned. She was told to wait until her scheduled induction a day later. “All she told me was to take some Panadol, have a shower and go back to bed,” Hall said. “[In the morning] she said to me: ‘I wish you just held out’ [to the preplanned induction time].” By the time Hall got to the hospital, her son’s heart rate was worryingly fast and she couldn’t feel him moving. It wasn’t until a shift change six hours later that medical staff decided to perform an emergency caesarean. By the time Hall’s son, Koah, was born that evening, one of his lungs had collapsed and he had inhaled meconium, or infant faecal matter. “By the time I first saw him, it was about 9pm,” Hall told Al Jazeera. “I couldn’t see him properly or touch him. He was such a little thing, with so many wires and cannulas attached. He had a CPAP (a mask that opens the airway and delivers oxygen to newborns with breathing difficulties) for the first couple of days. His face was so swollen it was red. Seeing your child like that changes something in you.” When a paediatrician came to give her an update, the trauma of Hall’s experience was compounded. “He was going through everything that was wrong and I started getting upset. He shushed me and told me I needed to be calm so he could get through what he needed to tell me,” Hall said. Hall is one of thousands of women who have spoken out about their experience of giving birth in Australia amid a crisis in its healthcare system that has left parents traumatised, mothers with lifelong physical injuries, and driven healthcare workers out of the profession. A world-first parliamentary inquiry in the Australian state of New South Wales (NSW) has called for sweeping reforms to better protect women giving birth. But as the state government prepares to respond this week to its recommendations, mothers and advocates argue the inquiry did not go far enough. An invisible epidemic A landmark Western Sydney University study in 2022 found that as many as a third of mothers in Australia suffer some form of birth trauma – physical, mental and psychological injury and distress experienced throughout pregnancy and childbirth. The study also found that more than 10 percent of women experienced obstetric violence – a form of violence in which women who are pregnant or in the process of labour experience abuse or dehumanising treatment at the hands of medical professionals. The same year, about 30 women in NSW’s rural Riverina region filed a collective complaint with the state Health Care Complaints Commission. They shared shocking stories of their experiences of delivering children at the local public hospital: doctors sending them home with debilitating injuries, medical staff conducting invasive physical procedures without consent and being denied pain relief during labour. As public interest in the women’s stories grew, other women around the state and the country began sharing their experiences. Public pressure compelled the NSW parliament to convene a special inquiry into birth trauma – the first such investigation anywhere in the world. “As a GP who used to provide antenatal care, I’d heard these stories before I entered parliament, but the sheer number of people who engaged with this inquiry is unprecedented,” said Dr Amanda Cohn, a Greens party politician in NSW and member of the parliamentary committee that conducted the Australian inquiry. A similar inquiry in the United Kingdom, spurred by the NSW precedent, found “a maternity system where poor care is all-too-frequently tolerated as normal, and women are treated as an inconvenience”. Amy Dawes told the inquiry she had life-changing injuries after giving birth [Courtesy of Amy Dawes] While Australian parliamentary inquiries are generally open to the public, they rarely prompt widespread public engagement. The birth trauma inquiry was different. It received more than 4,000 submissions, overwhelmingly anonymous, from members of the public disclosing the pain, trauma and humiliation they had suffered throughout pregnancy and birth. The inquiry recommended the state government overhaul maternal healthcare, including by ensuring new and expectant parents receive continuity of care. It also said free psychological care and postpartum physiotherapy should be provided while medical staff should receive more training on how to support women’s choices during delivery. But even as the state government weighs its response, many of the mothers who told the inquiry their stories are furious that the report failed to acknowledge obstetric violence as a form of gender-based violence. In a dissenting statement, the inquiry’s own chair, Animal Justice Party politician Emma Hurst, said the final report “fails to recognise the very clear evidence that this is a gendered issue”. Rebecca Collier, one of the mothers who gave evidence, told the ABC broadcaster that the definition “was left out to make it more palatable”. “I think we need to call things what they are and we need to be quite fierce about the words and the language that we’re using around this.” The inquiry also exposed the dire conditions for healthcare workers tasked with caring for parents and children. Nurses, midwives, doctors and support staff spoke of enormous levels of burnout, psychological distress, vicarious trauma and compassion fatigue across the health sector. They also talked about not being given
Harris and Walz to sit down with CNN for first formal interview of campaign
Thursday’s interview with presenter Dana Bash will be the first since Harris replaced US President Joe Biden as the Democratic nominee. Kamala Harris and her running mate Tim Walz will sit down with CNN on Thursday in their first formal interview of the United States election campaign. Harris replaced President Joe Biden as the Democratic candidate for the White House after he dropped out of the race in July. CNN anchor and chief political correspondent Dana Bash will conduct the interview from the battleground state of Georgia, CNN said. It will air at 9pm (01:00 GMT on Friday). “This is the first time she’s going to take questions in a concerted effort like this, in an interview format, since Joe Biden upended this entire race six weeks ago,” CNN Political Director David Chalian said in an interview on the channel. While Harris has occasionally taken questions from journalists on foreign and economic policies on the campaign trail, she has yet to do a one-on-one media interview or hold a formal news conference, prompting attacks from rival Donald Trump and his Republican Party. On Tuesday, Trump’s campaign reacted to the interview announcement by noting that Harris would be doing the interview with Walz. “She’s not competent enough to do it on her own,” the campaign claimed. Trump has held news conferences and done media interviews in recent weeks but they have mostly focused on criticising the Biden administration’s record instead of detailing his own policy proposals. Harris laid out some broad policy agendas at the Democratic National Convention last week, promising a middle-class tax cut at home and a muscular foreign policy of standing up to Russia and North Korea while backing a ceasefire in Gaza and a two-state solution in the Middle East. During her more than three years as vice president, Harris has done on-camera and print interviews with The Associated Press news agency and many other outlets, often at a pace more frequent than Biden. Harris travels with members of the media on Air Force Two for all trips and nearly always comes to the back of the plane to speak to reporters for a few minutes before takeoff. Her office insists that those conversations are off the record, though, so what she says cannot be shared publicly. The CNN interview will be recorded during a campaign bus tour by the Democratic candidates. Adblock test (Why?)