Every girl dreams of a fairy tale party to celebrate her 15th birthday, but on many occasions economic conditions become an obstacle that does not allow them to fulfill this longed-for wish. But angels always appear who do not sit idly by; Such is the case of the uniformed members of the Prevention and Citizen Education Group of the Popayán Metropolitan Police, who today made this beautiful teenager’s dream come true. This is Hemely Zambrano, a resident of the Sinai settlement, who, with the permission of her parents and in the company of her closest friends, enjoyed an unforgettable day.
An event carried out thanks to the joint effort of the National Police and the ‘GBR’ motorcycle club of the capital of Cauca.
Diego Fernando Soto Bohórquez, alias Ojo Picho, 25, was sentenced to 42 years and 2 months in prison, when he was found guilty of crimes of aggravated femicide in competition with the manufacture, trafficking and illegal possession of firearms for personal use for events that occurred in September 2020 in a neighborhood of IbagueTolima.
Soto Bohórquez, who had a romantic relationship with the 15-year-old teenager, fired his firearm at the woman in the middle of an act of intolerance, because it bothered him or he did not like the way he was dressed on his birthday.
Diego Fernando Soto Bohórquez the day of his capture in Villavicencio.
It all happened in her fifteen-year-old, where he shot her in the face. He was jealous of her, mistreated her and forbade her to wear tight, short and low-cut clothes.
“Everything happened in her fifteen-year-old, where he shot her in the face. He was jealous of her, mistreated her and forbade her to wear tight, short and low-cut clothes,” added a witness.
The events took place in a house in the Nueva Castilla neighborhood, an area of strata 1 and 2 of commune 8 of Ibagué, where the adolescent arrived in the company of a brother to celebrate her birthday with her boyfriend.
After the attack, the man sentenced today sent the victim with other people to a nearby health center, where he died minutes later, while he fled the city to evade the police siege.
Finally, Soto Bohórquez was arrested in December of the same year in Villavicencio by members of the Technical Investigation Corps (CTI) of the Tolima Branch supported by the Sijín of the Ibagué Metropolitan Police.
Given the strength of the evidence provided by a prosecutor from the Life Unit of the Tolima Sectional, the convicted person decided to accept an early sentence.
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The Government has expressed this Tuesday its concern about the evolution of the pandemic in Spain, which reaches a record in accumulated incidence and hospital occupation is progressively rising, and has shown its support for the autonomous communities that have approved or plan restrictions for New Year’s Eve . The Interterritorial Council could debate tomorrow the reduction of the quarantines of close contacts and of the asymptomatic
The Minister of Territorial Policy and Government Spokesperson Isabel Rodríguez (d) and the Minister of Labor Yolanda Díaz upon their arrival at the press conference after the weekly meeting of the Council of Ministers held at the Palacio de la Moncloa in Madrid, this Tuesday . EFE / Juan Carlos Hidalgo
“The Government endorses and supports the autonomous communities,” said its spokesperson, Isabel Rodríguez, at the press conference after the Council of Ministers, when asked about the restrictions to contain the spread of the virus aimed at limiting capacity, business hours and the hotel industry before New Year’s Eve and New Year.
“We follow with great attention, with concern, the evolution of the indicators”, said the spokeswoman for the Government.
Galicia and Euskadi are considering restrictions for the moment and Cantabria has already approved them, where from today nightlife will not be able to open and the hotel industry will have a capacity of 75% of its capacity in 50 of the 102 municipalities at a high level (3) of risk by contagion of covid-19, including all those with more than 5,000 inhabitants.
In addition, the Government of Aragon plans to publish an order this Tuesday to bring forward from Wednesday the closure of catering establishments at midnight and nightlife establishments at 02:00 until January 15, with a limitation in both cases of ten diners per table and prohibition of consuming standing.
The Government spokeswoman recalled that only 5 days ago the Chief Executive, Pedro Sánchez, met with the regional presidents. “Co-governance, the distribution of powers, has worked in this country,” said the minister, who defends the need to “adapt each response” to the situation of each territory.
Because, as he has said, they are the ones who best know the reality of the pandemic and the healthcare situation in their territory.
He has pointed out that the current data shows that in those groups where the injection of the booster dose had begun, it is in those that are least affected by the coronavirus and therefore he has requested that “the commitment of the autonomous communities and the Government” must address to intensify vaccination, which, however, must be accompanied by caution.
Above all, “given the incidence”, he has asked to be more careful in these days of festivities and family and friendly gatherings.
In addition, he has assured that the Government is willing to continue dialoguing with the autonomies and in this sense has alluded to the fact that the talks will continue tomorrow in the Interterritorial Health Council, which brings together the Minister of Health and the regional councilors of the branch every week .
Andalusia and Madrid put the reduction of quarantines on the table
The Andalusian Minister of Health, Jesús Aguirre, has reported this Tuesday that reducing quarantines in close contacts without symptoms is being studied, an approach that has also been put on the table by the Madrid Deputy Minister of Health Care and Public Health, Antonio Zapatero, They warn that the sixth wave needs to be tackled with different measures.
In Spain now these quarantines are only mandatory for unvaccinated people who have been close contacts without symptoms.
Aguirre explained at a press conference after the Andalusian Governing Council that the omicron variant causes more infections, but with less clinical incidence, so experts are approaching this sixth wave “in a different way”.
What is being analyzed is whether, for example, it is necessary for a close contact without symptoms to quarantine for ten days, if all contacts have to undergo a PCR or a test, or if the traceability of the cases should be left alone in those not vaccinated or who have symptoms, he has detailed.
He explained that only this week 250,000 tests have been carried out, which represents a million in a month, a “very large volume of personnel” within the Andalusian Health Service (SAS), so “it must be assessed if it has been efficient” .
According to Aguirre, these issues have already been discussed with the Ministry of Health, since this wave must be approached differently and that is why they are trying to “articulate the means we have within reality”.
For his part, the Madrid deputy minister recalled that the American Center for Disease Prevention and Control (CDC) has raised the possibility of reducing the isolation or quarantine of asymptomatic patients from ten to five days and monitoring with a mask five days after.
“The management of the pandemic now cannot be the same as it was a year ago or a few months ago due to the vaccination status of the population and the clinical and epidemiological characteristics of this variant. Changes are taking place in the international context” , pointed out the deputy minister, who has predicted that in the future there will be important changes in the management of the pandemic.
Tomorrow, Wednesday, the Interterritorial Health Council meets, where the regional councilors and the Ministry of Health will have the opportunity to discuss how to deal with a sixth wave that has raised the incidence of covid transmission well above a thousand cases per 100,000 inhabitants , a maximum not reached in Spain throughout the pandemic.
Asked about this matter at the press conference after the Council of Ministers, the Government spokesperson, Isabel Rodríguez, has avoided confirming whether the quarantines will be shortened and has referred to the technicians and to tomorrow’s meeting of the Interterritorial Health Council. As he has assured, “any decision” that the institutions adopt regarding the pandemic is made according to the “rigor of the technical teams.”
We continue to ensure the well-being, safety and protection of children and adolescents in Caldas.
The events occurred on December 18, 2021 in the San Isidro neighborhood of the municipality of Anserma, where a 25-year-old man was captured by personnel from the National Model of Community Surveillance by Quadrants, who was surprised inside a neighboring house apparently under the influence of intoxicating drinks, performing sexual acts on a minor under 10 years of age, the alleged abuser was brought before the competent authority.
The girl’s relatives made the complaint, and from that moment the judicial police work began, managing to collect enough evidence that allowed the Second Promiscuous Municipal Court of Anserma Caldas to issue an arrest warrant against this citizen for the alleged crime of sexual acts with a minor under fourteen years of age.
The Sijín investigators carried out the location, notification and subsequent capture in the San Isidro neighborhood, the subject was presented before the requesting authority during the hearings, accepted the charges and was sent to jail.
The National Police recommends parents not to leave their children alone, or in the company of people they do not trust, and in the event of any manifestation of any act of this type by children and adolescents, make these facts known. to the authorities to initiate the respective investigations.
On Saturday, people in the United States will mark the 10th anniversary of the death of Trayvon Martin, a 17-year-old Black youth who was shot to death in Sanford, Florida, in 2012. Martin’s death, and the subsequent exoneration of his killer at trial the following year, created a firestorm of public anger that many consider a seminal moment in the development of the Black Lives Matter movement.
Among them is civil rights attorney Ben Crump. In the foreword to an essay published this month by Sybrina Fulton, Martin’s mother, he wrote, “The not guilty verdict in the Trayvon Martin case was the catalyst for the Black Lives Matter movement, for the resounding call for justice when the people cried out: ‘Justice for Michael Brown,’ ‘Justice for Breonna Taylor,’ and ‘Justice for George Floyd.'”
Brown, Taylor and Floyd were all Black Americans killed by police officers. Floyd’s murder in Minneapolis in 2020, documented in video footage that showed him dying in the street with a police officer’s knee on his neck, ignited global protests that drew attention to the fact that individual Black Americans, particularly men and boys, are statistically far more likely to be killed by police officers than white Americans.
According to a study published in the Lancet, Black Americans were killed by police at more than three times the rate of non-Hispanic white people, between 1980 and 2018.
Though Martin’s death did not come at the hands of a police officer, his killer’s exoneration prompted calls for the reform of a legal system that, according to advocates for change, systematically undervalues the lives of Black Americans.
Martin’s death
Martin, who had recently turned 17 at the time of his death, had left home to buy candy and a drink at a nearby convenience store. On his way back, he encountered George Zimmerman, a volunteer for the local neighborhood watch. Zimmerman phoned police to report Martin as a “suspicious” individual.
Despite being told by a police dispatcher that he should not pursue Martin, who ran from him and was unarmed, Zimmerman gave chase. After a struggle, Zimmerman shot Martin in the chest, killing him.
Zimmerman was eventually charged with second-degree murder and manslaughter. In July 2013, a jury found Zimmerman innocent of both charges. The case hinged, in part, on the state of Florida’s “stand your ground” law, which holds that individuals who believe themselves to be in danger from another person have no duty to retreat before responding with force, including lethal force.
Martin’s family, including his father, Tracy Martin, and Fulton, his mother, helped lead an unsuccessful campaign to have Florida change its stand-your-ground law.
Signs of change
In the days leading up to the 10-year anniversary of Martin’s death, there have been signs suggesting the Black Lives Matter movement may have helped shift public attitudes on race, policing, and the use of force.
In Minneapolis last week, three police officers on the scene at George Floyd’s death were convicted on federal charges for their failure to intervene. Months earlier a jury found Derek Chauvin, the police officer who knelt on George Floyd’s neck, guilty of murder. The jury found all three officers had violated Floyd’s civil rights by willfully refusing to provide medical assistance. Two were found guilty on an additional charge stemming from their failure to intervene during the nine minutes Chauvin spent kneeling on Floyd.
Also last week, three Georgia men were found guilty of federal hate crimes for the murder of Ahmaud Arbery, a young unarmed Black man who was gunned down while jogging in a rural part of the state. The culprits, Gregory McMichael, Travis McMichael and William “Roddie” Bryan, had chased Arbery down in pickup trucks, and the McMichaels, who were both armed, confronted him with guns while attempting to make what they described as a citizen’s arrest.
A state court had already convicted all three men of murdering Arbery and sentenced them to life in prison. Georgia subsequently passed a hate crimes law, and repealed and replaced its law governing citizen’s arrests.
The case, with its obvious parallels to the Martin case, was particularly fraught because the three culprits were not arrested until two months after the murder even though their identities were known, and then only after the case was taken out of the hands of a local prosecutor.
Frustration and hope
In an essay published this month marking the 10th anniversary of her son’s death, Fulton wrote, “Even now, a decade later, when I see the continual acts of racial violence – against George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery – I don’t tell people that justice is coming, because we did not receive justice.”
However, Fulton also struck a hopeful note, writing, “We are at a turning point now. Things are changing. If the protests during the summer of 2020 showed us anything, it’s that we cannot afford to be silent.”
She added, “While one generation is getting older, we need the next generation to step up to the plate and use their voice on behalf of our people. The youth have the spirit and enthusiasm, we just need to show them how and then get out of their way. The very future of our people is at stake, and there’s no room for nonsense or playing games.”
This week marks the 50th anniversary of President Richard Nixon’s historic 1972 visit to China, which opened relations between the United States and China’s communist government after more than two decades of mutual distrust. As VOA’s Mike O’Sullivan reports, the anniversary comes at a fraught time in U.S.-China relations.
A 61-year-old Brazilian who had been in Italy presented symptoms and was admitted to a center in Sao Paulo, where the coronavirus was confirmed. It was the first official case of the pandemic in Latin America.
The arrival of the disease in Latin America, after several continental cases before in the US and Canada, was one of the reasons that led the World Health Organization (WHO) to declare the pandemic just 15 days later, March 11th.
“We must learn the great lessons of the pandemic. International cooperation mechanisms in the health area were not effective. Even today we perceive that, with more than ten billion vaccines distributed in the world, less than 11% of them went to poor countries », he explains to Efe Dimas Tadeu Covas, president of the Butantan Institute in Sao Paulo (Brazil)a pioneer biomedical research center for the manufacture of vaccines and research on covid-19 at the Latin American level.
Latin America was not prepared for a pandemic
As cases and deaths increased, it became clear that the region was not prepared for the impact of this disease.
The health crisis also generated social demonstrations that caused very strong political convulsions, especially in some countries.
On Paraguaythe lack of supplies and the discomfort with the government’s management were the trigger for intense protests that forced President Mario Abdo Benítez to make changes to his cabinet in March 2021.
For two weeks, the streets of the main Paraguayan cities were occupied by citizens expressing their anger at the collapse of a health system affected by low investment and corruption.
Negligence is also in the sights of many sectors when taking stock of the regional fight against the pandemic. The Government of Andrés Manuel López Obrador is accused of this in Mexico and more specifically the person in charge of the fight against the disease, Hugo López-Gatell, who is blamed for Mexico being the fifth country with the most deaths in the world, with more than 316,000 deaths to date.
Criticism also points to López Obrador himself, who has tested positive for coronavirus twice and who is criticized for sometimes lowering the severity of the impact of the pandemic.
Regarding the economy, 2020, the first year of covid-19, was especially hard for Latin America, with a 7.7% contraction in regional GDP, according to data from the Economic Commission for Latin America (ECLAC), while that in 2021 there was a certain recovery, of 3.7%. By 2022, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) expects the region to grow just 2.4%.
Testimonies of a drama
The two years that have passed since the first infection in Latin America, with a balance to date of 146 million cases and 2.6 million deaths, have left many testimonies of pain.
And if there is a group that can relate this drama in the first person, it is that of health professionals, who have experienced the problem on a daily basis.
The health institutions “were not prepared, this surpassed them”, comments to Efe the Mexican nurse Margarita Reyeswho lost his father, José Margarito, 75, and his brother, 46, to the coronavirus.
“From the first moment I had to be in the emergency room, where they did not know how to handle the patients, who increased day by day,” he says, recounting how the intensive care units were filling up with patients as SARS spread. -CoV-2.
The testimony of this nurse contradicts the statements of the Mexican Government, which ensures that “no one was left without a bed.”
On Venezuelaa country with a serious economic crisis that especially affects the health sector, Estefania Polanco saw how her mother almost died due to lack of care, after being admitted to a hospital in the state of Miranda, in the center of the country.
«He was admitted on July 10, 2021, he was unconscious for four days with no hope of getting out of there. My father-in-law managed to get in to see it. They didn’t attend to her. They only changed her oxygen and gave her a few medications », this young woman, who finally had to hire personalized attention to attend to her mother, tells Efe.
The images are a faithful record of the calamities experienced, scenes between drama and horror, such as those experienced in Guayaquil (Ecuador), where at the beginning of the pandemic the corpses came to crowd the streets and houses due to the collapse of the health network and funeral services.
Workers at the Campo de Esperanza cemetery bury a victim of COVID-19 in Brasilia, Brazil. EFE / Joedson Alves
The education of children, the other side of the coin
The pandemic also dealt a heavy blow to the educational system of most Latin American countries, due to the closure of educational centers decreed by the authorities.
According to ECLAC, 167 million students have been affected by the stoppage of classes since March 2020.
Meanwhile, UNESCO estimates that the impact of school dropout has meant that 3.1 million children and young people have been permanently left out of the education system.
This is the case, for example, of Argentinawhere the majority of students will return to face-to-face classes this year, but tens of thousands of students, especially those belonging to the most vulnerable sectors, “disconnected” from the education system and have not returned.
“Clearly we are not going to recover all the boys, many do not want to return to a school that did not take care of them enough,” he explains to Efe Claudia Romero, Doctor of Education and researcher at the Torcuato di Tella University.
And in other places they have not yet started the return to classes, as is the case of Peruthe country with the highest mortality rate in the world, with more than 209,000 deaths (634 people per 100,000 inhabitants) where they have established the next month of March as the limit for returning to class.
vaccination
Mass immunization against the coronavirus began in Latin America in December 2020 and represented a turning point in terms of the growth of infections and deaths, although the process was not without setbacks and setbacks that put it to the test, such as the arrival of the omicron variant.
A nurse prepares a dose of the covid-19 vaccine in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. EFE/André Coelho
In this regard, the case of Chileone of the countries with the highest vaccination rate in the world -higher than 93% of adults-, but where the positivity rate once again exceeded the 35% barrier in these southern summer months.
This situation has challenged the capacity of hospitals and has increased mortality, despite measures such as the mandatory use of masks outside or PCR tests at airports.
On boliviathe plan that began with health personnel and was gradually extended to the rest of the adult population today even reaches those over five years of age, through the administration of vaccines such as Sputnik-V, Sinopharm, AstraZeneca, Pfizer, Moderna and Janssen .
For its part, Peru has taken advantage of the fact that it has a well-organized vaccination system to achieve progress that has made it possible to reduce the spread of the omicron variant at the beginning of this year.
In Central America, Panama and Costa Rica They have stood out for their high rates of diagnosis and vaccination, since both countries have more than 80% of the population with at least one dose of vaccine and more than 73% with two doses.
By contrast, Honduras and Guatemala have been left behind in the immunization process, especially in the latter country, where only 30% of the population has received two doses.
But perhaps the most paradoxical situation in the fight against the pandemic is that of Brazilwith a president like Jair Bolsonaro who defends postulates that border on denialism.
“Brazil was always recognized as an important country in the international health movement and, suddenly, it went on to declare itself against the measures of science, of the control of the pandemic, advances that were already considered consolidated,” comments the Professor Covas, from Butantan Institute.
But despite Bolsonaro’s ideas, the measures adopted by the state governments have made it possible for the country to be one of those with one of the highest immunization rates in the world, with more than 73% of its population following the guideline. complete, while 23% have already received the booster.
Haiti in the spotlight
With only 0.9% of the population with the complete vaccination schedule, Haitithe poorest country in the Americas, is a matter of concern for health authorities.
“The countries that are in the same situation as Haiti, such as many Africans, are presenting high numbers of transmission of the disease and are potentially generators of new variants. As long as we do not have a global action to attend to them, we are going to be exposed to these variants”, warns the president of the Butantan Institute.
If the matter is not taken action, this disturbing scenario could spread to other corners of a continent where the situation is not fully controlled, not even in the United States, the most powerful country in the world and the most affected by the pandemic, with more than 78 million cases, about 950,000 deaths and with only 64.7% of the population with the complete vaccination schedule, although the average number of infections is decreasing weekly.
Diego Cadavid, the father of the girl Sofía Cadavid, who was murdered on December 17, 2020 in Rionegro, in Eastern Antioquia, was sentenced to 35 years in prison.
A judge issued the conviction for aggravated homicide, in a case that shocked the country, as the 18-month-old girl died violently.
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The main suspect, after the investigations, was the father, and that is why a process was started. On December 18, one day after the crime and when Cadavid was captured, Francisco Barbosa himself, Attorney General of the Nation, stated that he would be charged with the crime of aggravated femicide.
“We are going to charge him with the crime of aggravated femicide before a judge of guarantees. We are not going to allow acts of impunity in this country,” were Barbosa’s words at the time.
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Capture of the girl’s father days after the crime.
Photo:
Courtesy Antioquia Police
As this newspaper had already reported, Diego Armando Cadavid had taken her from his home in Rionegro (Eastern Antioquia) at 12 noon and had arranged to return her at six in the afternoon, as confirmed by the authorities.
Upon reporting her as missing, the Army, Firefighters, Police, residents of the sector and officials from the Mayor’s Office of Rionegro undertook the search for the 18-month-old girl.
“Around 2:24 in the morning, the girl Sofia was found lifeless, with signs of violence and wounded with a sharp weapon. Given this, and after the evidence collected by the judicial authorities, an arrest warrant was issued against the victim’s father and -as I mentioned- that arrest warrant has been confirmed and the alleged aggressor of the girl Sofía has been captured. “, detailed at that time Rodrigo Hernández Alzate, mayor of Rionegro.
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On the judge’s ruling, the local president celebrated that justice has been done.
“I am pleased that Justice condemns the murderer of the girl Sofía Cadavid for aggravated homicide, in December 2020, in a fact that tore us as rionegreros and society. In Rionegro all life is sacred and even more so those of our children, to whom we should only give love, example and protection, “he said.
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BEIJING — At the height of the Cold War, U.S. President Richard Nixon flew into communist China’s center of power for a visit that, over time, would transform U.S.-China relations and China’s position in the world in ways that were unimaginable at the time.
The relationship between China and the United States was always going to be a challenge, and after half a century of ups and downs, is more fraught than ever. The Cold War is long over, but on both sides there are fears a new one could be beginning.
Despite repeated Chinese disavowals, America worries that the democratic-led world that triumphed over the Soviet Union could be challenged by the authoritarian model of a powerful and still-rising China.
“The U.S.-China relationship has always been contentious but one of necessity,” said Oriana Skylar Mastro, a China expert at Stanford University. “Perhaps 50 years ago the reasons were mainly economic. Now they are mainly in the security realm. But the relationship has never — and will never — be easy.”
FILE – Then U.S. President Richard Nixon and then first lady Pat Nixon lead the way as they take a tour of China’s famed Great Wall, near Beijing, Feb. 24, 1972.
Nixon landed in Beijing on a gray winter morning 50 years ago on Monday. Billboards carried slogans such as “Down with American Imperialism,” part of the upheaval under the Cultural Revolution that banished intellectuals and others to the countryside and subjected many to public humiliation and brutal and even deadly attacks in the name of class struggle.
Nixon’s 1972 trip, which included meetings with Chairman Mao Zedong and a visit to the Great Wall, led to the establishment of diplomatic relations in 1979 and the parallel severing of formal ties with Taiwan, which the U.S. had recognized as the government of China after the communists took power in Beijing in 1949.
Premier Zhou Enlai’s translator wrote in a memoir that, to the best of his recollection, Nixon said, “This hand stretches out across the Pacific Ocean in friendship” as he shook hands with Zhou at the airport.
For both sides, it was a friendship born of circumstances, rather than natural allegiances.
China and the Soviet Union, formerly communist allies, had split and even clashed along their border in 1969, and Mao saw the United States as a potential counterbalance to any threat of a Soviet invasion.
Nixon, embroiled in the Watergate scandal at home, was seeking to isolate the Soviet Union and exit a prolonged and bloody Vietnam War that had divided American society. He hoped that China, an ally of communist North Vietnam in its battle with the U.S.-backed South, could play a role in resolving the conflict.
FILE – Then U.S. President Richard Nixon and then first lady Pat Nixon looks at a sculpture depicting a mythical beast on the palace grounds of Beijing’s Forbidden City as heavy snow falls on Feb. 25, 1972.
The U.S. president put himself “in the position of supplicant to Beijing,” said June Teufel Dreyer, a Chinese politics specialist at the University of Miami. Chinese state media promoted the idea that a “prosperous China would be a peaceful China” and that the country was a huge market for American exports, she said.
It would be decades before that happened. First, the U.S. became a huge market for China, propelling the latter’s meteoric rise from an impoverished nation to the world’s second largest economy.
Nixon’s visit was a “pivotal event that ushered in China’s turn outward and subsequent rise globally,” said the University of Chicago’s Dali Yang, the author of numerous books on Chinese politics and economics.
Two years after Mao’s death in 1976, new leader Deng Xiaoping ushered in an era of partial economic liberalization, creating a mix of state-led capitalism and single-party rule that has endured to this day.
China’s wealth has enabled a major expansion of its military, which the U.S. and its allies see as a threat. The Communist Party says it seeks only to defend its territory. That includes, however, trying to control islands also claimed by Japan in the East China Sea and by Southeast Asian nations in the South China Sea, home to crucial shipping lanes and natural resources.
The military has sent a growing number of warplanes on training missions toward Taiwan, a source of friction with the United States. China claims the self-governing island off its east coast as its territory. The U.S. supplies Taiwan with military equipment and warns China against any attempt to take it by force.
Still, Nixon’s trip to China was touted afterward as the signature foreign policy achievement of an administration that ended in ignominy with Watergate.
Embarking on the process of bringing China back into the international fold was the right move, but the past half-century has yet to put relations on a stable track, said Rana Mitter, professor of Chinese history and modern politics at Oxford University.
“The U.S. and China have still failed to work out exactly how they will both fit into a world where they both have a role, but find it increasingly hard to accommodate each other,” he said.
Chinese officials and scholars see the Nixon visit as a time when the two countries sought communication and mutual understanding despite their differences. Zhu Feng, the dean of the School of International Studies at Nanjing University, said the same approach is key to overcoming the current impasse.
“The commemoration of Nixon’s visit tells us whether we can draw a kind of power from history,” he said.
FILE – Then U.S. President Richard Nixon and then China’s Premier Zhou Enlai join the applause at a gymnastic show in Beijing on Feb. 23, 1972 as they stand in the official box under a capacity crowd with a portrait of Chairman Mao Zedong above.
Though his trip to China gave the U.S. leverage in its Cold War rivalry with the Soviet Union, America now faces a new geopolitical landscape — with echoes of the past.
The Soviet Union is gone, but the Russian and Chinese leaders, Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping, are finding common cause as they push back against U.S. pressure over their authoritarian ways. The Vietnam War is over, but America once again finds its society divided, this time over the pandemic response and the last presidential election.
U.S. President Joe Biden has said he wants a more predictable relationship with China but major differences over trade and human rights make mutual understanding elusive. The prospect of long-term stability in ties raised by Nixon’s visit seems to be ever farther out of reach.
“China-U.S. relations are terrible,” said Xiong Zhiyong, a professor of international relations at China Foreign Affairs University. “There are indeed people hoping to improve relations, but it is utterly difficult to achieve.”
The history of humanity has been marked by historical, curious and even anecdotal events, such as the case of an American who lived with a hiccup attack for 68 years.
Hiccups are caused by an involuntary movement or contraction of the diaphragm and are often bothersome due to the sensation it produces when breathing and hearing that characteristic “hic” sound.
In this way, a farmer known as Charles Osborne has gone down in history for suffering a constant attack of hiccups for nearly 70 years.
Its history dates back to 1894 when it was born in the city of Anthon (Iowa) in a family of farmers. His life was going on normally until one day in 1922 he started having a fit of hiccups.
A magazine article People in 1982 reviewed his curious story after interviewing this man to reveal what had happened to him.
“I was hanging a 350-pound pig… I picked it up and then I fell. I didn’t feel anything, but the doctor said later that I ruptured a pin-sized blood vessel in my brain,” Osborne told People at the time.
According to the doctor who treated this farmer, the fall he suffered caused a small damage to the brainstem that controls the hiccups.
In this way, this uncomfortable contraction never stopped as it usually does with the passage of a few minutes and this man began to hiccup frequently.
Osborne learned to lead a normal life despite his condition and worked in various activities such as a farm machinery salesman and a cattle auctioneer.
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In addition, during his life he had two wives and became the father of eight children, but the curious thing was that he managed to conquer his second partner when he was already suffering from this attack of hiccups.
“While awake, Osborne manages to suppress most of the noise by breathing between hiccups, a technique taught to him by doctors at the Mayo Clinic. During sleep, the hiccups disappear, ”reviews the People file article.
This American went to several doctors and received hundreds of remedies to treat his hiccups, but none of them worked. The only alternative he had was to have surgery to cut some of the nerves that control the diaphragm, but that could cause breathing problems.
Interestingly, one morning in 1990 the hiccups completely disappeared without any explanation when he was approximately 96 years old; and a few months later he passed away after leading a relatively normal life.
The case of Charles Osborne was quickly shared by various media outlets and even the organization of the Guinness World Records recognizes him as the person with the ‘longest hiccup attack’.
Finally, the incredible story of this man has gone around the world, surprising how he was able to live with this attack of hiccups for 68 years.
Although doctors can now more accurately diagnose the cause of this rare condition, the case of this American is very special because the hiccups persisted for several decades and did not stop, as usually happens, after a few minutes.
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A U.S. government report warns that sea levels along America’s coasts will rise about an average of 30.5 centimeters over the next 30 years, about equal to water level increases recorded in the past 100 years.
The report released Tuesday by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and six other federal agencies predicted the Gulf Coast, especially Texas and Louisiana, will get hit hardest. The Atlantic coast will also see higher than average sea level rise, while it will be less on the Pacific coast, the report said.
Scientists say the higher sea levels are the result of climate change and will spark more coastal floods on sunny days when it isn’t storming.
The study’s lead author, William Sweet, an oceanographer for NOAA’s National Ocean Service, said the worst of the long-term effects of the sea level increases from melting ice sheets in Antarctica and Greenland probably won’t begin to be felt until after 2100.
U.S. cities such as Annapolis, Maryland; Miami Beach, Florida; and Norfolk, Virginia, already get a few minor floods a year during high tides, but the researchers said that by 2050, those will be replaced by several “moderate” yearly floods that cause property damage.
Some information for this report came from The Associated Press.
Working with the famous Chinese dissident Harry Wu, long-term China observer Orville Schell first encountered forced labor in China three decades ago. Pretending to be a businessman interested in items for export to America, Wu and reporters from the CBS News show 60 Minutes shot hidden camera footage of prisoners forced to make the products.
More recently, China has repeatedly denied the current use of Uyghur forced labor; evidence continues to point to the contrary.
Last month, Schell brought the issue to the fore again when The Wire China published an article, Changeless China?, based on an edited version of Schell’s diary from that investigation with Wu.
VOA Mandarin spoke with Schell about what’s happening today in China. The interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Q: What you did with CBS in 1991 is so impressive and unthinkable.
A: You couldn’t do it today. You wouldn’t even get off the plane. It’s unthinkable. You can understand why the Communist Party under (President Xi Jinping) increased control, because they’re aware that if they don’t control everybody in China and foreigners outside China as well, they will start doing things like this. They are becoming more savvy, and the logic of their savviness is more control.
Q: China has been accused of committing crimes against humanity and possibly genocide against the Uyghur population in Xinjiang. What do you think of it being described as “genocide”?
A: I don’t particularly like the use of the word “genocide.” I don’t think it describes what’s actually happening. Genocide does so irrevocably (go) back to the Holocaust in Europe during the ’30s and ’40s.
I think what’s going on in Xinjiang is quite different, not less pernicious in a way. But it has less to do with actually killing people, as the Germans did in the labor camps, and more to do with something that is very uniquely Chinese Communist, namely trying to change the thinking, religion, the cultural habits of the Uyghurs, the Muslims, the other minority in China.
That is a new kind of technocracy, which we are not familiar with. It’s very uniquely Chinese. It needs a new name. I think it’s very dangerous, and (it) certainly violates many fundamental principles of individual rights that liberal democratic countries cherish, but it is not a cutout of Holocaust and genocidal experiences we’ve seen in Rwanda, Armenia and Europe.
Q: Do you think China’s Xinjiang policy is effective?
A: Will this kind of techno autocratic “thought reform” and detention sort of experience work? I don’t know the answer to that. It probably will work in the short run. Whether it’ll work in the long run is another question.
Because if you believe as I do, human beings fundamentally would like to have lives as free as possible within a reasonable social contract. Then you have to assume what’s going on in Xinjiang is really making people unhappy. Everybody is scared.
And that is the power of the Chinese Communist Party – people are scared. They don’t want to talk out, they don’t want to get in trouble. But history shows that governments that rule by fear rather than by assent tend to be short-lived and not tremendously durable.
Q: It’s difficult for the outside world to get the full picture in Xinjiang, especially on forced labor.
A: It’s doubly difficult because what the Chinese Communist Party is doing is not transparent.
I think some camps are closing down, I think there are people who were released last year.
I think the Chinese Communist Party does listen to what foreigners say, what the foreign media says, foreign governments say. But on the other hand, I think they’re very reluctant to let go of these tools of control.
This is what the Communist Party knows how to do. If there is a problem, control is always the answer.
Q: Do you think what’s going on in today’s China is inevitable? How much does it have to do with the current leadership’s own mindset?
A: I think it certainly has a lot to do with the character and logical nature of Xi Jinping. He was a child of the Cultural Revolution, and we now get a return to the past.
He never went abroad, doesn’t speak a foreign language, does not feel comfortable with foreign companies. He is not a cosmopolitan person. He is very insecure, very insular, he’s very “tu.” (“unsophisticated” in Mandarin Chinese)
So he didn’t want to become absorbed into the global order. He wanted to go above it. Xi Jinping just happened to come at a time China did have acquired sufficiency and power.
Q: Are you optimistic at all looking at where China is going now?
I feel, having watched (China) for a long, long time – I first started studying (it) in the late 1950s – I feel (Xi’s failure to adapt to change) is one of the greatest tragedies in modern history.
China, just as it gained the power and wealth, and the influence, the ability to be respected by the world, instead of joining the world order, and enjoying this immense success that Chinese people have accomplished, it is now making everybody feel uncomfortable, it’s antagonizing one country after another, and it’s rallying all of the states in Asia into a very serious tension, and possible military clashes toward a war. That is one of the great tragedies of any country in the past century, particularly in Asia.
Queen Elizabeth II celebrates 70 years on the throne setting a historical record that she will celebrate amid the absence of her husband, family conflicts and weakened health.
The 95-year-old British monarch has been a protagonist and witness to the events that have marked the history of her country and the world.
From the media impact of her coronation at the age of 25 to the death of her husband after 74 years of marriage, going through the wars in the Falklands, Iraq and Afghanistan, the death of Diana of Wales or Brexit, her reign has been full of moments of great importance.
A movie coronation
The ascension to the throne of then-Princess Elizabeth seems to be straight out of a movie story. The young woman was walking in the middle of the dense jungle of Kenya observing wild animals when her father, King George VI, passed away.
It was on February 6, 1952 that this 25-year-old became queen overnight, but she only found out a few hours later while she was able to be reached to give her the news that would change her life.
Precisely, Elizabeth had traveled to Kenya, a former British colony, as part of her tour of the Commonwealth to represent her sick father.
At that time, the princess was already married to Prince Felipe, who accompanied her on this trip without thinking that she would have to give this news to her wife, who would de facto make her queen curiously in the hotel where they were staying.
Since then, Elizabeth II has had to lead the British monarchy, but her official coronation only took place on June 2, 1953 at Westminster Abbey.
The queen has already broken several records not only as the oldest monarch in office but also surpassed her great-great-grandmother, Queen Victoria (who ruled from 1837 to 1901), as the longest-serving sovereign of England.
See more: “Splendid costume”: Queen Elizabeth II sent a tender letter to a girl who dressed up as her on Halloween
At 95 years old and with declining health that has led her to reduce her public agenda, Elizabeth II is currently the oldest incumbent ruler in the world.
In fact, his reign has only been surpassed by the King of France, Louis XIV, who remained on the throne for more than 72 years (1643 and 1715).
His life
Queen Elizabeth married on November 20, 1947 with Prince Felipe, Duke of Edinburgh; who accompanied her for more than 74 years, giving her support in the most difficult moments of her life.
Isabel II had four children: Carlos, Ana, Andrés and Eduardo, who in turn gave her eight grandchildren and twelve great-grandchildren.
The truth is that the life of the queen has been marked by the great events of the recent history of humanity, witnessing the difficulties and consequences of the post-war period, the arrival of man on the Moon and even the appearance of a pandemic.
However, one of the family events that marked his life as monarch was the separation of his eldest son, Prince Charles of Wales, and Princess Diana; she who would die in 1997 in a traffic accident in Paris.
In fact, the 90s were very difficult for the queen and she even qualified 1992 as “Annus Horribilis” (terrible year) due to the separation of her children Ana and Andrés. In addition, the serious fire that was recorded in the castle of Windor leaving considerable damage.
All these events caused Elizabeth to have one of the most difficult moments of her reign and to be the focus of the world news to the point that there was talk of a possible abdication.
But 2021 has also marked her life by having to face the death of her husband, Felipe de Edinburgh, on April 9; who was by her side for more than 74 years.
See more: 11 days to honor the life of the queen: they filter what would be the protocol when Elizabeth II dies
Recently, Elizabeth has had to handle several family controversies such as the renunciation of their royal titles by her grandson Prince Harry and his wife Meghan; as well as other controversies with crimes of abuse of her son Prince Andrew, Duke of York.
The truth is that Queen Elizabeth has faced and overcome great crises in her kingdom; Although she has been the target of criticism, her approval is favorable in the world and she has left an unforgettable legacy in history.
Despite her advanced age, the British monarch continues to fulfill some of her official commitments after the death of her husband but has been reducing her agenda and public appearance.
The 95 years of the queen has generated much concern about the scenario that the British monarchy will have to face when she dies; her though she has always enjoyed good health.
Finally, the British monarch faces the last years of her reign alone and will celebrate 70 years of having come to the throne remembering not only the death of her father, King George VI, but also that moment in which she became queen being just a 25 year old.
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Enrique Gil Botero – secretary general of the Conference of Ministers of Justice of the Ibero-American Countries.
RPTV NEWS AGENCY team:
Journalist: Liz Castrellon
Camera and Edition: John Reyes
BOGOTA COLOMBIA). Thursday, February 10, 2022 (RPTV NEWS AGENCY). This 2022 will be held the 50th edition of the Conference of Ministers of Justice of Ibero-America, which will be held between February 15 and 17 in Barranquilla, after the World Congress of Jurists will be held in the Atlantic capital on last December 2 and 3.
Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Cuba and Peru are some of the 16 countries that have already confirmed their attendance at this event in which proposals for a new horizon in the Ibero-American Justice will be discussed.
“It is a true honor for Colombia to be the host country for the celebration of the 50th anniversary of the Conference of Ministers of Justice of Ibero-America, which will bring together a select group of jurists,” said Justice Minister Wilson Ruiz.
In this sense, the head of the justice portfolio added that the event “will allow the promotion of institutional transformation processes and public justice policies as a contribution to the social welfare of the region.”
For his part, Enrique Gil Botero, general secretary of the Conference of Ministers of Justice of Ibero-American Countries, stressed that the meeting will serve to analyze the contributions to the development of justice and the challenges in 2022.
“It is an event where the ministers of the 22 countries will examine the course of these 50 years in terms of public policies, in terms of international treaties,” he said.
For this conference, the participation of 22 Ibero-American countries is expected in which issues of justice, rights and democracy will be discussed based on what has been learned in half a century of the Conference of Ministers of Justice of Ibero-America (Comjib).
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Voice of America: Recognizing 80 years – and counting – of independent journalism
February 3, 2022
Do publicly funded media and broadcast organizations still have a place in democracies? What challenges do independent, public service media face in a world where democracy is “under siege?”
Has VOA consistently provided independent journalism to its audiences?
Has VOA served as a mouthpiece of the American government or its leaders now, or in the past?
Please join Acting VOA Director Yolanda López and a distinguished panel as we discuss this topic.
President Joe Biden is committing to reduce the cancer death rate by 50% — a new goal for the “moonshot” initiative against the disease that was announced in 2016 when he was vice president.
Biden has set a 25-year timeline for achieving that goal, part of his broader effort to end cancer as we know it, according to senior administration officials who previewed Wednesday’s announcement on the condition of anonymity.
The issue is deeply personal for Biden: He lost his elder son, Beau, to brain cancer in 2015. Yet the rollout comes without any new funding elements at a time when the gains from new research can be uneven, such that Biden is setting an aspiration for the country more than 50 years after President Richard Nixon signed the National Cancer Act and launched a war on the disease. The benefits of that act were seen recently in areas outside of cancer as well as vaccines that were developed for the coronavirus.
The pain experienced by Biden is shared by many Americans. The American Cancer Society estimates that there will be 1,918,030 new cancer cases and 609,360 cancer deaths this year. What the president is aiming to do is essentially save more than 300,000 lives annually from the disease, something the administration believes is possible because the age-adjusted death rate has already fallen by roughly 25% over the past two decades. The cancer death rate is currently 146 per 100,000 people, down from nearly 200 in 2000.
“The progress in cancer research is slow — some of the fruits of Nixon’s 1971 declaration were only harvested with the development of the COVID mRNA vaccine,” said Dr. Otis Brawley, a professor of oncology and epidemiology at Johns Hopkins University and former chief medical and scientific officer for the American Cancer Society. The research progress that has occurred has led to a “better understanding of the biology of cancer and will do even more for us in the future.”
Better public health practices, reducing cancer risks such as smoking and informing people about the best cancer research could reduce deaths. Brawley said that one of his studies found that 130,000 people die annually from cancer because they do not benefit from known science.
Dr. Barron Lerner, a professor of medicine and population health at New York University Langone Health, said that “hyperbolic goals” can be needed to attract public attention but achieving the 50% reduction is “extremely unlikely.”
“Similar past efforts like the ‘War on Cancer’ have made gains, but they have been more modest,” said Lerner, the author “The Breast Cancer Wars.” “Cancer is many diseases and requires very complicated research. Translating these advances to the clinical setting is never easy either.”
Biden was scheduled to give remarks Wednesday from the East Room of the White House, along with his wife, Jill, and Vice President Kamala Harris. Also scheduled to attend the speech: members of Congress and the administration and about 100 members of the cancer community including patients, survivors, caregivers, families, advocacy groups and research organizations.
As part of the effort, Biden will assemble a “cancer Cabinet” that includes 18 federal departments, agencies and offices, including leaders from the Departments of Health and Human Services, Veterans Affairs, Defense, Energy and Agriculture.
There were no plans to announce new funding commitments on Wednesday, though the administration will outline why it believes it can curb cancer through efforts such as increased screening and removing inequities in treatment. The coronavirus pandemic has consumed health care resources and caused people to miss more than 9.5 million cancer screenings.
The White House also will host a summit on the cancer initiative and continue a roundtable discussion series on the subject. The goal is to improve the quality of treatment and people’s lives, something with deep economic resonance as well. The National Cancer Institute reported in October that the economic burden of treatment was more than $21 billion in 2019, including $16.22 billion in patient out-of-pocket costs.
President Barack Obama announced the cancer program during his final full year in office and secured $1.8 billion over seven years to fund research. Obama designated Biden, then his vice president, as “mission control,” a recognition of Biden’s grief as a parent and desire to do something about it. Biden wrote in his memoir “Promise Me, Dad” that he chose not to run for president in 2016 primarily because of Beau’s death.
When Biden announced he wasn’t seeking the Democratic nomination in 2016, he said he regretted not being president because “I would have wanted to have been the president who ended cancer, because it’s possible.”
The effort fell somewhat out of the public focus when Donald Trump became president, though Trump, a Republican, proposed $500 million over 10 years for pediatric cancer research in his 2019 State of the Union address.
Biden continued the work as a private citizen by establishing the Biden Cancer Initiative to help organize resources to improve cancer care. When Biden did seek the presidency in 2020, he had tears in his eyes as he said in an interview on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” that “Beau should be running for president, not me.”
Do publicly funded media and broadcast organizations still have a place in democracies? What challenges do independent, public service media face in a world where democracy is “under siege?”
Has VOA consistently provided independent journalism to its audiences?
Has VOA served as a mouthpiece of the American government or its leaders now, or in the past?
Please join Acting VOA Director Yolanda López and a distinguished panel as we discuss this topic.
“Very happy and happy, landing the victory and eager to work”, Chanel has returned to appear before the press this Sunday after her election as the Spanish candidate for Eurovision, “strong” in the face of the criticism that her victory aroused in Benidorm Fest by the voting system.
“The only thing I know is that I have worked very hard, like my colleagues. In the end, this is the result and I can only thank it and be happy”, he responded to the question of whether he felt equally legitimized for his new role by having obtained the highest score from the jury, but not the televote (third) or the demographic vote (second).
The Thai company Minor International, owner of the Spanish hotel chain NH, plans to open 100 hotels in China over the next 5 years, revealed the group’s president, William Heinecke, in an interview with Nikkei Asia.
Heinecke indicated, during an interview published this Thursday with the Japanese weekly, that the project in China aims to diversify growth, in a context where the pandemic has affected the company’s operations.
A French national who has been in Iranian custody since May 2020 was sentenced Tuesday by an Iranian court to eight years and eight months in prison for spying.
Benjamin Briere, 36, was accused by Iranian authorities of flying a drone equipped with a camera near the Turkmenistan-Iran border. He was convicted of spying and “propaganda against the Islamic Republic.”
His lawyer, Philippe Valent, called the ruling “the result of a purely political process” and said the trial was a “masquerade.”
“Benjamin Briere obviously did not — nor ever — benefit from any form of fair trial before impartial judges,” Valent said, noting that Briere was not able to read the indictment, which made preparation for the trial difficult.
Iran’s judiciary was not immediately available for comment, according to Reuters.
Valent said Briere has been on a hunger strike for a month and is increasingly weak.
Agence France-Presse reported that Iran is currently holding more than a dozen Westerners on various charges.
The country has been accused of holding the hostages as leverage in ongoing talks to resuscitate the Iran nuclear deal.
Some information in this report comes from Reuters and Agence France-Presse.
