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Indian hospitals hit as doctors strike to protest brutal rape of medic

Indian hospitals hit as doctors strike to protest brutal rape of medic
Medical professionals and students shout slogans as they protest against the rape and murder of a doctor in India's West Bengal state, in New Delhi on August 16, 2024. (AFP)
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Updated 17 August 2024
Reuters
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Indian hospitals hit as doctors strike to protest brutal rape of medic

Indian hospitals hit as doctors strike to protest brutal rape of medic
  • Over 1 million doctors expected to join strike, paralysing services in world’s most populous nation
  • Hospitals said faculty staff from medical colleges had been pressed into service for emergency cases
Updated 17 August 2024
Reuters
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KOLKATA/BHUBANESWAR: Hospitals and clinics across India turned away patients except for emergency cases on Saturday as medical professionals started a 24-hour shutdown in protest against the brutal rape and murder of a doctor in the eastern city of Kolkata.
More than one million doctors were expected to join the strike, paralysing medical services across the world’s most populous nation. Hospitals said faculty staff from medical colleges had been pressed into service for emergency cases.
The strike, which began at 6 a.m. (0030 GMT), cut off access to elective medical procedures and out-patient consultations, according to a statement by the Indian Medical Association.
A 31-year old trainee doctor was raped and murdered last week inside a medical college in Kolkata where she worked, triggering nationwide protests among doctors and drawing parallels to the notorious gang rape and murder of a 23-year-old student on a moving bus in New Delhi in 2012.
Outside the RG Kar Medical College, where the crime took place, a heavy police presence was seen on Saturday while the hospital premises were deserted, according to the ANI news agency.
Mamata Banerjee, the chief minister of West Bengal, which includes Kolkata, has backed the protests across the state, demanding the investigation be fast tracked and the guilty be punished in the strongest way possible.
A large number of private clinics and diagnostic centers remained closed in Kolkata on Saturday.
Dr. Sandip Saha, a private paediatrician in the city, told Reuters that he will not attend to patients except in the case of emergencies.
In Odisha state, patients were queuing up and senior doctors were trying to manage the rush, Dr. Prabhas Ranjan Tripathy, additional medical superintendent of All India Institute of Medical Sciences in the city of Bhubaneswar, told Reuters,
“Resident doctors are on full strike, and because of that, the pressure is mounting on all faculty members, which means senior doctors,” he said.
Patients queued up at hospitals, some unaware that the agitation would not allow them to get medical attention.
“I have spent five hundred rupees on travel to come here. I have paralysis and a burning sensation in my feet, head, and other parts of my body,” a patient at SCB Medical College Hospital at Cuttack in Odisha told a local television channel.
“We were not aware of the strike. What can we do? We have to return home.”
Anger at the failure of tough laws to deter a rising tide of violence against women has fueled protests by doctors and women’s groups.
“Women form the majority of our profession in this country. Time and again, we have asked for safety for them,” IMA President R. V. Asokan told Reuters on Friday.
India’s Central Bureau of Investigation, the agency investigating the rape and murder, has summoned a number of medical students from the RG Kar college to ascertain the circumstances of the crime, according to a police source in Kolkata.
The CBI also questioned the principal of the hospital on Friday, the police source said.

Topics: India rape doctors strike

Uganda holds funeral for murdered Olympian Cheptegei

Uganda holds funeral for murdered Olympian Cheptegei
Updated 24 sec ago
AFP
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Uganda holds funeral for murdered Olympian Cheptegei

Uganda holds funeral for murdered Olympian Cheptegei
Updated 24 sec ago
AFP

BUKWO: Ugandans on Saturday paid tributes to Olympian Rebecca Cheptegei, who died after her partner set her on fire in Kenya, ahead of her funeral in her family village.
The 33-year-old, who debuted this summer in the women’s marathon at the Paris Olympics, succumbed to severe burns last week after being attacked by Kenyan Dickson Ndiema Marangach.
The brutal assault shocked the East African region and prompted a global outpouring of tributes, with activists condemning another act of gender-based violence in Kenya.
On Saturday morning, residents, officials and relatives waited in the cold morning light to pay their respects in the village of Bukwo, some 380 kilometers (240 miles) northeast of Uganda’s capital Kampala.
“We are extremely saddened,” said her estranged husband Simon Ayeko, with whom she had two daughters.
“As a father it has been very difficult,” he told AFP, explaining he had not been able to break the news to their children.
“Slowly we will tell them the truth.”
The service to honor Cheptegei, a sergeant in the Uganda Peoples’ Defense Forces, started around 10:00 am (0700 GMT), with officials and relatives gathering at the local council office.
The athlete was a “heroine” Bessie Modest Ajilong, the local presidential representative, told AFP.
Cheptegei’s body would move from local council headquarters, organizers said, to a nearby sports stadium so that the public could pay their respects. She will then be formally laid to rest at around 3:00 p.m. (1200 GMT).
Scores of athletes have traveled to the small village to attend the ceremonies.
“She greatly contributed to the promotion of athletics until her last days,” coach Alex Malinga, who trained her as a teenager, told AFP.
Local media say Cheptegei’s daughters witnessed the attack. Police said Marangach snuck into her home while she was at church with her children.
Her family say the couple had argued over ownership of the property where she lived with her sister Dorcas Cherop and daughters.
Her attacker later died from injuries sustained in the assault.
“I think at that time, their relationship had become sour,” Cheptegei’s brother-in-law, Moses Kipsiro, told AFP.
“I didn’t know then something was wrong,” said Kipsiro, who previously trained with Cheptegei and also hails from Bukwo.
The vicious assault has thrown yet another spotlight on what activists have called a femicide epidemic.
Kenya reported 725 femicide cases in 2022 alone, according to the latest UN figures.
A report the following year by Kenya’s National Bureau of Statistics found 34 percent of women had experienced physical violence since the age of 15.
At least two other athletes, Agnes Tirop and Damaris Mutua, have lost their lives in domestic violence incidents since 2021.

Topics: Uganda Kenya athelete crime Funeral

Comoros president ‘slightly injured’ in a knife attack, his office says

Comoros president ‘slightly injured’ in a knife attack, his office says
Updated 33 min 9 sec ago
AP
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Comoros president ‘slightly injured’ in a knife attack, his office says

Comoros president ‘slightly injured’ in a knife attack, his office says
  • President Azali Assoumani’s injuries were not serious and he had returned to his home
  • Assoumani was reelected as president of Comoros in January in a vote denounced by opposition parties as fraudulent
Updated 33 min 9 sec ago
AP

MORONI, Comoros: The president of the Indian Ocean island nation of Comoros was “slightly injured” in a knife attack while attending the funeral of a religious leader on Friday, his office said.
President Azali Assoumani’s injuries were not serious and he had returned to his home, his office said in a statement. It said the attacker was arrested by security forces and is in their custody, but gave no details on the attacker’s identity or any more information on the circumstances of the attack.
Government minister Aboubacar Said Anli said Saturday that a civilian was also injured during the attack while attempting to protect the president.
Assoumani was reelected as president of Comoros in January in a vote denounced by opposition parties as fraudulent. At least one person died in unrest following the election. Assoumani, 65, is a former military leader who first came to power in Comoros in a coup in 1999.
The country, which is made up of an archipelago of islands off the east coast of Africa, has experienced more than a dozen coups or attempted coups since its independence from France in 1975.

Topics: comoros

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WHO clears Bavarian Nordic’s vaccine for mpox, sets up access scheme

WHO clears Bavarian Nordic’s vaccine for mpox, sets up access scheme
Updated 14 September 2024
Reuters
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WHO clears Bavarian Nordic’s vaccine for mpox, sets up access scheme

WHO clears Bavarian Nordic’s vaccine for mpox, sets up access scheme
  • WHO has faced criticism for moving too slowly on mpox vaccines
  • Bavarian Nordic’s vaccine has been used worldwide since 2022
Updated 14 September 2024
Reuters

LONDON: The World Health Organization and partners on Friday set up a scheme to help bring mpox vaccines, tests and treatments to the most vulnerable people in the world’s poorest countries, similar to efforts during the COVID-19 pandemic, after earlier approving the first shot for the fast-spreading disease.
Both steps should make it easier for badly-hit African countries to access the vaccine, as a new type of the mpox virus spreads from the Democratic Republic of Congo to its neighbors. The WHO has declared the outbreak a global public health emergency.
“Alongside other public health interventions, vaccines, therapeutics and diagnostics are powerful tools for bringing the mpox outbreaks in Africa under control,” said WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.
He said COVID-19 had shown the need for international collaboration to make access fairer. During the pandemic, many low-income countries were left behind in the global scramble for medical resources, particularly vaccines.
European countries, the United States and Japan have already pledged to donate 3.6 million doses of the two main vaccines used against mpox, the WHO said on Friday. Vaccinations are due to start from Oct. 2 with the first tranches of donations.
The WHO urged more countries to donate shots that were originally developed and stockpiled by rich nations for smallpox, and said it would work with affected countries to get them to the people at highest risk.
Earlier on Friday, the WHO said it had approved Bavarian Nordic’s vaccine, known as Jynneos in the United States. It is also considering LC16, made by the Japanese manufacturer KM Biologics.
The approval, known as prequalification, means UN agencies can now buy the vaccines as well as help co-ordinate donations. Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, co-funds vaccine purchases for low-income countries in this way and has up to $500 million to spend on mpox.
DELAYS
The WHO has faced criticism for moving too slowly on mpox vaccines.
Bavarian Nordic’s vaccine has been used worldwide since 2022, after US and European regulators backed it for use against a different strain of mpox that spread globally in 2022.
The WHO only formally began the process in August this year. Other factors, including the roughly $100 price tag for the vaccine, competing disease outbreaks, and sluggish processes in badly-hit countries like Congo have also played a role.
“The evidence we have now is... it is important we take advantage of it (the vaccine) to protect our population,” Dimie Ogoina, chair of the WHO’s mpox emergency committee, had said before the approval.
He however stressed that vaccines were not a “magic bullet” and other public health measures were also important.
‘OFF-LABEL’ USE IN CHILDREN
Bavarian Nordic said the vaccine was cleared for immunization against smallpox, mpox, and related orthopoxvirus in those who are 18 and older, but it could be used “off-label” for children and pregnant and immunocompromised people in outbreak conditions, where the benefits of vaccination outweigh the risks. LC16 can already be given to children, according to the Japanese regulator, although it requires a special kind of needle.
Children are particularly vulnerable to mpox, a viral infection that typically causes flu-like symptoms and pus-filled skin lesions, as well as people with immune system conditions, such as HIV.

Topics: WHO World Health Organization (WHO) Mpox vaccine

Stoltenberg says NATO could have done more to prevent Ukraine war, FAS reports

Stoltenberg says NATO could have done more to prevent Ukraine war, FAS reports
Updated 14 September 2024
Reuters
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Stoltenberg says NATO could have done more to prevent Ukraine war, FAS reports

Stoltenberg says NATO could have done more to prevent Ukraine war, FAS reports
  • Kyiv, which is not a member of NATO, received one weapons system after another from its allies after initial hesitation
Updated 14 September 2024
Reuters

BERLIN: NATO could have done more to arm Ukraine to try to prevent Russia’s invasion in 2022, the outgoing head of the Western military alliance said in an interview released on Saturday.
“Now we provide military stuff to a war — then we could have provided military stuff to prevent the war,” NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg told German weekly newspaper FAS.
Stoltenberg pointed to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s reluctance to provide weapons that Kyiv had asked for before Russia’s full-scale invasion because of fears that tensions with Russia would escalate.
After the war began, Kyiv, which is not a member of NATO, received one weapons system after another from its allies after initial hesitation.
Stoltenberg, a former prime minister of Norway, will step down in October from his role at NATO, which he has held since 2014. Dutch former Prime Minister Mark Rutte was announced in June as the organization’s next boss.
In the interview, Stoltenberg said an end to the war in Ukraine would be achieved only at the negotiating table.
“To end this war there will have to be again dialogue with Russia at a certain stage. But it has to be based on Ukrainian strength,” he said.
Stoltenberg declined to confirm that he would take over from German diplomat Christoph Heusgen as chair of the Munich Security Conference after leaving NATO. He told FAS he had “many options” and would reside in Oslo.

Topics: Russia-Ukraine Conflict Ukraine NATO

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Two Indian soldiers killed days ahead of Indian-administered Kashmir polls

Two Indian soldiers killed days ahead of Indian-administered Kashmir polls
Updated 14 September 2024
AFP
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Two Indian soldiers killed days ahead of Indian-administered Kashmir polls

Two Indian soldiers killed days ahead of Indian-administered Kashmir polls
  • India’s army said the firefight took place on Friday in Kishtwar district, paying tribute to ‘supreme sacrifice of the bravehearts’
  • Indian-administered Kashmir has seen a rise in clashes between rebels and security forces ahead of the first local assembly election
Updated 14 September 2024
AFP

NEW DELHI: A gunfight with suspected militants left two Indian soldiers dead and two others injured in Kashmir, days before local elections in the disputed Himalayan region.
Indian-administered Kashmir has seen a rise in clashes between rebels and security forces ahead of the first local assembly polls in the region for a decade.
The Indian army said the firefight took place on Friday in Kishtwar district, paying tribute to the “supreme sacrifice of the bravehearts” in a post on social media platform X.
Muslim-majority Kashmir has been divided between rivals India and Pakistan since their independence from British rule in 1947 and is claimed in full by both countries.
Rebels have fought Indian forces for decades, demanding independence or a merger with Pakistan.
About 500,000 Indian troops are deployed in the region, battling a 35-year insurgency that has killed tens of thousands of civilians, soldiers and rebels since 1989.
The territory has been without an elected local government since 2019, when its partial autonomy was canceled by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government.
A total of 8.7 million people will be eligible to vote for the region’s assembly when the election begins on September 18, with results expected in October.
Ahead of the vote, Modi is expected to address rallies for his Hindu-nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the southern Jammu portion of the territory, which has a sizeable Hindu population.
In the past two years, more than 50 soldiers were killed in clashes, mostly in Jammu.
India accuses Pakistan of backing the region’s militants and cross-border attacks inside its territory, claims Islamabad denies.
The nuclear-armed neighbors have fought several conflicts for control of the region since 1947.

Topics: Srinagar Indian soldiers Kashmir elections

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