Friday, April 28, 2017

Trump Is Afraid of the White House Correspondents’ Dinner Muslim Comic Emcee

Hassan Minhaj of ‘The Daily Show’ is hosting the WHCD Saturday. Given his history, and Trump’s own at the WHCD, the president has reason to fear him.

DEAN OBEIDALLAH-04.28.17 1:00 AM ET

Donald Trump really doesn’t want you to watch Muslim comedian Hassan Minhaj comically filet him at this Saturday’s White House Correspondent’s Dinner (WHCD). So much so that Trump announced a few days ago that he would hold a “BIG” campaign type rally opposite the dinner to commemorate his first 100 days in office. This despite Trump telling us that the 100-day mark is “ridiculous” and that it “doesn’t matter.”

Keep in mind when Trump first announced in February that he was skipping the WHCD—making him the first President to do since Ronald Reagan missed it in 1981 because he was recovering from an assassination attempt—Trump spokesperson Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Trump wanted to “spend the night focused on what he can do to help better America.” Apparently spending taxpayer dollars to congratulate himself on his failed first 100 days is Trump’s way “to help better America.”

We all know why Trump is really steering clear of the WHCD. First, like Third World dictators, he hates being laughed at because he wants to be feared. Secondly, the last time Trump attended the WHCD in 2011 he got his ass kicked comically by both President Obama and the emcee for the evening, Seth Meyer.

And third, Trump would be compared to Obama in terms of delivering jokes. The problem here is that Obama was the best president to deliver jokes at a WHCD. Period. In contrast Trump’s joke delivery, as we saw in October at the Al Smith diner, is awful. I’ve seen dead people with better comedic timing. The idea that Obama would be seen as being far better than Trump at anything would turn him a brighter orange.

Now add in the fact that the comedian for the WHCD this year, Daily Show correspondent Minhaj, is brown and Muslim. The idea that Minhaj could get headlines ripping Trump for views on Muslims, such as Trump’s claim “Islam hates us,” and for his Muslim ban must trouble him. And this has to especially piss off Steve Bannon, a man who while running Brietbart.com made it a platform for some of the vilest anti-Muslim bigots America has seen. So voila, here comes the campaign rally Saturday to take media attention from Minhaj.

True, Trump hates being ridiculed by any comedian, regardless of their background. This is the same Trump who in October demanded that Saturday Night Live be cancelled for mocking him in a way Trump deemed unfair. Trump also lashed out at Jon Stewart in 2013 for his Trump jokes on The Daily Show via Twitter, calling Stewart “overrated” and “no talent.”

But it has to be even more stinging for Trump if the jokes decimating him are coming from a person who is a member of one the groups he demonized during his campaign. The only comedian who would be a better fit to get under Trump’s skin would’ve been a Muslim, Latino, female, immigrant comedian who was disabled. That would be all the things Trump demonized in one person.

Making matters worse for Trump is that Minhaj is a great comedian. I’ve been in several shows with him and seen it firsthand.

Plus in 2016, Minhaj was the comedian at the annual Radio and Television Correspondents’ Association (RTCA), which is in essence the “JV” version of the WHCD. And there Minhaj got headlines for his jokes and for taking on the NRA. His performance at that event offers a glimpse into what we can expect Saturday at the WHCD.

Minhaj opened his twenty-minute plus performance by referencing a possible Trump presidency: “Brown people, we’re going to get deported. This is just my farewell tour, I’m saying goodbye to America.” Adding, “I got to do all my American stuff, like go to Costco for the last time.”

Minhaj later called out Trump’s bigotry with a cutting joke about The New York Times and The Washington Post referring to Trump’s comments as being “racially tinged.” Minhaj retorted, “No, I’m racially tinged. That dude is racist, straight up.”

And later he went after the Muslim-bashing of Fox News: “I’ve never seen so many people with spray tans hate people of color…and line up for halal chicken and rice.” And: “I love that all morning they’re like ‘Mexicans, #AllLivesMatter, A-rabs.’ But come 12:01 it’s ‘shawarma time.’”

I hope, and expect, that Minhaj will use his punchlines at the WHCD to comically destroy Trump, his bigoted views and his failed policies. Nothing—I mean nothing—should be off limits for Minhaj in his jokes about Trump and his history of hate.

For so many Americans, Trump’s words aren’t simply political talk. Rather they are personal in that Trump’s rhetoric has ginned up fears of our communities. Well, come Saturday’s WHCD, Minhaj will get a chance to use comedy to even the score a bit at the expense of the pathetically thin skinned Trump. And that is something we all need to watch.

Trump now agrees with the majority of Americans: He wasn’t ready to be president

In an interview on April 27, President Trump said he misses aspects of his life before the presidency and that he thought being president "would be easier." (Patrick Martin/The Washington Post)

By Philip Bump April 28 at 7:30 AM

Donald Trump spent a great portion of 2016 insisting that being president would be easy — at least for him. HuffPost compiled a number of examples of him dismissing the problems that accompany the job as being easily dispatched. Building a wall on the border with Mexico is easy. Beating Hillary Clinton would be easy. Renegotiating the Iran deal would be easy. Paying down the national debt would be easy.

Acting presidential? Easy.

To a reporter from Reuters this week, though, Trump had a slightly different assessment of the presidency.

“I love my previous life. I had so many things going. This is more work than in my previous life,” Trump said. “I thought it would be easier. I thought it was more of a … I’m a details-oriented person. I think you’d say that, but I do miss my old life. I like to work so that’s not a problem but this is actually more work.”

It wasn’t the first time that Trump copped to the job being trickier than he anticipated. In November, NBC News reported that Trump had told former House speaker Newt Gingrich that “This is really a bigger job than I thought.” (Gingrich’s response? “…good. He should think that.”) Then there are individual issues. “Nobody knew health care could be so complicated,” he said at one point. At another, he revealed that it took a conversation with the president of China to realize that the situation on the Korean peninsula was “not so easy.”

There’s an element of surprise in Trump’s comments, a hint of bafflement that having responsibility for the welfare of 320 million people entwined in a global economy and international relationships might end up being trickier than running a real estate and branding shop from midtown Manhattan. One group that probably wasn’t surprised that Trump wasn’t prepared? The majority of Americans.

At no point over the course of the 2016 campaign did a majority of Americans think that Trump was qualified for the job of the presidency. Polling from The Post and ABC News shows that views of Trump as unqualified dominated throughout the campaign. The only group that consistently viewed him as qualified to hold the position were the working-class white voters that constituted the core of his support from early in his candidacy.

More to the point, polling from CBS News showed that, consistently, Trump was viewed as unprepared for the job. In June, July and September — before, during and after Trump began making his general election case — the majority of Americans thought he wasn’t ready to hold the nation’s highest position.

Avoid war and save Mother Earth

2017-04-28

The earth continues its rotation on its axis and moves along its orbit around the Sun, suffering in silence and not knowing what poisonous attack it will suffer next. Most of the Earth’s inhabitants go about with their daily chores without pausing for a moment to take a look at the danger lurking in the shadows. They apparently know not that tomorrow will not be like today, if war erupts in the Korean peninsula.

Driven by excessive greed, man has made the Earth, which we fondly referred to as Mother Earth, increasingly an unlivable place. The world temperature is rising, glaciers are melting and the sea water level is increasing as we produce more and more greenhouse gases that damage the protective ozone layer. On top of this environmental damage, wars aggravate the woes of the Earth.

Two weeks ago, the United States’ President, Donald Trump, who believes that climate change is a hoax, dropped a vicious bomb ostensibly on a terrorist target in Afghanistan. But hardly a major news outlet raised the environmental impact of the 9,800 kg bomb dropped by Trump on a village where some 150,000 people live. The media merely parroted the generals’ count: One horrible, two horrible, three horrible Afghans and the count went up to 92. It was history in the making. For the media, the dropping of GBU-43/B Massive Ordnance Air Blast Bomb (MOAB), dubbed the Mother of All Bombs -- the world’s most powerful non-nuclear bomb -- was, news-wise, more important than any adverse impact the bomb would have on the unfortunate people. When they heard the blast from the bomb, which is said to be as powerful as a tactical nuclear weapon or an earthquake measuring 6.0, the villagers thought the sky had fallen. For obvious reasons, the Nangarhar Province bomb site was declared a no-go zone by the US troops.

How many children would have suffered internal injuries such as eardrum ruptures because of the sheer sound of the blast when the Mother of All Bombs exploded?

Mother epitomizes compassion, love and care. Using the word mother to describe a destructive weapon that kills mothers and children or make them to suffer from its effects for years only shows the appalling degeneration of civility.

No wonder, most world leaders today fail to see that war is an environmental issue and a health issue that affects us all. No saner person will deny that wars and explosives pollute the environment. Although the United Nations General Assembly in 2011 declared November 6 of each year as the International Day for Preventing the Exploitation of the Environment in War and Armed Conflict, and the world has seen the horrors of the atomic bomb attacks in Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, very little attention is paid to the environmental and health cost of wars by nations engaged in wars.

During the Gulf War and the US invasion of Iraq, the black smoke from burning oil wells turned the day into night. The air of Iraq and Afghanistan, being two of the most bombed countries, is saturated by toxins produced by millions of tons of explosives. It is said quite a number of US veterans who served in Iraq and Afghanistan are suffering from various pulmonary disorders.
Every war will make the condition of our ailing common mother worse, the air we breathe more polluted and the people more unhealthy.

But the Earth is not threatened by conventional wars alone. The danger of a nuclear war is more than a possibility now, with the rhetoric of the United States and North Korea pointing to a do-or-die showdown which is very well explained in terms of the Game of Chicken. This dangerous game is played by two speeding drivers on a collision course. One must swerve, or both will die in the crash. The one who swerved will be called a “chicken,” meaning a coward.

In the game being played in the Korean peninsula, the two players are driving vehicles loaded with nuclear, chemical and biological weapons. One false move will start a war that will see tens of thousands of deaths in the first hour alone. Yet, President Trump and his military advisors feel that the time has come to disarm North Korea. They believe that if Pyongyang is not stopped now, it will soon develop weapons deadlier than what it has now to attack not only US allies in the region but also the US mainland itself. True, the US is also vulnerable to attacks from other nuclear powered nations such as Russia and China. But the peace of the graveyard is assured by the fact that these countries are headed by supposedly rational leaders who understand that nuclear wars only lead to Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD).

North Korea is, however, different. Even China, North Korea’s only ally, is apprehensive about North Korea’s next move. North Korean leader Kim Jong-un is not the person to swerve and to be called chicken. With little or no action being taken to deescalate the crisis, Kim Jong-un may misread even a routine US move such as the current military exercise between the US and South Korea – and launch a preemptive nuclear strike. When supposedly rational British and Indian leaders say they have no qualms about declaring that they would not hesitate to launch a nuclear first strike, it is naïve to assume that maverick Kim Jung-un would act charitably.

Given the military imbalance between North Korea and the United States, Kim Jong-un is more likely to launch a preemptive strike at a US target in the region. On the other hand, military wisdom may prompt the US to launch the first strike with the aim of severely weakening North Korea’s ability to strike back. Trump could fire Tomahawks or drop the so called Mother of All Bombs on North Korean nuclear weapon dumps or even fire a nuclear missile. Whatever the weapon is, the consequence will be unprecedented devastation, whichever party makes the first strike.

Remember, North Korea also has deadly chemical and biological weapons. In February, Kim Jong-un’s half-brother and critic Kim Jong-nam died at the Kuala Lumpur airport minutes after two women allegedly working for North Korea flashed a few drops of nerve agent VX on his face. Trump will be completing his first one hundred days in office tomorrow. To make his record card good, he has apparently resorted to militarism, firing Tomahawk missiles at Syria and dropping the Big Bomb on Afghanistan.

On Wednesday, Trump invited all one hundred senators to the White House to explain to them his North Korea response. The policy is: The United States will seek stability and the peaceful denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula.

We welcome this stance, if it is not a strategic retreat aimed at a surprise attack on North Korea later. The North Korean issue requires delicate handling. The best option would be engaging North Korea and resuming the dialogue that collapsed in 2009. The US and China should try to bring North Korea out of its self-imposed isolation and make it a partner in the search for peace in the Korean peninsula.

No War Against North Korea!

Australia can help resolve existing tensions rather than encouraging a war against North Korea!

by Dr Lionel Bopage-Apr 28, 2017

( April 28, 2017, Melbourne, Sri Lanka Guardian) The rapid journeys the leaders of the US and Australia executed recently appear to indicate that Donald Trump, Malcolm Turnbull and several other leaders supporting them, may be planning another war in the Korean Peninsula or against Iran; a tried and true policy many of the world’s political leaders have used since time immemorial to cover up their economic failures and the increasing unpopularity.

The main cause for the current tensions in the Korean peninsula is the presence of the US troops in South Korea. Therefore, the easing of tension in the peninsula lies in the withdrawal or reduction of US troops stationed in South Korea and Japan. North Korea rightfully believes that these troops are stationed there to change the regime in the North.

Despite North Korean leaders’ rhetoric and verbal threats, it has not launched any military attacks against a foreign country that I know of. Whereas many nuclear powers in the western camp including the United States have created ground zeros, using their nuclear weapons. At their initiative we have seen many wars for regime change, created or imposed on many foreign countries causing unforeseen devastation and humanitarian catastrophes in those countries. No one can forget the recent regime changes in Iraq and Libya, and the attempted regime change in Syria.

I am not a supporter of the despotic leaders that exist or existed there. I believe any regime change needs to happen internally as a result of mass action by the inhabitants of the country in question, if they are desirous of such action. Regime changes by external forces such as the US and its allies like the UK and Australia, have created the prevailing catastrophic global refugee issue, for which the countries and leaders, who initiated and took part in such regime changes, have neither been held accountable nor taken responsibility for causing such catastrophic situations. A new war in the Korean peninsula will create unforeseen devastation, catastrophe and human displacement, that would be tantamount to another crime against humanity in global history.

At the end of a war the US, Australia and their allies appear to be planning now, the US will remain untouched, just like it did in all the foreign wars it had become embroiled in. North Korea would undoubtedly end up losing a war against the United States. I do not envisage China will come to protect North Korean interests, if Chinese interests are threatened. But South Korea will end up as devastated as North Korea itself.

It is time now for the Australians to demand that Australia should help resolve the existing tensions, rather than encouraging a war against North Korea!

How the State of Russian Media Becomes the State of International Media

BY EMILY TAMKIN-APRIL 28, 2017

It was a bad week for reports on freedom of the media in Russia.

On Wednesday, Reporters Without Borders released its 2017 world press freedom index. Russia came in at 148, after such bastions of independent media as South Sudan and Thailand.

On Thursday, a Ukrainian human rights delegation briefed the Helsinki Commission on the case of Oleg Sentsov — a Ukrainian filmmaker imprisoned in a Siberian penal colony for his opposition to the annexation of Crimea — and abuses of Ukrainian journalists and creative professionals more broadly.

On Friday, Freedom House unveiled its Freedom of the Press 2017 report. That report gives Russia partial credit for the world’s 13-year low in press freedom. “Vladimir Putin’s regime in Russia has been a trailblazer in globalizing state propaganda. It continues to leverage pro-Kremlin reporting around the world,” the report states.

The three taken in tandem tell a story — one in which violence against journalists in Russia and the region is connected to violence against journalism around the world.

Consider the case of Oleg Sentsov.

In 2015, Sentsov was sentenced to 20 years in prison for planning terrorist attacks in Crimea. In his trial, he said he had been tortured. The international human rights community believes this to have been payback for the filmmaker’s outspoken stance against the annexation of Crimea (it is also worth noting that Russia treated Sentsov, a Ukrainian, as though he were a Russian citizen; after the annexation of Crimea, Russia considered all who did not explicitly apply for Ukrainian citizenship to be Russian, to which Sentsov objected in court by saying, “I am not a serf to be transferred with the land”). Russian-backed media reported it as a terrorism case.

And so the case contains both the physical threat that looms over journalists and creative types who fail to parrot the party line and also the threat that Russian state-backed media can pose to understanding in the wider world.

“Many people perceive [Russian state-backed media] not as propaganda, but as an alternative point of view,” Natalya Kaplan, Sentsov’s cousin, told Foreign Policy in an interview before heading to the Helsinki Commission briefing. “They tend to trust what Russian propaganda says.”

In the case of Sentsov, that means some outside of Russia (to say nothing of those in it) thought he was neither filmmaker nor terrorist, but some combination of the two. Americans can no longer tell the difference between actual fake news and fake fake news, Ukrainian PEN member Halya Coynash told FP.

“The thing is that you really think the media and information you get from Russian media, it is media. Which is wrong. We have state media, and state media are part of [the] strategy of [the state],” said Mustafa Nayyem, journalist turned Ukrainian member of parliament.

Alternative facts are not facts, and false equivalences are not equivalent. But consumers of Russian state-backed media around the globe can be duped into treating them as such, Nayyem said. He argued Russia presents reality and a bold-faced lie as though they are but two different perspectives, the truth of which lies somewhere in the middle, for viewers to decide for themselves.

“We know that [Sentsov] never was involved in some attacks, or in some revolution, in terroristic things.
He’s a filmmaker, and his movies are recognized internationally. The lie is that this guy was a terrorist, and no one even tried to understand the basis of this [accusation] … There is guy: a filmmaker, and a terrorist. What is true? They think that maybe he’s some filmmaker-terrorist. It’s insane.” Nayyem ardently believes those who want to protect freedom of media and speech need to build up conventions regulating what are accepted as media outlets and news.

But there’s a thin line between banning propaganda and furthering censorship and repression. Russia’s independent Dozhd (TV Rain), for example, was recently banned in Ukraine for reporting that Crimea is part of Russia.

“Recent democratic gains have bolstered media freedom overall,” the Freedom House report states, “but restrictions on Russian outlets and attempts to foster ‘patriotic’ reporting raise questions about the government’s commitment to media autonomy.”

And besides, even Ukrainians, more prepared for Russian media influence than their western counterparts, are not entirely immune. “The Russian media are much better funded” than their Ukrainian counterparts, Kaplan said, and it takes time and resources to counter reports put out by the Russian state-backed media machine. “Even my Ukrainian friends who live in Kiev, after watching two hours of Russian TV, start to question themselves. ‘Am I a fascist?’”

Kaplan does not, at present, see much reason for optimism. While it was a bad week for reports on the state of Russian media, it was inevitably a much worse week for those trying to correct or improve it.

“Journalism in Russia is dead. It happened quite a while ago,” Kaplan said. “There are small islands of freedom of speech in Russia,” she said, but they aren’t on TV, and they aren’t available to those who don’t know how to access certain sites. Besides, she said, the sophisticated propaganda machine will figure out how to move onto the internet, too. “Russian journalists face the biggest challenge. Their job is simply to survive.” Hanging in the air is the idea that, at present, surviving is actually journalism’s job, too.

Photo credit: DENIS SINYAKOV/AFP/Getty Images

Thai baby's murder on Facebook: The missing hours before video was removed

Jiranuch Trirat, mother of 11-month-old daughter who was killed by her father who broadcast the murder on Facebook, stands next to a picture of her daughter at a temple in Phuket, Thailand April 25, 2017. REUTERS/Sooppharoek Teepapan

By Patpicha Tanakasempipat | PHUKET, THAILAND- Fri Apr 28, 2017

A relative of the Thai baby whose murder was shown on Facebook Live earlier this week said he was too distraught and intent on getting police to the crime scene to worry about getting the horrific videos taken down.

The gruesome incident this week highlights how those most affected by offensive content are usually too distracted to report it to the authorities. It also exposes the challenges that live streaming content poses to both governments monitoring for offensive material on the internet and the companies that host online content.

On Monday, in an abandoned building in the Thai seaside resort of Phuket, 20-year-old Wuttisan Wongtalay turned on Facebook Live from his mobile phone. Then he picked up his 11-month-old daughter in her pink dress, tied a rope around her neck and hanged her. A second short video briefly shows her lifeless body. After that, he turned off the camera and killed himself.

For the family of little Natalie Triratana, removing the videos was the last thing on their minds when they first popped up on Wuttisan's Facebook feed at around 4.50 p.m. on Monday.

Her mother's cousin, Suksan Buachanit, said he called Thailand's 191 police hotline to ask for help locating the building. By the time police and relatives found it, it was too late.

"A local reporter told me to report it (to Facebook) but we were all occupied at the scene," Suksan told Reuters in Phuket.

It took more than a day - and 370,000 views - before Facebook removed those few minutes of video. Thailand's digital ministry said even then it took five hours for the videos to be removed after the ministry contacted Facebook.

A Facebook statement called the incident "appalling" and said there was "absolutely no place for content of this kind" on the network. It did not respond to Reuters questions as to why it took so long to remove the videos.

CLEVELAND SHOOTING

For the social media company, with nearly 2 billion users, it was yet another case that exposed the challenges of quickly spotting and removing offensive content. The killing of the baby in Thailand followed the live broadcast shooting of an elderly man in Cleveland, Ohio.

In that incident, it took two hours to remove the video, bringing intense criticism on the social media giant and prompting it to promise "ways that new technologies can help us make sure Facebook is a safe environment". [L4N1HZ3EO]

It was unclear how many viewers alerted Facebook to the killing of the baby. Facebook did not respond to questions.

But by the morning the baby's murder had been reported in local media and was one of the most talked about stories in Thailand. Several local and international journalists told Reuters they had reported the videos to Facebook Tuesday morning and asked the company for comment.

The head of Thailand's police's Technology Crime Suppression Division, Supachet Chokchai, said he was alerted to the baby murder videos by police in Phuket but he declined to say when that was. The division monitors online content ranging from anti-monarchy content to fraudulent websites. It also has a hotline for the public to call in tip-offs about offensive content.

Nor would Supachet say when police then asked the digital ministry to get in touch with Facebook. The ministry said by the time police reported the videos on Tuesday afternoon it had already heard about them from an anonymous tip-off and had told Facebook.

The ministry contacted Facebook through a "direct channel" at noon on Tuesday, according to Somsak Khaosuwan, the ministry's deputy permanent secretary. He did not elaborate on what the direct channel was or say whom the ministry contacted at Facebook.

It was only just after 5.00 p.m. - about five hours later and more than a full day after the videos were first streamed - that Facebook took them down.

ILLEGAL AND HARMFUL CONTENT

Thai police said they would review ways to take down online content after the killing.

Police blamed the delay partly on the time difference between the United States, where Facebook is headquartered, and Thailand. They did not explain at exactly which stage the time difference had proved problematic, however.

A spokesman for the police also said the force was tight on staffing.

Thailand, along with other authoritarian governments in Asia, is more geared up to monitor politically sensitive content online.

Censorship has been ramped up since a 2014 coup and hundreds of websites have been blocked or shut down for content deemed inappropriate or offensive.

Thailand is further tightening controls on internet users.

This week, Thailand's national telecoms regulator ordered all internet service providers to block web content deemed illegal by the courts within a week or face having their licenses revoked.

Thailand is also working on a cyber security bill that would allow the state to conduct large-scale surveillance in the name of national security by wiretapping telephones and computers without the need for court approval.

(Additional reporting by Amy Sawitta Lefevre and Panarat Thepgumpanat in BANGKOK; Editing by Amy Sawitta Lefevre, Matthew Tostevin and Bill Tarrant)

Brazilians sick of corrupt politicians hit the streets to protest austerity measures

Police clash with striking union workers in streets of Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo as protesters in 26 states demonstrate against Michel Temer’s proposed reforms

Demonstrators in Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo blocked key roads with barricades of burning tires. Photograph: Fernando Bizerra Jr/EPA

Jonathan Watts in Rio de Janeiro-Friday 28 April 2017

Brazilian unions have ratcheted up the pressure on Michel Temer with a nationwide general strike that closed schools, disrupted transport networks and led to clashes with public security in several cities.

Demonstrators in Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo blocked key roads with barricades of burning tires. Riot police used teargas and percussion grenades to try to disperse the crowds and open the routes.

Domestic media said it was the biggest general strike in decades, with protests reported in 26 states and strikes by teachers, bus drivers, healthcare providers, oil industry workers and public servants.

While the widespread no-show for work was partly driven by the long May Day holiday weekend, it also highlights frustrations with the government, which is struggling to push through social security cuts and a reform of the pension system.

Many voters are furious that politicians are insisting on the need for cuts in benefits and public services even as evidence grows that they benefited personally from illegal kickbacks on overinflated contracts.

Eight cabinet ministers have been implicated in the Lava Jato (Car Wash) investigation into corruption at the country’s two biggest companies, Petrobras and Odebrecht. President Temer’s approval ratings have slipped into single digits, similar to the level of his predecessor, Dilma Rousseff, when she was impeached last year.

Government spokesman Alexandre Parola played down the significance of the industrial action. “A strike is a part of democracy. It’s acceptable as long as participants stay within the law. The country is still functioning,” he noted.

The shutdown was not total. In Rio, bus and metro companies ran a reduced service. Most shops and banks remained open. But students were told to remain at home and there were skirmishes between protesters and police at Santos Dumont airport and the main bus terminal. São Paulo was hit harder, with a shutdown of many bus lines and fierce clashes on the road to the Congonhas airport. More protests were expected later in the day.

“It is going to be the biggest strike in the history of Brazil,” said Paulo Pereira da Silva, the president of trade union group Força Sindical.

Nara Pavão, a professor in the political science department at the Federal University of Pernambuco, said it would be the biggest mobilization since 1996. He saw this as a sign of a crisis of representation as voters feel betrayed by politicians.

Flávia Biroli, a political science professor at the University of Brasília, said planned austerity cuts had stirred up public anger.

“The general strike shows that the organized sectors of society clearly understand that the proposals, if approved, will be the end of the fundamental guarantees provided for in Brazilian legislation, which will increase instability and poverty.”

12 held in secret Filipino jail cell claim torture, extortion by police

Human rights officials in the Philippines uncovered a secret jail cell at a Manila police station that held 12 people captive. Screenshot via @YouTube

By A. Azim Idris | 28th April 2017

HUMAN rights officials in the Philippines on Thursday made the startling discovery of a dozen men and women locked in a tiny, dark cell concealed behind a bookshelf in a Manila police station.

The Philippines’ official Commission on Human Rights (CHR) exposed the overcrowded secret cell following a tip-off, releasing the detainees who claimed police from the Tondo district station held them captive in order to extort money.

The detainees claimed policemen tortured them and demanded bribes between US$800 and US$4,000 to secure their freedom, an allegation police deny.

The Inquirer quoted Metro Manila regional director Gilbert Boisner as saying that four detainees were locked in the Raxabago station’s drug enforcement unit (DEU) in Tondo, adding their arrests under drug allegations were not even recorded.

“They have been picked and they have to pay up to be freed. That’s the allegation,” he said. “I’m really mad. Did you see that? It’s terrible … My God!”

Boisner said the facility that housed the dozen men and women was in “atrocious, grossly overcrowded conditions.”

In a statement published by Human Rights Watch (HRW), Boisner said detainees told CHR and journalists that police had abducted them and held them in the facility for a week without notifying families or lawyers.

Detainees said inadequate lighting, ventilation, and toilet facilities forced them “to urinate and [do] bowel movements in plastic bags”, according to Boisner.

SEE ALSO: Asean summit in Philippines amid drug war a ‘scandal’ – rights group

Describing details of the raid, Boisner upon arriving at the scene said the station’s commander, Supt. Robert Domingo, first denied the existence of the hidden cell.

Using the tip from an informant, Boisner proceeded to inspect a brown bookshelf in the DEU office. He knocked on the wooden wall behind the furniture and then heard the hidden detainees responding, the Inquirer reported.

After opening a lock, Boisner found a passage leading to the hidden cell which he described as dark, cramped and windowless.

“They (police) asked if this was a surprise inspection. But I’m the one surprised,” Boisner said.

After the discovery, the station’s commander denied irregular practices, insisting those detained in the secret cell were arrested on Wednesday in a big anti-narcotics operation.

The drug suspects, Domingo said, could not be mixed with other detainees in the station’s main detention cell because police had yet to file cases against them, while cases of detainees in the main lockup had been filed with the prosecutor’s office in Manila.

“It’s such a waste of space. Why should I not maximise it?” Domingo said, as quoted by The Inquirer.

The discovery of the unlawful detention facility comes amid widespread accusations of abuses linked to President Rodrigo Duterte’s bloody war on drugs, which has given free reign to police to execute drug suspects.

Almost 9,000 people, many small-time users and dealers, have been killed since Duterte took office last June. Police say about a third of the victims were shot by officers in self-defence during legitimate anti-drug operations.

SEE ALSO: Philippines: Police plant evidence to justify drug war killings – HRW

Human rights monitors believe many of the remaining two thirds were killed by paid assassins operating with police backing or by police disguised as vigilantes – a charge the police deny.

HRW said the discovery of the secret jail is the latest sign of how police are exploiting Duterte’s abusive anti-drug campaign for personal gain.

The rights watchdog cited a government investigation released in January documented the kidnapping of a South Korean national Jee Ick-joo on 18 October 2016, by police who raided his home in Angeles City.

Using a fake arrest warrant, the officers from the the Anti-Illegal Drugs Group falsely accused him of illegal drug activities. They reportedly strangled Jee to death that same day, but two weeks later demanded – and received – a US$100,000 ransom from his family.

“Expect unlawful police abuses in the name of Duterte’s ‘war on drugs’ to continue until the United Nations establishes an urgently needed independent, international investigation into the killings – and the secret jails that are part of it,” HRW’s Asia deputy director Phelim Kine said.

Additional reporting by Reuters

Tranexamic acid can reduce maternal deaths 'by a third'

Trial of 20,000 women shows deaths from heavy bleeding after giving birth reduced by 30 percent with tranexamic acid.

26 APRIL 2017

Heavy bleeding after giving birth is the leading cause of maternal deaths worldwide, killing more than 100,000 women each year.

Around six percent of women suffer from postpartum hemorrhaging (PPH) - uncontrollable bleeding after giving birth.

In many cases, the lack of access to basic healthcare and medication is the difference between life and death.

But there is new evidence that a low-cost drug could save a third of those lives.

A trial involving 20,000 women in 193 hospitals across 21 countries - mainly in Africa and Asia - found that a widely available drug called tranexamic acid (TXA) could help save lives.

Within three hours of birth, women diagnosed with PPH were either given TXA or a placebo intravenously.

Those who took the medicine - which stops bloodclots from breaking down - were significantly more likely to survive.

"We now have important evidence that the early use of tranexamic acid can save women's lives and ensure more children grow up with a mother," said Haleema Shakur of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, which coordinated the trial.

"The need for an operation where you explore why a woman is bleeding can be reduced by a third and there are no side effects. It's really fantastic news for women all over the world."

TXA was invented in the 1960s by a Japanese husband-and-wife research team, Shosuke and Utako Okamoto.

According to the study published in The Lancet, almost all of the deaths from PPH took place in low-and middle-income countries.

"Mothers [in Pakistan] are faced with poverty and our social norms also don't encourage us to visit hospitals or doctors for regular checkups," Sajida Begum, a resident of Sher Garh Mardan in Pakistan's Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province told Al Jazeera.