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Kenyan Doctors Strike; Patients Left Unattended or Turned Away
NAIROBI, Kenya — Doctors at Kenya’s public hospitals began a nationwide strike Thursday, accusing the government of failing to implement a raft of promises from a collective bargaining agreement signed in 2017 after a 100-day strike that saw people dying from lack of care.
The Kenya Medical Practitioners Pharmacists and Dentists Union said they went on strike to demand comprehensive medical cover for the doctors and because the government has yet to post 1,200 medical interns.
Davji Bhimji, secretary-general of KMPDU, said 4,000 doctors took part in the strike despite a labor court order asking the union to put the strike on hold to allow talks with the government. And Dennis Miskellah, deputy secretary general of the union, said they would disregard the court order the same way the government had disregarded three court orders to increase basic pay for doctors and reinstate suspended doctors.
Miskellah said medical interns make up 27% of the workforce in Kenya’s public hospitals, and their absence means more sick people are being turned away from hospitals. Some doctors, however, have remained on duty to ensure patients in the intensive care units don’t die.
In an interview with broadcaster Citizen TV, Miskellah said doctors were committing suicide out of work-related frustration, while others have had to fund-raise to get treated for sickness due to a lack of comprehensive health coverage.
The impact of the strike was felt across the country with many patients left unattended or being turned away from hospitals across the East African nation.
Pauline Wanjiru said she brought her 12-year-old son for treatment on his broken leg, which had started to produce a smell, but she was turned away from a hospital in Kakamega county in western Kenya.
In 2017, doctors at Kenya’s public hospitals held a 100-day strike — the longest ever held in the country — to demand better wages and for the government to restore the country’s dilapidated public-health facilities. They also demanded continuous training of and hiring of doctors to address a severe shortage of health professionals.
At the time, public doctors, who train for six years in university, earned a basic salary of $400 to $850 a month, similar to some police officers who train for just six months.
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Namibia to Begin HPV Vaccine Rollout in April
Windhoek, Namibia — A top Namibian health official tells VOA the southern Africa country is set to begin distribution of the HPV vaccine to adolescent girls in April as a preventative measure in the fight against cervical cancer.
Namibia has a population of about 1 million women ages 15 years and older who are at risk of developing cervical cancer.
Each year, about 375 women in Namibia are diagnosed with the disease, and the fatality rate is over 50%.
The Human Papillomavirus Vaccine, known as HPV, has been proven to greatly lessen the chance of getting cervical cancer.
Ben Nangombe, executive director at Namibia’s Ministry of Health and Social Services, says health workers will begin vaccinating about 183,000 girls between the ages of nine and 14 next month.
He says the ministry has been allocated $7 million to procure single dose vaccines for this purpose.
Mehafo Amunyela, who works at the #Be Free Youth Program in the capital’s Katutura Township, told VOA that vaccine hesitancy could be a hurdle to fully immunizing the target population. She said she hopes that through awareness campaigns, children and their families can be educated about the advantages of getting the vaccine.
“We saw the reaction of the public toward the COVID vaccine when it came out, but I think we need to be honest with ourselves and remember that the reason we don’t have illnesses like polio is because of vaccines, that they worked then, and they still do now,” she said.
The Cancer Association of Namibia says the vast distances between most towns and villages in Namibia could present another logistical challenge in the immunization program.
The association says to achieve the target of immunizing 183,000 girls, awareness campaigns should be undertaken in the different indigenous languages spoken in the country.
With the rollout of the HPV vaccine, Namibia is on the path to do its part in meeting the World Health Organization’s goal of vaccinating 90% of girls worldwide by 2030, with the long-term goal of eliminating cervical cancer within the next century.
Although cervical cancer is preventable and curable, the disease claimed 350,000 lives worldwide in 2022 according to the WHO.
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‘Squid Game’ Star Found Guilty of Sexual Misconduct
Seoul — South Korea’s “Squid Game” actor O Yeong-su has been found guilty of sexual misconduct, a local court said Friday, after he was charged with assaulting a woman in 2017.
The 79-year-old in 2022 became the first South Korean to win a Golden Globe Award for best supporting actor in a series for his performance as a seemingly vulnerable old man in the mega-hit Netflix dystopian thriller.
The actor was sentenced to eight months in prison, suspended for two years, the Seongnam Branch of the Suwon District Court told AFP.
He has been also ordered to complete 40 hours of classes on sexual violence, the court added.
The victim’s own records of the assault and her claims are “consistent … and appear to be statements that cannot be made without actually experiencing them,” judge Jeong Yeon-ju said, according to the court.
O was indicted in 2022 without detention on charges of sexually assaulting a woman, who has not been identified, on two occasions.
The incidents took place when O was staying in a rural area for a theatre performance in 2017, on a walking path and in front of the victim’s residence, respectively, according to the Suwon District Court.
“Squid Game,” a series that depicts a dark world where marginalized individuals are forced to compete in deadly versions of traditional children’s games, quickly gained immense popularity on Netflix.
Within less than four weeks of its release in 2021, it attracted a staggering 111 million viewers.
The show’s success has amplified South Korea’s increasingly outsized influence on global popular culture, following global fame won by the likes of K-pop band BTS and the Oscar-winning film “Parasite.”
Multiple figures in South Korea’s film industry — including late filmmaker Kim Ki-duk and actor Cho Jae-hyun — have faced sexual assault allegations.
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Alec Baldwin Seeks Dismissal of Grand Jury Indictment in Fatal Shooting of Cinematographer
SANTA FE, N.M. — Defense attorneys for Alec Baldwin urged a New Mexico judge on Thursday to dismiss a grand jury indictment against the actor in the fatal shooting of a cinematographer on the set of the Western movie “Rust.”
The indictment in January charged Baldwin with involuntary manslaughter in the death of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins on Oct. 21, 2021, at a movie ranch on the outskirts of Santa Fe.
Baldwin has pleaded not guilty to the charge. His attorneys in a new court filing accused prosecutors of “unfairly stacking the deck” against Baldwin in grand jury proceedings that diverted attention away from exculpatory evidence and witnesses.
They say that prevented the jury from asserting their obligation to hear testimony from director Joel Souza, who was wounded in the shooting while standing near Hutchins, as well as assistant director and safety coordinator Dave Halls and props master Sarah Zachry.
“The grand jury did not receive the favorable or exculpatory testimony and documents that the state had an obligation to present,” said the court motion signed by defense attorney Luke Nikas. “Nor was the grand jury told it had a right to review and the obligation to request this information.”
Prosecutor Kari Morrissey declined to comment and said a response will be filed with the court.
Baldwin’s motion also asserts that the grand jury received inaccurate and one-sided testimony about the revolver involved in the fatal shooting.
“Rust” armorer Hannah Gutierrez-Reed was convicted by a jury last week in the shooting and is being held without bond pending an April sentencing hearing. Involuntary manslaughter carries a felony sentence of up to 18 months in prison and a $5,000 fine.
Baldwin was pointing a gun at cinematographer Halyna Hutchins when the revolver went off, killing Hutchins and injuring Souza. Baldwin has maintained that he pulled back the gun’s hammer, but not the trigger.
Prosecutors blamed Gutierrez-Reed at a two-week trial for unwittingly bringing live ammunition onto the set of “Rust” where it was expressly prohibited. They also said she failed to follow basic gun-safety protocols.
Halls last year pleaded no contest to negligent handling of a firearm and completed a sentence of six months of unsupervised probation.
Baldwin is scheduled for trial in July.
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Ukraine Oscar Winner Mstyslav Chernov Talks to VOA About His Film
This month’s Academy Awards ceremony saw a big first for Ukraine as Mstyslav Chernov’s “20 Days in Mariupol” won the best documentary Oscar. The film is a first-person account of being in the eastern Ukrainian city during the first weeks of Russia’s invasion. Khrystyna Shevchenko talked with Chernov. Anna Rice has that story.
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Malawi Testing Genetically Modified Maize to Fight Hunger, Agricultural Pests
Malawi has embarked on trials of genetically modified maize aimed to curb recurrent hunger and pests like fall armyworms and caterpillars. The trials come amid concerns about the possible effects genetically modified organisms have on health and the environment. Lameck Masina reports from Lilongwe.
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‘Man in Iron Lung’ Dead at 78
Washington — A polio survivor known as the “man in the iron lung” has died aged 78, according to his family and a fundraising website.
Paul Alexander of Dallas, Texas contracted polio at the age of six, leaving him paralyzed from the neck down and reliant on a mechanical respirator to breathe for much of the time.
Though often confined to his submarine-like cylinder, he excelled in his studies, earned a law degree, worked in the legal field and wrote a book.
“With a heavy heart I need to say my brother passed last night,” Philip Alexander posted on Facebook early Wednesday. “It was an honor to be part of someone’s life who was as admired as he was.”
Christopher Ulmer, a disability advocate running a fundraiser for Alexander, also confirmed his death in a GoFundMe update posted on Tuesday.
“His story traveled wide and far, positively influencing people around the world. Paul was an incredible role model that will continue to be remembered,” said Ulmer.
A prior update on Alexander’s official TikTok account said he had been rushed to the emergency room after contracting Covid-19.
Iron lungs are sealed chambers fitted with pumps. Raising and lowering the pressure inside the chamber expands and contracts the patient’s lungs.
Invented in the 1920s, their use fell away after the invention of the polio vaccine by Jonas Salk, which became widely available in 1955 and helped consign the devastating paralytic illness to history.
Alexander held the official Guinness World Record for time spent in a lung.
According to his Guinness page, he was able to leave the device for periods of time after he learned to “frog breathe” with the help of a physical therapist.
This involved “using his throat muscles to force air into his lungs, gulping down air one mouthful at a time.” Eventually, he only returned to his iron lung at night to sleep.
As a practicing lawyer, he was able to represent clients in court in a special wheelchair that held his paralyzed body upright.
Seventy-five-year-old Martha Lillard of Shawnee, Oklahoma is reportedly the last surviving person in an iron lung.
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Nigerian Filmmakers Optimistic After Box Office Milestone
The Nigerian film industry, often referred to as Nollywood, is the second largest moviemaker in the world in terms of volume, and is making strides both in terms of art and in popularity at the box office. Timothy Obiezu reports from Abuja.
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UN: Childhood Deaths at Record Low, but Progress ‘Precarious’
UNITED NATIONS — The number of children worldwide who died before age 5 reached a record low in 2022, the United Nations said in a report published Tuesday, as for the first time fewer than 5 million died.
According to the estimate, 4.9 million children died before their fifth birthday in 2022, a 51% decrease since 2000 and a 62% drop since 1990, according to the report, which still warned such progress is “precarious” and unequal.
“There is a lot of good news, and the major one is that we have come to a historic level of under-five mortality, which … reached under 5 million for the first time, so it is 4.9 million per year,” Helga Fogstad, director of health at the U.N. children’s agency UNICEF, told AFP.
According to the report, prepared by UNICEF in conjunction with the World Health Organization (WHO) and the World Bank, progress was particularly notable in developing countries such as Malawi, Rwanda and Mongolia, where early childhood mortality has fallen by more than 75% since 2000.
“Behind these numbers lie the stories of midwives and skilled health personnel helping mothers safely deliver their newborns … vaccinating … children against deadly diseases, and [making] home visits to support families,” UNICEF Executive Director Catherine Russell said in a statement.
But “this is a precarious achievement,” the report warned. “Progress is at risk of stagnation or reversal unless efforts are taken to neutralize the numerous threats to newborn and child health and survival.”
Researchers pointed to already worrying signs, saying that reduction in under-5 deaths has slowed at the global level and notably in the sub-Saharan Africa region.
In total, 162 million children under the age of 5 have died since 2000, 72 million of whom perished in the first month of life, as complications related to birth are among the main causes of early childhood mortality.
Between the ages of 1 month and 5 years, respiratory infections, malaria and diarrhea become the main killers — ailments that are all preventable, the report points out.
To reach the U.N.’s goal of reducing under-5 deaths to 25 per 1,000 births by 2030, 59 countries will need urgent investment in children’s health, researchers warned. And without adequate funding, 64 countries will miss the goal of limiting first-month deaths to 12 per 1,000 births.
“These are not just numbers on a page; they represent real lives cut short,” the report said.
The numbers also reveal glaring inequalities across the world, as the sub-Saharan Africa region accounted for half of all deaths of children under age 5 in 2022.
Babies born in countries with high early childhood mortality, such as Chad, Nigeria or Somalia, are 80 times more likely to die before their 5th birthday than babies born in countries with low childhood mortality rates, such as Finland, Japan and Singapore.
“Where a child is born should not dictate whether they live or die,” WHO head Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said.
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US House Expected to Pass Bill Forcing Chinese Company to Give Up TikTok
WASHINGTON — The U.S. House of Representatives is expected to approve legislation Wednesday that would force the popular TikTok video app to either separate from its Chinese-owned parent company ByteDance or sell the U.S. version of the software.
The bipartisan Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act “gives TikTok six months to eliminate foreign adversary control — which would include ByteDance divesting its current ownership — to remain available in the United States,” said Representative Mike Gallagher, chairman of the House Select Committee on Strategic Competition Between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party, and Representative Raja Krishnamoorthi, the top Democrat on the committee.
“All TikTok would have to do is separate from CCP-controlled ByteDance. However, if TikTok chose not to rid itself of this CCP control, the application would no longer be offered in U.S. app stores. But TikTok would have no one but itself to blame,” the lawmakers said in a prepared statement.
Here’s what we know about the legislation and what happens next in the U.S. Senate.
Why is TikTok under scrutiny?
“The concern is that TikTok could transfer personal information to its parent company ByteDance, who in turn could transfer it to the Chinese government,” Caitlin Chin-Rothmann, a fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told VOA.
Chin-Rothmann said concerns by some members of Congress about the Chinese Communist Party potentially controlling TikTok’s algorithm for propaganda purposes have not yet been proven.
“That’s not to say that, in the future, there’s not a risk that the Chinese government could exert pressure,” she said.
What does TikTok say about the legislation?
TikTok on Monday called the legislation a “ban” and has repeatedly denied the allegations against it. In a statement last week on X, formerly Twitter, the company said the “legislation has a predetermined outcome: a total ban of TikTok in the United States.”
How do lawmakers view the legislation?
The bill has strong support from House Democrats and Republicans, despite congressional offices receiving floods of phone calls from Americans concerned about losing access to the social media app.
House Speaker Mike Johnson told reporters last week, “It’s an important bipartisan measure to take on China, our largest geopolitical foe, which is actively undermining our economy and security.”
What about the Senate?
The bill could face a much harder road to passage in the Democratic-controlled Senate, where Majority Leader Chuck Schumer has said it will face consideration in the appropriate committees.
“I will listen to their views on the bill and determine the best path,” Schumer said in a statement.
Some Senate Democrats, including Mark Warner, chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, have expressed doubts about the legality of singling out a social media app in legislation. He has introduced alternative legislation more broadly targeting apps that collect personal data.
But Warner told CBS News on Sunday that the TikTok app is a serious national security concern.
“If you don’t think the Chinese Communist Party can twist that algorithm to make it the news that they see reflective of their views, then I don’t think you appreciate the nature of the threat,” Warner said.
How do the leading 2024 presidential candidates feel about the bill?
The White House said it welcomes the legislation, even though the Biden campaign joined TikTok recently as an effort to reach out to younger voters.
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters the bill ensures “ownership isn’t in the hands of those who may do us harm.”
Former President Donald Trump — who initially called for a ban of the app in 2020 — has now changed course, arguing that Facebook will be empowered if TikTok is no longer available.
“There’s a lot of good, and there’s a lot of bad with TikTok. But the thing I don’t like is that without TikTok, you’re going to make Facebook bigger,” the presumptive 2024 Republican presidential nominee told U.S. cable network CNBC in a phone interview this week.
What happens once the bill passes the House?
Apart from constitutional concerns over preventing U.S. citizens from exercising their right to free speech, the bill could also be difficult to legally enforce and face challenges in U.S. courts.
“Chinese export control laws could potentially prevent the sale of TikTok’s algorithm,” Chin-Rothmann said. “A divestiture would be very logistically difficult, in general. TikTok is one of the largest companies in the world. So, any buyer would have to be very large, as well. They would have to have a strategic interest in purchasing TikTok, and then the merger would have to not raise antitrust concerns in the United States.”
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Four Astronauts From Four Countries Return to Earth After Six Months in Orbit
Cape Canaveral, Florida — Four astronauts from four countries caught a lift back to Earth with SpaceX on Tuesday to end a half-year mission at the International Space Station.
Their capsule streaked across the U.S. in the predawn darkness and splashed into the Gulf of Mexico near the Florida Panhandle.
NASA’s Jasmin Moghbeli, a Marine helicopter pilot, led the returning crew of Denmark’s Andreas Mogensen, Japan’s Satoshi Furukawa and Russia’s Konstantin Borisov.
They moved into the space station last August. Their replacements arrived last week in their own SpaceX capsule.
“We left you some peanut butter and tortillas,” Moghbeli radioed after departing the orbiting complex on Monday. Replied NASA’s Loral O’Hara: “I miss you guys already and thanks for that very generous gift.”
O’Hara has another few weeks at the space station before leaving aboard a Russian Soyuz capsule.
Before leaving the space station, Mogensen said via X, formerly known as Twitter, that he couldn’t wait to hear “birds singing in the trees” and also craved crunchy food.
NASA prefers multiple travel options in case of rocket trouble. Boeing should start providing astronaut taxi service with a two-pilot test flight in early May.
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Gaza Doctors: ‘Mothers Don’t Have Milk to Feed Their Babies’
The United Nations says at least 20 children in Gaza have died of starvation and doctors say many more are increasingly suffering from grave physical and mental illnesses. VOA’s Heather Murdock reports from Istanbul with Nedal Hamdouna and Amjed Tantesh in Rafah, Gaza. Camera: Ihab Abu Riyash, Yan Beochat.
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South Korea Deploys Military, Public Doctors to Strike-hit Hospitals
SEOUL, South Korea — South Korea will start deploying military physicians and doctors from public health centers to strike-hit hospitals on Monday to help care for patients affected by the walkout of nearly 12,000 trainee doctors from 100 hospitals over government reform plans.
Twenty military surgeons along with 138 public health doctors will be assigned to 20 hospitals for four weeks, Health Minister Cho Kyoo-hong said at a meeting on Sunday.
The number of military physicians called on to help so far was only a small fraction of the roughly 2,400 military doctors, according to a defense ministry briefing.
The government has denied the walkout which started on Feb. 20 has caused a full-blown health crisis, but some hospitals have had to turn away patients and delay medical procedures.
As of Friday morning, nearly 12,000 protesting doctors at 100 hospitals had left their posts in a dispute over a government plan to increase medical school admissions, health ministry data showed, defying pressure from authorities to return to work.
South Korean authorities have been trying to coax the doctors to return to work by warning them that their medical licenses could be suspended but so far appear to have had little success with the tactic.
The health ministry said notices had been sent to more than 4,900 doctors as of Friday to instruct them that authorities could start suspending licenses if they did not explain their action.
Doctors who returned to work before the administrative measure to suspend licenses was complete would be “given leniency,” Cho told KBS Radio on Monday.
The government has the power to order doctors back to work if it deems there is a serious risk to lives and public health.
The government has said the plan to increase annual medical school admissions by 2,000 starting from 2025 is vital to remedy a shortage of doctors in one of the world’s fastest-ageing societies.
The striking doctors argue that simply adding medical students will not address pay and work conditions, and could possibly exacerbate the problems.
Critics of the policy also accuse President Yoon Suk Yeol of picking a fight over medical reforms to benefit his party ahead of parliamentary elections in April.
A survey published last week by the Yonhap news agency found 84% of respondents supported adding more doctors, while 43% said striking physicians should be sternly punished.
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Malawi Activists Lobby for Abortion Law Reforms
In Malawi, 35,000 backstreet abortions were carried out in 2022 and 2023, according to its Ministry of Health. These unsafe procedures are just one reason support for abortion rights has increased in recent years. Chimwemwe Padatha has more from Lilongwe.
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