Month: April 2019

An Australian newspaper responded to allegations of racism on Wednesday by reprinting on its front page a controversial cartoon depicting Serena Williams having a temper tantrum at the US Open.

Melbourne’s Herald Sun, owned by News Corp, first published the caricature of Williams with exaggerated lips and a butch physique on Monday, triggering outrage around the world.

Mark Knight, who drew the picture, was forced to deny his image was racist and shut down his Twitter account amid the growing clamour.

Despite the outrage, the paper reprinted the cartoon alongside unflattering caricatures of US President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, attempting to portray the controversy as an effort to curtail free speech.

"If the self-appointed censors of Mark Knight get their way on his Serena Williams cartoon, our new politically correct life will be very dull indeed," the paper wrote in an editorial on its front page.

Critics said the sketch drew on historical racist caricatures of African Americans, but in an interview with CBS News on Tuesday Mr Knight said:  "When I drew that cartoon, I wasn’t thinking of racial politics in America. I simply saw the world number one player having a dummy spit."

He added: "I’m not going to say I’m not going to draw that because it’s a no-go area". 

The Herald Sun’s editor, Damon Johnston, also leaped to his cartoonist defence saying the sketch "rightly mocks poor behaviour by a tennis legend".

Mr Knight closed down his social media accounts on Tuesday after facing withering criticism from more than 20,000 online commentators over the image.

British author JK Rowling added her voice to the chorus, tweeting: "Well done on reducing one of the greatest sportswomen alive to racist and sexist tropes and turning a second great sportswoman into a faceless prop."

Williams sparked controversy over her conduct in Saturday’s final against Haitian-Japanese player Naomi Osaka when she smashed her racquet and called the umpire a "thief" and a "liar".

Williams was given three code violations, earning her a point penalty and then a game penalty which gave Osaka a 5-3 second-set lead that effectively gifted her the title. 

The penalties stirred a debate in the tennis world over double standards toward men and women in the sport.

In Mr Knight’s cartoon, Williams can be seen jumping up and down with a broken racquet next to a baby’s dummy as the umpire asks Osaka "can’t you just let her win?".

Mr Knight, who has a reputation for controversial cartoons, was pilloried from far and wide for his portrayal – including by a number of US media outlets. 

In a searing piece, The Washington Post’s cartoonist Michael Cavna said the "racist" sketch was reminiscent of the "vile imagery" popularised during the era of racial segregation in the US.

"Knight draws facial features reflecting the dehumanizing Jim Crow caricatures so common in the 19th and 20th centuries," Mr Cavna wrote.

Others pointed out that Osaka, who is mixed race, was portrayed as a petite and feminine white woman with jet blonde straight hair. In fact, Osaka has dark curly hair and is taller than Williams.

America’s National Association of Black Journalists called the cartoon "repugnant on many levels". 

"[It] not only exudes racist, sexist caricatures of both women, but Williams’ depiction is unnecessarily sambo-like," the organisation said in a statement. 

The Story of Little Black Sambo was a 19th Century children’s book which featured derogatory racial depictions such as characters with thick red lips.

The cartoonist initially responded to the criticism by stating he had "no knowledge of those cartoons or that period", saying on Tuesday that "the world has just gone crazy".

Serena Williams' US Open 2018 final umpire row

He pointed out that he had drawn an unflattering portrayal of Australian male tennis star Nick Kyrgios "behaving badly". 

"Don’t bring gender into it when it’s all about behaviour," he said, but by noon on Tuesday he had closed down both his Facebook and Twitter accounts.

Mr Knight was also accused of racism last month for a cartoon on train station safety which showed faceless black figures fighting in a Melbourne subway.

The publishers of the Melbourne’s Herald Sun,  Australia’s most-read newspaper, also defended the cartoonist saying "the world has gone too PC".

 

A Hong Kong woman has claimed she was duped into marrying a stranger during a job offer scam in mainland China. 

The 21-year-old who has not been named said she had been asked to participate in a mock marriage ceremony as part of a training course to become a wedding planner. 

However, during the ceremony, in Fuzhou, Fujian, she and the man, who was a similar age, signed a genuine marriage document and were officially married. 

The alleged scammers had told the woman that there would be no problem because they knew the mayor, reported the South China Morning Post.

“They said they would void [the marriage record] afterwards,” she said. She only realised that she was actually married when she returned to Hong Kong and sought legal help, but the police were unable to step in due to lack of evidence. Instead the woman turned to the Hong Kong Federation of Trade Unions (FTU).

Tong Kang-yiu, director of the FTU’s rights and benefits committee, told the SCMP that the woman may be just one of many victims of a larger racket.

“We hope that by sharing this case, those who haven’t realised they were scammed will be aware,” Tong said. “The police failed to handle the case instantly. We need to give the police more pressure to take this problem seriously,” he said.

“We handed the case to the police for investigation. We are still waiting for advice from lawyers for further action.”

The motives behind the case are not yet known. However, mainland residents with a spouse in Hong Kong can apply for a one-way permit to settle in the city. 

The young woman told reporters that she had wanted to work in the beauty industry and had first been lured by an advert for a make-up artist job on Facebook which offered free training and did not require previous work experience. 

When she applied for the job she was told that she could earn more money as a wedding planner but that she would be required to play the role of a bride and sign a marriage certificate as part of the qualification procedure. 

A friend later convinced her that she had become a victim of a scam and she sought help.  There was no money involved. “My biggest loss was having a marriage record,” she said.   

He is less than three feet tall, but he packs muscles, power and swagger in a little frame. Microman is the smallest star in Mexican professional wrestling.

Mexico’s "lucha libre," a wildly popular mix of sport and entertainment, long featured small figures and dwarves in a deeply demeaning role: they were "mascotas" – a word that can mean both "mascot" and "pet" – for full-size wrestlers.

But a new generation of little people are now rising lucha libre stars in their own right, and dream of one day headlining the main events on their fight cards.

Microman wowed a skeptical crowd at one recent bout in Mexico City, where he and two co-stars, El Gallito and Guapito, took on another team of small-sized wrestlers.

He and his fellow "Micro Stars" were met with a smattering of jeers when they got in the ring.

But Microman silenced them when he climbed onto the top rope – more than three times his height – to execute a high-flying leap straight into the neck of his also small, but larger, rival.

He then flattened another with an acrobatic headstand kick known as the "Zero Gravity" move.

The audience went wild in Arena Mexico, the high cathedral of lucha libre.

"Did you see how he held that headstand on top of the ropes? He does it really well," said one impressed fan, 28-year-old construction worker Juan Carlos Elizalde.

"He’s really tiny, but look how he fights!" said another, 30-year-old Felipe Escorza.

Microman, 19, takes it all in with an attitude befitting lucha libre’s biggest little star.

"Microman is a wrestler who gives everything he’s got for the crowd," he said, referring to himself in the third person.

Microman was fighting in the second match of the night – four bouts down from the top of the fight card.

But just having his name on the billing shows the progress he and other little wrestlers have made since his father’s time.

Microman is the son of Kemonito, who was also a midget wrestler but had a very different career.

For 30 years, Kemonito was a "mascota" for full-size wrestlers, a laughable sidekick who provided comic relief until the real action started.

Working conditions and the level of respect have improved dramatically since then in the Mexican professional wrestling league, the World Lucha Libre Council (CMLL), says Catalina Gaspar, an activist for little people’s rights.

"They train them professionally now. I’ve been really happy to see that. Twenty years ago, they threw them in the ring with wrestlers who were two metres (more than 6’6") tall, and they got injured a lot," Ms Gaspar told AFP.

Kemonito’s generation had no health insurance or benefits, but put up with the job for lack of other options, she said.

"Some of them were paralysed… One even committed suicide," she said.

"But now they are seen as idols, not mascots or buffoons."

But Ms Gaspar, who is herself just over one metre tall, said there was still a long way to go: social security benefits, pension plans and other support for "life after wrestling."

The eight Micro Stars debuted in April 2017 as the third weight category in the CMLL.

Their coach, wrestling legend The Last Warrior, remembers it as a revelation.

"It was Children’s Day, and it was awesome. Everybody in the crowd was going crazy," he said.

Microman himself said he did not know just what to expect that day.

"I didn’t know people would react like that, that they would back me so much without even knowing me. I think it was my happiest day in wrestling," he said.

The Micro Stars started out with abbreviated bouts, but now fight full-length matches just like their bigger peers.

They do not earn a regular salary, but they get medical care, health insurance and a guarantee of at least two events per month, according to the CMLL.

Increasingly, that includes the league’s prized weekend fight nights.

"That makes you nervous, because you never know what will happen, whether people will like it," said Microman.

"But when you enter the arena and start walking down the bridge, you just do what you have to do, which is show everything you know in the ring."

Three-time ex-premier Silvio Berlusconi predicted that Italy will see a return to a right-wing coalition in government "in the not too distant future" as cracks begin to show in the current populist alliance. 

The billionaire centre-right Forza Italia leader made his comments after hosting talks at his Rome palace home on Thursday with anti-migrant League party leader and Interior Minister Matteo Salvini, and the leader of the far-right nationalist Brothers of Italy (FdI) party, Giorgia Meloni.

"My forecast is that in a not too distant future the centre right will return to government and the leadership of the country for the good fortune of Italy and the Italians, who will emerge quite soon from the inebriation they have shown for the 5-Star Movement," he said after the summit. 

The three parties released a statement saying they would field single candidates representing their right-wing alliance in all upcoming 2019 regional elections, starting with Piedmont, Abruzzo, Basilicata and Sardinia.

And while Mr Salvini refused to speculate on how long the current governing coalition, formed last spring by Salvini’s League party and the anti-establishment 5-star Movement, might last, Brothers of Italy (Fdl) leader Giorgia Meloni said that the League was "realising that it is difficult to find an agreement” with the more left-leaning 5-Star Movement.

New faultlines are showing in the coalition as the two sides struggle to agree on budget priorities and a contentious immigration decree that would reform how migrants are accepted, processed and managed once they have entered Italy.

Though the draft is still being tweaked by both sides, Mr Salvini is pressing for the cabinet to approve his ministry’s decree on migration and asylum on Monday. 

Leaders of the 5-Star Movement are manoeuvering to change several contentious points of the decree, including the revocation of “humanitarian reasons” as one of options for requesting stay permits. The plan also calls for millions more to be budgeted to pay for repatriations and greatly expands the scope of authorities’ ability to revoke citizenship – such as for threats to security, terrorism affiliation or committing other crimes.

“There’s been no setback, actually we are taking two steps forward,” Mr Salvini said when asked if the reforms had run into trouble.

Austria’s far-Right interior ministry has been plunged into new contoversy over plans to ban “extremist” symbols including salutes used by Islamic extremists and Turkish and Kurdish nationalists.

But the proposals have been ridiculed after it emerged that some of the hand signals could easily be confused with common gestures including the peace sign and Churchill’s “V for victory” salute.

It is not an Austrian attempt to sabotage Churchill’s legacy, and nor are tourists going to be arrested for making the gesture while taking selfies in Vienna.

The proposed ban is part of a new crackdown on extremist groups by the interior ministry, which is controlled by the far-Right Freedom Party (FPÖ), the junior partner in Austria’s coalition government.

The Hitler salute and other Nazi symbols are already forbidden in Austria, and Herbert Kickl, the interior minister, wants to extend the ban to other extremist groups.

But critics say the proposals are further evidence of authoritarian tendencies after the interior ministry sent a letter to police advising them not to give information to newspapers considered unfriendly to the government.

That plunged the ministry into a row over freedom of the press and Sebastian Kurz, the chancellor, had to intervene to overrule the new press policy.

The new ban is a “massive restriction of freedom of expression”, Thomas Schmidinger, a political scientist at Vienna university, told Kurier newspaper.

“Thousands would be criminalised. These are people who already feel marginalised and would be forced further into marginalisation,” he said.

The ministry has yet to specify all the extremist symbols and greetings it wants to ban, but they are said to include the four-fingered salute of the Muslim Brotherhood.

The ministry has also said it wants to ban symbols associated with Turkish nationalists and the militant Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK).

But critics have pointed out that the greeting used by PKK supporters is essentially the same as Churchill’s V for victory salute and the peace sign — making a ban difficult to enforce.

Iran launched ballistic missiles into eastern Syria on Monday in response to last month’s shooting attack on a military parade which killed 24 people, Iran’s Revolutionary Guard said.  

The pre-dawn strikes with surface-to-surface missiles and drones were aimed at the area around Abu Kamal, where the last remnants of Islamic State (Isil) are still holding territory, according to Iranian media. 

The Revolutionary Guard said the strike targeted “the headquarters of Takfiri terrorists”, a term that Iran’s government uses to describe to Sunni jihadists like Isil.    

“Many Takfiri terrorists and the leaders responsible for the terrorist crime in Ahvaz have been killed or wounded in this missile attack," the Guard said in a statement.

The US-led military coalition confirmed that Iran had carried out strikes near Albu Kamal but said that it was “still assessing” if the missiles hit their targets. 

Iran initially blamed Arab separatists backed by the US and Gulf Arab states for the September 22 attack on a military parade in the southwestern city of Ahvaz. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader, later implied that Isil was to blame.  

Both the Arab separatists and Isil claimed responsibility for the attack and Monday’s strikes appeared to be aimed at Isil. 

Iran carried out similar strikes in Syria in June 2017 in response to an Isil attack on the Iranian parliament and the mausoleum of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the founder of the Islamic Republic. 

Iran’s semi-official Fars News Agency said six Zolfaqar and Qiam class missiles were fired from western Iran and flew 350 miles through Iraqi airspace to strike targets in eastern Syria. 

At least one of the missiles was painted with the slogans “Death to America”, “Death to Israel”, and “Death to al Saud” – a reference to the ruling family of Saudi Arabia, according to Fars. 

The agency said that seven Revolutionary Guard drones attacked minutes after the missiles struck. 

General Mohsen Rezai, former head of the Guard, said the attack "was only a jab against these criminals. The real punishment is yet to come.” 

Iran has a history of making false claims about the success of its missiles and there was no independent confirmation of the Guard’s claims to have killed jihadist fighters. 

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the missiles struck the town of Hajin, where Isil fighters are battling against US-backed Kurdish and Syrian forces. 

Colonel Sean Ryan, a spokesman for the US-led coalition, said Iran gave no notice ahead of the strikes. 

"At this time, the coalition is still assessing if any damage occurred and no coalition forces were in danger," he said. 

Kathryn Dy (not her real name) was just 17 when she found out she was HIV positive.

It was a huge shock, but – as she discovered at almost the same time – prejudice among her neighbours meant that most already thought she was infected, because she is a young, transgender, bisexual woman living in the Philippines.

That’s why her name was on a list that was read out on a loudspeaker announcement blasted across her area in Santa Cruz, Manila, just days before. The list included the names of anyone the authorities suspected of being gay, who should get tested.

“At first I didn’t mind [being outed over the loudspeaker]. My friends all knew, and I felt like the testing was nothing, like it was a game, because I was so sure I was not positive,” she said. “Then I got my results.” 

Two years later, she remembers how the shock made her suicidal. 

“I knew the end of the story was death, and my life was nothing anymore, so I may as well do it now,” she said. She didn’t tell her family, and started drinking every day and taking drugs.

Global summary of HIV

Kathryn hardly knew anything about HIV or Aids or how the virus spread, and had only heard scare stories about treatment.

“No-one had ever talked to me about safe sex,” she said. “I only knew cancer and not HIV, and I was not aware of condoms. I only knew them as something to play with, something to have in your wallet for luck.”

Kathryn is one of thousands of young people left dangerously in the dark in the Philippines over HIV – and this lack of information is one of the major reasons why infection rates in the country, particularly among young people, are rising alarmingly. In fact, the Philippines is one of the only countries in the world where HIV is on the increase.  

According to UNAIDS’ 2018 report, the Philippines has the fastest growing epidemic in the Asia Pacific region, and amongst the fastest in the world.

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UNAIDs and the Philippines department of health data indicate that the country’s infection rate increased by 174 per cent from 2010 to 2017 – that’s 31 new cases reported every day last year. Several groups are particularly affected: men who have sex with men (and transgender women who have sex with men), people who inject drugs and sex workers.

The overall prevalence in the population remains low – less than 0.1 per cent. But that is changing, and there is another worrying trend. The people getting infected are getting younger. New research from Unicef in several badly-hit cities found that 33 per cent of the new cases were among children aged between 10 and 17.

There are a number of reasons for this, says Unicef’s Aids specialist, Mario Balibago – although one stands out.

“In the last two decades, there has been no comprehensive sex education of any kind,” she says.

At the same time, there’s a mismatch in the law. While the age of consent in the Philippines is just 12, adolescents can’t get HIV tests without the permission of their parents until they are 18, meaning the infection can spread unchecked.

One organisation trying to tackle this is LoveYourself, an HIV awareness-raising and testing juggernaut with some bold branding. In a recent testing drive, volunteers wore t-shirts with the slogan ‘Suck, F**k, Test, Repeat’. It provides social workers who step in to give ‘parental’ consent so that teens can get tested. 

“Our mantra is dare to know who you are and your status, take care of yourself, and share the news,” says Danvic Rosadino, a programme officer at LoveYourself.

He says only 15 per cent of 15-24 year olds know everything about HIV prevention. He’s HIV negative, but he remembers being one of them when he went for his first test. 

But LoveYourself is rare. The Philippines remains a Catholic country; shame and stigma lurk. While adolescents can legally buy condoms, Unicef’s Ms Balibago says staff often refuse to sell to them. Unsurprisingly – and out of line with much of the rest of the world – the country also has soaring teen pregnancy rates.   

It didn’t help when the controversial Philippines president, Rodrigo Duterte, said earlier this year that having sex with a condom is like eating a sweet with the wrapper on.

God and big pharma | HIV's new adversaries in Africa

Kathryn first had sex when she was 10, abused by her older cousin.

“We were watching Tom and Jerry, then when my friends left, my cousin started touching me,” she says. But she doesn’t blame the 17-year-old.

“I felt in heat when I was touched…and then I found myself looking for sex,” she says. “Now I have regrets that I was too young to have that libido, and that’s the reason I got HIV. I blame myself, and God.”

She should also blame her government, says Senator Risa Hontiveros, because it hasn’t done enough to protect young people. She’s the author of a new HIV/Aids bill about to become law, which is pushing better sex education and more funding for prevention and treatment.

“This is a national emergency. We are trying to change that,” she said.  

It is about time, says Kathryn, and her backers at Pinoy Plus, a Filipino organisation for people living with HIV that is now trying to engage adolescents. 

They say the picture on treatment in the country is actually quite good: anti-retrovirals are accessible, often for free, although patients report long queues that begin at 3am.

But the stigma and ignorance that discourage people from talking about HIV prevention in the first place linger for people living with the virus. Kathryn’s family make her use separate utensils, and she is struggling to get her old job back, at a burger chain, because of her condition.

“I tell myself, couldn’t it have changed a lot if I had had that information, to use a condom? If I had only been taught when I was young,” she says.  

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