WORLD NEWS FLASH
UNITED STATES
Stop us if you’ve heard this before: A man comes into an LGBTQ establishment and shoots up the place with an assault rifle.
Once again, there has been a mass shooting in America. Once again, it was an AR-15 style weapon. Once again, it touched the classification of a hate crime. Once again, measures to prevent certain people from owning a weapon failed.
On the night of Nov. 19, 22-year-old Anderson Lee Aldrich – the alleged suspect – came into Club Q – a gay bar in Colorado Springs – wearing body armor and opened fire, killing five people and injuring 19 people by his gunfire alone. Others were hurt in the scramble to escape.
U.S. Army veteran Richard M. Fierro, a patron at the club, was able to subdue the shooter, with the assistance of Thomas James, who got the rifle away from the gunman, and a trans woman who is said to have stomped the suspect with her high heels.
There is no clear motive as to why Aldrich committed the crime, but he once was taken into custody for making a bomb threat against his mother. Despite being on a “red flag” list, he was still able to have the AR-15 style weapon along with a handgun he also carried with him. Aldrich, who changed his name from Nicholas Brink just before his 16th birthday while living in Texas, is facing five murder charges as well as hate crimes charges.
“On behalf of the U.S. Attorney’s Office and the Department of Justice, we offer our deepest condolences to the victims and their families, and our sorrow for the tragedy that has unfolded here. We will work closely with District Attorney Michael Allen, with local law enforcement, Mayor Suthers, and the Colorado Springs community to ensure the person who did this is brought to justice,” said U.S. Attorney Cole Finegan in a statement.
After the shooting, support of the LGBTQ community was in full force. During the American Music Awards, Best New Artist award winner Dove Cameron, who identifies as queer, voiced her appreciation and support for the community. Cameron is also a Daytime Emmy Award winner for the Disney show “Liv & Maddie.”
The shooting at Club Q elicited memories of the Pulse nightclub massacre from 2016, in which 49 people lost their lives. It remains the worst LGBTQ targeted mass shooting in history.
ASIA
OVER 260 DEAD IN EARTHQUAKE
A crushing earthquake in Indonesia has taken the lives of a haunting number of people.
On Nov. 21, a 5.6 tremor shook the island of Java, toplling buildings and all sorts of infrastructure. As of press time, 268 people have been reported dead, with at least 150 listed as missing, and well over 1,000 injured.
The epicenter, near the city of Cianjur, struck the country’s most densely populated province in West Java. Rescue efforts have been hampered by blocked roads and damaged bridges. Nearby villages were also hit with landslides.
Many of those injured in the earthquake have been treated in the open on whatever streets that still stand, as hospitals are completely overrun.
Indonesia, which boasts over 270 million people, is frequently struck by earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and tsunamis because of its location near the “Ring of Fire” in the Pacific. Just this past February, a magnitude 6.2 earthquake killed at least 25 people and injured more than 460 in West Sumatra. In 2004, an earthquake in the Indian Ocean triggered a tsunami that killed close to 230,000 people in a dozen countries, with most of them in Indonesia.
MIDDLE EAST
IRAN’S RAMPAGE CONTINUES
More than 40 people have been killed in Iran during the past week, including two teenagers, the UN human rights office, OHCHR, said on Nov 22.
The development came amid ongoing nationwide protests sparked by the death in custody of Jina Mahsa Amini. The 22-year-old from Iran’s Kurdistan region was arrested by Iran’s so-called “morality police” on Sept. 13 for not wearing her hijab properly.
According to OHCHR, thousands have been detained throughout the country for joining peaceful protests.
“At least six people connected to the protests have been sentenced to death on charges of ‘moharebeh,’ or ‘waging war against God’, or ‘efsad-e fel-arz,’ or ‘corruption on earth,’ said spokesperson Jeremy Laurence.
“A growing number of people, including Iranian celebrities and sportswomen and men who have expressed support for the protests, have been summoned or arrested,” he added.
According to OHCHR, security officers reportedly responded “forcefully” to demonstrations in several mainly Kurdish locations on Monday evening, including Javanrud and Saqqez, Ms. Amini’s hometown.
Two 16-year-old boys were among six people killed over the weekend, according to the UN rights office, which noted that more than 300 people have lost their lives, including 40 children, since nationwide protests erupted on Sept. 16.
OHCHR also reiterated concerns that the authorities have refused to release the bodies of the dead to their families, or making their release “conditional” on not speaking to the media.
“With respect to bodies not being returned to their families, of course that’s of grave concern to us,” said Mr. Laurence.
“What is the motive behind that, I’m not sure. But the families have the right to have the bodies of their loved ones returned to them. It’s cruel that they’re not.”
Mr. Laurence noted that the security forces’ approach had hardened to protesters, who have been killed in 25 of Iran’s 31 provinces, including more than 100 in Sistan and Baluchistan.
He urged the authorities to address people’s demands for “equality, dignity and rights” – instead of using disproportionate force against demonstrators.
“The lack of accountability for gross human rights violations in Iran remains persistent and is contributing to the growing grievances,” said the OHCHR spokesperson.
The Iranian authorities have also reported that a number of security force personnel have been killed since the start of the protests.
AFRICA
FIGHTING RESISTANT DISEASE
A new strategy has been launched to address the urgent problem of antimalarial drug resistance in Africa, the World Health Organization (WHO) announced on Nov. 18.
Sub-Saharan Africa accounts for a disproportionately high share of the global malaria burden, with around 96 percent of all cases and deaths in 2020. As a result of drug resistance, medicines to treat the life-threatening disease become ineffective.
Malaria is caused by parasites that are transmitted to humans through the bites of infected female Anopheles mosquitoes.
In recent years, there have been reports from the continent of emerging parasite resistance to artemisinin, the core compound of the best available medicines to treat malaria, said WHO.
Furthermore, worrying signs indicate parasites in some areas may be resistant to drugs that are commonly combined with artemisinin.
“Although antimalarial drug resistance is a serious cause for concern, artemisinin-based combination therapies (ACTs) remain the best available treatment for uncomplicated P. falciparum malaria,” said Dr. Pascal Ringwald, lead author of the new strategy and a Coordinator in the WHO Global Malaria Program.
Parasite resistance to artemisinin has been identified in the Greater Mekong sub-region in Southeast Asia, and several areas in Africa, notably Eritrea, Rwanda and Uganda.
While artemisinin resistance alone rarely results in treatment failure, WHO said resistance to both artemisinin and the partner drug within ACT regimens can lead to high failure rates.
In response, the Antimicrobial Resistance Multi-Stakeholder Partnership Platform was launched to ensure the growing threats and impacts of antimicrobial resistance are addressed globally.
The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the UN Environment Program (UNEP), the World Health Organization (WHO) and the World Organization for Animal Health (WOAH), known as the Quadripartite are joining forces on this initiative to underscore the threat AMR presents to humans, animals, plants, ecosystems and livelihoods.
