Tuesday, April 27, 2021

Rose McGowan

 

 Rose McGowan tells her truth.  Do they really think they can attack her and that will silence her?  At this point, they still haven't learned she won't be intimidated into silence?

 

Here's C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot:"

 

 Tuesday, April 27, 2021.   Fall out from Saturday's injustice continues in Iraq, Moqtada al-Sadr makes an alliance, is the Australian government doing anything at all to assist an Australian citizen imprisoned in Iraq, and much more.


Saturday, a fire broke out at  Ibn al-Khatib Hospital in Baghdad, ignited when an oxygen tank exploded.  As noted in yesterday's snapshot, the death toll of 82 would likely increase.  Sura Ali (RUDAW) reports:

The death toll of a massive fire that ripped through Baghdad’s Ibn al-Khatib Hospital Saturday night has risen to around 130, according to Iraq’s human rights commission.

A report released following a fact-finding mission by the government-funded Iraqi High Commission for Human Rights reports a higher number of casualties than the government’s previous toll, on Sunday, of 82 deaths. It notes that many of the bodies have yet to be identified due to being burned beyond recognition.  

The commission has found that the fire started after an oxygen cylinder exploded in a patient wing crowded with visitors. They say the number of people allowed in the space is evidence of the hospital’s failure to abide by the instructions of the ministry of health.

Fire extinguishing equipment present in the hospital was not used due to people not being aware of where it was stored, it says, also noting that many patients were rescued by companions and family members, rather than civil defense teams.


THE ARAB WEEKLY notes:


Widespread negligence on the part of health officials is to blame for a fire that ripped through a Baghdad hospital, Iraq’s prime minister, Mustafa al-Kadhimi, said Sunday.

Following a special cabinet meeting to discuss the blaze, Kadhimi suspended Health Minister Hassan al-Tamimi — who is backed by the powerful Shia leader Moqtada Sadr — as part of a probe that also includes the governor of Baghdad.

The fire that killed more than 80 people triggered outrage on social media, with a widespread hashtag demanding the health minister be sacked.

The Hezbollah Brigades, one of Iraq’s most radical pro-Iran factions, on Sunday evening demanded that the government quit.

Kadhimi, in a tweet, urged Iraqis “to be united in solidarity and to refrain from playing politics with this national catastrophe.”


Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi ccame to power in May of last year.  Like all of the post-2003-invasion prime ministers, he pledged to end corruption.  He did not.  And now the same interests involved in the corruption that led to the loss of so many lives in Saturday's fire?  Mustafa needs their support if he's to remain prime minister  after this year's election.  


Offering him a possible life raft?  Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr.  THE ARAB WEEKLY explains:


Iraqi Shia cleric Moqtada Sadr has pledged to support Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi for a second term, if the latter decides not to run a party of his own in the upcoming parliamentary elections.

An Iraqi political source familiar with the matter revealed to The Arab Weekly the existence of electoral understandings between Kadhimi and Sadr. According to these , the source said, the Sadrist movement will support the current prime minister  to remain at the head of the government in exchange for Kadhimi’s commitment not to form a party or a bloc and not to enter the parliamentary elections that are expected to take place this October.

The source confirmed to The Arab Weekly that these understandings are supported by Shia political forces represented by the former premier Haider al-Abadi and the head of the Wisdom Movement Ammar al-Hakim, as well as by Sunni forces represented by parliamentary speaker Muhammad al-Halbousi and Kurdish groups led by  the former president of the Kurdistan Region Masoud Barzani.



Moqtada is supposedly riding a new cusp.  Supposedly.  I don't believe it and there's nothing to back it up.  He's still out of power and still reviled.  He broke with the protesters in February of 2021 and then engaged in embarrassing behavior including making demands and issuing orders that were not just ignored, but openly mocked.  One example, in April of last year, he demanded that males and females not protest together.  He looked out of touch and that was before the mocking began.  


Older people watched in amazement as he gave up his leadership role to throw a weeks long tantrum in public.  He hasn't recovered from that.  Equally true, the issue of corruption raised by the protesters?  Moqtada's got corruption issues of his own.  His base is in the Sadr City section of Baghdad which is a slum.  Which was a slum in 2003 and continues to be to this day.  He's delivered nothing for his cult.   And that became an issue on Arabic social media late last year.  


If Moqtada is making deals to back Khadimi, that's only one more indication that Moqtada is not riding as high as he and his followers claim.


On the issue of the government, Catherine Pepinster (THE TABLET) reports:


Christians in Iraq will only be able to live safely and securely if religion is separated from the state, the head of the Chaldean Catholic Church has warned. According to Cardinal Louis Sako, the Christian community continues to suffer discrimination in a country that does not recognise Christians as citizens with full rights. 

“We still have a problem with corruption and sectarianism”, he said, during a webinar hosted by the charity Fellowship and Aid to the Christians of the East. “We need a secular regime. In many Western communities this protects people. We need to focus on this strongly with political leaders”. 

Cardinal Sako’s comments came in a wide-ranging conversation with Cardinal Michael Fitzgerald, with participants via Zoom from around the world. The discussion came just weeks after Pope Francis’ visit to Iraq, when Cardinal Sako accompanied him. It was a landmark visit, said the cardinal, with many Muslims in Iraq learning about the Pope, the Vatican and the Catholic Church for the first time through media coverage in the run-up to the visit. He said he believed that the impact of the visit was greater on Muslims than Christians. 

“It changed the mentality of people. It touched the heart of all Iraqis, perhaps Muslims more than Christians because it was the first time they could hear and see the Pope. He came for all Iraqis. After years of destruction we heard a message of peace and fraternity”. 


Amnesty International MENA has a thread on the hospital fire:

1. After the horrific #BaghdadHospitalFire at Ibn al-Khatib, we call on the
@iraqigovt
to bring justice to the victims, hold those responsible accountable & take steps to ensure this never happens again. A hospital must be a safe space for people battling for their lives.
Image
9:38 AM · Apr 26, 2021


2. A thorough investigation is needed for accountability & to prevent negligence resulting in such a catastrophe. Iraq’s neglected healthcare system is grappling with being one of the worst hit by #COVID19 in the region. Comprehensive safety measures need to be put in place now!
9:38 AM · Apr 26, 202


3. Justice for the victims must also include immediate steps to prioritize #Iraq’s fragile health system, further debilitated by lack of adequate procedures to ensure safety of staff and patients. Investigations must lead to urgent change to ensure this never happens again.
9:38 AM · Apr 26, 2021



In other news, MEHR NEWS AGENCY notes yet another attack on a US convoy in Iraq:


Iraqi sources reported on Tues. that another US military logistics convoy was targeted in Al-Diwaniyah, the capital of Al-Qādisiyyah Governorate, and Babil Governorate, to become the third convoy targetted on the same day.

No further data has been released about the damages. 

Earlier on Tues., Iraqi resources reported that two roadside bombs exploded Tuesday near US military convoys in Dhi Qar Governorate, in southern Iraq.


Does the Australian government ever do anything to protect its citizens?  They've done nothing to stop the persecution of Julian Assange.   Now they have a citizen in Iraq who's been tossed into a hole.  Steve Jackson (THE AUSTRALIAN) reports:


An Australian father of three has been able to speak to his family for the first since he was seized by Iraqi police and thrown in prison three weeks ago after being tricked into attending a fake business meeting with one of the country’s leading institutions.

Robert Pether, who grew up on Sydney’s north shore and attended Knox Grammar School, was arrested, along with an Egyptian colleague, when they arrived for an appointment set up by the Central Bank of Iraq in Baghdad on April 7.

The 46-year-old mechanical engineer had been in the country for about a week to try to resolve a contractual dispute between his Dubai-based building company and the bank over the construction of the financial institution’s landmark new headquarters which has been in the works for about four years.

Mr Pether’s wife, Desree, said he had spent a fortnight in solitary confinement after his arrest before being moved into a cell with his colleague and that she had only been able to talk to him for the first time since he was locked up on Tuesday night.


We'll wind down by noting this from Caitlin Johnstone:


This year has marked the first time ever that trust in news media dropped below fifty percent in the United States, continuing a trend of decline that’s been ongoing for years.

Mass media punditry is divided on where to assign the blame for the plummet in public opinion of their work, with some blaming it on Russia and others blaming it on Donald Trump. Others, like a recent Forbes article titled “Restoring Public Trust In Technology And Media Is Infrastructure Investment” blame it on the internet. Still others, like a Washington Post article earlier this month titled “Bad news for journalists: The public doesn’t share our values” blame it on the people themselves.

The one thing they all seem to agree on is that it’s definitely not because the billionaire-controlled media are propaganda outlets which manipulate us constantly in conjunction with sociopathic government agencies to protect the oligarchic, imperialist status quo upon which the members of the billionaire class have built their respective kingdoms. It cannot possibly be because people sense that they are being lied to and are fed up with it.

And actually it doesn’t ultimately matter what mainstream pundits and reporters believe is the cause of the public’s growing disgust with them, because there’s nothing they can do to fix it anyway. The mass media will never regain the public’s trust.

They’ll never regain the public’s trust for a couple of reasons, the first of which is because they’ll never be able to become trustworthy. At no point will the mass media ever begin wowing the public with its journalistic integrity and causing people to re-evaluate their opinion of mainstream news reporters. At no point will people’s disdain for these outlets ever cease to be reinforced and confirmed by the manipulative and deceitful behaviors which caused that disdain in the first place.



The following sites updated:



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Monday, April 26, 2021

Excuse me?

Dean Obeidallah is furious over at CNN because Elon Musk will be hosting:

"Saturday Night Live" has invited to host its May 8 show a billionaire who said "the coronavirus panic is dumb," promoted the potential benefits of "chloroquine," compared the deadly virus to another form of the cold in January 2020, and in March 2020 predicted to his millions of Twitter followers that there would be "close to zero new cases" by the end of April -- the month he demanded an end to pandemic closures.

No, it's not disgraced former President Donald Trump. This time, producers have tapped Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla.


Excuse me?


Just STFU, closet case.  SNL had Andrew Dice Clay host -- a very homophobic comic.  I don't think that anything they could ever do would be as bad as that.


Typical White male closet case avoiding that reality.  


As an African-American lesbian, I can't 'pass' the way Dean can.

 

Here's C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot:"

 

 

Monday, April 26, 2021. Nearly 200 Iraqis dead or wounded as a result of corruption and greed as officials ignored the need for security protocols at a hospital. 

 


Saturday saw an explosion at  Ibn al-Khatib Hospital in Baghdad.  BBC NEWS reports, "Reports say an accident had caused an oxygen tank to explode, sparking the blaze.  Videos on social media show firefighters scrambling to extinguish the flames as people flee the building."  Outlets -- including THE CONVERSATION -- note that at least 82 have died with another 110 injured.  Those two numbers, by the way, are the official numbers published by the Iraqi government.  The death toll could rise.  Last night and early this morning, the published death toll was 23.  AP Tweets:


Anxious relatives are searching for those missing after a blaze set off by an exploding oxygen cylinder killed 82 in a Baghdad coronavirus ward. The blaze described by a nurse as "volcanoes of fire" swept through the hospital's ICU unit. By
@samya_kullab


DEEP TECH Tweets:


Baghdad: ICU ward catches fire, 82 patients dead, 110 injured


AFP observes, "Iraq's hospitals have been worn down by decades of conflict and poor investment, with shortages in medicines and hospital beds." 


  CNN's Mohammed Tawfeeq speaks with an eye witness:


Murtadha Riyadh's grandmother and aunt were both on the hospital's second floor ICU ward when the fire erupted. 

 He was nearby picking up medicine for his grandmother when he suddenly heard explosions, he told CNN. "I ran back to the hospital. I called them to check on them. They told me, 'Don't come up, we are being evacuated,' but they could not make it."

"I rushed to the first floor (of the hospital) to help but I could not, I was suffocating. Then fire broke out," Riyadh said.
Minutes later health workers and neighborhood volunteers started carrying out charred bodies.

Samya Kullab (AP) also incorporates an eye witness:


Nurse Maher Ahmed was called to the scene late Saturday to help evacuate patients.

“I could not have imagined it would be a massive blaze like that,” he said. The flames overwhelmed the hospital’s second floor isolation hall within three to four minutes of the oxygen cylinder exploding, he said. “Volcanoes of fire.”


Also speaking to eye witnesses?  ALSUMARIA TV.




On Sunday, Pope Francis expressed his prayers for the victims and survivors.  The Martin Luther King Jr. Center Tweeted:


 Tragedy in Baghdad. We are praying for the families and communities mourning loved ones who died in this hospital fire.


KURDISTAN 24 Tweets:


People light candles in front of Erbil Citadel in the Kurdistan Region in solidarity with the victims of the deadly Ibn al-Khatib hospital fire in Baghdad.
Camera with flash
Safin Hamed / AFP - April 25, 2021
Image
Image
12:21 AM · Apr 26, 2021




Condolences were express by many countries and many leaders,  ASHARQ AL-AWSAT reports:

 

Saudi Arabia said on Sunday it was deeply saddened over a fire that broke out at a hospital in the Iraqi capital, leaving more than 80 people dead.

“The Kingdom expressed its sincere condolences and sympathy to the families of the victims, and to Iraq, the leadership, government and people,” the Saudi Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

THE TEHRAN TIMES notes, "Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh on Sunday expressed his deepest condolences to Iraq, especially the families of the victims of the fire at the Ibn Khatib hospital in Baghdad."  THE TIMES OF OMAN reports Oman's Sultan Haitham bin Tarik Al Said "has sent a cable of condolences to President Dr Barham Salih of the Republic of Iraq on victims of the fire that broke out in Ibn Al Khatib Hospital in Baghdad.  In the cable, His Majesty the Sultan expressed his sincere condolences and sympathy to President Dr Barham Salih, families of the victims, and the Iraqi brotherly people."  Halgurd Sherwani (KURDISTAN 24) notes the reaction from the Kurdish Regional Government with Kurdistan Region Prime Minister Masrour Barzani statting that the KRG intends to "offer all the necessary assistance for the victims of the blast, particularly medical aid and receiving the injured ones." ANHA notes Mazloum Abdi, who leads the US-backed militia or terrorist group the Syrin Democratic Forces, weighed in:

 

The Commander-in-Chief of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) expressed his solidarity with Iraq in the "tragedy of Ibn Al-Khatib Hospital" in Baghdad and offered condolences to the families of the victims.

Commenting on the fire incident of the "Ibn Al-Khatib" hospital in the Iraqi capital, Baghdad, which has claimed more than 82 deaths and 110 injuries so far, the SDF's Commander-in-Chief, tweeted: "We have received with great sadness and sorrow the news. The painful tragedy at Ibn Al-Khatib Hospital in Baghdad. We are in solidarity with Iraq in this ordeal. Condolences, patience and solace to the families of the martyrs, and we wish the wounded a speedy recovery."


The White House issued a statement from National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan:


We mourn the loss of life in the fire at Ibn al-Khatib hospital in Baghdad. We are in touch with Iraqi officials and have offered assistance. Our strategic partnership with Iraq is first and foremost a partnership between our two peoples. We are prepared to support the Government of Iraq and its people at this tragic moment. 


The hospital treats COVID patients and one would assume that they would be a more secure facility as a result.  While an oxygen cannister may have exploded that doesn't allow for 'accidents' when the hsopital was not equipped with the basics such as a fire sprinkler system.  As political theorist Judith N. Shklar noted in THE FACES OF INJUSTICE, there is a difference between a tragedy and an injustice -- an injustice could have been prevented.  The number of deaths could have been prevented had basic safety guidelines been in place at the hospital.


THE WASHIGTON POST's Liz Sly Tweets:


Q: What do the Baghdad hospital fire (82 dead) & the Beirut port explosion (215 dead) have in common? A: They were caused by criminal levels of neglect, corruption & mismanagement. The hospital had no sprinklers or fire hoses & a flammable ceiling.



Jean Shaoul (WSWS) explains:

On Sunday, amid fears that riots would break out, Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi held an emergency meeting at the headquarters of the Baghdad Operations Command, which coordinates Iraqi security forces. He declared three days of mourning after ordering an investigation into the fire and later firing several hospital officials and suspending the health minister pending investigations. However, Kadhimi’s pledge to carry out an inquiry and bring those responsible to justice are just empty words. The Iraqi people are still waiting for his promised investigation into those responsible for the deaths of more than 600 protesters in October 2019 to be named, let alone tried and punished.

Kadhimi is sitting atop a social powder keg, and he knows it. Unemployment, already high before the pandemic, has worsened, with at least 36 percent of the people and almost 50 percent of young people officially reported as unemployed. The average 18 year old has had just 6.2 years of schooling, although only four years in terms of actual educational achievement due to the disastrous state of the country’s education system, once one of the best in the Arab world. Some 3.2 million school-aged children are out of school. In conflict-affected areas, almost all school-aged children are missing out on an education.

Basic services, such as a regular electricity supply in the world’s third largest oil exporter and clean water, are a chimera. Poverty rates are soaring, with 16 million people living below the poverty line, as food prices soar. Cooking oil has risen to 2,500 dinars a bottle, up from 1,500 dinars, while imported foodstuffs have become more expensive because of the recent currency devaluation.


THESPUZZ Tweets:

Iraqis Blame Mismanagement, Corruption For Baghdad Hospital Fire


THE CONVERSATION offers  lengthy analysis which includes:


However, probably the biggest cause of the recent hospital tragedy is widespread corruption. It has emptied state coffers and crippled investment in important public infrastructure like hospitals.

Iraq is one of the most resource rich countries in the world, producing billions of dollars of oil each year. But, especially since 2003, much of this wealth has been siphoned out of the public pocket.

However, the state has been too weak to properly prosecute corruption, and for ordinary people this has affected everything from education to electricity provision, health services to not having potable water in your home.

This has relevant flow-on effects. Fire safety in a hospital is under resourced and comes very low on the list of problems to solve. You get hospitals with insufficient capacity to deal not only with COVID but an unexpected event like a fire. There may be insufficient training or systems in place to reduce fire risk or cope when one occurs. It’s not as though one instance of corruption caused this horrible fire but it’s easy to see how the broader problems of corruption can allow a situation like this to happen.


The United Nations News Center notes:


Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert offered her deepest condolences to the families of the scores of people who lost their lives during a blaze that erupted at the Ibn Khatib hospital on Saturday night and wished the 100-plus injured a full and speedy recovery.

According to reports, the accident was caused by the explosion of an oxygen tank.

Iraq's Civil Defence said that by the early hours of Sunday morning the fire was under control. 

Media reports said that the government's human rights commission issued a statement calling the incident “a crime against patients exhausted by Covid-19”. 

And emergency service officials said that many patients died when they were taken off oxygen machines to be evacuated, while others were suffocated by smoke, according to news sources. 

Future disasters must be stemmed before they start, Ms. Hennis-Plasschaert  said, calling for “stronger protection measures to ensure that such a disaster cannot reoccur”. 

Meanwhile, the UN continues to provide critical support to Iraq's health sector amid the pandemic and surging infections and stands ready to further assist the health authorities in combating the disease.  

On Sunday morning, Twitter was awash with concern over the tragic accident, including the UN Children’s Fund, which tweeted: “UNICEF extends its deepest condolences and sympathy to the families of those who lost their lives and those injured due to the fire that occurred at Ibn Al-Khatib Hospital in Baghdad”. 


MEMO reports;


In the aftermath of a deadly fire which took the lives of over 80 COVID-19 patients, Iraq's health minister and the governor of Baghdad have both been suspended, Anadolu Agency reported.

At a special Sunday Cabinet session, Health Minister Hassan Al-Tamimi and Baghdad Governor Muhammad Jaber were suspended and referred for investigations, said a statement by Prime Minister Mustafa Al-Kadhimi's media office.

It added that a commission chaired by Interior Minister Othman Al-Ghanimi was set up to investigate the deadly fire at Ibn Al-Khatib hospital and hold those responsible accountable.


Again, there is a difference between a tragedy and an injustice..  AFP's reporting may be the strongest when it comes to backing up that this was an injustice:


“It’s mismanagement that killed these people,” the doctor added, who, on condition of anonymity, angrily listed the hospital’s many shortcomings.

“Managers walk around smoking in the hospital where oxygen cylinders are stored,” he said. “Even in intensive care, there are always two or three friends or relatives at a patient’s bedside.”

And, he added, “this doesn’t just happen at Ibn al-Khatib, it’s like this in all the public hospitals.”

“When equipment breaks down, our director tells us not to report it,” said a nurse, in another hospital in Baghdad. “He says it would give a bad image of his establishment, but in reality, we have nothing that works.”

These institutions — which until the 1980s were the pride of Iraq, known across the Arab world for its free, high quality public health services — are now seen as an embarrassment by many.


This was an injustice.  Enough care was not taken for the patients to be safe.  The Iraqi people grasp that.  Dilan Sirwan (RUDAW) explains:


The tragedy sparked outrage on social media and the Iraqi High Commission for Human Rights (IHCHR) called for the dismissal of the minister of health, Hassan al-Tamimi.

“We ask the prime minister to dismiss the minister of health and his agents and to refer them to investigation,” read a statement from IHCHR, calling for Kadhimi to personally run the health ministry “with an advisory team of Iraqi medical universities and colleges to manage this vital ministry in this difficult situation.”

On Sunday afternoon, Kadhimi’s office announced he had suspended Health Minister Tamimi, Baghdad Governor Mohammad Jabir al-Atta, and the health director, Abdel Ghani al-Saadi, in Baghdad’s Rasafa district where Ibn Khatib hospital is located.  

The three officials are under investigation and Kadhimi has demanded results within five days. 


And the same outlet, Sura Ali and Yasmine Mosimann report:

Protests erupted in several Iraqi cities on Sunday evening in response to a massive hospital fire in Baghdad the previous night that many see as a result of the state’s corruption and mismanagement. 

Demonstrations took place in the provinces of Baghdad, Dhi Qar, Wasit, Babil, Karbala, Najaf, Muthanna and Basra in solidarity with the victims of the fire that ripped through Ibn al-Khatib Hospital on Saturday night. The incident, which has killed at least 82 people and injured another 110, has been widely blamed on the facility’s storage of oxygen cylinders.

 "What happened yesterday was a massacre, and it can happen in any hospital in any governorate in Iraq due to the dilapidated health system, so corrupt local governments must be dismissed first,” Najaf activist Saif al-Mansoori told Rudaw English on Sunday.










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