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https://www.nationthailand.com/international/40008499

Thousands in Yemen have turned to motorbike taxis after the years-long civil war has deprived them of jobs, land, and homes and pushed the country to the brink of starvation. “There isnt much choice in the war,” a local motorbike taxi driver laments.

Thousands of Yemenis have turned to motorbike taxis to make a living after the years-long war has deprived them of jobs, land, and homes.

Amid soaring prices and the ongoing fuel crisis caused by the war, motorbike taxis have attracted Yemeni passengers increasingly in the context of traffic congestion across the Yemeni cities due to low fuel consumption, cheap fare, speed as well as agility manoeuvers during peak hours.

In the Yemeni Red Sea city of Midi, displaced Ali Faidi chose to work as a motorbike taxi driver to feed his five children after he lost his home and farm in the prolonged civil war.

“I sold my wife’s jewellery and bought a motorbike to feed my family,” Faidi told Xinhua.

A Yemeni man stands beside his motorcycle on Nov. 5, 2021 in Hajjah Province, northern Yemen. (Photo by Mohammed Al-Wafi/Xinhua)

The 27-year-old father recalled that “I decided to get into this business after we fled the battle that destroyed our homes, shops, and farms in our village in Haradh district four years ago … we lost everything.”

“This work is hard and dangerous, and sometimes I don’t earn enough money to buy milk for my little girl,” he said while staring at his right hand’s index finger which was injured in a traffic accident.

Despite daily accidents reported in local media, motorcyclists across the country do not wear helmets or other safety equipment.

Mohamed Taher, a resident in the city, said he always takes a motorbike taxi to go to the market and return home.

“Taking a car taxi is very expensive and I cannot afford the fare, while the fare for a motorbike is low, even though its accidents are serious and fatal,” he added.

A Yemeni man buys petrol for his motorcycle from a make-shift oil station on Nov. 5, 2021 in Hajjah Province, northern Yemen. (Photo by Mohammed Al-Wafi/Xinhua)

Another motorbike taxi driver Abdullah Kadish noted that there isn’t much choice in the war.

“There are no jobs available here and no regular humanitarian aids to reach this besieged city, so I have to work all day long or my family will starve,” the 55-year-old man told Xinhua.

Midi city and parts of the neighboring districts of Hayran, Abs, and Haradh in the northwestern province of Hajjah are under the governmental force’s control, and the Houthi forces control the southern districts of the province.

The civil war flared up in late 2014 when the Iran-backed Houthi militia advanced from its stronghold in the northern province of Saada, seizing control of several northern provinces and forcing the Saudi-backed government of President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi out of the capital Sanaa.

The war has since killed tens of thousands of Yemenis, displaced 4 million, and pushed the country to the brink of starvation.  

A Yemeni man buys petrol for his motorcycle from a make-shift oil station on Nov. 5, 2021 in Hajjah Province, northern Yemen. (Photo by Mohammed Al-Wafi/Xinhua)

Published : November 07, 2021

By : Xinhua

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https://www.nationthailand.com/international/40008498

The U.S. Supreme Court seemed poised to ease gun control regulation, and it may cause problems for the U.S. society, The Guardian has recently reported.

Several justices have recently expressed scepticism over a New York law that tightens the rule on concealed firearms, the British newspaper said Wednesday, adding that the case “could lead to more guns on the streets of New York and California.”

CNN reported that 14,516 people died from gun violence in the United States between Jan. 1 and Sept. 15 this year, a 9-percent increase compared to the same period of time in 2020, according to The Guardian.

Published : November 07, 2021

By : Xinhua

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https://www.nationthailand.com/international/40008497

The COVID-19 pandemic, as well as gun violence and drug overdoses, have caused lasting damage to the U.S. workforce over the last two years, media have recently reported.

Almost 4.3 million people quit their jobs in August, the Labor Department said.

Nearly 900,000 people left their jobs at hotels and restaurants, while another 1.3 million quit retailers, and healthcare and social assistance employers, Labor Department data showed.

Since the outbreak of the pandemic, some 747,000 Americans have died of the coronavirus as of Nov. 4, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

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In addition, the CDC data showed that a record 93,331 people died of drug overdoses in the United States in 2020, almost 30 percent up from 2019.

According to Gun Violence Archive, gun-related deaths reached almost 44,000 in 2020 and nearly 38,000 deaths in the United States so far this year.

Meanwhile, 2 million more people retired than expected, according to the Schwartz Center for Economic Policy Analysis.

Published : November 07, 2021

By : Xinhua

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https://www.nationthailand.com/international/40008496

COVID-19 is far from the only danger of the worldwide pandemic for Asian Americans and Asian people in the United States, a sociologist said at the Diversity Forum held by the University of Wisconsin-Madison (UW-Madison).

Russell Jeung, professor at San Francisco State University and known for being the co-founder of Stop Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) Hate, made the remarks in his keynote speech “Ending Asian Hate: The Asian American Community Responds.”

The Stop AAPI Hate is a coalition across the country addressing anti-Asian hate amid the pandemic. It tracks COVID-19-related hate, violence and discrimination against the AAPIs in the United States, Jeung introduced.

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“What makes it worse is that you see so many cases where they feel so alone and others were around and no one did anything, as if they condoned what was happening,” said the Asian American sociologist.

The Diversity Forum has been UW-Madison’s all-campus and community platform to discuss and learn about current issues on diversity and inclusion for the past two decades, according to the university’s website. 

Published : November 07, 2021

By : Xinhua

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https://www.nationthailand.com/international/40008489

WASHINGTON – Colin L. Powell was remembered for his leadership skills, his love of ABBA and Bob Marley and “his sense of humor, his insatiable curiosity and his comfort in his own skin” at a funeral Friday that drew presidents past and present, military leaders and hundreds of Washington dignitaries.

President Joe Biden, first lady Jill Biden and two of his predecessors – Barack Obama and George W. Bush and their spouses – joined Powell’s wife, Alma, and other family members for the religious service in which traditional hymns, ABBA’s “Dancing Queen” and Marley’s “Three Little Birds” echoed through Washington National Cathedral.

Washington Post photo by Michael Robinson Chavez

Powell, the former secretary of state and chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, died last month of complications from covid-19. He was 84

The service brought together Republicans and Democrats. Also in attendance were former vice president Richard B. Cheney; former secretaries of state Hillary Clinton, Condoleezza Rice and Madeleine Albright; former secretary of defense Robert Gates; and former deputy secretary of state Richard Armitage.

While two of the past three presidents attended the funeral, former president Donald Trump – who disparaged Powell in a statement the day after his death – did not.

Albright, Armitage and Powell’s son, Michael, delivered eulogies.

Colin Powell remembered for leadership, integrity and a love of ABBA and Bob Marley at funeral

Washington Post photo by Jonathan Newton

An emotional Michael Powell remembered his father for treating the hot dog vendor, the janitor and the bankteller the same way he treated a world leader.

His voice breaking at times, he recounted the story of a young disabled veteran who helped Powell when his car got a flat tire on the Beltway. The veteran wanted a selfie; instead, in appreciation Powell invited him and his family to dinner.

“Colin Powell was a great leader because he was a great follower. He knew you could not ask your troops to do anything you were unwilling to do yourself,” Michael Powell said.

At a time of seemingly unsurmountable rancor and division in Washington and across the country, Michael Powell said he frequently hears people speak of his father and ask, “Are we still making his kind?”

“I believe the answer to that question is up to us,” he said. “To honor his legacy, I hope we do more than consign him to the history books. I hope we recommit ourselves to being a nation where we are still making his kind.”

Armitage spoke of his 40-year friendship with Powell, describing their bond as one between “two disgruntled, multi-tour combat vets who were not happy with the way we conducted the [Vietnam] war and certainly not happy with the way we left.”

He told story after story about Powell, from the time he passed a basketball around his Pentagon office with the Harlem Globetrotters to the time Powell got down on one knee and serenaded the foreign minister of Sweden after she presented him with a collection of ABBA albums.

“This is a celebration,” Armitage said. “It’s a celebration of a life. And I want to kind of fill that picture of Colin Powell out a little bit. And I’m going to try to tie together his sense of humor, his insatiable curiosity and his comfort in his own skin.”

Albright hailed Powell as well, saying that beneath the “glossy exterior of warrior statesman was one of the gentlest and most decent people any of us will ever meet.”

Albright said that over a quarter century, the two became friends.

“As I grew to know him, I came to view Colin Powell as a figure who almost transcended time – for his virtues were Homeric honesty, dignity, loyalty and an unshakable commitment to his calling and word,” she said.

The invitation-only service was broadcast on television and streamed online.

A four-star general, Powell served under three Republican presidents, including as national security adviser to President Ronald Reagan. He was the first Black person to lead the State Department and was also the youngest and first Black chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Powell, who was fully vaccinated, had Parkinson’s disease and multiple myeloma, a form of blood cancer that impairs the body’s ability to fight infection.

Members of both parties praised Powell last month as a respected statesman and trusted adviser to presidents. In a statement, Biden said Powell “embodied the highest ideals of both warrior and diplomat.” Bush called him “a dear friend and patriot” who was “such a favorite of Presidents that he earned the Presidential Medal of Freedom – twice.”

And Obama praised Powell for forging a path that aimed to make reaching high levels in government less challenging for Black Americans.

“He never denied the role that race played in his own life and in our society more broadly,” Obama said in a statement last month. “But he also refused to accept that race would limit his dreams, and through his steady and principled leadership, helped pave the way for so many who would follow.”

Powell served as secretary of state under Bush – a tenure that was marred by a 2003 appearance before the United Nations in which Powell cited faulty information in seeking to make the case for U.S. war against Iraq.

Published : November 06, 2021

By : The Washington Post

#SootinClaimon.Com : ขอบคุณแหล่งข้อมูล : หนังสือพิมพ์ The Nation.

https://www.nationthailand.com/international/40008488

The details shared in social media messages mapping out a high school Spanish teachers killing were unambiguous, prosecutors say.

The 16-year-old student described his motive for killing Nohema Graber, the planning and execution, and how he had tried to hide the evidence, prosecutors in Jefferson County, Iowa, wrote in a criminal complaint filed Thursday.

An acquaintance of the teenager provided investigators the online messages, as well as other communications implicating a second 16-year-old student, authorities said. Now the two suspects, both students at Fairfield High School, are charged with first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit murder.

They both were charged as adults “based on the circumstances and their ages,” Fairfield city officials said in a statement. The Washington Post is not naming the students because they are juveniles. Court records did not list an attorney for either teenager.

The killing has unnerved Fairfield, a town of about 9,400 people roughly 95 miles southeast of Des Moines. The school district dismissed students early on Thursday, canceled classes on Friday and made the high school available for staff and students to meet with counselors. On Facebook, tributes described Graber as “a bright light” and “a resilient woman of strength, faith, family and education.”

Graber’s daughter, Nohema Marie Graber, said her mother was “an absolute angel” who had roots in Mexico and instilled in her children a love of travel and languages.

“We had the wonderful fortune of growing up in a home filled with such an abundance of warmth and love,” the younger Graber wrote on Facebook. “I will miss her loud laugh and dancing with her to any music that was playing, she had so much joy in her eyes and such a deep sense of faith.”

Graber’s body was found in Chautauqua City Park on Wednesday, hours after her family reported her missing. Graber, who had taught at the high school since 2012, was known to routinely stroll through the park in the afternoon.

Her body was found under a tarp, wheelbarrow and railroad ties – rectangular supports used on tracks – according to the complaint. Prosecutors wrote that Graber appeared to have suffered head trauma.

After executing search warrants at both teens’ homes, investigators said they found several pieces of clothing that appeared to have blood on them. They said they also talked with someone who claimed to have seen the teenagers in the park on Tuesday afternoon – spotting one of the boys wearing bloody clothing.

Prosecutors say the other teenager admitted in an interview to being in the park at the time of the killing, providing materials and helping to hide the attack. Court records do not indicate a suspected motive.

Neither student has entered a plea in their cases, court documents show. Both are being held on a $1 million bond pending hearings on Nov. 12.

Laurie Noll, superintendent of Fairfield Community School District, said Graber had touched many lives in her time at the school.

“We extend our deepest condolences to the family, friends, and loved ones of Mrs. Graber. At this time our students’ and staffs’ well-being is our top priority,” Noll said in a statement. “As a community, we will remain united in this time of tragedy.”

Nohema Marie Graber and her brother, Christian Graber, wrote that they forgave the teenagers accused of killing their mother.

“There’s no point in being angry at them,” Christian Graber wrote. “We should hope that they can find peace in their lives.”

Published : November 06, 2021

By : The Washington Post