About: the world this week, 31 March 2024 to 6 April 2024: Israel fights; Turkey spins; Taiwan Shakes; Finland shoots; Scotland speaks; India dances; and the Oldest Man in the World leaves.

Everywhere

Israel Fights

No country in the World would like to be in the situation Israel is in today. 130 of its people are being held hostage for over 180 days by the terrorist Hamas following the savage barbarism of 7 October 2023, with no end in sight, of their release. The ongoing war in the Gaza Strip, to outgun Hamas, and to find and bring home the hostages is only getting deadlier – on the scale of destruction and death of people. At home, Israelis are demonstrating that the Government is not doing enough to rescue their loved ones; abroad people are demonstrating for a cease-fire, so that the people of Gaza can get food, supplies, and medical aid. What about the hostages? Releasing them is the sanest solution to this madness.

This week, Israeli forces left the Al Shifa Hospital in Gaza City after a two-week intensive operation by its special forces. They left behind a wasteland of destroyed buildings, wrecked infrastructure of the facility, with rubble and dead bodies strewn all over. Hundreds of suspected Palestinian militants were detained and terrorists flushed out – as claimed by Israel. Documents recovered by Israeli forces showed the hospital was used as a base to control the northern section of the Gaza Strip, which has largely been destroyed since the start of the ground invasion in October. The Hospital had been turned into a major operating centre by the Palestinian armed groups – Hamas and the Islamic Jihad.

In summary, more than 32,000 Palestinians have been killed in Israel’s military offensive in Gaza. In the 7th October attack, Hamas killed 1,200 people and took 253 people hostage. Israel has lost 257 soldiers in the combat, with the Israeli military publishing the names of those killed in action in the Gaza War.

Then during the week the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) accidentally killed seven foreign aid workers, including a dual US/Canadian citizen, three Britons as well as team members from Poland and Australia, and their Palestinian driver. They were travelling with a convoy that had just unloaded more than 100 tonnes of food aid brought from overseas, working for the aid charity, World Central Kitchen (WCK). Israel’s military voiced ‘sincere sorrow’ over the incident, which ratcheted up international pressure for steps to ease the disastrous humanitarian situation in Gaza.

In another attack elsewhere, suspected Israeli warplanes bombed a ‘building next to Iran’s Consulate’ in Syria killing the Revolutionary Guards Corps commander Mohammad Reza Zahedi and his deputy at an Iranian diplomatic mission in Syria – reviving fears of a wider regional conflagration, and setting a dangerous precedent in targeting diplomatic premises.

By the end of the week the United States of America literally threw Israel under the bus, asking it to work on a ceasefire-fire and make a ‘measurable’ plan for ensuring that aid workers and civilians are not harmed in any way.

One thing is sure, by the end of the Israel-Hamas war, Israel would be the masters of ‘Urban Warfare’ given their precise fighting methods; using high-end technology, and keeping loss of civilian life to the barest minimum – a fact not given the respect it truly deserves.

Turkey Spins

Turkey’s President Tayyip Erdogan has been having a fairly untrammelled run of his presidency, over almost two decades. That looks to be in jeopardy when this week Turks dealt President Erdogan and his party their biggest electoral blow in a nationwide local vote. It reasserted the opposition – Republican Peoples Party (CHP)-as a political force and reinforced Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu as the President’s chief rival, being re-elected as Mayor by a landslide 51% votes. In capital Ankara, CHP candidate Mansur Yavas, were re-elected by yet another landslide of 60%.

It marked the worst defeat for Erdogan and his AK Party (AKP) in all their years in power, and could signal a change in the country’s divided political landscape. Erdogan called it a ‘turning point’. He and the AKP fared worse than opinion polls predicted due to soaring inflation, dissatisfied Islamist voters and, in Istanbul, Imamoglu’s appeal beyond the CHP’s secular base, analysts said.

Taiwan Shakes

This week, Taiwan was struck by a 7.4 magnitude Earthquake, rocking the whole island and causing several buildings to collapse. The city of Hualien, nearest the epicentre of the earthquake, on the east coast of Taiwan sustained significant damages. Nine people died, more than 900 were injured and about 50 went missing.

The quake hit at a depth of 15.5 km just as people were headed for work and school, setting off a tsunami warning for Southern Japan and the Philippines, that was later lifted.

A magnitude about 7 is considered a major earthquake. And this is Taiwan’s strongest earthquake in at least 25 years.

Finland Shoots

After the long Easter weekend, children had just returned to classes at Viertola School in Vantaa, outside Helsinki, Finland. The school has 800 students from 1 to 9 grade in ages ranging from 7 to 16. Then, in a 6th grade classroom, a 12-year-old boy, of the school, suddenly opened fire with a handgun, killing one and wounding two others. He fled the scene, by walk, but was later caught by the police. The suspect had a gun licensed to a close relative. Police were quick to arrive at the scene and took charge of the situation. Investigations by the Police revealed that the boy said he was a target of bullying, which was the motive for the attack.

In Finland, children over 15 can obtain licenses to use other people’s firearms. In 2008, an 18-year-old student shot dead six students, the school nurse, and his head teacher in the small town of Jokela; and the following year, another student shot dead nine students and a teacher with a semi-automatic rifle at a polytechnic in the western town of Kauhajoki.

Finland is widely known a country of hunters and gun enthusiasts and has 430,000 license gun owners in a population of about 5.6 million. There is no limit to the number of guns one can own.

Scotland Speaks – No Hate

This week a new law against hate speech came into force in Scotland, United Kingdom. The legislation was passed by Scottish Parliament three years ago but was delayed by wrangling over its implementation.

The law makes it an offence to stir up hatred with threatening or abusive behaviour, on the basis of characteristics including, age, disability, religion, sexual orientation, and transgender identity. The maximum sentence is seven years in prison.

Critics ague that the new Law will have a chilling effect on free speech making people afraid to express their views. ‘Harry Potter’ Author J K Rowling slammed the new Law calling it ‘ludicrous’. The rights of trans women should not come at the expense of those who are born biologically female. “Biological sex is not included as a protected characteristic in the Law despite women bing one of the most abused cohorts in our society”, she wrote in a newspaper article.

India Dances – Democracy

The great India summer, with its blistering heat, in ruling this time of the year, in the backdrop of the Festival of Democracy being celebrated across the country. In the run-up to General Elections -the world’s largest electoral exercise -beginning on 19 April and ending on 1 June 2024, the campaigning is on a high-pitch. Opinion polls have improved their scores to the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) giving it almost 400 Members of Parliament (MPs – along with partners) out of a possible 543, in a third consecutive win. The BJP’s slogan for the coming election is ‘Abki baar, 400 paar’ (this time, above 400). Recall the BJP’s own tally is 303 in the outgoing Parliament – the 17th Lok Sabha – and with Allies it is 350.

In contrast, the opposition is fragmented, harried by central investigating agencies – suddenly catching-up on their crimes. And seems unable to stitch together a coherent narrative on key issues like unemployment, electoral bonds and farmers’ discontent, which could put the Government on the mat.

Late in the week the Congress, which has a hopeless chance of returning to power, released its Election Manifesto, which was described as only capable of doing two things: one, break India on caste lines; and two, bankrupt India on freebies.

The Southern States of India, which send 130 MPs are the laggards in joining the BJP’s dance party, but new winds seem to be blowing strongly, especially in the State of Tamil Nadu. The BJP’s State President, K Annamalai, 39, an Engineer, a former Indian Police Service Officer, and an Indian Institute of Management graduate is creating waves with his blunt straight talk and aggressive posturing. People find him relatable and are coalescing around him, for a change from the parochial control of the regional Dravidian Parties.

In New Delhi, the Chief Minister of the Union Territory, Arvind Kejriwal, was arrested after failing to appear for 9 summons by the Enforcement Directorate, and thrown into jail for being complicit in a liquor scam. He joins two other Leaders of his own Party – one is a Deputy Chief Minister- already languishing in jail for almost a year on money laundering charges. He is doing his best to rule from Jail while his wife, wearing a sombre look on national television, is trying to make him appear like a freedom fighter, while the Law looks on. In India, heat is generated from multiple sources and in Indian Politics the wife has a right-of-way once the hubby heads to jail. Then a remote-control begins working from behind bars. Call it the ring and dance of Indian democracy?

World’s Oldest Man Quits

This week, on 4 April, the world’s oldest man, Juan Vicente Perez Mora, of Venezuela, died aged 114 – two months before what would have been his 115th birthday.

Guinness World Records (GWR) confirmed stating: “After living through both World Wars, seeing the invention of Television, and witnessing the landing of a man on the moon, Juan Vicente also survived Covid-19 in 2020.” GWR had awarded Perez Mora the title of the Oldest Man, on 4 February 2022, when he was 112 years and 253 days. This after the previous oldest man, Saturnino de la Fuente Garcia died weeks earlier.

Perez Mora was born on 27 May 1909 in Venezuela, to Euquitio Perez and Edelmira Mora and was living in the Sate of Tachira – bordering Colombia – when he died. He had 11 children-six sons and five daughters– with his wife Ediofina del Rosario Garcia. They were married for 60 years until her death in 1997. He has 42 grandchildren, 18 great-grandchildren, and 12 great-great-grandchildren.

The next oldest man living is expected to be 112-year-old Gisaburo Sonobe of Japan, pending confirmation of his birth-date before the title can be awarded, according to the Gerontology Research Group.

Mora credited his longevity to, ‘working hard, resting on holidays, going to bed early, drinking a glass of aguardiente (a distilled alcoholic beverage that contains 29-60% alcohol and made from sugarcane -common in South America) every day, loving God, and always carrying him in his heart’.

GWR’s Editor-in-Chief had this to say: “It’s been an honour to recognise and celebrate the incredible long life of Venezuela’s first ever fully authenticated supercentenarian man. Not only was Sr Perez Mora his country’s oldest citizen and the first South American recognised by GWR as the oldest living man, he is now history’s fourth-oldest male whose age has been officially ratified.” He added, “How remarkable to think that we’ve just said goodbye to a man born before Louis Bleriot flew across the English Channel!”

More solid stories coming in the weeks ahead. Live long with World Inthavaaram.