There are both violent peaceful elements to the anti-agreement demonstration in Athens [Alexandros Avramidis/Reuters]
Thousands of protesters have gathered in Syntagma Square in Athens to demonstrate against Greece‘s agreement with Macedonia to change the latter’s name to North Macedonia.
Some protesters clashed with riot police on the steps up to the parliament building on Sunday, throwing rocks, flares, firebombs, paint and other objects.
Police responded by firing tear gas canisters.
The name-change agreement is the result of a dispute between Macedonia and Greece over history and national identity that has lasted 27 years.
Many Greeks are alarmed by the agreement, saying it recognises a Macedonian nationality, which could ignite competitive claims on ancient Greek history and heritage.
“They are not part of the predominately peaceful crowd. It’s a bit of a warzone,” John Psaropoulos, reporting for Al Jazeera from the demonstration, said.
Protester Natasha Afanasiadou told the Associated Press there was “no way” she could not come to the demonstration as she did not want to look back on what was happening and think she had not protested against it.
Greece and Macedonia, whose official name is the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, agreed last June to a deal that would change the name of Greece’s northern neighbour.
In exchange, Greece would lift its objections to the country joining NATO.
The agreement has led to challenges for Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, who has survived two no-confidence votes since it was made. The demonstration is the latest challenge for Tsipras’s policy on Macedonia’s name.
However, it’s “unlikely because the PM has said very consistently … that he will bring his ratification to Greek Parliament”, Psaropoulos said.
Greece’s parliament is expected to start a debate on ratification of the deal on Monday and vote on it by Friday.
The Cincinnati Bengals will reportedly name Los Angeles Rams quarterbacks coach Zac Taylor their head coach whenever the Rams’ season ends, according to Ian Rapoport of NFL.com:
Ian Rapoport @RapSheet
From @gmfb Weekend: The #Bengals’ will hire #Rams QB coach Zac Taylor whenever their season ends, and keep an eye on Jack Del Rio & Brian Callahan as DC and OC targets; Meanwhile, the #Dolphins will watch their future HC today in Brian Flores. https://t.co/js2Z7lhVbt
Per that report, the Bengals have been “sticklers for the rules” and have had “very little contact” with Taylor about the position. Rapoport added that the Bengals “may not have even officially told him he’s getting the job, but it is expected to happen.”
This article will be updated to provide more information on this story as it becomes available.
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Stefanos Tsitsipas stunned Roger Federer in four sets on Sunday to reach the quarter-final of the 2019 Australian Open.
The 20-year-old came from behind to win 6-7 (11), 7-6 (3), 7-5, 7-6 (5) in a thrilling contest in Melbourne.
An aggressive start from Federer forced his opponent to fend off two break points in an eight-minute opening game. The pair rattled through the games at a much quicker pace as the set continued to follow serve, though.
Tsitsipas, who impressively recorded three consecutive holds to love, showed himself to be more than a match for the Swiss maestro:
The inevitable tiebreaker was just as competitive, with both players producing some superb play but struggling to close it out, as Federer’s forehand unusually let him down in the key moments.
Federer eventually claimed it after saving three set points, though, and Tsitsipas had every reason to be disappointed with how the final point played out:
Eurosport UK @Eurosport_UK
What a way to lose the set!
Someone from THE CROWD calls out midway during a rally!
The second set continued in much the same fashion, until Federer began to turn the screw again on Tsitsipas’ serve. The Greek saved three break points to level the scores at 3-3 before batting back two more in his next service game.
Record‘s Jose Morgado noted how closely matched the pair have been in their limited dealings with one another:
José Morgado @josemorgado
Between Perth and Melbourne, there were 45 service games between Federer and Tsitsipas. Zero breaks so far.
Tsitsipas struggled to get near the veteran’s serve, but he continued to show remarkable resilience as he saved four set points on the way to forcing another tiebreaker.
A pair of unforced errors from Federer either side of a Tsitsipas forehand winner handed the latter three set points, and he took the first to level the match.
Federer’s inability to break his opponent continued in the third set, as the Press Association’s Eleanor Crooks observed:
Eleanor Crooks @EleanorcrooksPA
Federer is now 0/12 on break points. Tsitsipas hasn’t had one yet
A lovely passing winner from Tsitsipas earned him his first break points at 4-4. They came and went as quickly as they’d arrived, but a couple of errors from Federer at 6-5 handed him two set points, which he duly converted.
There was little to separate the pair again in the fourth, as they battled to yet another tiebreaker.
A long forehand from Federer at the crucial moment gave Tsitsipas a match point, and he made no mistake in closing out the match:
Eurosport UK @Eurosport_UK
HE’S DONE IT!!!
It’s the match of the tournament and 20-year-old @StefTsitsipas has knocked defending champion @rogerfederer out of the #AusOpen
Kyiv, Ukraine – “It wasn’t a search, it was a sacrilege,” Father Anatoly Kaplyuk said, describing how police and intelligence officers interrupted service in his church in the northern Ukrainian town of Ovruch.
In early December, they entered the building that belongs to Moscow-affiliated Orthodox Church, one of Ukraine‘s largest religious groups, to look for “materials inciting religious hatred”, police said.
The searches were part of mounting pressure on pro-Russian clerics that stems from Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko‘s battle to break away his ex-Soviet nation from religious subordination to Moscow Patriarch Kirill, Kremlin’s ideological ally.
The officers looked everywhere – including the altar, an area no lay person is allowed to enter – and confiscated some booklets, Father Anatoly told Al Jazeera.
They then summoned him for questioning at the Ovruch office of the SBU, Ukraine’s main intelligence agency. The questioning hasn’t taken place yet, he said.
A dozen more pro-Russian priests throughout Ukraine have been questioned and had their churches or residencies searched as part of investigations into “treason” and “incitement of religious hatred”, the SBU said.
Priests and bishops are ready to go through interrogations, arrests and trials but maintain their reputation among their parishioners.
Nikolay Mitrokhin, Russian-Soviet sociologist
Several other pro-Russian priests posted videos of themselves online saying they were ready for questioning and will never sever their ties to the Russian Orthodox Church.
Within days, they were blacklisted by Mirotvorets (“Peacemaker”), an online publication with ties to security services that outs “Ukraine’s enemies” from separatists in rebel southeastern provinces to turncoat officials in annexed Crimea.
“I am proud to be on that list along with the Holy Synod” of the pro-Russian church, Father Hennady Shkil, a white-bearded priest from the southern Ukrainian town of Hola Pristan told Al Jazeera.
Even pro-Moscow church’s top hierarch was not spared.
In early November, a Ukrainian TV network showed what it claims to be the luxurious residence of Metropolitan Onufri, in his home village in southwestern Ukraine.
It broadcast drone footage showing several large houses, a helipad and a hangar-like structure that hides either a tennis court or a swimming pool.
Onufri has long been lambasted for his pro-Kremlin stand.
After Russia annexed Crimea in 2014 and backed pro-Russian separatists in southeastern Ukraine, he called them “brothers in faith” and bristled at Kyiv’s military operation against them.
During a parliament session in May 2015 to commemorate the servicemen awarded for fighting the separatists, the entire audience stood up – except for Onufri and his frocked subordinates.
Worshippers at the Kyiv-Pecherska Lavra, an ancient monasterial complex in Kyiv [Mansur Mirovalev/Al Jazeera]
But experts say that by cracking down on pro-Russian clerics, Poroshenko’s government inadvertently inspires resistance – just like Communist pressure on believers in the officially atheist Soviet Union.
“Priests and bishops are ready to go through interrogations, arrests and trials but maintain their reputation among their parishioners,” Nikolay Mitrokhin of the University of Eastern Finland in Joensuu told Al Jazeera.
On January 6, President Poroshenko received a “tomos”, a charter issued by Constantinople Patriarch Bartholomew, the most revered leader of the world’s 300 million-strong Orthodox Christian community, ending the dependence of Ukraine’s church from Moscow.
Predictably, the Moscow Patriarch condemned the move and cut ties with Constantinople.
“We are witnessing illegal meddling in the internal life of Ukraine’s Orthodox Church, a rude, anti-canonical intervention in its area,” Kirill said in early January.
His Patriarchate claims more than 150 million followers in Russia and the ex-USSR, although polls and experts say that only a fraction of them are observant.
President Poroshenko congratulates newly elected head of the independent Ukrainian Orthodox church Metropolitan Epifaniy (Dumenko) at the Saint Sophia’s Cathedral in Kiev, Ukraine, December 15, 2018 [Gleb Garanich/Reuters]
Kirill coined the concept of “the Russian world”, or Moscow’s right to “protect” ethnic Russians outside Russia, and the Kremlin used the idea to justify its 2014 annexation of Crimea and support to separatists in southeastern Ukraine.
That’s when Poroshenko came to power after a months-long popular uprising overthrew his pro-Moscow predecessor. Poroshenko pledged to make Ukraine part of the European Union and NATO and repel the Russian aggression.
But by the end of his first term, his success is as modest as his single-digit approval ratings. He made church independence part of his campaign ahead of the March 31 presidential election, in which he is widely expected to run.
“We are finally gaining spiritual independence that can be compared to the political independence,” Poroshenko told a church council in late December.
His words are echoed by the so-called Church of the Kyiv Patriarchate that broke away from Moscow in the early 1990s and whose clerics mostly formed the new, Constantinople-recognised see after merging with another, smaller Orthodox sect.
“As a church, we try to be independent from Moscow not because we don’t like Russia,” Archbishop Yevstraty Zorya told Al Jazeera. “But we see how the Russian Empire has for centuries used the Orthodox Church in our land as a tool of imperial policy.”
The pro-Ukrainian and Russia-affiliated churches share the doctrine of Greek Orthodoxy that split from Catholicism in 1054. They are equally opposed to same-sex marriages, abortions and birth control.
The Russia-affiliated church insists that its ties to Moscow are nominal and “spiritual,” and that Poroshenko’s government violates its own commitments to multiculturalism and religious tolerance.
Weak support
Despite growing pressure, less than 100 of about 12,000 Russia-affiliated parishes joined the new church, officials admit.
The issue keeps Ukrainians polarised – while 43 percent of them support church independence, 22 percent are firmly against it, mostly in the Russian-speaking eastern regions, according to a poll by the Kyiv-based Rozumkov Center conducted in late December.
Meanwhile, 47 opposition legislators accused Poroshenko of violating the cornerstone of any Western democracy – separation of church and state.
They complained to the Constitutional Court in mid-December about his government’s violation of “religious freedoms and peace among confessions” by urging Bartholomew to recognise the independent Ukrainian church.
Some average Ukrainians are baffled by too much ado about religion as the country struggles with corruption.
“Maybe, we should be teaching our children biology, chemistry and economics,” Olena Meshko, a 37-year-old bookseller, told Al Jazeera. “Instead, we’re moving towards the Middle Ages.”
Syrian military air defences thwarted an Israeli attack on Sunday, shooting down several missiles in the south of the country, state media said.
“Our air defence systems thwarted … an Israeli air aggression … and prevented it from achieving any of its goals,” a military source told state news agency SANA. It gave no further details.
An Israeli military spokesperson declined to comment on the report.
Meanwhile, the Israeli military said several missiles fired towards the northern Golan Heights were intercepted by the Iron Dome missile defence system on Sunday afternoon.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu acknowledged an Israeli attack last week on what he called an Iranian arms cache in Syria, where Tehran provides Damascus with vital support.
He told his cabinet Israel had carried out “hundreds” of attacks over the past years of Syria’s war to curtail Iran and its ally Lebanon’s Hezbollah.
Usually silent about its attacks on Iranian targets near its frontier, Israel has lifted the veil this month, a sign of confidence in a campaign waged amid occasional tensions with Syria’s big-power backer Russia.
Afrin bombing
Earlier on Sunday, at least three civilians were killed after a bomb exploded near a bus stop in Afrin, in Syria’s northwest. Seven others were wounded in the attack.
The attack came on the anniversary of a Turkish military operation that evicted Kurdish fighters from the town, which is now is under the control of Turkey-backed Syrian opposition fighters.
Also Sunday, state TV reported a large explosion in a southern neighbourhood of the capital, Damascus.
It said the morning blast, which happened during rush hour on the first working day of the week, appeared to have been “a terrorist act”.
The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights told AFP news agency that the explosion struck near a military intelligence office in Damascus.
“The explosion took place near a security branch in the south of the city. There are some people killed and injured but we could not verify the toll immediately,” the monitor said in a statement.
It was unclear if the blast was caused by a bomb that was planted or a suicide attack, the monitor said, adding that shooting followed the explosion.
The opioid epidemic remains the biggest American public health crisis in decades, arguably since the emergence of AIDS. It kills about 130 people a day. | Mark Lennihan/AP Photo
Access and accountability are still huge barriers in the growing treatment industry.
The Trump administration, Congress and states are pouring billions into addiction treatment to fight the opioid crisis, but accountability for the burgeoning industry hasn’t kept pace with those efforts — leaving patients vulnerable to ineffective care, fraud and abuse.
Interviews with patients in recovery and nearly two dozen advocates, officials and public health and addiction experts in and out of government reveal a fragmented addiction care industry, with a patchwork of state regulations and spotty oversight.
Story Continued Below
There are few tools to help patients navigate a complex maze of treatment options that include both inpatient and outpatient medical facilities — as well as “sober living” or “recovery homes,” which have roots in abstinence and faith. And it’s immensely more complicated for patients with little money.
The hurdles to safe, affordable care, accompanied by persistent fatalities across the country, show just how pervasive the problem has become in American culture, even as the government pours billions into treatment and both political parties try to find solutions.
At one site near Denver, patients with good insurance go upstairs to Serenity, a 28-day inpatient and detox facility run by the Stout Street Foundation. It offers medication-assisted treatment, considered the gold standard of care, and provides follow-up services once the patients finish their monthlong stay.
Most patients who can’t pay for treatment, or those referred by the criminal justice system, go downstairs to Stout Street’s therapeutic community. That two-year program shaves male patients’ heads upon entry, shuns addiction medication and relies on what six former patients described to POLITICO as “confrontational therapy” group sessions. Some of those patients described the experience as “traumatic.” The program is free, but it contracts out patients to factories or warehouses around the Denver metro area, where they are required to work long hours. Their paychecks go directly to support the center. (Near the end of their stay, they begin to earn money to sustain themselves once they leave Stout Street.)
“A lot of things they were making us do were off-putting, but it was either deal with that or be homeless,” said Jesse Wheeler, who was a broke 18-year-old with a heroin addiction when he went through the program. Now 24, he’s off drugs and employed.
State rules vary dramatically. Oversight is particularly flimsy for “sober” homes, while treatment centers overall are regulated more lightly than other parts of the health care system, like hospitals. Medication-assisted treatment is not widely available and is still plagued by stigma. According to a study in Health Affairs, just 36 percent of addiction treatment facilities in 2016 offered a form of medication-assisted treatment and only 6 percent offer all three FDA-approved therapies.
“There has never been a system that demands quality of care for treatment of substance use disorders,” said Nora Volkow, the director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), which has collaborated with advocacy groups on treatment quality. “Programs have not had any incentive to actually change their practices or improve what they are doing.”
Even centers that do offer state-of-the-art treatment— and have accreditations and licenses — have many patients who relapse. Noting that about 50 percent of patients relapse even when they are getting medication-assisted treatment, researchers stress that recovery from opioid addiction is hard, there’s no one-size-fits-all treatment path and there’s still a lot to be learned about what will work best to help people in recovery for the long haul.
In Colorado, both the medically supervised Serenity center and the two-year community downstairs are licensed; the state health department demands that the patients give informed consent (even though some are sent there under court order — or go to jail) and that the center follow “best practices.”
Stout Street Foundation’s Vice President of Programs Nicholas Petrucelli defended its insult-laced group therapy in an interview and by email, though he said the program screens out patients who could be “triggered” by it. According to NIDA, “confrontational therapy” has not been proven to be effective and can be harmful.
“It’s a hard program. It’s not for everybody,” said Petrucelli. According to his estimate, less than 1 in 4 patients who have entered the program since 2013 complete the full two years.He did not dispute former patients’ descriptions of harsh encounters or punishments like “benching” — making someone sit on a hard wooden bench alone for hours.But he said it does work for some people — they get through the program, learn work skills and sometimes even end up with a permanent job.
The sweeping, bipartisan opioid legislation that President Donald Trump signed in October rolls out a lot of new programs, thoughit doesn’t establish broad accountability. Lawmakers and the administration know their work is not finished.
That new law directs HHS to develop standards for sober homes, which HHS says will be completed “in the very near future.” Though non-binding, they will be designed to weed out fraud and ineffective practices.
The Department of Justice has uncovered schemes like a rogue sober home operator who encouraged residents to relapse, so he could bill insurers for more money. Government watchdogs heard allegations of unscrupulous practices, such as treatment centers hiring recruiters to target people with a drug use history as they are released from jail, sometimes encouraging them to start using drugs again so they can enter a program.
Congress recently imposed criminal penalties on patient brokering — a practice in which facilities pay a third party to recruit patients — and it has held hearings on fraud and abuse in the industry. Some states are strengthening their rules; at least 10 have passed laws to improve recovery housing.
But there hasn’t been a coordinated effort to improve and standardize care, even though demand is growing and the government — from the White House to city halls — has made a priority of addressing addiction and reducing the shame and stigma that often have left treatment in the shadows.
Some in the industry are working to weed out bad actors.
“If there’s a silver lining, we’ve become much more aware of [the fraud], and there’s been a level of unity within the field to try to do the right thing,” said Doug Tieman, president and CEO of Caron Treatment Centers, a nonprofit that operates in several states and has been treating addiction for some 60 years.
The opioid epidemic remains the biggest American public health crisis in decades, arguably since the emergence of AIDS. It kills about 130 people a day. Trump and his top aides have drawn significant attention to the crisis, and to the need for treatment as well as law enforcement.
Billions of federal and state dollars, plus more from health insurers and families, are pouring in. But many patients don’t know their options — or whether their insurance will cover treatment that, for inpatient care, can cost tens of thousands of dollars. That’s out of reach for many Americans, and, given copays and deductibles, not only the uninsured. For example, Stout Street’s 28-day program costs upwards of $15,000 per stay; it acceptsprivateinsurance but not Medicaid, and some financial assistance is offered.
POLITICO has asked readers twice over the last few months to share their experience in the opioid crisis and more than 700 have responded, including some doctors who treat pain patients. Most of those responses were for POLITICO’s first survey about chronic pain. The second reader survey addressed the challenges of rehab and recovery. A smaller number of respondents, roughly 40, shared their personal stories — and about half of them recounted difficulties in finding affordable, quality addiction treatment when every moment counted. Reporting for this article included more detailed interviews with some of those patients — including one who flagged the Denver treatment program — along with other people in recovery and experts on treatment.
“It’s frustrating … like, I need help now. I’m trying not to die right now,” said Mary Early, 32, who waitedthree months to get treatment after calling about 20 clinics that either didn’t accept her Medicaid or didn’t have room for her. The Lexington, Ky., woman had used painkillers, and then became addicted toheroin.
She finally found a program that worked well for her (although as it turned out the owners would later be charged with insurance fraud). She made enough progress to get a new job — but that meant losing her Medicaid, which was paying for her treatment. Her new insurance is skimpy, with a high deductible. She’s still in recovery, but without a reliable, consistent source of care. She’s patching it together, a day at a time.
“There’s just no accountability anywhere,” said former Democratic Rep. Patrick Kennedy, who personally struggled with substance use, became a national leader on mental health policy and served on Trump’s opioid commission. “We really don’t have any way of comparing cost or quality, and we don’t hold providers to measurement-based outcomes. We need a Consumer Reports, we need an Angie’s List, we need it all.”
Nonprofits and medical groups are stepping up to develop more tools for patients like Early — consumer report cards, rating systems, certifications for treatment programs. It’s unclear whether patients will know how to find them and whether the various organizations will coordinate efforts to streamline the patient’s search, without adding to the noise.
Some people with a painkiller or heroin addiction don’t even get to make their own choices; insurers, employers, drug courts or judges direct where they go. And they don’t always get sent to good places.
An insurer sent Brenda, a 68-year-old from Pismo Beach, Calif., who asked to withhold her last name, to what she called a “poorly run” detox facility for her prescription painkiller addiction. Her withdrawal symptoms were so extreme that she had to be hospitalized after one week.She left the facility and returned to her pain doctor, who prescribed more of the drugs that caused her problems in the first place.
“It was a joke, they didn’t know what they were doing,” she said of the detox center. “I wish I would have taken more time and more care to see where my insurance company was sending me.”
Theron Phipps, 45, from Tulsa, Okla., another respondent to the POLITICO survey, was directed through his employer to a faith-based, 12-step program in Texas. He did not get medication-assisted treatment for his prescription opioid addiction.
“This wasn’t something faith alone could heal,” he said. His addiction persisted after he completed his program, but he was too afraid and ashamed to ask for medication-assisted treatment. “They all figured I was healed and fixed by that 12-step program, but I wasn’t. And I was ashamed to tell my wife that what I just put my family through didn’t work.”
Like many desperately trying to get help, Phipps wasn’t aware of other options.His hometown has been devastated by drug addiction and yet, “there’s not many places where you can look on a billboard or you can get any kind of reading material that offers that. It’s not here yet.”
While states are responsible for regulating treatment, the federal government does have some levers and “can require evidence-based practices be used with federal dollars,” said Assistant HHS Secretary for Mental Health and Substance Use Elinore McCance-Katz. Such conditions are attached to new grants for states, though it’s unclear how closely they are being tracked. And those conditions don’t apply to facilities that don’t take federal funds, like many sober homes.
The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) maintains a massive public treatment database online, designed to help people find care. But SAMHSA doesn’t vet the list, which is based on state submissions, and can’t ensure all programs provide safe, high-quality care. The agency also has a helpline to connect people to mental health or addiction treatment, though a recent JAMA study concludes that it has not been well publicized.
One expert compared the current state of the addiction treatment industry to that of nursing homes in the 1980s, a period of increased funding, increased need and rapid growth.
“At that time, there was a lot of concern about the quality of care, about the fact that states were regulating the industry, but there was a lot of variation in state regulations,” said Tami Mark of RTI International, which is working on a system to rate addiction treatment programs with Shatterproof, a nonprofit group working on the opioid epidemic.
Congress began to regulate the industry, and CMS — a major payer for long-term care through Medicaid — has since issued a public, government-sponsored website to compare nursing homes, which Mark said helped improve their quality.
Some federal officials do want to see Washington step up on addiction treatment — at least to create a framework and criteria, without necessarily overseeing every clinic or practice nationwide.
“The goal is to kind of set a floor of what best practices are and what’s working,” Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.), a cosponsor of the legislation that sets up best practices for recovery homes, told POLITICO as that bill was working its way through Congress. “I don’t think the federal government wants to come in and regulate it, but I think the federal government can be very helpful.”
In the meantime, advocacy groups are working to fill the void — but it will take time, resources and a lot of careful thought about how to reach all the diverse populations that need it.
“We need to really change the information that’s available to families and patients,” said Jessica Nickel, founder of the Addiction Policy Forum, a Washington, D.C.-based advocacy group. “There’s a lot of bad actors and patient brokers, and a lot of patients get taken advantage of on their darkest day.”
Her organization is hammering out new, separate standards of care for each type of addiction treatment and recovery service with help from NIDA and a scientific advisory board — which will lead to a provider rating system and a consumer report card.
Shatterproof is creating a rating system for treatment providers and plans to test it in five states in early 2019. And the American Society of Addiction Medicine and CARF International, an independent body accrediting health and human services, is piloting a national certification for addiction treatment.
The National Association of Addiction Treatment Providers, an industry trade group, revamped its ethics policy, and, effective Jan. 1, requires its members be accredited by either the Joint Commission or CARF, according to Mark Dunn, the association’s director of public policy.
Up until several months ago, the Stout Street Foundation boasted on its own website that it was a member of that national treatment group. Stout Street took down that claim after POLITICO checked with the organization and found that not to be the case.Petrucelli said it was an accident, and blamed a third-party website manager.
The National Alliance for Recovery Residences has crafted standards and the alliance’s affiliates in 20 states work to certify those that meet the standards, said Dave Sheridan, the alliance’s president. But losing a certification doesn’t always mean the home shuts down due to federal housing law, he said.
Affordability is another hurdle. According to the 2017 National Survey on Drug Use and Health, 30 percent of people seeking treatment didn’t have health insurance and can’t afford care. Another 10.5 percent said they had insurance, but it either didn’t cover the addiction treatment or only covered a small portion of the bill. In the states that didn’t expand Medicaid under Obamacare, access is very difficult for many low-income people.
Stephen, 35, from Chicago, who responded to the POLITICO reader survey and asked not to use his last name, credits his recovery from a decadelong drug addiction to his family, who found and paid for his care — and helped him navigate the treatment maze.
“I’m lucky that I have the fiscal resources and a supportive family that cares,” he said. “If I didn’t, I know I would be dead today.”
A US diocese has apologised and vowed to take action after videos emerged showing boys from a Catholic private school mocking an elderly Native American man at a rally in the capital Washington, DC prompting widespread criticism.
The Indigenous Peoples March in Washington on Friday coincided with the March for Life, which drew thousands of anti-abortion protesters, including a group from Covington Catholic High School in Park Hills, Kentucky.
Videos circulating online show a youth staring at and standing extremely close to Nathan Phillips, a 64-year-old Native American man singing and playing a drum.
Other students, some wearing Covington clothing and many wearing “Make America Great Again” hats and sweat shirts, surrounded them, chanting, laughing and jeering. A student wearing clothing from Owensboro Catholic High School was also present.
The Roman Catholic Diocese of Covington apologized after videos emerged showing students from an all-male Catholic high school mocking Native Americans outside the Lincoln Memorial.
In a joint statement, the Roman Catholic Diocese of Covington and Covington Catholic High School apologised to Phillips. Officials said they are investigating and will take “appropriate action, up to and including expulsion”.
“We extend our deepest apologies to Mr. Phillips,” the statement read. “This behaviour is opposed to the Church’s teachings on the dignity and respect of the human person.”
Stolen land
According to the “Indian Country Today” website, Phillips is an Omaha elder and Vietnam veteran who holds an annual ceremony honouring Native American veterans at Arlington National Cemetery.
Marcus Frejo, a member of the Pawnee and Seminole tribes who is also known as Chief Quese Imc, said he had been a part of the march and was among a small group of people remaining after the rally when the boisterous students began chanting slogans such as “Make America great” and then began doing the haka, a traditional Maori dance.
Frejo told The Associated Press news agency he felt they were mocking the dance and also heckling a couple of black men nearby.
“When I was there singing, I heard them saying ‘Build that wall, build that wall,’” Phillips said, as he wiped away tears in a video posted on Instagram. “This is indigenous lands. We’re not supposed to have walls here. We never did.”
In another video posted on Twitter, and Indigenous Peoples March protester shouts “Just because you stole the land don’t make it yours,” to which a student wearing an Owensboro Catholic High School logo responds “Land gets stolen, it’s how it works. That’s the way of the world”.
Frejo said he joined Phillips to defuse the situation, singing the anthem from the American Indian Movement with both men beating out the tempo on hand drums.
Although he feared a mob mentality that could turn ugly, Frejo said he was at peace singing despite the scorn. He briefly felt something special happen as they repeatedly sang the tune.
“They went from mocking us and laughing at us to singing with us. I heard it three times,” Frejo said. “That spirit moved through us, that drum, and it slowly started to move through some of those youths.”
Eventually a calm fell over the group of students and they broke up and walked away.
A ‘Heartbreaking’ display
State Rep. Ruth Buffalo, a North Dakota state lawmaker and member of the Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikara Nation, said she was saddened to see students showing disrespect to an elder who is also a US military veteran at what was supposed to be a celebration of all cultures.
“The behaviour shown in that video is just a snapshot of what indigenous people have faced and are continuing to face,” Buffalo said.
Here’s another video of these kids harassing this Native American protestor. The ignorance, the bigotry, is infuriating. This is not the future of this nation.
She said she hoped it would lead to some kind of meeting with the students to provide education on issues facing Native Americans.
US Rep. Deb Haaland, of New Mexico, who is a member of the Pueblo of Laguna and had been at the rally earlier in the day, used Twitter to sharply criticize what she called a “heartbreaking” display of “blatant hate, disrespect, and intolerance”.
Haaland, who is also Catholic, told AP she was particularly saddened to see the boys mocking an elder, who is revered in Native American culture. She placed some of the blame on President Donald Trump, who has used Indian names such as Pocahontas as an insult.
“It is sad that we have a president who uses Native American women’s names as racial slurs, and that’s an example that these kids are clearly following considering the fact that they had their ‘Make America Great Again’ hats on,” Haaland said. “He’s really brought out the worst in people.”
The #TenYearChallenge, in which users post a recent photograph of themselves next to one taken 10 years ago, has taken the social networking sites by storm, with even politicians sharing their own versions.
Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif used the challenge to ridicule the similar remarks made by John Bolton, national security adviser to US President Donald Trump, over 10 years.
Zarif compared an op-ed column written by Bolton 10 years ago about whether it was time for Israel to strike arch enemy, Iran, to his recent comments asking the Pentagon for its plans to do the same.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan also figured in the social media challenge, with the official account of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) publishing an Instagram photo of him from 2009 carrying a baby girl in his arms after a speech in front of his party’s parliamentary bloc.
A 2019 photo next to it shows the Turkish leader next to a school girl in the same place. “President Erdogan from yesterday until today,” says the caption with the post.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also took part in the challenge by posting two pictures on Twitter, comparing the border fence between Egypt and Israel 10 years apart.
A pro-Palestinian user responded by posting maps of Palestine before the declaration of Israel’s establishment in 1948 to a map from the present, showing how the Palestinian territory is drastically reduced following Israel’s occupation and expansion.
Cities, protests, and dictators
Activists reacted to the ’10 Year Challenge’ to underline its political, economic and even environmental dimensions.
Some posted pictures of several Arab capitals from Libya, Syria, Yemen and Iraq 10 years ago before wars destroyed the cities.
A Sudanese activist posted his country’s map in 2009 and compared it with the current map after the secession of South Sudan in 2011.
“I don’t think there is a difference that comes close to what happened to Sudan,” the activist wrote.
For his part, an Egyptian activist published a photo of Tahrir Square during the January 25 uprising in 2011, which showed hundreds of thousands of Egyptians protesting, next to a picture of a court trial of protesters who participated in the revolution.
Egypt has been described as an “open-air prison for critics” by Amnesty International with the North Africa Campaigns Director Najia Bounaim saying that under President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, “Egyptians … are treated as criminals simply for peacefully expressing their opinions”.
Humanitarian institutions also joined in the challenge, with the International Committee of the Red Cross posting on its Twitter page two photographs of Basel, a Syrian child from Aleppo, 10 years apart.
The first photo shows a young Basel sitting on a chair, while the accompanying image, depicting a young teenager in a similar pose, has his right hand amputated.
“This is what wars challenge us to do in 10 years,” the ICRC wrote.
في أقل من 10 سنوات أفقدت الحربُ باسل بيته في مدينة #حلب وعندما تمكن أخيرًا من العودة، فقد يده اليمنى وأصيب بجراح في وجهه إثر انفجار لغم أثناء لعبه مع أصدقائه في الحي. هذا ما تتحدانا الحروب لتفعله في 10 سنوات…#10YearChallangepic.twitter.com/eOS7SxHghL
Alaa Allagta, a Palestinian cartoonist, drew two pictures of a closed bottle, representing people’s protests rising up under the cork of military rule.
In Libya, an activist published a photograph of Colonel Muammar Gaddafi in 2009 wearing a military uniform, next to a picture of retired brigade General Khalifa Haftar wearing the same outfit, alluding to the latter’s desire to occupy Gaddafi’s place despite the 2011 revolution that toppled him.
The global economy was also tackled in the 10-year challenge. A Sudanese blogger published a picture of $100 and its equivalent in Sudanese pounds in 2009 and now.
An Egyptian activist posted a bank note worth 200 Egyptian pounds in 2009, next to a photo of 20 pounds note from this year, highlighting the deterioration in its value.
Ten-year challenge memes on climate change were also fairly popular. The SDG Academy, a UN initiative, published two photographs of the Rhone glacier in the Swiss Alps from 2008 and 2018.
“Do you know what the real 10-year challenge is? It is climate change,” the account tweeted.
Planet Love Life, an organisation dedicated to the conservation of marine life and oceans, posted two pictures of a coral reef, one healthy and brightly coloured, the second grey and dead.
“Coral reefs are dying at an alarming rate all around the globe,” the organisation said on its Instagram page. “They need our help.”
Mohamed Ben Khalifa was killed on January 19 in Libya by a stray shell. [Facebook]
Photographer and video journalist Mohamed Ben Khalifa was killed on Saturday by a stray shell south of Tripoli while on the job.
Ben Khalifa died while accompanying a militia patrolling the Qaser Bin Ghashir area south of Tripoli, according to Hamza Turkia, a freelance journalist.
The 35-year old photographer was also a freelance journalist who had contributed to the Associated Press news agency among other news organisations.
Condolences for his death came from around the journalism community in Libya, where he was known as one of its leading photographers.
#Libya-n journalists continue to pay the ultimate price for merely doing the necessary work of journalism. Mohamed Ben Khalifa, a photographer and video journalist, was killed yesterday in #Tripoli’s Qasr bin Ghashir after being hit by shrapnel. pic.twitter.com/iIfQ4R6ipP
A new round of fighting between rival militias erupted earlier this week, killing 13 people and wounding more than 50, according to the Libyan Health Ministry.
Colleagues of Ben Khalifa cited his awards and exhibitions.
For those who do not know Mohamed Ben Khalifa He is a photographer for the AP in TripoliHe is one of the leading photographers in Libya since 2014, He has won many awards and participated in many competitions and international exhibitions my best friend pic.twitter.com/H5PbxY6yCG
Mohamed Ben Khalifa, a freelance photographer who works for the @AP, was killed by a random shelling in clashes between rival militias in #Libya‘s capital #Tripoli
The fighting between militias allied with Libya’s UN-backed government in Tripoli and an armed group from a nearby town underscores Libya’s lingering lawlessness since the 2011 uprising that toppled and killed longtime leader Muammar Gaddafi.
Israel’s prime minister has departed for the central African nation of Chad to officially restore relations.
Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday hailed what he called a “historic and important breakthrough” with the Muslim-majority country that borders Libya and Sudan.
Chad’s President Idriss Deby visited Jerusalem in November.
Netanyahu has made great efforts to extend Israeli diplomacy to Africa and has visited the continent several times in recent years.
It’s part of an overall policy of seeking allies among developing countries that have historically sided with the Palestinians at the UN and other international forums.
Netanyahu says this outreach “causes outrage in Iran and among the Palestinians”.
Chad broke off relations with Israel in 1972. It plays a key role in combatting armed groups in the Sahara.
Netanyahu previously pledged to strengthen ties with the continent and described his pledge as a “priority” at a regional security conference he attended in Liberia in 2017.
Israel maintains diplomatic ties with 32 of the continent’s 54 countries.
Deby said his November visit was “historic” for both countries and that it “could facilitate the turning of a new page in relations between us” but added that even with a renewal of ties, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict could not be ignored.
“Of course, the renewal of diplomatic ties between us, which I very much want, is not something that can make the Palestinian issue disappear,” Deby said in Jerusalem.
Unofficial contacts between Israel and Chad have been ongoing for an extended period, Deby said. One source told Reuters news agency the visit is focused on security, adding that Israel has supplied Chad’s army with weapons and equipment this year to help fight rebels.
Chad is one of several states engaged in Western-backed operations against the Boko Haram armed group and fighters from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) group.
Wasel Abu Youssef, a senior Palestinian official, voiced displeasure over Deby’s visit.
“All countries and institutions must boycott the extremist government of Israel and impose a siege on it because of its settlement activities, its occupation of Palestinian land,” Youssef said.
Deby, one of Africa’s longest-serving leaders, took over the arid, impoverished nation in 1990 and won a disputed fifth term in April 2016.
![There are both violent peaceful elements to the anti-agreement demonstration in Athens [Alexandros Avramidis/Reuters]](https://i0.wp.com/www.aljazeera.com/mritems/imagecache/mbdxxlarge/mritems/Images/2019/1/20/4b73812f2ce4438fa0dcdf85ac7bf427_18.jpg "Thousands protest in Athens against Macedonia name change")
![Mohamed Ben Khalifa was killed on January 19 in Libya by a stray shell. [Facebook]](https://i0.wp.com/www.aljazeera.com/mritems/imagecache/mbdxxlarge/mritems/Images/2019/1/20/8331f3552ba64c6a9f0b55e8c03d1bcb_18.jpg "Acclaimed freelance photo journalist killed in Libya")
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