A disconsolate mother dressed in white wanders through Mexico City’s floating gardens looking for her children killed by COVID-19, in a pandemic-era adaptation of a legend rooted in Aztec mythology. The traditional play La Llorona (The Weeping Woman) returns to the UNESCO World Heritage Site of Xochimilco ahead of the Day of the Dead with a poignant tribute to the victims of COVID-19. The ghost with flowing black hair, who according to legend reappears every year searching for her downed children, has spread throughout Latin America. “It’s dedicated to the memory of all the people who left without saying goodbye to their loved ones and for all the families who have suffered this loss,” Nayeli Cortes, who has played the role of the weeping mother for 11 years, said. Measures such as face masks made of transparent plastic or cloth and a smaller audience enabled the 27-year-old performance and its flamboyant costumes to survive the pandemic. COVID-19 has killed 86,000 people in Mexico, one of the world’s highest tolls, and as in other countries kept people apart from their families. “Not being able to hug, hold hands or kiss (relatives) is very frustrating and that’s why right now it’s dedicated to them,” said stage director Maria Luisa Castillo. “We know that they are here with us and it is the homage that we can give them, and also to tell them, ‘Here we are. We remember you. You will never be forgotten.’” According to experts, the legend of the wandering ghost was first documented around 1550. It is associated with supposed dire omens prior to the Spanish conquest that predicted the end of the Tenochtitlan empire 500 years ago. The audience watched the show from the gondolas that ply the canals of Xochimilco, which usually attracts about a million tourists a year but was shut for almost
The prognosis for biodiversity on Earth is grim. According to a sobering report released by the UN last year, 1 million land and marine species across the globe are threatened with extinction — more than at any other period in human history. According to a recent study, about 20 percent of the countries in the world risk ecosystem collapse due to the destruction of wildlife and their habitats, a result of human activity in tandem with a warming climate. The US is the ninth most at risk. Despite this desperate outlook, the Trump administration, as part of its aggressive rollback of regulations designed to protect the environment, has lifted protections for America’s animals. It has shrunk several national monuments and opened up a huge amount of federal land for oil and gas drilling, coal mining and other industrial activities — actions that conservationists warn could imperil species whose numbers are already dwindling and that are core to the health of our ecosystems. Here we look at some of the animals most at risk from Trump’s rollbacks. WOLVERINES In 2019, the Trump administration changed the way the Endangered Species Act is applied, making it harder to protect animals. “There are many species that have been wrongly denied protection over the last several years because of this,” says Brett Hartl, government affairs director at the Center for Biological Diversity. Just last week, the US Fish and Wildlife Service announced it will deny protections for the snow-loving wolverine under the Endangered Species Act. Wolverines were wiped out across most of the country by the early 1900s following unregulated trapping and poisoning campaigns. According to Hartl, they are slowly clawing their way back in some areas but there are presently fewer than 300 wolverines left in the contiguous US. SAGE GROUSE The Trump administration plans to open up drilling on 9m acres of
What sort of science fiction does Xi Jinping (習近平) like? How can China’s weathermen use the president’s political philosophy to improve their forecasts? In what ways can “Xi Thought” help prepare the country for the next big earthquake? These are the sorts of questions Communist Party cadres are now pondering as they prepare for the next big milestone in the president’s effort to cement control: Elevating Xi Thought alongside Maoism. The esoteric concept is expected to be written into the five-year development blueprint that will be unveiled after party meetings later this month. Everyone from diplomats to executives to sci-fi writers are under pressure to incorporate the broad, often fuzzy tenets of Xi Thought into their policies. The project is central to Xi’s effort to quiet opposition and to stay on past 2022, when he’s expected to seek a third five-year term as party chief. Once Xi has his own “-ism,” the theory goes, he’ll be elevated to a political standing on par with Mao Zedong (毛澤東), whose portrait hangs over Tiananmen Square and is printed on the currency. It will also make it all-the-more difficult to question his edicts. “Its importance lies in prominently raising Xi’s personal profile,” said Carl Minzner, a professor at Fordham Law School who specializes in Chinese law and governance. “Every time the command to study it is uttered on TV, and every time is written in a party document, it is a highly visible signal to both party officials and citizens at large as to who is on top, and whose orders actually matter.” TAKING SHAPE While some key tenets of Mao’s philosophy are included in the iconic Little Red Book, Xi Thought is still being shaped and yet to be compiled in one place, although the three-volume Xi Jinping: The Governance of China — a collection of his
Food can reflect culture, but can food also reflect history? That was what Lee Chi-lin (李其霖), associate professor of history at Tamkang University (淡江大學) wanted to explore when he gathered historians, local officials and culinary enthusiasts at the Tamsui Red House (淡水紅樓), an exquisite red-brick Taiwanese cuisine restaurant built in 1899. Lee planned the menu to reflect the historic Qing victory over the French in the Battle of Tamsui, also known as the Battle of Hobe (滬尾, Tamsui’s old name). On Aug. 23, 1884 war had broken out due to a territorial dispute in Vietnam between the French and Taiwan’s Qing Dynasty overlords. After capturing Keelung, French warships appeared just outside Tamsui in early morning of Oct. 2 and bombarded the port. The French Fusiliers Marins launched a ground assault on Oct. 8, but defending forces drove out the invaders in just four hours. The French defeat played a significant role in the Qing’s recognition of the strategic importance of controlling Taiwan and the imperial decision to separate Taiwan from Fujian as its 20th province in 1885. Lee’s 10-course menu illustrated significant aspects of the event. In battle storytelling fashion, Lee described each dish before it was served on the tables. However, gastronomic concerns over the order of the dishes took preference over the exact chronology. Dish 1 “Reveille:” The call to battle begins with a beautifully decorated local seafood boat. The French coveted the port of Tamsui, regarded as a stronghold of maritime trade since the 17th century. Heavily armed, the invaders are represented by a large crab. The Qing, poorly equipped but numerous, are the smaller prawns. And an uninvited Japanese admiral, Heihachiro Togo, watches while eating sashimi on the battlecruiser Amagi. Black beans and iron eggs (a Tamsui specialty) depict planted spies, including a British pilot named Bentley, who went by the
When Dalilah Restrepo, then a New York-based physician, clicked on an e-mail in 2018 asking if she was “looking for experiencing something abroad”, she was skeptical. “And then I opened it, and I was like … New Zealand? Gosh, that’s a bit drastic.” Restrepo, who had been in private practice for “10 or 11 years,” was exhausted. “The health system in the US is really toxic,” she said. Health disparities and “moral injury” had caused burnout among her peers, she said, and before the suggestion that she leave the States, she had thought of quitting her profession altogether. In March 2019, Restrepo joined a growing number of medical professionals from the US relocating to New Zealand. They come with admiration for a society that values scientific knowledge, what they see as the prime minister Jacinda Ardern’s progressive political ideals, and the pristine landscapes made famous by Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings films. “Everyone was like, ‘You’re going to heaven right? We’re really jealous,’” Restrepo said. POPULAR PASSPORT The number of American doctors yearning for such a move, recruitment firms in the US and New Zealand say, has increased substantially since the COVID-19 pandemic. With their skills in demand they are among the few professions able to obtain entry to a country whose passport — according to an index this month – is the most powerful in the world. “Some of the inquiries come from changes in their own employment due to COVID,” said Chad Saley, a spokesperson for Global Medical Staffing, a US-based firm that places American doctors abroad. “Others are interested in working there due to the country’s positive response to COVID.” New Zealand has drawn global praise after appearing to quell the spread of COVID-19, twice — with just over 1,500 cases and 25 deaths. On the night of Donald Trump’s debate with Joe Biden
Oct 19 to Oct 25 Ma Yi-kung (馬以工) sighed a breath of relief after the March 1981 meeting to “decide the final fate” of the mangrove forests of Tamsui. Even though then-premier Sun Yun-suan (孫運璿) had announced a year earlier that the Executive Yuan would pledge to protect the forest, the Water Resources Agency still insisted on razing them to build public housing. In June 1980, the forests suffered a serious blow when unscrupulous developers cut down over 30,000m2 of the plants, and experts rushed in to reverse the damage. Sun had announced on Oct. 22, 1980 that the government would protect the forest, but the Water Resources Agency refused to back down until that final meeting. “Especially considering our national power today, there is no need for us to destroy a stable ecosystem just for a little economic benefit,” Ma writes in the 1983 book We Only Have One Earth (我們只有一個地球), coauthored with her high school classmate and fellow activist Han Han (韓韓). “Today’s results bring at least a ray of hope to the future of Taiwan’s ecological conservation.” This was a year before the government established an environmental protection bureau, and Ma writes that at that time there were no laws enforcing environmental protection. “Only in the past 10 years have people started paying attention to ecology, and began considering our relationship with nature,” she writes. “Most people still judge these issues by values such as the usefulness of the mangroves. Can we eat them? Can we use them as fuel? Can we use them to fight cancer? It seems like things only have the right to survive if they have any use for humans.” Today, Ma and Han are considered pioneers of Taiwan’s environmental conservation efforts. Even so, attempts to develop the mangroves continued until 1986, when the government finally established the
The coronavirus pandemic has had many social, political and economic ramifications. One interesting side effect in the cycling world has been the demolition of the world record for everesting. The latest time of six hours and 59 minutes was set by Sean Gardner two weeks ago in the US state of Virginia. Don’t worry if you haven’t heard of everesting, most cyclists hadn’t until recently. Primarily an individual event, it is ideally suited to a time when social distancing and restrictions on travel mean that many local and international sporting events have been canceled, since it can be undertaken on any hill in any country, “or even on a bridge or the driveway of your home,” states the Web site of the Hells 500, custodian of the Everesting Hall of Fame (everesting.cc/hall-of-fame/#/). The concept is fiendishly simple, but achieving it is brutally difficult. All you need to do is cycle the height of Mount Everest, 8,848m, on a single hill in a single activity. “No time limit. No sleep.” HISTORIC ORIGINS The challenge can be traced back to 1994, when George Mallory, grandson of the mountaineer of the same name, was preparing to climb the real Everest in commemoration of his British grandfather’s disappearance there in 1924. As part of his training, he cycled up Australia’s 1,250m Mount Donna Buang eight times in 22 hours and 45 minutes. There have been 6,538 successful everesting attempts in 97 countries to date, with more added almost every week. This year, having been taken up by elite riders, the record has been broken six times since May 11, when American Phil Gaimon did the first sub-eight-hour ride. The most high-profile cyclist to hold the record was Spain’s seven-time Grand Tour winner Alberto Contador who posted seven hours and 27 minutes on July 6. To beat this, on July 30
The western half of Linnei Township (林內) is a flat mishmash of farmland, industry and residential neighborhoods. Most of the rest shows up on satellite photos as dark green, rugged and hilly. These woodlands, in the northeastern corner of Yunlin County, are easy to access, even if you’re using public transportation. I wheeled my bicycle off a local train at Linnei, rode south less than 200m, then turned left. According to a bilingual sign on the corner, the distance from there to Longguomai Forest Trail (龍過脈森林步道) is precisely 1,024m. But it’s a steep 1,024m. I had to shift into low gear before reaching a temple forecourt big enough for half a dozen tour buses. A pair of shrines, one behind the other, face the lowlands. The lower, larger building is Ji Gong Temple (濟公廟). Behind it, and slightly higher up the hillside, is Three Saints Hall (三聖殿). THE DRUNK MONK Ji Gong (濟公) is the name given to a 12th-century Buddhist monk who won respect and admiration during his lifetime for helping the poor and the sick. At the same time, he became notorious for habitually breaking two monastic rules, namely that monks shouldn’t eat meat or drink alcohol. Sometimes called “the drunk monk,” he’s often portrayed as unkempt and intoxicated. The statue that occupies the central position in Ji Gong Temple depicts the monk as a rakish, Errol Flynn lookalike. A gourd-type bottle dangles from his left hand. Ji Gong also appears in Three Saints Hall, on the right. This version looks suitably sozzled, and even less dependable. Among the offerings on the altar was an opened bottle of Red Label Rice Wine, a clear liquor that non-alcoholics use only for cooking. As usual, my pre-trip research hadn’t been very thorough. It wasn’t until I wandered around, and gazed down at the torii gate
It has been four years since Puyuma singer-songwriter Sangpuy Katatepan Mavaliyw released his award-winning album Yaangad (椏幹, Life), but his fans long wait ended yesterday, when he released pulu’em (得力量, Gain Strength). The release came ahead of a weekend of afternoon concerts at the Cloud Gate Theater in New Taipei City’s Tamsui District (淡水) that his team are calling the “Sangpuy 2020 Cloud Gate Theater Sharing Sessions” (桑布伊2020雲門劇場音樂分享會). He has had a busy four years in the interval: providing vocals for then-Cloud Gate Dance Theatre (雲門舞集) artistic director Lin Hwai-min (林懷民) 2017 production, Formosa (關於島嶼); touring in Europe; a three-concert run at the National Theater in Taipei in April last year as part of the Taiwan International Festival of Arts; helping his mother in the family’s orchard, and of course, working on new songs. That was in addition to picking up three awards at the 2017 Golden Melody Awards for Yaangad, including — in an historic win for an Aboriginal artist — Best Album of the Year, as well as his second Best Aboriginal Singer trophy — the first was for 2012’s Dalan (路, Road). The Taitung County native told a news conference in Taipei on Tuesday that one of the benefits of having some of this year’s tour dates in Europe canceled because of the COVID-19 pandemic was that it gave him more time to work on pulu’em, the first album he has coproduced. Collaborations with several Taiwanese musicians and arrangers led him into some new musical directions, he said, while meeting Belgian violinist-composer Wouter Vandenabeele and Senagalese musician Bao Sissoko, two members of the trio Tamala, at a music festival in Belgium last year, ended up with them working on one of his new songs, A Day in the Life (一天的生活). Some of the 10 songs on pulu’em — which means gaining strength and
Even though tomorrow’s Uanliu Music Festival (灣流音樂祭) features an all-Taiwanese lineup, virtually no Mandarin will be heard. Instead, the sounds of some of Taiwan’s once-suppressed languages — Hoklo (commonly known as Taiwanese), Hakka, Atayal and Amis — will permeate the two stages and booths next to National Taiwan University’s (NTU) Drunken Moon Lake. The eclectic lineup includes Hakka folk icon Lin Sheng-hsiang (林生祥), last year’s Golden Indie-winning fusion group ChuNoodle (春麵), Hoklo indie rockers Windmill (風籟坊) and Atayal chanteuse Yaway Mawring. Put together and crowdfunded by members of the NTU Student Association’s native languages task force (本土語言小組) and NTU Taigi Bun Sia (台語文社, Taiwanese language club), the event is an attempt to get students to take interest in the issue of language endangerment and revitalization, which organizers say is often ignored. Event coordinator Lim Liu-sin (林柔辰) says that the most popular social topics on campus are gender issues and transitional justice, but she has noticed more people expressing interest at least in learning Hoklo over the past year. A Taichung native, she grew up speaking the language and competed in reading competitions, but after she moved to Taipei she found that there were virtually no opportunities to use it. “Only then did I realize that the Taiwanese language is disappearing and how important the issue is,” she says. Co-organizer Liau Tsun-khai (廖俊凱), whose parents spoke it at home but never to him, also experienced the same thing after moving to Taipei. On the other hand, although most of Jay Wei’s (韋晢) family came to Taiwan from China in 1949 and his mother tongue is Mandarin, he joined the native languages task force because he sees these languages as a way of establishing a distinct Taiwanese identity, and is also crucial to transitional justice. However, the students believe that the only way to truly preserve
Pecha Lo (羅珮嘉) isn’t concerned that fewer female Taiwanese filmmakers are focusing solely on gender equality. “Some may worry that the topic is being underrepresented, but I don’t think we should place limits on what stories women can tell; that is too politically correct,” the director of the Women Make Waves Film Festival tells the Taipei Times. “I hope to see them exploring a wider range of topics.” Going against the grain fits nicely with this year’s theme of “femture” (an amalgamation of feminism and future), where Lo encourages the audience to imagine and explore what it means to be a woman in the near or distant future — especially as the world is thrown into disarray by the COVID-19 pandemic. Now in its 27th year, the festival opens today with 76 films over 10 days, featuring mostly foreign films and a Taiwan competition section. “There are many mainstream forces dictating to us what kind of woman we should be,” Lo says, but she notes that even identifying as a woman is optional these days as gender becomes increasingly fluid. The visuals for the festival are markedly neutral this year, using muted tones and androgynous figures. “I’ve purposely blurred the portrayal of the woman, so that people are free to imagine what a woman might look like in the future,” Lo says. Last year, the festival addressed the big issues such as the MeToo movement and women regaining control over their bodies. This year, it examines problems that may not be as apparent, especially in a country like Taiwan where many mistakenly believe that gender equality has been achieved due to its high global rankings in women’s rights. “In the past two years, whether it be in the West or in Taiwan, society has become more aware of sexual harassment, but new problems
A lot was riding on the world premiere of choreographer Cheng Tsung-lun’s (鄭宗龍) latest piece, Sounding Light (定光), his first full-length work for Cloud Gate Dance Theatre (雲門舞集) since taking over as artistic director from founder Lin Hwai-min (林懷民) at the beginning of this year. Sounding Light, which opened at the National Theater in Taipei on Oct. 1, and will be in Kaoshiung this weekend and in Taichung next weekend, was a revelation — a light, airy work at once both earthy and etheral. However, it also raised the question of what it might have looked like if COVID-19 had not hit the world. Cheng has said in several interviews that he was inspired by the forced solitude of the mandatory 14-day quarantine that he and other company members had to complete after returning from a European tour earlier this year. The sounds of the neighborhood around where he was staying obviously made him more introspective than normal, and contemplative of the sounds of the natural world and those of humans. The result is a quieter, more subtle piece than audiences have come to expect from the man who brought the sights and sounds of his Wanhua District (萬華) childhood to life in 13 Tongues (十三聲) for Cloud Gate 2 (雲門2), or used technology to such great effect in Lunar Halo (毛月亮). Watching Sounding Light makes you feel like you are sitting in a sun-dappled glen early in the morning, seeing and hearing the forest come to life around you, but with a microscopic view of the insects, birds and other creatures. It was almost as if a David Attenborough documentary had come to life in front of you. The sounds — the breaths of wind, the rustling of leaves, the crepitation of cicadas and the patter of rain — are not from a soundtrack, but
Given that this reviewer managed to stay awake for the entire 135 minutes of Chen Uen (千年一問), it feels like the eponymous subject lived much longer than his 58 years. It’s a curious documentary since it was made entirely after Chen Uen (鄭問), the pen name of artist and illustrator Cheng Chin-wen (鄭進文), died of a heart attack in 2017. Viewers only get to know Chen through his vivid artwork and the people he met. Some old footage of Chen is used, but only sparingly, as he’s mostly portrayed as a silent animation, solemnly strolling through his old haunts and finally visiting his 2018 posthumous exhibition at the National Palace Museum. Director Wang Wan-jo’s (王婉柔) attention to detail is stunning, fully capturing the essence of the era in each stage of Chen’s life through music, framing, graphic details and recreated scenes. Even the backdrops to the talking heads are carefully designed and at times echo Chen’s artwork, making the entire film a visual feast despite a huge part of it being straight up interviews. Chen undoubtedly had tremendous talent and deeply inspired the people around him as he moved from venture to venture and locale to locale, and that’s what makes up the bulk of the film. His fantastical, colorful and unrestrained artwork is tastefully brought to life through animations, and his wide range of creative methods are painstakingly recreated, such as splashing ink onto the page out of frustration or searing the paper with a lighter. To people who knew him, Chen was a man that kept his feelings bottled up. Many say that he was a repressed, reclusive and melancholic soul who never seemed truly happy, and yet seemed to have a passion for life and the people around him. Assistants speak of his extremely high demands, yet fondly recall
While many outdoor festivals have fallen silent, the music plays on this weekend in Central Taiwan. The Compass Taichung International Food and Music Festival is set to kick off on Saturday and Sunday at the city’s Civic Square (市民廣場), popularly known as People’s Park. “There’s no better location in Taichung for an outdoor event,” said Douglas Habecker, co-publisher of Compass Magazine, which hosts the event, now in its 17th year. The spacious park is home to the annual Taichung Jazz Festival, which was canceled this year due to issues related to COVID-19. In addition to the usual genres of rock, blues and hip-hop, jazz has taken a higher profile at this year’s Compass festival. “In a very small way we tried to fill that void,” said Habecker. Jazzhead Trio and Mark Kuo’s Jazztet are two of the jazz groups featured, in addition to perennial favorites such as The ShapeMaster, Native Space and PhiloSophia. In all, 20 or so musical groups are set to take the stage this week, with singer-songwriters mostly performing in the afternoons and bands in the evening hours. Aside from music, dozens of local vendors will be on hand offering up diverse food and drink options. Non-profit organizations will include the International Women’s Association of Taichung, which will sell baked goods, with the profits going to a local charity. With warm temperatures expected, the event will take place rain or shine. For the latest updates, check the Compass Food and Music Fest Facebook event page.
This is a collection of four stories about Taiwan featuring four male Taiwanese authors. The opening item is Lady Wasi by the Atayal writer Walis Nokan. It’s set in the logging uplands during the Japanese occupation and in colorful prose describes the hard life endured by the laborers there, and the measure of relief provided by a female visitor called Lady Wasi. She eventually finds her perfect man, however, and so leaves the other workers notably unsatisfied. The author is prominent among indigenous writers in Taiwan and known especially for his two story collections, Cruelty of Wars (2014) and Seven-day Reading (2016). Gan Yao-ming’s (甘耀明) Have a Bite of Ghost couldn’t be more different. Apparently the phrase in Hakka means “stingy,” though in this context it means “too stingy to allow the kids something good.” And the story is about a child who is deprived of a share of a boar’s leg his poor family has somehow managed to acquire. It moves through stages of hunger until finally the leg has become rotten and of no use to anyone. The aim here is presumably comedy, but to be honest I didn’t find it very funny. But Gan has won many awards, including the Award of Taipei International Book Fair for his 2010 novel Killing Ghosts and First Prize in the Taiwan Literary Award for his 2015 novel The Pangcah Girl. Lin Chun-ying’s (林俊穎) ABC, Doggie Bites Piggy represents a distinct improvement. It’s set in the period immediately following the departure of the Japanese and the arrival of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT). Its subject could be said to be people’s illusions, and it’s unusual in having several allusions to Western literature. H.G. Wells’ The Outline of History, Nietzsche’s Thus Spake Zarathurtra and the opening words of Dickens’ A Tale of
Is the trash can half full or half empty? When it comes to handling garbage, Taiwan has made tremendous progress. The proportion of waste that ends up in landfills has shrunk to less than 1 percent. Thanks to one of the world’s highest recycling rates, there isn’t enough household refuse to keep the nation’s incinerators busy. Yet, at the same time, anyone who travels through rural Taiwan will see plenty of bottles, cans and plastic bags by the roadside. Much of this waste persists in the environment as microplastics after it degrades. “Minimizing the amount of waste we create is one way to reduce our environmental footprint,” says Shia Su (蘇小親) author of Zero Waste: Simple Life Hacks to Drastically Reduce Your Trash. Inspired by the realization that “our wasteful ways are literally draining this planet,” Su — who was born in Germany to Taiwanese parents — and her husband, Hanno Su, gradually adjusted their consumption habits to the point where they now produce about as much garbage in an entire year as the average Taipei resident generates every few days. To reduce their energy footprint and environmental impact, the couple also follow a vegan diet, live in 10-ping studio apartment in Cologne and buy only secondhand goods. ‘ZERO WASTE’ Many of the tips in Su’s book first appeared on the couple’s English and German-language Web site, wastelandrebel.com. Readers can learn about composting in the confined space of an apartment, how to make plant-based milks at home, how to freeze bread without plastic and using rye flour instead of liquid shampoo. Zero Waste was first published in 2016 in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. Since then, Su has made multiple revisions, with the German-language edition now in its sixth edition. An English-language version appeared in 2018. Taiwan’s Cite Publishing brought out a traditional Chinese edition, titled
The world is racing towards a vaccine in record time, stirring public concerns about safety to the extent that nine leading developers have felt compelled to issue a pledge to uphold scientific standards and testing rigor. Yet, while more than 40 experimental COVID-19 vaccines are being tested on humans, the insurance companies with decades of experience in assessing the risks of clinical trials don’t see anything to be unduly concerned about. Executives at insurer Allianz and brokers Gallagher and Marsh, among the leading players in clinical trials insurance, said that premiums had only marginally increased so far in the current pandemic. They argued there was little structural difference to trials carried out in the past, despite drugmakers around the world competing to shatter the fastest time in history for developing a vaccine, which stands at around four years. “Rates have been relatively stable. Even this year we have so far seen only moderate price increases on average, with higher price jumps for particularly exposed COVID-19 trials,” said Mark Piazzi, senior underwriter liability at Allianz Global Corporate & Specialty (AGCS). This was echoed by David Briggs, managing director, life sciences practice at Gallagher, who said every trial was rated on its methods and the kinds of patients involved. Gallagher said premiums in Britain, for example, started at about ￡5,000 (US$6,500) per trial. Total claims limits in policies were typically set at roughly US$6 million to US$12 million, depending on the country’s rules, according to several insurance companies. In Britain, for instance, claim limits were usually set at no lower than ￡5 million, while in Germany the figure was around 10 million euros (US$11.8 million). ‘LOSS EXPERIENCE NOT DRAMATIC’ However part of the reason why premiums have not risen as sharply as some people might have expected is that claims from trial are generally uncommon, according to executives. This is because patients
After endlessly swiping through pictureless profiles on dating apps, Muhammad Ali Shah still hasn’t found the one — or really anyone — to get serious with in Pakistan. In the ultra-conservative Islamic republic, where arranged marriages are the norm, he says many women choose to stay anonymous, making online dating matches tricky. “It’s slim pickings,” sighs the 36-year-old entrepreneur living in the capital Islamabad, saying friends have called him “desperate” and a “man whore” after going on dozens of dates over the past three years to little avail. Unlike in many countries where meeting online is routine, Pakistanis who use dating apps regularly face harassment and judgmental relatives — and now also have to contend with a government clampdown. Women users in particular fear possible retribution and often reveal little about themselves — using cartoons, avatars, or random pictures of nature instead of a profile photo. “Girls aren’t comfortable... so they don’t really put their pictures or their real names. So it’s a guessing game,” explains Shah. The self-described conversationalist relies instead on humorous ice breakers with new matches to kickstart chats, and only asks for a picture if the potential date is comfortable and possibly up for meeting. “Most of the time I’m just left swiping because there aren’t any pictures. There’s no real information. The names are not there,” adds Shah. “I don’t blame women for being so careful. I actually think it’s very smart.” Securing a date is just the first hurdle. In the self-proclaimed “Land of the Pure” — where sexual relations outside marriage, and homosexuality, are punishable with prison sentences — dating culture is unfamiliar. “People don’t really understand the concept (of dating) in Pakistan,” explains Shah, who started to use the apps after his divorce. “You meet them once or twice and then they will be like ‘we are looking for something serious’.” ‘TABOO’ A 27-year-old
A police sting that busted a prostitution ring and triggered a back-and-forth in the courts has revealed a conflict in Indian law over a woman’s right to sell sex and a state’s right to stop her. It all comes down to female choice, according to a landmark legal ruling last month that hands a rare victory to prostitutes in a land which affords women scant sexual freedom. “You cannot rehabilitate anyone against their will. There has to be consent,” said Siddharth Jaiswal, the women’s lawyer. The case began last year when a Mumbai court prevented three sex workers from leaving the protective home they were forcibly moved to after police rescued them from prostitution. Despite their opposition, the court said that they should be counseled against sex work, learn new skills and find fresh jobs. It said the trio needed state “care and protection.” That order was overturned last month by the Bombay High Court, which upheld the women’s right “to choose their own vocation,” a judgment campaigners say should help other adult sex workers break free from enforced protection. “The consent of the victim is never taken before they are taken into shelters. The victim themselves are not aware of their rights,” Jaiswa said. “There has to be consent. It becomes punishment otherwise.” RIGHT TO CHOOSE The case is key as India’s Immoral Traffic Prevention Act — applied in brothel raids and sex worker rescues — fails to distinguish between victims of trafficking and women doing sex work out of choice, lawyers and campaigners said. Adult sex workers rounded up by police are housed in shelters for 21 days for verification and medical tests, among other formalities, according to the law. After the 21 days, courts can impose a further detention of up to three years, based on a woman’s family background and the circumstances that led them into
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