Dr. Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, the father of the Iran’s nuclear weapons and missile programs, was assassinated near Tehran on Friday, November 27. He was attacked by unknown killers in Damavand, Tehran Province, during an armed conflict with his bodyguards. But this was not the first time that someone had tried to assassinate him. Fakhrizadeh had survived an assassination attempt in 2008, when assailants on a motorcycle attached an explosive gadget to his car. But he survived that plot. In 2014, the New York Times even compared Fakhrizadeh to J. Robert Oppenheimer, the American physicist and “father of the atomic bomb.” No doubt Fakhrizadeh’s killing will set Iran back because he was the core source of authority, knowledge, and organization of the nuclear program. No one has claimed responsibility for the killing of Dr. Mohsen Fakriazadeh. Tel Aviv, Mossad, the White House, the Pentagon, the US State Department, and the CIA have all remained silent about this event, as has Biden’s transition team. But, if it were indeed the work of the Mossad, a scenario which may never be confirmed or proven, it would indicate the presence of an extensive clandestine network of agents planted in Iran which may have enlisted local anti-regime elements for the operation. Therefore, this killing may never be officially acknowledged, any more than its precedents. Continue reading →
Why are Muslim countries silent about the treatment of the Uyghur Muslims in China? Saudi Arabia’s King Salman opened the G20 summit Saturday in a first for an Arab country with the virtual forum dominated by the questions of how to tackle the distribution of the coronavirus vaccines and the worst global recession. Some of the countries wanted to boycott the G20 summit under Saudi Arabia’s presidency, because they questioned Saudi Arabia’s human rights record. But none even bothered to question China’s genocide against millions of Uyghur Muslims. It is all too easy to blame Donald Trump for the crisis in global affairs, but for decades China has taken advantage of America and the western countries by refusing to contribute its share. The President of the United States revealed that China is a highly visible threat to international order. The ultimate goal of China is not to become part of the free and fair society, but it is to destroy that democratic society. China has already wrecked America’s prized intellectual property and trade secrets, causing the loss of millions of jobs all across America. It sucked supply chains away from around the globe and then made slave labor to produce the products. The world biggest supply chains are located in China; that is why during the pandemic countries like Japan paid a huge price when China locked down. Continue reading →
I am not concerned about the prospect of Joe Biden’s winning the Presidency, nor am I concerned about President Trump‘s not being re-elected. What I am concerned about is that there is no leader during this crucial time to guide the world. What I am concerned about is that Russia has taken charge of events in the Middle East and world affairs from Syria to Afghanistan and Libya; China is resolved to solve the question regarding Taiwan; North Korea is determined to have nuclear ballistic capability; and Iran has sought control in the Middle East, Africa, and Central Asia. Joe Biden envisions a return to global environmental treaties that are bad for American businesses through a Green New Deal that will make American taxpayers pay for China, India, and the world’s other most polluted countries. China is not being honest about the Corona virus, not mention the downturn in the American economy resulting from the pandemic. My concern is that this election represents one of the biggest American gambles in its history. Sadly, many American voters have not had the chance to think carefully about the issues mentioned above. As expected, the leftist media is exploiting the pandemic, the lockdowns, and the riots that have ravaged the American economy in order to smear the President and label him as a complete failure. The Democratic campaign timely weaponized the Corona virus in America as a to help Joe Biden politically to become America’s 46th President. Continue reading →
(August 2020) Schools across the Philippines have encountered challenges during the statewide lockdown. Those same challenges were also faced by College Education Behind Bars inside the Davao City Jail and the Davao Prison and Penal Farm because COVID-19 safety measures stopped face-to-face educational services. However, College Behind Bars educators turned to communication, cooperation, and innovation to achieve rehabilitative education goals. With limited technology in the facility, we moved to paper correspondence amid the pandemic. No essentials were suspended altogether, such as physical education among the other programs.The benefits of College Education Behind Bars are well documented. Studies show that postsecondary programs can reduce recidivism while improving morale and safety in facilities and increasing post-incarceration job prospects. In the past jails and prisons have been warehouses with their limited space and minimal disinfectants allowing diseases to spread widely in facilities with insufficient health care and a high prevalence of underlying conditions. Because the Davao Prison and Penal Farm superintendent devised and implemented hygienic and safety measures, these ill effects mitigated the spread of diseases, so that the facility was COVID-19 free. Continue reading →
Kenema, Sierra Leone. Photo with some nursing staff in Sierra Leone. The nurses have fought the Ebola outbreak in 2014-2016 and now helping to restore the very fragile health system of the country.
In year 2013, Jerwin Capuras graduated from the University of Mindanao in Davao City with a degree of Bachelor of Science in Nursing. He received a full college scholarship grant from Minority Care International, a Texas-based organization with office in Davao, giving scholarships to young deserving minority students. He was fifteen years old when he got to know about Minority Care International (MCI) and their activities in Davao He met the MCI President, Aland Mizell, who saw his potentials as a student while he started to join various youth and outreach activities of the organization; and became a student of life of MCI. Jerwin says: “MCI, more than giving me a full college scholarship, has molded and honed me to be what I am today”.
At Kutupalong Refugee Camp, Coxs Bazar, Bangladesh. Jerwin with the Rohingyas while waiting for their turn during medical consultation inside the refugee camp.
“There was no specific person or following the footsteps of a certain member of the family or relative in deciding to become a nurse, but rather it was a gradual realization that becoming a nurse would be a great life path for me. I have been fortunate enough to be exposed and engaged in many volunteering activities in the Southern Philippines while I was young, experiences which stimulated and inspired me to discover further my innate desire to help people and care for them in times of need. I saw that to become a nurse was one of the professions that would give me the avenue to extend this passion”, Jerwin relates.
“During my last two years in nursing school, Typhoon Pablo battered Compostela Valley Province, my hometown. I happened to be there when the typhoon landed. It was so strong, we thought it was the end of our world. Our house was unroofed and we were trapped for a few days with no aid from outside as roads were impassable. Days later, many local groups arrived and I had the opportunity of joining various relief efforts. Instead of becoming a victim, I chose to become a resource. That experience inspired me a lot. I knew I wanted to become someone where my skills could be used to help the vulnerable ones.
In early 2014, fresh from finishing nursing school and getting my license to practice the profession from the nursing board, I went on to work at the biggest state hospital in Southern Philippines (SPMC) in Davao City, to be honed and molded as a novice nurse, getting all the learnings and experiences on the job. In 2016, I got a big opportunity of being accepted to work on Mercy Ships in Benin, West Africa. Mercy Ships is an international organization that operates the largest charity hospital ship in the world, providing free health care to countries where medical care is nearly non-existent. I went to Benin, a tiny country off the coast of West Africa, for six months. It was a very bold decision. I knew this would open more doors for me to become a fully- equipped professional humanitarian worker. At a young age of 24, I made a decision that is uncommon to most young Filipinos, especially for a Filipino health worker. The Philippines is the biggest exporter of nurses among the first world countries, but seldom do we see a Filipino who chooses medical humanitarian work, going to places where people opt not to go, and taking the path less travelled by many. I discovered so much more of myself and my passion during my short term work in Benin.”
“After my time in Benin, I received a job opportunity to work in Bangladesh in 2017 with Samaritan’s Purse, an international relief organization, during the height of the Rohingya refugees’ exodus. In 2017, a harsh and deadly crackdown on Rohingya Muslims by Myanmar’s military which sent hundreds of thousands of Rohingyas fleeing across the border into Bangladesh. A million of them are now cramped on a hilly refugee camp in southern Bangladesh which is now the biggest refugee camp in the world. I stayed in Bangladesh until end of 2018, caring for the Rohingyas who had severe traumatic body injuries and also responded to the outbreak of Diphtheria and threat of Cholera in the refugee camp. I was very grateful living and doing the very job and life I wanted to do.”
“Before ending my time in Bangladesh, I got to know about Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF)/Doctors Without Borders, which runs a big project in the refugee camp. Although I have known about MSF for a long time, I became more interested in them when I was in Bangladesh. I knew that for anyone who wanted to get involved in medical humanitarian work, joining MSF is on top of the bucket list.
During a teaching session on pediatric cardio pulmonary resuscitation to the health care workers of Kenema, Sierra Leone. Sierra Leone has one of the highest under five years of age childhood mortality rates in the world.
So prior to ending my one- year stint in Bangladesh, before going back to the Philippines, I decided to submit my resume to MSF, confident that my experiences, skills, knowledge and passion would land me a role in this esteemed organization. Before 2018 ended, I got a call from a recruitment officer of MSF, informing me that I got shortlisted. I went on with the usual and rigid MSF recruitment process and was officially welcomed to the MSF pool in December 2018. In February 2019 I went to the MSF headquarters in Belgium for my onboarding. I boarded a plane bound for South Sudan to begin my first mission with MSF. Joining MSF has further ignited my passion to serve. The work allows me to be part of something bigger than myself. I cannot see myself being in another field not related to this nature of work”.
Jerwin sees the risks he takes in his job: “Humanitarian work, such as with MSF, is not exempted from any risks. I think we always face various hazards while in the field. There are risks that naturally come with the job. During my time in South Sudan, we faced various risks such as indiscriminate attacks against aid workers, threats from continuous clashes with government forces and rebels and even risks caused by harsh weather and living conditions. South Sudan remains one of the most dangerous places in the world to be an aid worker. In eastern Sierra Leone, where I am now, risks may come from contracting different diseases such as malaria, blood-borne diseases, Lassa Fever and the risk is very high. Lassa Fever is a viral haemorraghic disease endemic to eastern Sierra Leone where humans get infected with the virus through exposure to food or household items with urine or feces of infected rats, the carrier of the virus. Lassa Fever belongs to the same hemorraghic fever family as Ebola. Overall, despite the known risk that goes with the job, seeing the huge impact the work does to the most vulnerable and forgotten people in the world is the main driving force that keeps me going.”
Jerwin Capuras, 28, is currently with Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF), one of the biggest international medical humanitarian organizations best known for its project in conflict zones and in countries affected by epidemics, disasters and exclusion from healthcare.
Juba, South Sudan. With the MSF Cessna airplane readying to fly to the remotest area in South Sudan to deliver medical aid.
He was deployed in war-torn South Sudan with a team running a Primary Health Care facility for the Sudanese population fleeing the war. Presently he is in Kenema, Sierra Leone, West Africa helping to run a secondary hospital to combat the high child mortality rate in the country and to respond to the threat of a viral hemorrhagic fever outbreak.
Jerwin was born and grew up in Compostela Valley Province, now Davao de Oro. His father, Eldeweno Capuras is a Mandaya, his mother, Francisca, a Waray, the reason he does not consider himself a 100% Lumad. The only dialect he learned is Visayan, and calls himself “Bisdak”. Photos courtesy of Jerwin Capuras
We are at an unprecedented moment in America right now. The rise of identity politics has become a phenomenon not just in America, but in the West in general. Identity politics is shaping the politics of our time and poses a significant challenge in particular to the United States, a multi ethnic country with identity lines more deeply etched than in more homogenous societies. The concept of the melting pot has worked for a long time, but I am no longer optimistic for the future because of demography and the far left’s manipulation of identity politics. Because the left leaning Democratic party is out of the control, they have become so weak and insensitive that they have lost all sense of rationality when it comes to politics and social issues. Most Democrats have moved so far to the left, operating like a militia, so that it feels like freethinking, free speech, law and order, equality under the law, and the expression of new ideas have become foreign. Anything that does not align with the far left’s interpretation of social justice thinking is deemed racist, sexist, transphophic, enslaving, or oppressive, even if is the complete opposite of such a claim. Democrats are playing with identity but fail to recognize their ploys are actually hurting people and damaging our society.Freedom of speech gives people the right to say what they feel, but it also gives other people the right to point out if they are being offensive. Freedom of speech does not mean a speaker’s word cannot be criticized; it just means that individual cannot be silenced. In fact, dialectic positions undergird democracy and public debate underpins freedom. Continue reading →
Every life matters and every life is sacred, so that we all desire to live a life of purpose, meaning, and direction. As the African-Americans struggle for social change and grapple with racial injustice and racial disparity in income and wealth distribution between African-Americans and Whites and wrestle with the US high unemployment and mass incarceration of young African- Americans, it is important that we look at the family structure and structural violence. This dysfunction results from the absence of a father in the life of a child in the African-American community because a father can give a child structure and discipline. A boy needs men to teach him how to be a man. The lack of a father and a stable family foundation is a major problem for many families in the USA, but is even greater among African-American people. The family is the building block of society; as the family erodes, so do the society and the nation. Anyone can father a child, but being a daddy takes a life time.Fathers play a role in every child’s life that cannot be filled by others. The role has a large impact on a child and helps shape that young life into the people they become. Studies show that the absence of a father certainly delays development of the child. Young African-American boys without an active father or a father in heaven usually get in trouble. Research indicates that the majority of African-American boys under the age of seventeen live with a mother only, compared with sixteen percent of their white counterparts. Many children live in households headed by women, and while they often do remarkable jobs in childrearing, they cannot replace the absentee father. Studies also show that children in fatherless homes are more likely to drop out of school, exhibit behavioral problems, end up in the criminal justice system, suffer unemployment, and have a greater risk of drug abuse. If a youth does not have a father in the home who can act as a source of support and one of the pillars for the formation of his resilience, then he is less likely to be resilient in the face of many sources of trauma. Our parents, our first teacher, and our home are the first school we attend. We learn from this first teacher how to behave, how to appreciate, how to tell the truth, how to respect, and how to love others; we learn to be loved, to be honest, and to make good choices. When we look at many black youth and consider them to be very angry and bad, we may surmise that they really are hurting and their behaviors are behaviors caused by their acting out in pain. They are just trying to meet a need, the need to be included, to be loved, to be welcomed, respected, and wanted. Continue reading →
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America has the world’s best functioning political system, but the protests are putting the world’s last well functioning system on the edge of collapse. America has to make a real decision about these riots. Not only are lives in danger, but also American democracy itself. But the threat comes from the Democratic Party that is at war with the country and is willing to collude with terrorist hate groups such as Antifa, whose clearly stated agenda and goal is the destruction of America. Antifa is not typically thought of as a single organization; it is a movement or coalition of leftist groups, each of which claims to combat fascism, a political ideology whose definition they have been arguing about for many years. The word Antifa means anti-Fascist or anti extreme left or right. American political leaders from the left and the right are cowards, and none of these fringe iconoclasts stand for America. This is how a nation collapses, when those with authority cannot keep order. Often people fail to do what they know they should do, because they are afraid of the push back. Sometimes when a person tries to take the right action, he or she encounters such resistance and opposition. We need to recognize that the American people are not enemies of each other, even though some portray them as such to divide them. What we see now is that the misfits in the American society have taken control of the streets. They did nothing to build America, but now they are trying to destroy it. This is unacceptable. Continue reading →
Made in China has been a familiar label on products for years, but it was not until March 2020 that the world learned of the perils that tag might entail. When the very first case of COVID-19 struck in Wuhan, China, the Communist authorities could have taken steps that would have prevented the loss of, to date, over 200,000 lives. Instead, the Communists did what they always do: they covered up the problem, liedabout it, and denied its existence. And today, the world is paying the price. China with the help of the World Health Organization (WHO) turned the COVID-19 from a preventable, local outbreak to a global pandemic. It is very clear that from the beginning of the crisis the Geneva-based organization provided a cover for China. WHO even praised the Chinese government for its response to the virus.The World Health Organization is designed to “work worldwide to promote health, keep the world safe, and serve the vulnerable,” according to its website, but its agency depends on various “stakeholders.” We should be realistic and honest about the corruption and leadership of an organization that is deeply problematic. The WHO employs thousands of dedicated health care workers in 194 countries. However, just as the five permanent members of United Nations Security Council cannot represent the entire world and needs reform, so the WHO should be restructured. The first reform would be to make sure the organization is led by health professionals who have the power to be independent and resist pressure. The WHO is supposed to be different in that its values reflect the principles of human rights, universality, and equity, believing that “the health of all people is fundamental to the attainment of peace and security and is dependent on the fullest cooperation of individuals and countries.” Evidence shows a different image. Continue reading →
The world is hungry for the truth about COVID-19. We know it started in China, but we do not know exactly how it started. When did it began? Where did it began? Did the Chinese authorities kill doctors or medical students who tried to warn of the outbreak in Wuhan? When did China inform the world? Did it withhold the evidence? Now, the pressing question is how will the international community hold China legally, politically, or even economically accountable for all its dishonesty and suppression of truth? International law will not force China to remedy the harm it has caused, since the United Nations Security Council, the executive body of international law, cannot hold China to account because China and Russia are on the Security Council, and Russia will veto any such attempt for sure. The Corona virus staged this coup d’état. It suddenly and illegally seized power through violence to its victims. As a consequence, the world will never be the same. Understanding the pre-existent need to revise the system and structure of the world order can explain in part the reason for the system’s failure to counter the coup. Now the media offer myriad views about the new world order after COVID-19. But for sure, the world supply chain is permanently altered. The Corona virus has even infected democracy too, turning nations into social governments. Probably this demand for governments to halt the disease and finance the recovery will lead the world towards the end of the liberal order. The world had already turned into a hell before the virus, and people became complacent in their way of life. The world embraced the democratic order of speed, pleasure, and allure that stripped humans of their ability to think and feel, so that they surrendered their humanity to a lie. The virus is going to alter the world as we know. We wonder what will become of international organizations like the ASEAN, IMF, World Bank, EU, NATO, and the UN. What will happen to the Philippines? What will happen to countries like the U.S, China, Russia? How will the global supply chain function? What role will technology assume in our lives? We can only guess the answer to these questions. Continue reading →
Dr. Aland Mizell is with the University of Mindanao School of Social Science, President of the MCI and a regular contributor to The Kurdistan Tribune, Kurdishaspect.com, Mindanao Times and Kurdish Media.You may email the author at:aland_mizell2@hotmail.com.
Dr. Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, the father of the Iran’s nuclear weapons and missile programs, was assassinated near Tehran on Friday, November 27. He was attacked by unknown killers in Damavand, Tehran Province, during an armed conflict with his bodyguards. But this was not the first time that someone had tried to assassinate him. Fakhrizadeh had survived an assassination attempt in 2008, when assailants on a motorcycle attached an explosive gadget to his car. But he survived that plot. In 2014, the New York Times even compared Fakhrizadeh to J. Robert Oppenheimer, the American physicist and “father of the atomic bomb.” No doubt Fakhrizadeh’s killing will set Iran back because he was the core source of authority, knowledge, and organization of the nuclear program. No one has claimed responsibility for the killing of Dr. Mohsen Fakriazadeh. Tel Aviv, Mossad, the White House, the Pentagon, the US State Department, and the CIA have all remained silent about this event, as has Biden’s transition team. But, if it were indeed the work of the Mossad, a scenario which may never be confirmed or proven, it would indicate the presence of an extensive clandestine network of agents planted in Iran which may have enlisted local anti-regime elements for the operation. Therefore, this killing may never be officially acknowledged, any more than its precedents. Continue reading 
