Too late, already bolted: how a faster WHO response could have slowed COVID-19’s spread

Victor He/Unsplash

Michael Toole, Burnet InstituteUrgent global action is needed to end the COVID-19 pandemic and prepare for future threats, according to a new report by the Independent Panel for Pandemic Preparedness and Response.

The panel, co-chaired by former New Zealand prime minister Helen Clark and former Liberian president Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, criticises the World Health Organization (WHO) for its tardy actions during the first months of 2020.

The WHO was slow to warn of person-to-person transmission after it first received this information in Wuhan, China, in early January.

And it was slow to declare a public health emergency of international concern (PHEIC), which it did on January 30.

The WHO also opposed international travel restrictions that, if implemented earlier, might have slowed the international spread of the virus. By the time the PHEIC was declared, COVID-19 had spread to 18 countries outside China.

But WHO’s hands were tied

While this may appear just a scathing criticism of the world’s peak health body, the WHO had its hands tied by the international framework that governs the response to emerging infectious diseases and pandemics, the International Health Regulations (IHR).

These regulations were drafted in 2005 in response to the SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome) and H5N1 (avian flu) pandemics and endorsed by member nations in 2007.

The regulations imposed new requirements that must be met before the WHO director general could act on emergencies, rather than enabling the WHO to act immediately and independently.

The regulations also prohibit international travel restrictions in public health emergencies.

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Read more:
‘Fortress Australia’: what are the costs of closing ourselves off to the world?

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Many member nations failed to act

The report describes February 2020 as a “lost month”, referring to the time between the declaration of a PHEIC and the WHO statement on March 11 that characterised COVID-19 as a pandemic.

The panel found this was due to a lack of understanding that the PHEIC declaration was the loudest possible alarm open to the director general. The pandemic declaration was not based on International Health Regulation guidelines.

The panel found a number of countries took a wait-and-see attitude during February 2020, allowing the virus to spread uncontrollably.

Effective and high-level coordinating bodies were critical to a country’s ability to adapt to changing information. Yet only a few countries set in motion comprehensive and coordinated COVID-19 protection and response measures.

Of the 28 country responses the panel analysed in depth, only a handful adopted aggressive containment strategies, including China, New Zealand, South Korea, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.

Some others had uncoordinated approaches that devalued science, denied the potential impact of the pandemic, delayed comprehensive action and allowed distrust to undermine efforts. While not named, the United States and Brazil were probably among them.

The report praises the role of the African Union and the Africa CDC in leading a continent-wide coordinated response.

It also singles out research and development as a major achievement, especially in vaccine development.

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Read more:
Over 700 health experts are calling for urgent action to expand global production of COVID vaccines

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Preparation was inadequate

Despite the lessons learned from previous outbreaks of SARS, H1N1 (avian flu), Zika, MERS (Middle East respiratory syndrome) and Ebola, preparedness was vastly underfunded.

The US government, led by the Centres for Disease Control, established the Global Health Security Agenda, a group of 70 countries — including Australia – committed to building global capabilities to implement the International Health Regulations. But the Trump administration defunded most of the US CDC’s activities under the agenda.

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Read more:
Defunding the WHO was a calculated decision, not an impromptu tweet

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After the H1N1 pandemic, Australia reviewed its health sector response and made many recommendations for future preparedness. However, inaction followed. Australia has not run a large-scale pandemic simulation exercise since 2008.

Australia also dropped the ball on regional pandemic preparedness. After the SARS outbreak in 2003, the government developed a five-year regional emerging diseases and pandemics strategy, which received A$100 million from the Howard government. Yet the second five-year strategy attracted very little funding.

Fixing the global system

The panel urges immediate action to end the pandemic through:

• accelerated vaccination
• proven measures such as masks and social distancing
• testing and contact tracing.

However, the focus of its recommendations is on future preparedness.

The panel is convinced a Global Health Threats Council at the most senior level is vital to future success. It would help secure high-level political leadership and ensure attention to pandemic prevention, preparedness and response is sustained over time. Such a body is long overdue.

To ensure the WHO is more agile, the panel recommends an increase in the proportion of funding that is unearmarked for specific programs and countries. This would allow for financial reserves to respond to sudden, unexpected events. It also needs an improved surveillance system, quicker alerts for emerging virus threats, and authority to publish information and dispatch expert missions immediately.

Transparency, speed, flexibility to act more independently and better resourcing are critical to the reforms proposed. Efforts to do this will need unqualified support from its member nations, starting at this month’s World Health Assembly.

After the disruptive years of the Trump presidency, the WHO needs restoration. Australia is influential and should be at the forefront of ensuring this happens.

Michael Toole, Professor of International Health, Burnet Institute

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

No snapback: the budget sets us up for an unreasonably slow recovery. Here’s how

Lukas Coch/AAP

Brendan Coates, Grattan Institute and Matthew Cowgill, Grattan Institute

Josh Frydenberg has told us his 2020 Budget is “all about jobs”.

What he hasn’t said is that it is actually aiming for a slower recovery from the recession, as far as unemployment goes, than from most recessions in Australia’s history.

That’s both the budget’s explicit forecast and the result of the measures in it.

You would be forgiven for expecting the recovery from this recession to be faster than the recoveries from previous recessions. Previous recessions haven’t involved the government requiring businesses close their doors.

In most recessions the government isn’t able to switch things back on.

Yet Australia’s recovery from this COVID recession is officially forecast to be on the sluggish side, as our graph of the recovery in the unemployment rate after each of the past eight recessions and slowdowns shows.

The budget expects the unemployment rate to peak at 8% in December this year, but then take three-and-a-half years to fall to 5.5% by mid-2024.

That’s an average decline of 0.71 percentage points per year in the unemployment rate.

Three-month moving average of unemployment rate used. The end date is the month with the lowest unemployment rate in the four years following the.
recession peak, excluding any that occur after a subsequent recession. Excludes ’micro recoveries: defined as those with less than 6 months or 0.5
percentage points between peak and trough. Recessions defined using the Sahm Rule.
OECD.Stat and Grattan calculations

In the 1990s recession – Australia’s most recent major recession – the unemployment rate peaked at 11.1% in late 1992, then fell to 8.3% by 1996.

That’s an average decline of 0.9 percentage points per year – a good deal faster than expected after this recession.

With, rather than ahead of, the pack

By the standards of past overseas recessions, our recovery is expected to be no more than typical.

We examined 150 past recessions in the countries that make up the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development and found that typically unemployment falls by 0.85 percentage points per year – about the same as what Australia expects this time.

This analysis uses all the labour force data kept by the OECD – which in Australia’s case goes back to 1966.

Three-month moving average of unemployment rate used. The end date is the the month with the lowest unemployment rate in the four years following the recession peak, excluding any that occur after a subsequent recession. Excludes ’micro recoveries’, defined as those With less than 6 months or 0.5 percentage points between peak and trough. Recessions defined using the Sahm Rule.
Source: OECD.Stat and Grattan calculations

The initial phase of the Australian recovery is forecast to be quite brisk, as you’d expect given the nature of this recession and the budget assumption that a COVID-19 vaccine will be found soon.

After peaking at 8% in late 2020, unemployment is expected to fall to 7.25% by mid-next year. That decline – 0.75 percentage points in 6 months, a 1.5-percentage-point annualised fall – is on the fast side.

We’re removing support too soon

But from there on, the recovery is forecast to stall, particularly in 2022-23 and 2023-24 when only 0.5 percentage points per year is expected to be knocked off the unemployment rate.

The budget papers show that support to date has kept unemployment much lower than it would have been.

Treasury believes that without it the unemployment rate would have peaked at about 13% instead of the predicted 8%.

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Read more:
High-viz, narrow vision: the budget overlooks the hardest hit in favour of the hardest hats

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Which raises the question: why isn’t the government being more ambitious and aiming to bring unemployment down faster?

The rapid recovery in unemployment peters out from mid-2022 because, as this graph shows, the stimulus is set to be withdrawn quickly – the deficit is set to more or less halve next year, and then halve again over the following two years.

Policy decisions made this year actually subtract from the deficit by 2023-24.

Source: Budget 2020-21, Paper 1, Statement 2

And the stimulus is made up of measures not particularly likely to create jobs, such as income tax cuts (where much of the money is likely to be saved rather than spent) and transport infrastructure, which creates fewer jobs per dollar spent than services such as child care, health and aged care.

We shouldn’t be content with a recovery that putters along at a below-average pace.

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Read more:
Morrison is right. All governments will need to spend more to get us out of the crisis

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We calculate that extra stimulus of about $50 billion over and above what was announced in the budget will be needed over the next two years to drive unemployment back down to 5%, a result that would kickstart wages growth nearly two years ahead of the government’s schedule.

Some may appear in upcoming state budgets, but there’s no doubt the Treasurer has more work left to do.

We could get unemployment down quickly

Every year that unemployment remains too high is another year that Australians can expect close to zero real wages growth, and another year that Australians young and old will continue to confront a dearth of job opportunities.

Reserve Bank governor Philip Lowe said last week he wanted to achieve more than just “progress towards” full employment.

For him and his board, addressing high unemployment was an “important national priority”.

It ought to also be an important government priority.

Brendan Coates, Program Director, Household Finances, Grattan Institute and Matthew Cowgill, Senior Associate, Grattan Institute

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Scott Morrison set to slow the arrival home of Australians amid coronavirus fears

Michelle Grattan, University of Canberra

Scott Morrison will take a proposal to Friday’s national cabinet to slow arrivals of Australians returning from overseas.

Morrison’s proposal followed this week’s request from Western Australian Premier Mark McGowan for a cap on international flights landing in Perth to relieve pressure on resources, and the earlier diversion of flights from landing in Melbourne because of the new outbreak.

There is already a cap applying to NSW, and the WA government has said the federal government has responded favourably to its representation. Queensland also wants limits.

The prime minister told a news conference his proposal would be to contain the flow rather than pause it. He said the numbers coming in were very low “but at this time, we don’t want to put any more pressure on the system than is absolutely necessary”.

New Zealand has moved to slow the flow of returnees.

Morrison also said the federal government would support state governments charging travellers returning from abroad for their quarantine.

It was up to the states but “if they wish to do that, then the Commonwealth would have no objection to that”.

“I think that would be a completely understandable proposition for people who have been away for some time.”

There had been “many opportunities for people to return. If they’re choosing to do so now, they have obviously delayed that decision for a period,” he told a news conference.

Queensland is already charging – $2,800 for one adult, $3,710 for two adults, and $4,620 for two adults and two children, with some provision for waivers. The Northern Territory also charges.

As Victoria announced 134 new cases, Morrison’s message to Melburnians facing the six-week lockdown was: “It’s tough. And it will test you and it will strain, but you have done it once before and you will be able to do it again because you have proven that”.

“We’re all Melburnians now when it comes to the challenges we face. We’re all Victorians now because we’re all Australians.”

Treasurer Josh Frydenberg said the cost to the economy of the Victorian re-imposed lockdown would now be factored into the government’s July 23 economic statement. It would affect forecasts for growth and unemployment. “Victoria is a big part of the national economy” and “the cost to Victoria is up to a billion dollars a week and that will fall heavily on businesses”.

“This is a major challenge to the economic recovery. This is going to have an impact well beyond the Victorian border. It’s already starting to play out in consumer confidence numbers that have been down in the last two weeks, ” Frydenberg said.

“We have been there with JobKeeper and the cash flow boost, which together have provided more than $10 billion into the Victorian economy,” he said.

“We’re ready to do what is required to support Victoria, and Daniel Andrews himself has said whenever he’s asked the Prime Minister for support the answer has been an unequivocal yes.”

Frydenberg confirmed there will be another phase of income support for the period beyond September when JobKeeper is due to finish. The future support would be temporary and targeted, he said. The higher JobSeeker payment is also scheduled to snap back at the end of September, although it is not expected to return to the old rate.

Frydenberg also indicated the government was considering bringing forward the next round of the legislated tax cuts. “We are looking at that issue, and the timing of those tax cuts, because we do want to boost aggregate demand, boost consumption, put more money in people’s pockets, and that is one way to do it”.

NSW premier Gladys Berejiklian told people in communities along the NSW-Victorian border not to move outside their “bubble”; nor should people go into these areas. She warned “the probability of contagion in NSW given what’s happening in Victoria is extremely high”.

The ACT has three new cases, the first in more than a month. Two arrived from a Melbourne hot spot and the third is a household contact.

Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

I’ve always wondered: why do our computing devices seem to slow down?

Your gadgets might slow down if they’re bloated with apps.
Neirfy/Shutterstock

Robert Merkel, Monash University

This is an article from I’ve Always Wondered, a series where readers send in questions they’d like an expert to answer. Send your question to alwayswondered@theconversation.edu.au

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“Why do phones, tablets and computers always slow down as they get older, to the point that they become unusable, but when I back it up and restore it onto a brand new device, it’s fast again (despite not changing any of the installed software)?” – Jason Yosar

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Plenty of misconceptions and conspiracy theories surround this topic.

Internet searches for “iPhone slow” spike after the release of a new-generation model, but there’s no evidence to suggest that manufacturers deliberately degrade the performance of older devices with software updates.

Computer hardware does not typically slow down over its useful life. Instead, there are several other reasons why smartphones, tablets and PCs start to seem less snappy. The good news is that you can often take steps to improve your existing device’s performance.

Memory bloat

Each time they update, apps typically become larger and more full of features. Visual pizzazz is also a major attraction, and so desktop and mobile operating systems periodically receive significant redesigns.

All that extra functionality and glitz requires your device to do more computation than it did when it arrived home from the store. Given that it doesn’t magically speed up to compensate, it has less spare capacity available to respond to you quickly.

Newer apps not only tend to do more computation, they also usually take up more space in your device’s storage.

Devices only have a limited amount of fast “Random Access Memory” (RAM) available. One of a device’s data storage components, RAM is the rough equivalent of an office whiteboard – fast and convenient, but limited in capacity. Its contents are wiped every time you switch your device off.

When it runs out of space in RAM, your device can shift things to and from the much slower (and permanent until explicitly erased) data storage, flash memory, which takes considerable time.

In older PCs with mechanical hard disks, this used to be called “thrashing”, as users heard the hard disk’s read-write heads moving across the platters as they waited for data to be shifted in and out of the filled-up RAM.

Flash memory is silent and much faster than magnetic hard disks ever were, but it is still orders of magnitude slower than RAM.

Random Access Memory is a form of data storage.
Marcin Bajer/Flickr, CC BY-NC

Excessive cacheing

To make their apps run faster, some designers make them store copies of things in RAM that they think the user might want to see again to speed things up. For instance, a web browser might retain a copy of what the content in each tab looks like, even if only one tab is visible at a given moment.

Known as cacheing, this makes things work much faster – until your system starts to run out of memory. For cacheing to be effective, the amount of space devoted to it must be carefully managed by the application and the device’s operating system.
Some app developers don’t put the effort that they should into doing this well, and their applications not only slow down over time, but can drag the rest of the system down with them too.

More and more software

It’s also not uncommon for useful software to be accompanied by “crapware” – less-than-useful add-ons like browser toolbars – that use system resources and impact performance.

Additional software can slow a system down in many ways: filling up permanent storage, using up more precious RAM, and using the computer’s central processing unit “in the background” without you noticing. All these factors can result in the system having fewer resources available to respond to you promptly.

A new or factory-reset device tends to have less of this accumulated “cruft” (unwanted data and software) installed, and therefore has more resources available to do the tasks that a user actually wants.

Another unpleasant possibility is that some of the computing capabilities of your device are being used by malware – whether viruses, worms or other varieties of malicious software.

What can you do?

You’re not going to be able to match the performance of the latest and greatest high-end smartphone, tablet, or PC with an older model, as newer devices generally have fundamentally faster components. But with a small amount of effort, you can get the most out of your existing device.

Whether you’re using a phone, tablet, PC or Mac, the most useful zero-cost action you can take is to uninstall unnecessary apps and add-ons.

However, in some circumstances it may be easier – AFTER carefully backing up all your data – to simply perform the equivalent of a factory reset and reinstall the operating system from scratch, adding only the apps you actually need.

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Robert Merkel, Lecturer in Software Engineering, Monash University

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

Posts for the Time Being

I thought I’d post a quick update on what is currently happening with me and posts to my Blog. It is a short story really. I live in a town which is a massive tourist destination during the holiday season – especially at this time of year. What this means for me – being reliant on wireless access to the Internet – is real difficulty gaining Internet access. There are so many people in the area, using so many gadgets and the like, that the Internet is locked into a constant traffic jam. It is practically impossible to get Internet access most of the time. You do get the odd time where you can get access, but it is so slow that it is pointless to try and use it. For example – it takes minutes and minutes just for one page of the Blog to load.

I’ll keep trying to access the Net every so often, but it is likely I’ll be unable to post much for the next couple of weeks. There is good news – the number of tourists in the shopping centre here have diminished, which probably means we are heading back to some form of normality.

Australian Politics: 29 September 2013 – The Slow Death of the Greens?

The federal election is over and the Coalition is now in government. Already there is a growing dissatisfaction with the new Abbott-led government over a wide-ranging series of issues including nepotism, asylum seeker policy, the environment, a lack of governance, etc. There is also continuing debate within the various opposition parties concerning their future direction, policies, etc. Yet for the Greens, the future is questionable, with some believing the party to be in serious decline – even among those within the party.

The link below is to an article reporting on the turmoil within the Greens party.

For more visit:
http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/milnes-greens-marching-to-slow-death-20130928-2ulgp.html

Australia: High Speed Rail

The link below is to an article concerning high speed rail in Australia. In the light of the ‘slow speed’ broadband policy announced by the Coalition, I wonder if they have a take on high speed rail? Perhaps they might unveil a network of unsealed roads and the new birth of Cobb and Co? After all, there is only so much you can do with high speed rail.

For more visit:
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-04-11/government-to-release-high-speed-rail-report/4621880

Jewish Christian in Israel Seeks Protection from Repeated Attacks

Police unresponsive to U.S.-born activist assaulted for his faith.

JERUSALEM, December 28 (CDN) — A Christian of Jewish origin who has been attacked on the streets here four times because of his faith in Christ is seeking police protection.

Jerusalem resident Yossi Yomtov said police have been slow to investigate hate crimes against him by youths wearing kippahs, cloth skullcaps typically worn by observant Jews. In two of the attacks a youth plied him with pepper spray and stun gun shocks, he said.

“This young man cursed me for my belief in Christ,” Yomtov told Compass. “He used ugly curses and spoke in highly abusive language.”

Yomtov, who founded social activist group Lemallah (“Upward”) after moving to Israel from the United States in 1999, said he was last attacked on Dec. 19. On that occasion his group was holding a demonstration in downtown Jerusalem, he said, when a man chanting anti-Christian slogans and using foul language approached him and begin striking him. Police never showed up in spite of many calls to the police station, he said.

Yomtov said he received Christ in 1984, while still living in the United States. He said he became a Christian after he “hit the bottom” – taking drugs and engaging in “in illegal activity.” He regards himself as a Jewish Christian belonging to no one church; he does not belong to the highly organized movement of Messianic Jews.

“I’m not secretive about my belief like some other people, and I often talk about it,” he told Compass. “That’s how many people are aware of me believing in Jesus Christ.”

In previous attacks in the last few months, the assailants appeared to be teenaged or young men of French origin, he said.

“When they approached, one of them started cursing me – I ignored him, as I figured he wasn’t about to attack me, but he did,” Yomtov said. “I received a punch in the face and had to defend myself.”

Police arrived and caught one of the attackers but refused his request to press charges, he said. Yomtov said he asked police why they didn’t secure any witnesses.

“I was told to shut up,” he said. “It was clear that they were not going to press any charges.”

A month later, he said, he was attacked again. The same teenaged youth approached him on King George street in downtown Jerusalem.

“He sprayed my eyes with a pepper spray, and I stood there, blind, for at least 15 minutes,” Yomtov said. “People at a nearby bus stop started calling the police, but they never showed up.”

Late at night on Oct. 12, the harrasment continued.

“I was walking in the city center, in close proximity to a very central Ben-Yehuda street sometime after midnight, and a group of youths with stun guns attacked me brutally,” he said. “I rushed to the police station, but the police officer again was reluctant to take up this complaint, and it took quite a few times and a lot of me convincing them to take this matter seriously.”

Yomtov said he managed to take a photo with his cell phone of the youth who seemed to be the gang leader.

“Finally they agreed to start investigating this issue, yet so far there is no progress in the investigation, and I have totally lost a sense of personal security,” he said. “I don’t know when they’ll come up to me next.”

Police in Jerusalem declined to comment on Yomtov’s case in spite of repeated requests by Compass.

On one street, Yomtov pointed to a morass of hatefull grafitti. Written with Hebrew characters, some of it employed foul language in referring to Christianity and Islam; other messages proclaimed threats such as, “Death to Arabs” and “Death to the left.”

“It seems as if they don’t want to stop the hate crimes, the hate graffities, until it’s too late,” Yomtov said. “If they were serious about enforcing laws against violence they would have at least identified the perpetrator and submitted that information in the complaint file for the prosecutor. Instead they threatened me with arrest, when all I wanted was to investigate the violent crime against me.”

He referred to the recent indictment of ultra-orthodox Jewish extremist Jacob Teitel, an immigrant from the United States charged with multiple hate crimes, including the murder of an Arab shepherd and taxi driver in 1997 and the planting of an explosive device at the front door of a family of Messianic Jews in Ariel that seriously injured 15-year-old Ami Ortiz.

“I wonder whether the Israeli police could prevent the crimes Jacob Teitel performed, had they been taking him seriously from the beginning,” said Yomtov. “It seems that the Israeli police only care to investigate hate crimes when someone is killed or seriously injured.”

Report from Compass Direct News 

Christmas commercialism combated by "Advent Conspiracy"

A growing number of Christian churches are joining forces with a grass-roots movement known as the Advent Conspiracy, which is seeking to "do away with the frenzied activity and extravagant gift-giving of a commercial Christmas," reports Thaddeus M. Baklinski, LifeSiteNews.com.

The group was founded by Portland pastor Rick McKinley, who with a group of fellow pastors realized that their own, and their congregations’, focus during the time of Advent revolved more around secular consumerism than preparing to celebrate the birth of Christ.

"What was once a time to celebrate the birth of a savior has somehow turned into a season of stress, traffic jams, and shopping lists," McKinley observed.

"And when it’s all over, many of us are left with presents to return, looming debt that will take months to pay off, and this empty feeling of missed purpose. Is this what we really want out of Christmas?"

"None of us like Christmas," McKinley said in a Time.com report, adding, "That’s sort of bad if you’re a pastor. It’s the shopping, the going into debt, the worrying that if I don’t spend enough money, someone will think I don’t love them."

McKinley, whose church donates money to dig wells in developing countries through Living Water International and other organizations, saw that a fraction of the money Americans spend at retailers in the month of December could supply the entire world with clean water.

As a result he and his friends embarked on a plan to urge their congregations to spend less on presents for friends and family, and to consider donating the money they saved to support practical and tangible charitable works.

"If more Christians changed how they thought about giving at Christmas," he argued, "the holiday could be transformative in a religious and practical sense."

McKinley observed that at first church members were uncertain. "Some people were terrified," McKinley recalled. "They said, ‘My gosh, you’re ruining Christmas. What do we tell our kids?’"

Soon though, the idea caught on and McKinley found that not only were people "relieved to be given permission to slow down and buy less" but were "expressing their love through something more meaningful than a gift card. Once church members adjusted to this new conception of Christmas, they found that they loved it."

According to the Time.com report the Advent Conspiracy movement has exploded, counting hundreds of churches on four continents and in at least 17 countries as participants.

The Advent Conspiracy video has been viewed more than a million times on YouTube and the movement boasts nearly 45,000 fans on Facebook.

To find out more about the Advent Conspiracy, click here.

Report from the Christian Telegraph 

PAKISTAN: CHRISTIANS BURNED TO DEATH IN ISLAMIST ATTACKS

14 believers reportedly killed; more than 100 homes burned in Gojra town, Korian village.

 

GOJRA, Pakistan, August 1 (Compass Direct News) – Islamic extremists today set ablaze more than 50 houses and a church in this town in northeastern Pakistan following an accusation of “blasphemy” of the Quran, leaving at least 14 Christians dead, sources said.

The dead include women and children, with several other burn victims unable to reach hospitals for medical care, according to the Centre for Legal Aid Assistance and Settlement (CLAAS). The attack came amid a protest by thousands of Muslim Islamists – including members of banned militant groups – that resulted in another six people dying when participants shot at police and officers responded with tear gas and gunfire.

The same rumor of desecration of the Quran that led to today’s massive protest and attack in Gojra, 50 kilometers (31 miles) from Faisalabad, also prompted an arson assault on Thursday (July 30) by Islamic extremists on the village of Korian, seven miles from Gojra, that gutted 60 houses.

Punjab Minister for Law Rana Sanaullah reportedly said an initial investigation of allegations of the Quran being blasphemed indicated “there has not been any incident of desecration.”

Because of the earlier assault in Korian, Pakistani officials were already in the area and had sought reinforcements to help control the 11 a.m. demonstration today in Gojra, but security forces were slow to respond, according to CLAAS.

“There were unaccountable people in the mob and they were out of control because only four police constables were trying to stop the mob of thousands of people,” a CLAAS report said.

Crowd size and attacks grew, and Islamists managed to block main roads and railways to keep fire brigades from fighting the house fires, according to CLAAS.

With authorities also blocking roads to keep more Muslim extremists from entering from neighboring villages, clerics at local mosques broadcast messages that those “who love Muhammad and Islam should gather with them to defend the Islam because it is in danger,” according to CLAAS.

Asam Masih, a Christian in Gojra, said that that women and children were severely burned and had no way to get to a hospital, according to CLAAS, which was helping to transport victims for medical care.

Islamists set on fire a Catholic church on Sumandri road and destroyed it using firearms and explosives, according to CLAAS.

“50 houses are burned and totally destroyed,” the CLAAS statement read. “14 people including children, women and men are expired.”

Wedding and Funeral

As Christians have begun defending themselves against the onslaughts, mainstream media have already begun referring to the overwhelmingly Islamist aggression as “Christian and Muslim rioting.”

Compass investigated the facts of the trigger incident in the village of Korian, where more than 500 Muslims, responding to calls from a mosque, attacked Christians in Toba Tek Singh district. Local sources said nearly all village Christian families fled. The fires destroyed their homes – collapsing their wooden roofs or melting T-iron roofs – and all belongings within that the attacking Muslims had not first looted.

“Our house is burnt and everything is gone, but Muslim neighbors around are not willing to give us a loaf of bread or a sip of water to us,” 80-year-old Baba Sharif Masih told Compass.

He and his wife Hanifa Bibi, 73, were the only Christians left in the village in the northeastern province of Punjab. Masih, who is paralyzed, said the attackers let them live when they pleaded that they were unable to run away.

Two church buildings were ransacked but not burned, Compass sources said.

One Christian resident of Korian identified only as Shabir said the blasphemy accusation grew out of an incident at a wedding on Sunday (July 25). During the ceremony, Christian wedding guests tossed currency notes and coins into the air according to custom, with children catching most of them as they fall. Shabir told Compass a Muslim funeral was taking place at the same time, however, and that mourners told wedding celebrants to stop their music; they apparently declined.

The next day, Muslims met with the parents of the bride, Talib and Mukhtar Masih, and told them that their sons had cut pages of the Quran the size of currency notes and had been throwing them in the air the previous night, Shabir said.

“Talib said that nothing like this has happened, but that if there was anything, ‘I’ll call my son and he will definitely apologize for it,’” Shabir said. “But then they immediately began beating them and left Talib when he fell unconscious.”

Shabir said that afterward when Christian women went to the Muslims and told them that they were wrong to beat Talib Masih, the assailants yelled at them and tried to attack them, but they were able to flee to their homes.

On Thursday (July 30), Shabir said, Muslim clerics announced from the village mosque that “if any infidel Christian wanted to save his or her life, then get out of here or they would be killed.”

As the Muslim mobs gathered, he said, Christians immediately fled – leaving their meals prepared and fires burning in stoves.

“These assailants first looted these houses and then set them on fire and closed the door,” he said. “Since then, not a single Christian is left there except a very old couple.”

Islamist’s Version

Village Muslims declined to open their doors when Compass reporters called on them.

But one of three Muslim leaders standing with a crowd of turban-clad Islamists at the entrance to the village, Qari Noor Ahmed, told Compass the story of the alleged cut pages of the Quran at the marriage ceremony.

“Because it was night, no one noticed, but in the morning we saw that the pages of the Quran had been cut to currency note size, and they were trampled under people’s feet,” he said.

Ahmed said that village authorities later met and called in Talib and Mukhtar Masih. He said that council authorities decided that their son should apologize.

“But when his son came in the meeting, he by no means seemed apologetic, rather he was aggressive,” Ahmed said. “This was the root cause, and we told Talib and Mukhtar to tell their children to apologize.”

Ahmed said that afterwards they searched for Talib and Mukhtar Masih and their sons but could not find them.

“Then Muslims became furious that first they had profaned the Quran, and now they had fled and were not apologizing,” Ahmed said. “Then the villagers attacked their houses. All the Christians who are visiting here are armed, and we are sitting here to avoid any untoward incident. It is better for you to leave now or you may be attacked.”

Munawar Masih, a 20-year-old Christian in Korian, said that he was preparing supper around 7 p.m. when he heard the announcement from the mosque that “infidel Christians had profaned the Holy Quran, and let’s teach them exemplary lesson.”

He looked outside as his family was about to sit down to dinner and saw a large mob approaching.

“We just fled from there to save our lives, and since then we are hiding in Gojra,” he said.

Private TV channel reporter Ghulam Muhauddin told Compass that after the Korian houses were set on fire, the Islamic extremists blocked the Faisalabad-Gojra Highway to keep firefighters from arriving.

“When the attack was unleashed, several people were injured and even some domestic animals were killed,” he said.

Muhauddin said that after negotiations between the District Police Officer and the protestors, Station House Officer (SHO) Jamshed Iqbal Nasir was suspended for not properly handling the incident.

Christians Accused

Officials at the Sadar Police Station, in whose precincts the attack took place, were not available for comment, but a deputy called Imam Din said that a First Information Report (FIR) had been filed under Section 295-B, or blasphemy of the Quran, against Talib and Mukhtar Masih.

He said that the complainant in the case was Muhammad Ashraf, and that police had possession of the alleged burnt or cut papers of the Quran. Din said that after SHO Nasir was suspended and Ashiq Hussein replaced him, Hussein was willing to file an FIR against those who had ransacked and burned houses of Christians. He said the accused were still at large and that police would arrest them after Christians returned to their homes.

Asked if police were under pressure from Islamists or the government, Din declined to comment.

Advocacy group Community Development Initiative (CDI) field officer Napoleon Qayyum said that the group had informed high officials about the Korian attack, including the presidency, and that soon afterward the president issued a notice. Qayyum noted that the Korian and Gojra attacks follow a July 1 attack in Kasur, where swarms of Islamists ransacked and damaged 110 homes.

“It is a clear sign that violent attacks against Christians have dramatically increased in recent days,” he said, adding that CDI would provide legal help to victims. CDI works with assistance from the American Centre of Law and Justice.

Muhauddin of the private TV channel added that Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif had taken the notice of the attacks and was forming an investigative team comprising the Faisalabad Regional Police Officer and Faisalabad Commissioner, which will send a report to him.

A spokesman from the Pakistani president’s office, former Sen. Farhatullah Babar, told Compass that President Asif Ali Zardari had taken a notice of the attack and had asked the provincial government to investigate. He said the president has condemned the attack and that there was no justification for anyone taking the law into their own hands.

Asked why the committee constituted by the provincial government did not have any Christians on it, he responded that it was the discretion of the provincial government to determine the make-up of the panel and that the federal government was concerned only about the report. Asked why an FIR had been filed against Christians and not Muslims for ransacking and vandalizing, he said only that appropriate action would be taken after the inquiry.

Member of National Assembly Farahnaz Ispahani, wife of Pakistani Ambassador to the United States Husain Haqqani, told Compass that President Zardari had directed Federal Minorities Affairs Minister Shahbaz Bhatti to visit the area and “express sympathy with the victims.”

Report from Compass Direct News