Transplant Tourism Fuels China’s Live Organ Harvest
Activists say the surge of kidneys and other organs available for transplant in China is no accident: they’re being harvested from living Falun Gong members imprisoned by the military, and then sold to desperate Western patients on long waiting lists back home.
Now Canadian doctors are calling for a ban on visiting doctors from China until the practice is forsworn, and warn transplant tourists that their new lease on life comes at a deadly price.
Saddam’s Kurdish Spies in the Spotlight
Allegations that 300 Kurds from several political parties were double agents for Saddam Hussein’s Ba’athist government are shaking up the Kurdish establishment. Two newspapers made the allegations based on documents looted from Hussein’s intelligence service; some parties are offering amnesty to the accused, or say that the spying was sanctioned.
The Kurdish public is in a less charitable mood, calling for trials for suspected collaborators. An investigating council has been formed, but has no powers of prosecution.
U.S. Sadr Plot Led to Disaster
Shia cleric Muqtada al-Sadr turned against the United States once and for all in August 2004, when U.S. forces laid seige to his brother’s house after inviting him there to finalize peace talks.
Iraq’s National Security Adviser Dr. Mowaffaq Rubai’e claims he was used by the U.S. to lure Sadr to the house; but the cleric escaped, scuttling the peace plan, entrenching his anti-Americanism, and emboldening the Mahdi Army, which then took over Baghdad and many Shia cities across Iraq, the Independent reports.
Sources:
“China kills to harvest organs: MDs”
National Post (Canada), May 18, 2007
“More alleged Kurdish spies exposed”
Institute for War & Peace Reporting, May 11, 2007
“Exclusive: Secret U.S. plot to kill Al-Sadr”
Independent (U.K.), May 21, 2007