A committee guiding OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma’s bankruptcy has suggested other drugmakers, distributors and pharmacy chains use Purdue’s bankruptcy proceedings to settle more than 2,000 lawsuits seeking to hold the drug industry accountable for the national opioid crisis.
The committee of unsecured creditors said in a letter sent Sunday to the parties and obtained by The Associated Press that the country “is in the grips of a crisis that must be addressed, and that doing so may require creative approaches.”
It’s calling for all the companies to put money into a fund in exchange for having all their lawsuits resolved.
The committee includes victims of the opioid crisis plus a medical center, a health insurer, a prescription benefit management company, the manufacturer of an addiction treatment drug and a pension insurer. It says that the concept may not be feasible but invited further discussion. It does not give a size of contributions from the company.
The same committee has been aggressive in Purdue’s bankruptcy, saying it would support pausing litigation against members of the Sackler family who own Purdue in exchange for a $200 million fund from the company to help fight the opioid crisis.
Paul Hanly, a lead lawyer for local governments in the lawsuits, said in a text message Sunday evening that he’d heard about the mass settlement idea, calling it “most unlikely.”
The proposal comes as narrower talks have not resulted in a settlement. Opening statements are to be held Monday in the first federal trial over the crisis. The lawsuit deals with claims from the Ohio counties of Cuyahoga and Summit against a half-dozen companies. More than 2,000 other state and local governments plus Native American tribes, hospitals and other groups have made similar claims.
There have been talks aimed at settling all claims against the drugmakers Johnson & Johnson and Teva and the distributors AmerisourceBergen, Cardinal Health and McKesson ahead of the trial. One proposal called for resolving claims against them nationally in exchange for cash and addiction treatment drugs valued at a total of $48 billion over time.
The committee’s proposal went to those five companies plus nine others that face lawsuits.
Opioids, including both prescription painkillers and illegal drugs such as heroin and illicitly made fentanyl, have been linked to more than 400,000 deaths in the U.S. since 2000.
The still popular former mayor of Baltimore and brother of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Thomas D’Alesandro III, died Sunday at 90.
The family said he had been suffering from complications from a stroke.
Pelosi, who is leading a congressional delegation in Jordan, issued a statement calling her brother “the finest public servant I have ever known…a leader of dignity, compassion, and extraordinary courage.”
D’Alesandro was known around Baltimore as “Young Tommy,” because his father, “Big Tommy,” was also mayor and a U.S. congressman.
“Young Tommy” was president of the Baltimore City Council and was elected mayor in 1967, leading Baltimore through four of the most tumultuous years in the city’s history. His challenges included a number of labor strikes that paralyzed city services, the push for urban renewal, and the riots that followed the assassination of Martin Luther King in 1968 from which Baltimore has never fully recovered.
D’Alesandro was also the first Baltimore mayor to appoint African-Americans to important city positions.
After deciding not to run for a second term in 1971, D’Alesandro went into private law practice and could still be seen dining in Italian restaurants and attending Baltimore Oriole baseball games until just before his death.
Protests and violence in Chile spilled over into a new day Sunday even after the president cancelled a subway fare hike that prompted massive and violent demonstrations.
Officials in the Santiago region said three people died in a fire at a looted supermarket early Sunday — one of 60 Walmart-owned outlets that have been vandalized, and the company said many stores did not open during the day.
At least two airlines cancelled or rescheduled flights into the capital, affecting more than 1,400 passengers Sunday and Monday.
President Sebastián Piñera, facing the worst crisis of his second term as head of the South American country, announced Saturday night he was cancelling a subway fare hike imposed two weeks ago. It had led to major protests that included rioting that caused millions of dollars in damage to burned buses and vandalized subway stops, office buildings and stores.
Troops patrolled the streets and a state of emergency and curfew remained in effect for six Chilean cities, but renewed protests continued after daybreak. Security forces used tear gas and jets of water to try disperse crowds.
Interior Minister Andrés Chadwick reported that 62 police and 11 civilians were injured in the latest disturbances and prosecutors said nearly 1,500 people had been arrested.
With transportation frozen, Cynthia Cordero said she had walked 20 blocks to reach a pharmacy to buy diapers, only to find it had been burned.
“They don’t have the right to do this,” she said, adding it was right to protest “against the abuses, the increases in fares, against bad education and an undignified pension, but not to destroy.”
Long lines formed at gas stations as people tried to fill up for a coming workweek with a public transport system depleted by the destructive protests.
Subway system chief Louis De Grange said workers would try to have at least one line running Monday, but he said it could take weeks or months to have the four others back in service.
One of the first stops for a tourist in Los Angeles is the TCL Chinese Theatre next to the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
Originally called Grauman’s Chinese Theatre, it opened in 1927 and is a remnant of Hollywood’s fascination with the Orient in the early days of the U.S. film industry.
“When film was first invented — and we’re talking about the late 1800s, early 1900s — it expanded the visual minds of its audiences,” said Chinese American filmmaker and author Arthur Dong. He added, “Audiences were given this exotic glimpse of a land unknown to them, and I think that it started there.”
Dong curated old photos of Chinese American actors for the newly restored Formosa Café, an iconic Hollywood nightclub and bar that opened in 1939. With red leather booth chairs and tables surrounded by old photos on the walls, the back room of the Formosa Café looks like a museum commemorating the work of Chinese Americans and their role in Hollywood.
The Formosa Cafe in Los Angeles first opened its doors in 1939 and was a frequent watering hole for people in the movie industry. It was renovated, restored and opened on June 28, 2019 serving Chinese food. (E. Lee/VOA)
“I was always curious about the Chinese or Asian actress I saw on screen, whether films from the early part of cinema history up to today,” Dong said, “especially the ’20s and ’30s and ’40s, where I saw Chinese characters on screen. But they were always playing servants, coolies, laundry man. And if they were women, they were prostitutes or servants.”
Chinese stereotypes
In his new book, “Hollywood Chinese: The Chinese in American Feature Films,” Dong looked at Hollywood’s portrayal of Chinese characters and the Chinese culture. Stereotypes of the Chinese in America were perpetuated by the otherness of U.S. Chinatowns in the late 1800s and early 1900s, where people had different customs.
During that time in history, political tensions between the West and China climaxed with the Boxer Rebellion in 1900, an uprising against the spread of Western influences in China.
WATCH: Hollywood Movies Reflecting Changes in How Asians are Portrayed
Hollywood Movies Reflecting Changes in How Asians are Portrayed video player.
“With all of this history came a perception of the Chinese as the ‘yellow peril,’ the sinister Chinese, the Chinese that you couldn’t trust. And that resulted in the character called Fu Manchu,” Dong explained.
Fu Manchu, a villain who wanted to destroy the Western world, ended up on the big screen and in a television series.
In 1926, Charlie Chan, a Chinese detective from Hawaii, appeared on the big screen. It was a role that created a different, yet still problematic Asian stereotype.
Filmmaker, curator and author Arthur Dong wrote the book, “Hollywood Chinese: The Chinese in American Feature Films.” (E. Lee/VOA)
“He was smart and wise, but he was also very Oriental in the worst sense in that he was passive,” Dong said. “He was quiet. He was smart — smarter than anybody else, which is a good attribute, yes — but it was used in a stereotyped way. He spoke in broken English.” Dong said.
‘Yellow face’ actors
Charlie Chan and Fu Manchu may have been Chinese characters, but they were largely played by Caucasian actors made up to look Asian. Actors Sidney Toler, Roland Winters, Peter Ustinov and Ross Martin all portrayed Charlie Chan.
“Yellow face — meaning they actually, literally yellowed up their skin,” said Nancy Wang Yuen, a sociology professor at Biola University and author of “Reel Inequality: Hollywood Actors and Racism.” “They usually slanted their eyes with prosthetics. They did it in a way that was to make fun of, that was to make Chinese and Asians look as sinister or as buffoonish as possible, and that kind of portrayal reproduced the stereotypes that were existent in society. But I would say also exacerbated the nativism and xenophobia that people had.”
Caucasian actors also played the lead roles in the 1937 film about rural Chinese farmers, “The Good Earth.” Though Asian actors received parts in the film, “it’s overshadowed by this yellow-face casting of the main actors,” Dong said. “In the ‘30s, that was a norm. That’s what Hollywood was doing. Part of it was because they needed bankable actors, and there were no Asian American bankable actors.”
Chinese American actress Anna Mae Wong wanted to play the female lead in “The Good Earth,” but she did not get the role.
“The reason why Anna Mae Wong wasn’t cast was because of this production law that was part of Hollywood. The industry itself put up a production law, and part of the clause was this anti-miscegenation clause that said that you could not have interracial romances on-screen,” said Yuen.
FILE – Author Kevin Kwan, right, and cast members Henry Golding and Constance Wu pose at the premiere for “Crazy Rich Asians” in Los Angeles, Aug. 7, 2018.
Asian actors in modern-day Hollywood
Over the decades, Asian and Chinese Americans did find work in Hollywood, and a few earned a star on the Hollywood Walk for Fame, such as Anna Mae Wong, Keye Luke, Bruce Lee, Jackie Chan and Lucy Liu.
However, some movie fans have recently been critical on social media about movies where white actors are cast in leading roles that they believe should have gone to Asian actors. The movies include “Aloha,” the 2015 film where Emma Stone played Allison Ng, a character of Asian descent, and the 2017 film “Ghost in the Shell,” where Scarlett Johansson played a leading role based on a Japanese anime character.
The 2018 movie “Crazy Rich Asians” hit the big screen with a majority Asian cast, an Asian American director and an Asian as one of the writers. The movie became a milestone for many Asian Americans.
“The sensation of “Crazy Rich Asians,” both in its critical and box office success, is a sign that things are changing,” Dong said. “What is different is that the Asian American community won’t sit back. Filmmakers are being nurtured. Attitudes are being nurtured and strengthened where we won’t take that yellow-face casting anymore, where we won’t take that kind of whitewashing attitude of making an Asian character white.”
People on social media are not only holding Hollywood accountable for its portrayal of Asians, technology is also opening doors for Asian Americans to tell stories on their own terms.
“We have so many more platforms. There’s the Netflix. There is the Amazon Primes and the Hulus. And we have streaming platforms. We have YouTube,” Yuen said.
With Asian Americans being the fastest-growing racial group in the U.S., a new generation of Asian American artists can use the different digital platforms to tell stories without being boxed in a stereotype.
The Grauman’s Chinese Theatre opened in 1927 in Hollywood. It has also been named Mann’s Chinese Theatre and in 2013, it was renamed the TCL Chinese Theatre after a Chinese electronics manufacturer who has 10-year naming rights to the building.
The China factor
Hollywood is also changing its portrayal of Chinese and the Chinese culture because of the China factor.
As the biggest consumer market outside the U.S., Hollywood has been making movies that would not offend Chinese audiences. The industry has been careful not to portray the Chinese as villains.
Joint productions between Hollywood and Chinese production companies, such as the animated feature film “Abominable,” put Chinese characters and China in a favorable light.
“That’s where I would like to see the future of Chinese-U.S. collaborations, is that there is more space for both. So that both countries can feel like there’s something familiar to them. And I think that would open up more roles for Chinese Americans and Asian Americans, in general,” Yuen said.
India said Sunday two soldiers and a civilian were killed in cross-border shelling with Pakistan in the disputed Kashmir region, while Islamabad said six died on its side, making it one of the deadliest days since New Delhi revoked Kashmir’s special status in August.
Three Indian civilians were injured and some buildings and vehicles destroyed because of several hours of heavy shelling by both sides in the Tanghdar region in northern Kashmir late Saturday night, a senior police official said.
Pakistan said six of its civilians were killed and eight wounded in the clash.
The nuclear-armed neighbors have fought two of their three wars over Kashmir.
There was an unprovoked cease-fire violation by Pakistan in Tanghdar sector, said Indian defense spokesman Colonel Rajesh Kalia.
“Our troops retaliated strongly causing heavy damage and casualties to the enemy,” Kalia said.
Indian forces in occupied Kashmir have gone “berserk,” Raja Farooq Haider, prime minister of Pakistan’s Azad Kashmir region, said in a tweet, adding that the civilian casualties and injuries were in the Muzaffarabad and Neelum districts.
“This is the height of savagery. The world must not stay silent over it,” he said in his tweet with the hashtag #KashmirNeedsAttention.
Tensions between the two countries have flared and there has been intermittent cross-border firing since Aug. 5 when New Delhi flooded Indian Kashmir with troops to quell unrest after it revoked the region’s special autonomous status.
October is National Domestic Violence Awareness Month in the U.S., and numerous events are organized throughout the country to attract attention to the seriousness and scale of the issue. In the nation’s capital, the best restaurant chefs gathered to cook and eat for a cause. Karina Bafradzhian has the story.
While the internet has definitely made our lives easier, it has come at a cost. Studies show that internet addiction is on the rise, specifically among young people. In Turkey, a recent study shows that internet addiction has risen over the last two decades. For VOA, Yildiz Yazicioglu and Murat Karabulut report from Ankara, Turkey, in this story narrated by Bezhan Hamdard.
The future of green energy just finished a 25-country tour. It moves as quietly as a whisper, uses the sun, wind and hydrogen for fuel, and emits zero greenhouse gases. VOA’s Arash Arabasadi sails us through this story.
Chinese coast guard vessels spent 70% of the past year patrolling in a tract of the South China Sea claimed by Malaysia, an American think tank says. Malaysia did little to push back.
The coast guard presence, especially long-term for a Chinese mission in the widely disputed South China Sea, followed by Malaysia’s muted response gives China an ever-stronger upper hand over the Southeast Asian country and more clout in a broader six-way maritime dispute that has grabbed attention as far away as Washington. China already has a military and technological edge in the dispute.
In Malaysia, “they do monitor, but I don’t think they do the shooing them away kind of thing, because China is simply too powerful for doing so,” said Oh Ei Sun, senior fellow with the Singapore Institute of International Affairs.
FILE – China Coast Guard vessels patrol past a Chinese fishing vessel at the disputed Scarborough Shoal, April 5, 2017.
Chinese coast guard
At least one Chinese coast guard vessel was broadcasting from Luconia Shoals on 258 of the past 365 days, the Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative under U.S. think tank Center for Strategic and International Studies said in a report September 26.
Most of the shoals are under water, but a reef called Luconia Breakers may include a small sandbar that protrudes above water at high tide, the think tank initiative says.
The Chinese coast guard also patrolled around the disputed sea’s Scarborough Shoal for 162 of the past 365 days and Second Thomas Shoal for 215 days, the initiative report says. China disputes both with the Philippines and controls Scarborough. China started patrolling around Luconia Shoals in 2013, according to the report.
Other countries see China’s coast guard as a paramilitary force just short of its navy.
China and Malaysia
The mission to Luconia Shoals appears aimed at proving China’s heft over Malaysia and at locking in Chinese claims to about 90% of the sea, scholars say. Malaysia is the most active developer of undersea oil and gas among the governments with claims in the 3.5 million-square-kilometer waterway, according to U.S. Energy Information Administration data. But the country lacks China’s coastal patrol hardware.
FILE – This photo from the Malaysian Maritime Enforcement Agency shows the Japan Coast Guard ship Tsugaru and helicopters of the Malaysian Maritime Enforcement Agency during a joint exercise off Kuantan, Malaysia, Jan. 29, 2018.
“Most of the MMEA (Malaysian Maritime Enforcement Agency) craft were pretty small,” said Collin Koh, maritime security research fellow at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. “They could not actually go that far out to Luconia Shoals, because when you are further out there, the sea state, the weather wouldn’t have been conducive for those craft anyway.
“And furthermore, it’s not just the size,” he said. “The maintainability and the operational readiness of a number of these craft are actually suspect.”
According to think tank initiative data, two Royal Malaysian Navy warships each patrolled near the Chinese coast guard vessel Haijing 3306 at Luconia Shoals for at least two days in September and October 2018. But in May this year, a Chinese coast guard vessel engaged in intimidation of a Malaysian drilling rig near Luconia Breakers, the think tank initiative’s report says.
Malaysia’s Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad reacts during a news conference in Putrajaya, Malaysia, Sept. 18, 2019.
Malaysia seldom spoke out before Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad took office in 2018 with calls to review Chinese investment in his country and avoid use of warships in the disputed sea. Malaysia also laid plans in 2017 to modernize its navy, but its forces haven’t matched those of China.
The Philippines and fellow South China Sea claimant Vietnam often use formal diplomacy to challenge China’s past decade of island-building and militarization in the waterway. Brunei also claims part of the sea, and Taiwan claims nearly all of it. The sea stretches from Borneo to Hong Kong.
China has amassed more manpower over the past few years to patrol around the clock, Koh said. The government in the Malaysian state of Sarawak is pushing now for its own marine police unit, he noted.
Show of sovereignty
China might be using its coast guard as pressure on Malaysia to negotiate but almost certainly as a way to remind the outer world of its maritime claims, said Huang Kwei-bo, vice dean of the international affairs college at National Chengchi University in Taipei.
South China Sea Territorial Claims
“I think it’s still all about stretching a claim to sovereignty,” Huang said. “I wouldn’t dare say there’s no possibility of cooperation, but that location would appear to lean toward ‘claim my sovereignty.’”
The U.S. think tank initiative calls Luconia Shoals “a symbolically important series of reefs … which China seems determined to control without physically occupying.”
Chinese leaders feel they should show strength at sea to keep the United States and its allies away, experts have said since 2017 when U.S. President Donald Trump stepped up naval voyages into the South China Sea. The U.S. helps train Philippine troops and moved in 2016 to resume sales of lethal arms to Vietnam.
If Malaysia acknowledges China’s claim to sovereignty, the two sides could work together on joint energy exploration, Oh said. “It’s a “delicate dance going on between China and Malaysia in this respect.”
