A Thai cave, an extraordinary tale and a captivated world

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In this Friday, June 29, 2018, file photo, a rescuer makes her way down muddy steps past water pump hoses at the entrance to a cave complex where it's believed that 12 soccer team members and their coach went missing, in Mae Sai, Chiang Rai province, in northern Thailand. (AP)
Updated 11 July 2018
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A Thai cave, an extraordinary tale and a captivated world

  • All 13 in hospital for health checks after 17-day ordeal
  • Last four boys and coach rescued on Tuesday

MAE SAI, Thailand: In the darkness, down the twisting stone tunnels and through the murky water, they awaited an uncertain future. Outside, under the skies of a modern planet, cameras and bystanders and a rapt global audience of many millions looked toward the remote hills of northern Thailand, connected by cables and satellites and wireless signals and gadgets in their pockets. For two weeks and more this went on.
We have barely a hint of what the past 18 days were like for the 12 young Thai soccer players and their coach. But for the rest of us, watching from afar as an uneasy planet’s media juggernaut beamed us live shots and the unknowable was revealed drip by tantalizing drip, we knew one thing: It was hard to look away. Particularly when these two words were splattered across the world’s websites and mobile apps in impactful typefaces: “WATCH LIVE.”
Were they even alive at all in there after so many days? Probably not. And yet they were. Could we get a glimpse? There they were, captured on video, waving tentatively to what had fast become their public. Could they be pulled out, through water that rose and fell and threatened to rise again? That question, drawn out for so many days as the clock ticked menacingly, found its answer Tuesday with a resounding yes.

“We really needed something to cheer for right now. We needed some positivity. We needed a good headline that could carry the day,” says Daryl Van Tongeren, an associate professor of psychology at Hope College in Michigan who studies how humans build meaning in their lives.
“People started believing, like a snowball rolling down a hill: ‘Maybe they WILL get out,’” he said.
First, the obvious. These were children who did nothing wrong, and we love tales of innocents. Plus, it was easy to conclude for several days that they’d met their end prematurely and unfairly. When they did not — when children not unlike those in our own lives had a fighting chance at being OK — many eyes locked in on the story.
At that point, the saga was also fueled by hope, and by a possibility of a good outcome — both elements of any memorable human tale.
There are other reasons this particular story was so captivating, though. They cast light on some things about ourselves and about the strange forces — sometimes wonderful and sometimes destructive — that shape our lives in a modern media society.

THE STORYLINE COULDN’T HAVE BEEN MORE HOLLYWOOD.
It’s become cliche to compare the real world to showbiz (“It was like something out of a movie,” so many witnesses to disaster say). But even bearing that in mind, it would have been impossible to craft a Hollywood treatment that felt more cinematic.
For several decades in the American film industry during the 20th century, a production code made sure that the bad guys couldn’t win and that bad things couldn’t be shown. What’s less known is that the code discouraged ambiguity and subtly encouraged sharp, distinctive resolutions to plotlines — something that came to be known as the “Hollywood ending” and endures to this day.

That’s what we got Tuesday out of northern Thailand — a satisfying, all-tied-up-in-a-bow Hollywood ending, the kind that would make a reality-TV producer salivate.
“This sets the framework for what we expect from a great story,” says Roscoe Scarborough, a sociologist at Franklin & Marshall College in Pennsylvania who studies first responders and reality television.
“Any action movie follows this script. Thinking they’re dead but they’re alive. A race against time and the odds to get them out,” says Scarborough, who is also a firefighter. “It’s a cultural product that we understand. But this is a real-life version.”

TECHNOLOGY HELPED SAVE THEM.
Our world today is utterly consumed with technology — witness the ability to witness a lot of this event on television and mobile devices — but also increasingly uneasy with the way it affects our lives and landscapes.
So to look at such a remote area and watch a good outcome unfold because of smart uses of technology, from the pumping effort that drained water out of the cave to the carefully calibrated oxygen tanks used in extracting the kids, illuminated the ways technology can encourage our humanity rather than whittle away at it.

SOMEONE SACRIFICED EVERYTHING.
In any epic narrative, something precious is lost. In this case, that was 38-year-old Saman Gunan, the Thai Navy SEAL who died in the cave late last week during rescue efforts.
This happens often in rescue efforts: People who die heroically trying to help others become martyrs who are seen as the best of us. The highest-profile example in recent years: the firefighters and police officers who died helping people on Sept. 11, 2001.
“They become symbols of our shared humanity, representative of our collective values,” Scarborough says.

POLITICS WERE NOWHERE TO BE FOUND.
It’s pretty obvious that our media-consuming world needs some news that couldn’t possibly be contentious or political. This story deftly managed that.
The enemies were diffuse — nature and the ticking clock. There was no backstory of refugees or immigration or gun control or economic disparity. There were, to most of the world watching, no politics whatsoever.
Additionally, their 2014 military coup notwithstanding, Thais are generally quiet participants in the global community for the most part.
Thus, not much to argue about.

IT UNFOLDED GRADUALLY, AND TIME WAS OF THE ESSENCE.
Serial narratives have been around for a while after their ascent in print form during the 1800s and as “cliffhangers” like “The Perils of Pauline” or “Flash Gordon” during cinema’s early days. Their calculus: They give you some of the story but leave you anticipating more. Serial podcasts and TV season finales carry on that tradition today.
In the case of the cave saga, a series of inflection points kept turning attention back to northern Thailand. The effect, said one observer, felt like the tiny rush you get when people, one after another, like your Facebook post or Instagram photo.

And over it all hung a ticking clock. Would the waters rise again? Would oxygen run out? Would rescuers beat the ticking clock?
In the end, this strange summer saga in Thailand was the kind of story that a modern, media-consuming human is literally conditioned through life to consume.
It takes its place among similar underground sagas that entranced the planet — the trapped Copiapó miners (Chile, 2010); the Quecreek mining disaster (Pennsylvania, 2002), 18-month-old Jessica McClure trapped in a well (Texas, 1987); and the first such event covered by modern media, the trapping and subsequent cave death of Floyd Collins (Kentucky, 1925), where coverage featured radio bulletins and, in the spirit of the age, a popular ballad recorded on acetate disc.
Sounds antique and distant, right? But in the end it’s the same. No matter how much the decades pass or the technology progresses, we do the same thing: We watch, we wonder, and we hope for a happy ending. And then we move on.
This time, though, in this contentious season of humanity, we can do it with a smile.


UK Supreme Court to rule on landmark legal challenge over legal definition of a woman

Updated 54 min 4 sec ago
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UK Supreme Court to rule on landmark legal challenge over legal definition of a woman

  • Britain’s highest court scheduled to rule whether a transgender person with a certificate that recognizes them as female can be regarded as a woman under equality laws

LONDON: The UK Supreme Court is poised to rule Wednesday in a legal challenge focusing on the definition of a woman in a long-running dispute between a women’s rights group and the Scottish government.
Five judges at Britain’s highest court are scheduled to rule whether a transgender person with a certificate that recognizes them as female can be regarded as a woman under equality laws.
While the case centers on Scottish law, the group bringing the challenge, For Women Scotland (FWS), has said its outcomes could have UK-wide consequences for sex-based rights as well as everyday single-sex services such as toilets and hospital wards.
What’s the case about?
The case stems from a 2018 law passed by the Scottish Parliament stating that there should be a 50 percent female representation on the boards of Scottish public bodies. That law included transgender women in its definition of women.
The women’s rights group successfully challenged that law, arguing that its redefinition of “woman” went beyond parliament’s powers.
Scottish officials then issued guidance stating that the definition of “woman” included a transgender woman with a gender recognition certificate.
FWS sought to overturn that.
“Not tying the definition of sex to its ordinary meaning means that public boards could conceivably comprise of 50 percent men, and 50 percent men with certificates, yet still lawfully meet the targets for female representation,” the group’s director Trina Budge said.
The challenge was rejected by a court in 2022, but the group was granted permission last year to take its case to the Supreme Court.
What are the arguments?
Aidan O’Neill, a lawyer for FWS, told the Supreme Court judges – three men and two women – that under the Equality Act “sex” should refer to biological sex and as understood “in ordinary, everyday language.”
“Our position is your sex, whether you are a man or a woman or a girl or a boy is determined from conception in utero, even before one’s birth, by one’s body,” he said on Tuesday. “It is an expression of one’s bodily reality. It is an immutable biological state.”
The women’s rights group counts among its supporters author J.K. Rowling, who reportedly donated tens of thousands of pounds to back its work. The “Harry Potter” writer has been vocal in arguing that the rights for trans women should not come at the expense of those who are born biologically female.
Opponents, including Amnesty International, said excluding transgender people from sex discrimination protections conflicts with human rights.
Amnesty submitted a brief in court saying it was concerned about the deterioration of the rights for trans people in the UK and abroad.
“A blanket policy of barring trans women from single-sex services is not a proportionate means to achieve a legitimate aim,” the human rights group said.


Canadian university teachers warned against traveling to the United States

Updated 16 April 2025
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Canadian university teachers warned against traveling to the United States

  • The Canadian government recently updated its US travel advisory, warning residents they may face scrutiny from border guards and the possibility of detention if denied entry

HALIFAX, Nova Scotia: The association that represents academic staff at Canadian universities is warning its members against non-essential travel to the United States.
The Canadian Association of University Teachers released updated travel advice Tuesday due to the “political landscape” created by President Donald Trump’s administration and reports of some Canadians encountering difficulties crossing the border.
The association says academics who are from countries that have tense diplomatic relations with the United States, or who have themselves expressed negative views about the Trump administration, should be particularly cautious about US travel.
Its warning is particularly targeted to academics who identify as transgender or “whose research could be seen as being at odds with the position of the current US administration.”
In addition, the association says academics should carefully consider what information they have, or need to have, on their electronic devices when crossing the border, and take actions to protect sensitive information.
Reports of foreigners being sent to detention or processing centers for more than seven days, including Canadian Jasmine Mooney, a pair of German tourists, and a backpacker from Wales, have been making headlines since Trump took office in January.
The Canadian government recently updated its US travel advisory, warning residents they may face scrutiny from border guards and the possibility of detention if denied entry.
Crossings from Canada into the United States dropped by about 32 percent, or by 864,000 travelers, in March compared to the same month a year ago, according to data from US Customs and Border Protection. Many Canadians are furious about Trump’s annexation threats and trade war but also worried about entering the US
David Robinson, executive director of the university teachers association, said that the warning is the first time his group has advised against non-essential US travel in the 11 years he’s worked with them.
“It’s clear there’s been heightened scrutiny of people entering the United States, and … a heightened kind of political screening of people entering the country,” said Robinson, whose association represents 70,000 teachers, librarians, researchers, general staff and other academic professionals at 122 universities and colleges.
Robinson said the group made the decision after taking legal advice in recent weeks. He said lawyers told them that US border searches can compromise confidential information obtained by academics during their research.
He said the association will keep the warning in place until it sees “the end of political screening, and there is more respect for confidential information on electronic devices.”

 


Afghan children will die because of US funding cuts, aid official says

Updated 16 April 2025
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Afghan children will die because of US funding cuts, aid official says

  • More than 3.5 million children in Afghanistan will suffer from acute malnutrition this year, an increase of 20 percent from 2024

Afghan children will die because of US funding cuts, an aid agency official said Tuesday.
The warning follows the cancelation of foreign aid contracts by President Donald Trump’s administration, including to Afghanistan where more than half of the population needs humanitarian assistance to survive.
Action Against Hunger initially stopped all US-funded activities in March after the money dried up suddenly. But it kept the most critical services going in northeastern Badakhshan province and the capital Kabul through its own budget, a measure that stopped this month.
Its therapeutic feeding unit in Kabul is empty and closing this week. There are no patients, and staff contracts are ending because of the US funding cuts.
“If we don’t treat children with acute malnutrition there is a very high risk of (them) dying,” Action Against Hunger’s country director, Cobi Rietveld, told The Associated Press. “No child should die because of malnutrition. If we don’t fight hunger, people will die of hunger. If they don’t get medical care, there is a high risk of dying. They don’t get medical care, they die.”
More than 3.5 million children in Afghanistan will suffer from acute malnutrition this year, an increase of 20 percent from 2024. Decades of conflict — including the 20-year US war with the Taliban — as well as entrenched poverty and climate shocks have contributed to the country’s humanitarian crisis.
Last year, the United States provided 43 percent of all international humanitarian funding to Afghanistan.
Rietveld said there were other nongovernmental organizations dealing with funding cuts to Afghanistan. “So when we cut the funding, there will be more children who are going to die of malnutrition.”
The children who came to the feeding unit often could not walk or even crawl. Sometimes they were unable to eat because they didn’t have the energy. All the services were provided free of charge, including three meals a day.
Rietveld said children would need to be referred to other places, where there was less capacity and technical knowledge.
Dr. Abdul Hamid Salehi said Afghan mothers were facing a crisis. Poverty levels among families meant it was impossible to treat severely malnourished children in private clinics.
“People used to come to us in large numbers, and they are still hoping and waiting for this funding to be found again or for someone to sponsor us so that we can resume our work and start serving patients once more.”


Magnitude 5.6 earthquake strikes Hindu Kush region, Afghanistan, EMSC says

Updated 16 April 2025
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Magnitude 5.6 earthquake strikes Hindu Kush region, Afghanistan, EMSC says

  • EMSC first reported the quake at a magnitude of 6.4

KABUL: An earthquake of magnitude 5.6 struck the Hindu Kush region in Afghanistan on Wednesday, the European-Mediterranean Seismological Center (EMSC) said.
The quake was at a depth of 121 km (75 miles), EMSC said, and the epicenter 164 km east of Baghlan, a city with a population of about 108,000.
EMSC first reported the quake at a magnitude of 6.4.

 


US plans to use tariff negotiations to isolate China, WSJ reports

Updated 16 April 2025
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US plans to use tariff negotiations to isolate China, WSJ reports

  • US officials plan to use negotiations with more than 70 nations to ask them to disallow China to ship goods through their countries and prevent Chinese firms from being located in their territories to avoid US tariffs

WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump administration plans to use ongoing tariff negotiations to pressure US trading partners to limit their dealings with China, The Wall Street Journal reported on Tuesday citing people with knowledge of the conversations.
US officials plan to use negotiations with more than 70 nations to ask them to disallow China to ship goods through their countries and prevent Chinese firms from being located in their territories to avoid US tariffs, the report added.