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Saudi Gazette
12-05-2025
- Saudi Gazette
Tense encounter with a sanctioned Israeli settler in West Bank
By Fergal Keane & Alice Doyard JORDAN VALLEY — Dust was rising on the track. It hung in the hot midday air as the white jeep came toward us. The driver was less than a minute away. "I think it's Moshe Sharvit," said Gil Alexander, 72, a devout religious Jew who tries to protect Palestinian shepherds from intimidation by Jewish settlers. Over the last year, we've been documenting his work with shepherds in the northern Jordan Valley, in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. The man approaching us was placed under sanctions by Britain and the EU last year after they said he had used "physical aggression, threatened families at gunpoint, and destroyed property as part of a targeted and calculated effort to displace Palestinian communities". In a case reported by our colleagues at BBC Eye Investigates last year, a Palestinian grandmother alleged that Moshe Sharvit had forced her to leave her family home in October 2023. Ayesha Shtayyeh also said he pointed a gun at her head and threatened to kill her. "We've been here for 50 have I ever done to him?" she asked when BBC Eye interviewed her. She said her family's troubles began after Moshe Sharvit established a so-called 'outpost' — a settlement that is illegal under both Israeli and international law — chasing away the family's sheep, damaging property and constantly threatening them. The alleged incident with the gun was the final straw. Moshe Sharvit did not respond to BBC Eye's requests for a response to Ayesha's account. Back on the mountainside, the man accused of this violence stopped his car and approached us. Nodding toward Gil Alexander he asked us: "Do you know he's a very dangerous guy?" When our translator explained to Moshe Sharvit we were from the BBC he said: "Ah the BBC... great lovers of Israel..." He went on to call us bad and dangerous people. Addressing our translator he said: "So, do you understand that they're the people who are most dangerous to the State of Israel?" Then he phoned the police, asking them to come to the scene. When he wasn't calling the police he filmed us filming him. Moshe Sharvit and Gil Alexander represent starkly different visions of Israel's future. Moshe Sharvit believes all of the West Bank — which settlers and the Israeli government call Judea and Samaria — were given by God to the Jews. In this he is supported by senior ministers in the government, including the Minister of Finance, Bezalel Smotrich, and the Minister of Public Security, Itamar Ben-Gvir. Both men are settlers and leaders of far-right ultranationalist parties. Smotrich has said Gaza will be "totally destroyed" and that its people will be "totally despairing, understanding that there is no hope and nothing to look for in Gaza and will be looking for relocation to begin a new life in other places". The 'other places' he envisages are foreign countries. Ben-Gvir, who is responsible for the police, has convictions for inciting racism and supporting a terrorist organization. Israel's Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, relies on the support of the far-right settler movement to keep his government in power. He criticized the sanctions imposed on Moshe Sharvit and other settlers, saying his government viewed the move "with great severity". US sanctions against Moshe Sharvit were dropped when President Donald Trump came to power. The UN's top court ruled last year that Israel's occupation of the Palestinian territories is against international law and that all settlement activity is illegal. Israel rejects this and argues that settlements are necessary for security, citing lethal attacks by Palestinian gunmen on settlers, such as the killing of three people last January in the West Bank. Settlement expansion is anathema to Gil Alexander. He considers himself a Zionist, but within the existing borders of Israel. These are the frontiers that existed before it seized the West Bank in the 1967 Middle East war, after neighboring Arab countries launched a surprise attack. He is part of a network called the Jordan Valley Activists – Moshe Sharvit calls them "anarchists" — offering solidarity, and working for peaceful co-existence with the Palestinians. "What they [the settlers] want to see happen," Gil Alexander told us, "[is] that it will be an area completely free of Arabs. It isn't Moshe. It's all the people above him who sent him here. Meaning from the top". Moshe Sharvit's desire to have the Jordan Valley empty of Palestinians is shared by the leader of the regional council, a government-supported body, David Elhayani, who has visited the sanctioned settler. In his air-conditioned office about 15km (9 miles) from Moshe Sharvit's settler outpost he told us "the notion of settler violence is an invention of the anarchist, extreme left meant to harm the settlement image". As for the future of the Palestinians, he was emphatic. They should go to neighboring Jordan. "This country needs to be free of Arabs. It's the only way. It's a global interest. Why global? Because the minute there won't be Arabs here it will be a Jewish nation for the Jews who won't have to hurt each other, there won't be conflict, there won't be anything." Gil Alexander and Moshe Sharvit have a history of antagonism. During an altercation on a Palestinian farmer's land in January 2023, Moshe Sharvit says Gil Alexander tried to seize his firearm from its holster. While speaking to our translator he produced a video of the incident on his phone. "You can see Gil Alexander. Same hat and glasses. That's me. Here you see he grabs my gun." Gil Alexander says he was acting in self-defense after Moshe Sharvit had grabbed his walking stick, and the phone of his friend and violently pushing it. He says he feared Moshe Sharvit was going to use the weapon. As a result, Moshe Sharvit got a restraining order which forbids Gil Alexander from being within 2.5km (1.5 miles) of his farm. The police have charged Gil Alexander with illegal possession of a weapon (the one he allegedly tried to take from Moshe Sharvit) and assault. The issue will be considered by the Israeli courts. Moshe Sharvit himself is the subject of a restraining order forbidding him to approach a Palestinian family living near his outpost for six months, since March this year. During our encounter the settler claimed that Gil Alexander had breached his restraining order by taking us to the high ground overlooking the valley. The peace activist told us later that he had mistakenly strayed just over half a kilometer inside the area of the order. Although Moshe Sharvit's settlement is illegal, even under Israeli law, it has not been removed. Human rights organizations and numerous eyewitnesses testify that the Israeli army and police frequently stand by while settlers attack Palestinian villages. The violence has escalated sharply since the 7 October 2023 Hamas attack on Israel in which about 1,200 people were killed and 251 kidnapped, and which triggered the Gaza war. According to a report issued by the UN Office for Humanitarian Affairs, there were 1,804 attacks by settlers against Palestinians in the period January 2024 to March 2025. The Israeli human rights group, Yesh Din (There is Law), reported that only 3% of complaints made against settlers resulted in a conviction. In six days last month — from 22 to 28 April — the UN recorded 14 incidents involving settlers that left 36 Palestinians injured. In the tense atmosphere on the mountainside, and wanting to avoid any escalation, we decided to leave. As we walked away, Moshe Sharvit went to his jeep and drove ahead of us, stopping where the track turned down the mountain. Our way out was blocked. There was no one we could appeal to apart from the man preventing us from leaving. Again, he phoned the police asking them to come. Gil Alexander phoned the police and his lawyer. Our team was worried that more settlers would come. Then something surprising happened. I suggested to Moshe Sharvit that he should agree to be interviewed. After a brief pause, he said: "Bring the camera." What followed was less an interview, than a series of declarations. He was doing the work of God, he said. Why did local Bedouin shepherds say they were very afraid of him? I asked. "No, that is a lie. They're telling stories so the world will think we're crazy. It's not true. It's all lies that are built on lies of dozens of years of lying..." he said. "The Arabs, since the formation of the country and before — all the past 77 years they've been preoccupied with harming the people of Israel, harming the land of Israel and causing the nation of Israel to be miserable and pitiful. But they don't understand that the harder they try, the Lion will wake from his sleep and within one day we'll end this story." He repeated the analogy of the Lion later in the interview saying, in what sounded like ominous words, that the Palestinians were "pushing the lion so hard into the corner that there will be no choice left but to finish this story". "7 October was small. One day it'll be big." As for peaceful co-existence such as Gil Alexander supports, he said there was "no such thing as peace with enemies who try to destroy you". Moshe Sharvit's brother Harel was killed fighting in Gaza in December 2023. His world is the pastureland, the stony hills of the Jordan Valley, his sheep and cattle, the bed and breakfast he has opened. He produced a glossy video, replete with a backing track of American country music, to promote his venture. He spoke with contempt for the British sanctions against him. They were a new kind of antisemitism, he claimed. "The minute someone tries to hurt me I get stronger. My spirit...I receive energies, my spirit continues on its mission, I continue advancing forward and planting roots deep into the land of Israel. I'm not bothered by Britain or America or anyone." Then he drove away. We were free to move on. Later as we were having lunch in a café about 15km (nine miles) away, a policeman appeared, looking for Gil Alexander. He went with the police officer for questioning. After about an hour he returned, telling us he had been ordered not to enter the Jordan Valley for two weeks. He plans to lodge his own complaint against Moshe Sharvit over the incident. We went to Gil Alexander's home in a kibbutz inside Israel that overlooks the Valley. Gunmen from the Palestinian city of Jenin fired at the kibbutz two years ago. Gil Alexander is not a pacifist. If he is attacked by Hamas or any other group, he will defend himself. He said: "A son of our friends, two months ago he was killed here by a terrorist. He was a soldier in the reserves, 46 years old with six children. He volunteered for the reserves to protect me." "If the army hadn't been there, they would have come here. He was killed while defending me. And today he is buried next to my two sons." But Gil Alexander seemed weary as we sat drinking tea amid the bright red flowers of his well-tended garden, and the fluttering yellow flags that symbolize Israel's hostages held in Gaza. He spoke of a beloved nephew killed fighting in Lebanon in an earlier war. Did he not, I wondered, at the age of 72, think about retiring from the struggle and enjoying his garden? He laughed. There was no chance of that. After two of his sons took their own lives – one was in the army, the other was about to enter the military – he had found a purpose in working for what he calls the "humanitarian" ideals of Judaism. "After the tragedies of my sons, if I don't find meaning in life, I'll go crazy... And the things I do, are things I believe in. And these are things I also got from my father who was in the French underground during World War Two and fought for French liberation but was against any type of occupation and said, 'Occupation is Occupation.'" Two days after our encounter with Moshe Sharvit, a lone woman peace activist filmed him banging on the window of her car and rocking the vehicle. The woman is clearly frightened by the intimidation. Moshe Sharvit acts as if he has nothing to fear. — BBC
Yahoo
11-05-2025
- Yahoo
BBC team's tense encounter with sanctioned Israeli settler while filming in West Bank
Dust was rising on the track. It hung in the hot midday air as the white jeep came towards us. The driver was less than a minute away. "I think it's Moshe Sharvit," said Gil Alexander, 72, a devout religious Jew who tries to protect Palestinian shepherds from intimidation by Jewish settlers. Over the last year we've been documenting his work with shepherds in the northern Jordan Valley, in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. The man approaching us was placed under sanctions by Britain and the EU last year after they said he had used "physical aggression, threatened families at gunpoint, and destroyed property as part of a targeted and calculated effort to displace Palestinian communities". In a case reported by our colleagues at BBC Eye Investigates last year, a Palestinian grandmother alleged that Moshe Sharvit had forced her to leave her family home in October 2023. Ayesha Shtayyeh also said he pointed a gun at her head and threatened to kill her. Confronting violent settlers in the occupied West Bank, together Extremist settlers rapidly seizing West Bank land "We've been here for 50 years…What have I ever done to him?" she asked when BBC Eye interviewed her. She said her family's troubles began after Moshe Sharvit established a so-called 'outpost'- a settlement that is illegal under both Israeli and international law - chasing away the family's sheep, damaging property and constantly threatening them. The alleged incident with the gun was the final straw. Moshe Sharvit did not respond to BBC Eye's requests for a response to Ayesha's account. Back on the mountainside, the man accused of this violence stopped his car and approached us. Nodding towards Gil Alexander he asked us: "Do you know he's a very dangerous guy?" When our translator explained to Moshe Sharvit we were from the BBC he said: "Ah the BBC… great lovers of Israel…" He went on to call us bad and dangerous people. Addressing our translator he said: "So, do you understand that they're the people who are most dangerous to the State of Israel?" Then he phoned the police, asking them to come to the scene. When he wasn't calling the police he filmed us filming him. Moshe Sharvit and Gil Alexander represent starkly different visions of Israel's future. Moshe Sharvit believes all of the West Bank - which settlers and the Israeli government call Judea and Samaria - were given by God to the Jews. In this he is supported by senior ministers in the government, including the Minister of Finance, Bezalel Smotrich, and the Minister of Public Security, Itamar Ben-Gvir. Both men are settlers and leaders of far-right ultranationalist parties. Smotrich has said Gaza will be "totally destroyed" and that its people will be "totally despairing, understanding that there is no hope and nothing to look for in Gaza and will be looking for relocation to begin a new life in other places". The 'other places' he envisages are foreign countries. Ben-Gvir, who is responsible for the police, has convictions for inciting racism and supporting a terrorist organisation. Israel's Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, relies on the support of the far-right settler movement to keep his government in power. He criticised the sanctions imposed on Moshe Sharvit and other settlers, saying his government viewed the move "with great severity". US sanctions against Moshe Sharvit were dropped when President Donald Trump came to power. The UN's top court ruled last year that Israel's occupation of the Palestinian territories is against international law and that all settlement activity is illegal. Israel rejects this and argues that settlements are necessary for security, citing lethal attacks by Palestinian gunmen on settlers, such as the killing of three people last January in the West Bank. Settlement expansion is anathema to Gil Alexander. He considers himself a Zionist, but within the existing borders of Israel. These are the frontiers that existed before it seized the West Bank in the 1967 Middle East war, after neighbouring Arab countries launched a surprise attack. He is part of a network called the Jordan Valley Activists – Moshe Sharvit calls them "anarchists" - offering solidarity, and working for peaceful co-existence with the Palestinians. "What they [the settlers] want to see happen," Gil Alexander told us, "[is] that it will be an area completely free of Arabs. It isn't Moshe. It's all the people above him who sent him here. Meaning from the top". Moshe Sharvit's desire to have the Jordan Valley empty of Palestinians is shared by the leader of the regional council, a government-supported body, David Elhayani, who has visited the sanctioned settler. In his air conditioned office about 15km (9 miles) from Moshe Sharvit's settler outpost he told us "the notion of settler violence is an invention of the anarchist, extreme left meant to harm the settlement image". As for the future of the Palestinians, he was emphatic. They should go to neighbouring Jordan. "This country needs to be free of Arabs. It's the only way. It's a global interest. Why global? Because the minute there won't be Arabs here it will be a Jewish nation for the Jews who won't have to hurt each other, there won't be conflict, there won't be anything." Gil Alexander and Moshe Sharvit have a history of antagonism. During an altercation on a Palestinian farmer's land in January 2023, Moshe Sharvit says Gil Alexander tried to seize his firearm from its holster. While speaking to our translator he produced a video of the incident on his phone. "You can see Gil Alexander. Same hat and glasses. That's me. Here you see he grabs my gun." Gil Alexander says he was acting in self-defence after Moshe Sharvit had grabbed his walking stick, and the phone of his friend and violently pushing it. He says he feared Moshe Sharvit was going to use the weapon. As a result, Moshe Sharvit got a restraining order which forbids Gil Alexander from being within 2.5km (1.5 miles) of his farm. The police have charged Gil Alexander with illegal possession of a weapon (the one he allegedly tried to take from Moshe Sharvit) and assault. The issue will be considered by the Israeli courts. Moshe Sharvit himself is the subject of a restraining order forbidding him to approach a Palestinian family living near his outpost for six months, since March this year. During our encounter the settler claimed that Gil Alexander had breached his restraining order by taking us to the high ground overlooking the valley. The peace activist told us later that he had mistakenly strayed just over half a kilometre inside the area of the order. Although Moshe Sharvit's settlement is illegal, even under Israeli law, it has not been removed. Human rights organisations and numerous eyewitnesses testify that the Israeli army and police frequently stand by while settlers attack Palestinian villages. The violence has escalated sharply since the 7 October 2023 Hamas attack on Israel in which about 1,200 people were killed and 251 kidnapped, and which triggered the Gaza war. According to a report issued by the UN office for Humanitarian Affairs there were 1,804 attacks by settlers against Palestinians in the period January 2024 to March 2025. The Israeli human rights group, Yesh Din (There is Law), reported that only 3% of complaints made against settlers resulted in a conviction. In six days last month - from 22 to 28 April - the UN recorded 14 incidents involving settlers that left 36 Palestinians injured. In the tense atmosphere on the mountainside, and wanting to avoid any escalation, we decided to leave. As we walked away, Moshe Sharvit went to his jeep and drove ahead of us, stopping where the track turned down the mountain. Our way out was blocked. There was no-one we could appeal to apart from the man preventing us from leaving. Again, he phoned the police asking them to come. Gil Alexander phoned the police and his lawyer. Our team was worried that more settlers would come. Then something surprising happened. I suggested to Moshe Sharvit that he should agree to be interviewed. After a brief pause, he said: "Bring the camera." What followed was less an interview, than a series of declarations. He was doing the work of God, he said. Why did local Bedouin shepherds say they were very afraid of him? I asked. "No, that is a lie. They're telling stories so the world will think we're crazy. It's not true. It's all lies that are built on lies of dozens of years of lying…" he said. "The Arabs, since the formation of the country and before - all the past 77 years they've been preoccupied with harming the people of Israel, harming the land of Israel and causing the nation of Israel to be miserable and pitiful. But they don't understand that the harder they try, the Lion will wake from his sleep and within one day we'll end this story." He repeated the analogy of the Lion later in the interview saying, in what sounded like ominous words, that the Palestinians were "pushing the lion so hard into the corner that there will be no choice left but to finish this story". "7 October was small. One day it'll be big." As for peaceful co-existence such as Gil Alexander supports, he said there was "no such thing as peace with enemies who try to destroy you". Moshe Sharvit's brother Harel was killed fighting in Gaza in December 2023. His world is the pastureland, the stony hills of the Jordan Valley, his sheep and cattle, the bed and breakfast he has opened. He produced a glossy video, replete with a backing track of American country music, to promote his venture. He spoke with contempt for the British sanctions against him. They were a new kind of antisemitism, he claimed. "The minute someone tries to hurt me I get stronger. My spirit…I receive energies, my spirit continues on its mission, I continue advancing forward and planting roots deep into the land of Israel. I'm not bothered by Britain or America or anyone." Then he drove away. We were free to move on. Later as we were having lunch in a café about 15km (nine miles) away, a policeman appeared, looking for Gil Alexander. He went with the police officer for questioning. After about an hour he returned, telling us he had been ordered not to enter the Jordan Valley for two weeks. He plans to lodge his own complaint against Moshe Sharvit over the incident. We went to Gil Alexander's home in a kibbutz inside Israel that overlooks the Valley. Gunmen from the Palestinian city of Jenin fired at the kibbutz two years ago. Gil Alexander is not a pacifist. If he is attacked by Hamas or any other group, he will defend himself. He said: "A son of our friends, two months ago he was killed here by a terrorist. He was a soldier in the reserves, 46 years old with six children. He volunteered for the reserves to protect me." "If the army hadn't been there, they would have come here. He was killed while defending me. And today he is buried next to my two sons." But Gil Alexander seemed weary as we sat drinking tea amid the bright red flowers of his well-tended garden, and the fluttering yellow flags that symbolise Israel's hostages held in Gaza. He spoke of a beloved nephew killed fighting in Lebanon in an earlier war. Did he not, I wondered, at the age of 72, think about retiring from the struggle and enjoying his garden? He laughed. There was no chance of that. After two of his sons took their own lives – one was in the army, the other was about to enter the military – he had found a purpose in working for what he calls the "humanitarian" ideals of Judaism. "After the tragedies of my sons, if I don't find meaning in life, I'll go crazy… And the things I do, are things I believe in. And these are things I also got from my father who was in the French underground during World War Two and fought for French liberation but was against any type of occupation and said, 'Occupation is Occupation.'" Two days after our encounter with Moshe Sharvit, a lone woman peace activist filmed him banging on the window of her car and rocking the vehicle. The woman is clearly frightened by the intimidation. Moshe Sharvit acts as if he has nothing to fear. With additional reporting by Oren Rosenfeld and Nik Millard. Extremist settlers rapidly seizing West Bank land Confronting violent settlers in the occupied West Bank, together
Daily Mail
23-04-2025
- Health
- Daily Mail
My nose turned black after a rhinoplasty gone wrong: This is my warning to other people having plastic surgery
A Chinese actress whose nose turned black after a rhinoplasty caused her flesh to rot has highlighted the terrifying rise in botched procedures in China. Gao Liu is just one of many women who have fallen victim to evolving beauty standards in China, which puts them under pressure to have plastic surgery to enhance - and in some cases, transform - their appearance. Liu's story is investigated in BBC Eye documentary Make Me Perfect: Manufacturing Beauty in China, after she visited a clinic called She's Times in Guangzhou in 2020 for a nose job. Her surgeon Dr He Ming was billed the clinic's 'chief surgeon' and a nose surgery expert, however, Liu's operation resulted in the tip of her nose turning black due to lack of circulation. After seven days of worsening symptoms, she was transferred to a top public hospital, but the damage was permanent. After four years and two repair operations, her nose remains damaged. The investigation found that, despite Guangzhou's Health Commission announcing sanctions on the clinic and surgeon, he still appears to be operating, but in a clinic with a different name. Liu's story is one of many explored in the documentary which delves into the disturbing rise of botched operations in China as people opt for ever more daring procedures in the name of beauty. In China, good looks are seen as the key to career success, with videos promoting controversial beauty standards like extreme weight loss flooding social media, and beauty apps making surgery a click of a button away. China is seeing a boom in cosmetic surgery, with 20 million people a year paying for cosmetic procedures in the world's most populous country. Of these people, 80 per cent are women and the average age of people seeking cosmetic enhancements is 25 years old. The industry was once seen as taboo in Chinese society, but has increased in popularity thanks to social media, a gradual change in attitude and people having more disposable income. With changing attitudes come changing beauty standards; with the once longed-for 'Western' traits now less popular among clients. However, in place of the previously sought-after aesthetic which valued symmetrical faces, a sculpted jawline and a prominent, sharp nose, some dark trends are instead on the rise. Women are now chasing the 'hyper-feminine' look, to the point of being childlike, the documentary finds. Among the bizarre procedures being requested in China are Botox injected behind the ears to tilt them forwards - which creates the illusion of a smaller, daintier face. Women are also opting for lower eyelid surgery to widen the eyes, creating a childlike look inspired by Anime characters. Meanwhile, upper lip shortening narrows the space between lip and nose - which is thought to signal youth. And cosmetic surgery is easier than ever to access with the rise of apps including SoYoung (新氧 'New Oxygen') and GengMei (更美 'More Beautiful'). The apps, which are now extremely popular, claim to analyse a person's face to highlight the 'imperfections' they should correct. Singer and actress Gao Liu, who has starred in multiple films and TV programmes in China, had a nose surgery at a Guangzhou clinic called She's Times (熙施时光) in 2020 After seven days of worsening symptoms, she was transferred to a top public hospital, but the damage was permanent. After four years and two repair operations, her nose remains damaged Singer and actress Gao Liu sparked a heated discussion online after sharing the images revealing the tip of her nose has rotted away and fallen off After assessing users' faces, they provide surgery recommendations from nearby clinics, taking a commission from each operation. As celebrities, such as Gao Liu, continue to undergo cosmetic procedures in their droves, demand for such operations has risen significantly. However, this surge in demand has created a shortage of qualified professionals to carry out the procedures - resulting in a rise in reported accidents in Chinese clinics. After Gao Liu posted photos of her rotting nose on Chinese social media site Weibo, they went viral and horrified people around the world - which prompted authorities to act quickly. Within weeks, Guangzhou Health Commission announced sanctions on the clinic Gao Liu had visited, and her surgeon Dr He Ming. It turned out to be the sixth time the clinic had been sanctioned and, worryingly, it was revealed that Dr. He Ming was not qualified to carry out plastic surgery unsupervised. He was barred from practicing for six months and the clinic closed down soon after it was sanctioned for the sixth time. However, in a mysterious development, weeks before She's Times officially closed its doors, a new clinic called Qingya (轻雅 'Light and Elegant') requested to register at the same address. Investigating the incident, BBC Eye uncovered strong links between the two clinics, which are registered under different legal representatives. The reporters found that She's Times' Weibo account had switched up and begun to promote Qingya after it opened, with similar social media approaches and styles. Dr He Ming was also listed as a senior staff member at the new clinic. Records on the national database of health professionals show that Dr He only obtained the licensed plastic surgeon qualification in April 2024. However, the qualification shouldn't have been granted to him according to Guangdong Provincial Health Commission rules, which disqualifies surgeons who have been sanctioned by any health commission from obtaining the qualification/status for five years. Dr He Ming was sanctioned in 2021 - three years before he obtained the license. The BBC Eye documentary reveals secretly recorded footage from a consultation at Qingya clinic, where a staff member says Dr He Ming has been working at the clinic for 'seven, eight years' and had been nicknamed 'Nose King of Guangzhou' for completing the highest number of nose surgeries in the province in 2023. While Dr He Ming could only meet the patient briefly between operations, he said he's been carrying out nose surgeries since 2012. In November 2024, Dr He Ming started a social media account as a nose surgery expert. He claims to have nearly 20 years of experience and to have carried out 10,000 operations. Since it opened, Qingya has expanded to now operate 30 branches across the province. Following the BBC Eye investigation, neither the Qingya clinic nor Dr He Ming responded to requests for comment. The Guangdong Provincial Health Commission also did not respond to questions about why Dr He Ming was able to btain the licensed plastic surgeon qualification against their rules. The Chinese Embassy in the UK said in a statement: 'The Chinese government consistently requires enterprises to operate in strict compliance with national laws, regulations, and relevant policy provisions.'
The Guardian
09-04-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
TV tonight: the astonishing story of jailed ‘wellness influencer' Kat Torres
11pm, BBC TwoLast year, rags-to-riches Brazilian model and 'wellness influencer' Kat Torres was sentenced to eight years in prison for human trafficking and slavery (which she still strongly and passionately denies). Her victims were her followers. This alarming documentary, an investigation by BBC Eye, tells a story of 'witchcraft, sexual exploitation and missing women', with those she exploited and her ex-husband recalling what happened. Then Torres herself offers her side of the story from inside jail. Hollie Richardson 8pm, BBC OneThe stalwart object restoration show can still, all these years later, come up with a first: a man brings in a likeness of his grandfather carved from soap in a second world war prisoner camp in Thailand. Plus, a scaled-down off-road vehicle made for children and a fez with unusual sentimental value. Jack Seale 8pm, BBC TwoLife without a fridge is unimaginable. The devices have been keeping our food cool for more than 100 years – but how do they work? Prof Hannah Fry investigates the 'twisty-turny tube-y bits that create the cold' and the 'weirdly warm grill that gets all dusty', before tracing the history of refrigeration back to a number of explosions. HR 9pm, BBC TwoBack to Wales's largest hospital, where surgeons are battling the longest waiting times in history. Father-of-two Terry requires groundbreaking robot technology to remove a tumour at the back of his nose, while martial arts-loving Tyerone is stunned to learn he needs major open-heart surgery. HR 9pm, Channel 4What happens when it becomes too hard to manage the Edwardian home you have lived in for 60 years on your own? If you are 82-year-old London widow Kathryn, you come up with a bold plan: build an exact duplicate – with improved accessibility and sustainable features – right next door. Graeme Virtue 9pm, Sky MaxThe comedian's convivial TV quiz welcomes Emmett J Scanlan, currently a taciturn henchman in MobLand, and Himesh Patel of The Franchise fame. They're joined by panel show pros Kerry Godliman and Carol Vorderman, plus team captains Josh Widdicombe and Alison Hammond. JS Champions League football: Paris Saint-Germain v Aston Villa 7pm, TNT Sports 1. Another quarter-final, first-leg tie.
BBC News
21-02-2025
- BBC News
India's Opioid Kings: BBC Eye investigation exposes an Indian pharma firm fuelling West Africa's opioid crisis
India's Opioid Kings, a new documentary from the BBC World Service's award-winning BBC Eye Investigations team, has revealed that an Indian pharmaceutical company is manufacturing unlicensed, addictive opioids and exporting them illegally to West Africa where they are driving a major public health crisis. Aveo Pharmaceuticals, based in Mumbai, makes a range of pills that go under different brand names and are packaged to look like legitimate medicines. But all contain the same harmful mix of ingredients: tapentadol, a powerful opioid, and carisoprodol, a muscle relaxant so addictive it's banned in Europe. This combination of drugs is not licensed for use anywhere in the world and can cause breathing difficulties and seizures. An overdose can kill. Despite the risks, these opioids are widely used as street drugs in many West African countries. The BBC World Service found packets of them, branded with the Aveo logo, for sale on the streets of Ghana, Nigeria, and Cote D'Ivoire. Having traced the drugs back to Aveo's factory in India, the BBC sent an undercover operative inside the factory, posing as an African businessman looking to supply opioids to Nigeria. Using a hidden camera, the BBC filmed one of Aveo's directors, Vinod Sharma, showing off the same dangerous products the BBC found for sale across West Africa. In the secretly recorded footage, the operative tells Sharma that his plan is to sell the pills to teenagers in Nigeria 'who all love this product.' Sharma doesn't flinch. 'OK,' he replies, before explaining that if users take two or three pills at once, they can 'relax' and get 'high.' Towards the end of the meeting, Sharma holds up a box of pills made in his own factory and admits: 'This is very harmful for their health — but nowadays, this is business.' It is a business that is damaging the health and destroying the potential of millions of young people across West Africa, including in Ghana, Nigeria, and Cote D'Ivoire, the BBC Eye documentary shows. In the city of Tamale, in Ghana, so many young people are taking illegal opioids that one of the city's chiefs, Alhassan Maham, has created a voluntary task force of about 100 citizens whose mission is to raid drug dealers and take these pills off the streets. 'The drugs consume the sanity of those who abuse them,' says Maham, 'like a fire burns when kerosene is poured on it.' One addict in Tamale put it even more simply. The drugs, he said, have 'wasted our lives'. Nigeria, with a population of 225 million people, provides the biggest market for these pills. The Chairman of Nigeria's Drug and Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA), Brig Gen Mohammed Buba Marwa, told the BBC, opioids are 'devastating our youths, our families, it's in every community in Nigeria.' In India, pharmaceutical companies cannot legally manufacture and export unlicensed drugs unless these drugs meet the standards of the importing country. Aveo ships Tafrodol and similar products to Ghana, where this combination of tapentadol and carisoprodol is, according to Ghana's national Drug Enforcement Agency, unlicensed and illegal. By shipping Tafrodol to Ghana, Aveo is breaking Indian law. BBC Eye put these allegations to Vinod Sharma and Aveo Pharmaceuticals. They did not respond. The Indian drugs regulator, the CDSCO, told us the Indian government recognises its responsibility towards global public health and is committed to ensuring India has a responsible and strong pharmaceutical regulatory system. It added that exports from India to other countries are closely monitored and that recently tightened regulation is strictly enforced. It also called importing countries to support India's efforts by ensuring they had similarly strong regulatory systems. The CDSCO stated it has taken up the matter with other countries, including those in West Africa, and is committed to working with them to prevent wrongdoing. The regulator said it will take immediate action against any pharmaceutical firm involved in malpractice. Watch BBC Eye Investigation: India's Opioid Kings on BBC iPlayer International audiences can watch the film on the BBC Africa YouTube channel. Read the story on the BBC News website – via in the UK; and internationally – on BBC Studios global digital news platform. LN1
