Latest news with #non-Spanish
Yahoo
29-05-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
‘Historic milestone' as court hears the horrors of Peru's forced sterilisation programme
During the 1990s, Peru's government carried out a ruthless campaign of forced sterilisation, depriving hundreds of thousands of women of the right to bear children. Now, for the first time, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights has held a public hearing on the abuses – a case hailed as a 'historic milestone': Celia Ramos vs Peru. Celia Ramos was, like most affected by the mass sterilisation scheme, a woman living in poverty. Houses in her village of La Legua, Piura, were made of canes and mud, had limited electricity and no sewage system. Yet despite the hardships, Ramos, a mother to three girls, was a woman 'full of life,' her eldest recalls. Then, in July 1997, 34-year-old Ramos was sterilised – despite repeatedly refusing – as part of the National Reproductive Health and Family Planning Programme. Nineteen days later, after suffering respiratory arrest from medication used during the operation, she died. 'It was very abrupt – she was young and healthy and cheerful,' said daughter Marisela Monzón Ramos, who was 10 at the time. 'The entire family was shaken. My grandmother had to be sedated because the pain was too great. We felt the impact at every level.' Ramos was one of at least 270,000 women sterilised under the national programme, launched and overseen by then-president Alberto Fujimori and his health ministers between 1996 and 2001. The Peruvian government has argued the sterilisation programme was part of a broader reproductive health policy, claiming it would decrease poverty, lower maternal and infant mortality rates, and curb fertility. But estimates suggest fewer than one in ten of those sterilised gave consent, while most of those affected were poor and indigenous, and often illiterate or non-Spanish speaking. Ramos' ordeal began with a visit to the local health centre for a routine check-up, where nurses encouraged her to undergo sterilisation – which she refused. According to family testimony, health workers then visited Ramos' home at least five times to 'harass' her into the procedure. 'They came insistently on several occasions,' said Monzón Ramos told the court on Thursday. 'I thought, why do they come so much looking for my mother? She didn't want to have the procedure.' Carmen Cecilia Martínez, an associate director for legal strategies at the Centre for Reproductive Rights (CRR), which represents the family, said that health workers were 'under pressure to meet 'goals' that were imposed to execute the national policy'. Lawyers say doctors were given compulsory sterilisation quotas and received financial incentives for performing the operations. 'The doctors obeyed a scale of orders that were controlled by the highest level of the country. We have evidence of the goals and quotas,' María Ysabel Cedano García, who also represents Ramos's daughters, told the Telegraph last year. Testimonies reveal that thousands of women were harassed and threatened into undergoing the procedures, with many blackmailed, and others tied down, blindfolded and knocked out with horse tranquilliser. Ramos underwent a tubal ligation on July 3. Her legal team – which also includes DEMUS (The Legal Study for the Defense of Women's Rights) and the Centre for Justice and International Law – insists she never gave consent. 'She was subjected to forced sterilisation,' said Martínez. 'The health centre was unfit for any medical procedure, the conditions were precarious, and she died.' Peru's Ombudsman's office has linked 18 deaths to the scheme. Last year, the Telegraph reported on the ongoing fight for justice. Florentina Loayza recalled how at the age of 19 she was sterilised under the pretence of receiving vaccinations. 'The doctor put a drip in my arm and I fell unconscious. That is when they mutilated me,' she said. 'Since then, I have been living in hell.' In another case, 27-year-old Mavila Rios De Rengiro, went to a clinic believing she was having a smear test. 'They told me I was having a pap smear, and then they locked us in,' she said. 'I was afraid. The doctor didn't speak to me. I woke up in terrible pain and with a lot of blood.' It took years for the scale of abuse in Peru to become public knowledge, partly because it unfolded against the backdrop of a brutal internal conflict that left nearly 70,000 dead. Many of Fujimori's supporters continue to deny that forced sterilisations ever took place. The Ramos case was first brought before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights in 2010. In 2021, the Commission declared the Peruvian State responsible for violating Ramos' rights and recommended reparations. However, Peru failed to act, and in 2023 the case was referred to the Inter-American Court. 'This is a historic opportunity to establish the responsibility of the Peruvian state – not only for multiple human rights violations committed against Celia Ramos but also for the thousands of affected women,' said Martínez. In 2024, a landmark UN commission ruling concluded that Fujimori's policy amounted to sex-based violence and intersectional discrimination. It said that widespread and systematic forced sterilisation could constitute a 'crime against humanity' under the Rome Statute. Yet the CRR said that the Peruvian State 'adopted a denialist position' during Thursday's hearing. 'It denied that forced sterilisations were systematically committed and questioned the existence of human rights violations affecting thousands of women,' it said. Nancy Northup, the president of the CRR said that the 'decades of silence have only prolonged the cruelty'. 'Every survivor, and those like Celia Ramos who tragically did not survive, deserves her day in court.' Ramos's legal team have requested the court declare the Peruvian state responsible for committing crimes against humanity and for violating multiple rights, including the right to life, personal integrity and health, reproductive autonomy and protection of Ramos and her family. María Elena Carbajal, who was also a victim of the programme, said that the 'road to justice is long'. 'It's been over 28 years of uncommitted and unaccountable governments,' she said. Monzón Ramos said she and her sisters hoped that 'after nearly three decades since our mother's death, the truth of what happened will be acknowledged'. 'That justice will be done, that a real and thorough investigation will be opened, and that the State will recognise and repair the harm we have suffered,' she said. Protect yourself and your family by learning more about Global Health Security Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. 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Evening Standard
28-05-2025
- Sport
- Evening Standard
Real Betis vs Chelsea FC: Three factors that could decide the Conference League final
Spanish teams have won every final they have contested against non-Spanish opposition in UEFA competition stretching back to the 2001-02 season, with the only defeats coming in games between two LaLiga sides. On top of that, the Spanish national team have also won all three European Championship finals they have contested in that time.
Atlantic
18-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Atlantic
The Couples Are Talking Past Each Other on SNL
There's a low-stakes thrill in eavesdropping on strangers from afar, especially if the exchange descends into chaos. Yet a sketch in last night's season finale of Saturday Night Live —which revolved around two couples at a bar boisterously fighting for a preferred table as two men watched nearby, whiskies in hand—raised the stakes of voyeurism in fascinating ways. The sketch begins with Ego Nwodim and Marcello Hernández 's characters having glasses of wine at a bar; she is ready to move in after three weeks of dating, and he is sweatily trying to steer the conversation elsewhere. He gets a break when another woman, played by this week's host, Scarlett Johanssen, insists that their table belongs to her and her man—played by musical guest Bad Bunny. After Nwodim urges Hernández to defend her honor, he gets in Bad Bunny's face—shouts, ' Ay! '—and they erupt in loud Spanish. But here's what he really says: 'I'm sorry, but my woman is a pain in my ass!' Picking up on the stray mention of ' culo,' Nwodim jumps in: 'That's right, he's about to beat your ass!' The table argument is a flimsy premise, but it establishes Johanssen's character as territorial and, crucially, inspiring terror in her paramour. Instead of demanding the table, Bad Bunny commiserates with Hernández: 'Well mine too—and I'm afraid of her!' He looks back at Johanssen nervously, then confesses: 'I know we're not supposed to say that women are crazy. But this one? She's crazy!' Hearing him say ' loca,' Johanssen chirps up: 'Do you hear that? He's gonna go loca on you!' Meanwhile, the eavesdropping barflies (played by Andrew Dismukes and James Austin Johnson) look on with glee at what looks like a raging bar fight: 'I feel like I'm watching a telenovela,' Johnson says, scratching his chin and practically licking his chops. Dismukes hopes it'll end in a 'slap and kiss': 'See in their culture, the line between passion and violence is paper thin.' Johanssen's botched attempts at Spanish ('I'm about to asparagus nothing more and your ankle!') make for good comedy, but the sketch's best work isn't done by the peeved girlfriends or the barflies' misbegotten commentary. Instead, it lies in the gap between what these non-Spanish speakers are confidently reading into the situation, casting these men as macho Latino guys in some exotic melodrama, and what the men are actually saying. They're not only misunderstanding the words; they're missing the subtext. And so might some viewers. For these onlookers, the boyfriends are assuming archetypal roles that are completely at odds with how they actually feel, and their conversation deepens into a heart-to-heart between two strangers who don't know how to quit a relationship they know is bad for them. As the argument grows more heated between Nwodim and Johanssen, Bad Bunny reassures her: 'Baby baby baby, you're talking about asparagus. Let me handle this.' He lets out a little 'heh'—in a moment that displays his natural comedic timing. Instead of puffing his chest out, he goes even deeper with Hernández: 'Why do you think we have such bad luck in love?' he cries out. Hernández takes the opportunity to confess a hard truth about himself, bellowing: 'Honestly, I think I seek it out!' In fact, the sketch is even more nuanced than non-Spanish-speaking SNL viewers will know, in part because of the live show's limitations. The terse subtitles elide the subtleties of Hernández and Bad Bunny's banter in Caribbean-inflected Spanish. (Hernández is Cuban and Dominican, and Bad Bunny is Puerto Rican.) When Hernández admits that 'in his heart, I think I want a woman who's off her rocker'—his literal phrase is 'crazier than a coffee maker'—the subtitles neuter the sarcasm entirely, reading: 'Because deep down I want a woman who is not mentally stable.' At other points the subtitles arrive too late, for instance making Bad Bunny's expertly delivered lament—'Instead of thinking with our head, we think with the other one!'—land with a slightly awkward thud. Some parts of their dialogue aren't even translated, such as when Bad Bunny says: 'I feel you, brother.' The gag at the end is that no one gets the table at all. Hernández and Bad Bunny agree that there are some perks to their current circumstances, particularly in the bedroom. They cackle and bro-hug, confusing Johanssen. 'Why are you two laughing? What did you just say?' She didn't know what was going on after all, because just like the barflies, she thought she was watching a telenovela: A machista argument about honor, resulting in blows and a triumphant return to their favorite two-top. On the surface, this is just another SNL sketch about messed-up relationships and whether straight men are okay. But in its deliberate and inadvertent mistranslations, it also poses an intriguing question to its audience: How much truth can we really discern from a stranger that we watch from across the distance of a bar table or a language barrier? Nothing much, it turns out.
Korea Herald
29-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Korea Herald
Interview: The dance, the company are 'truly one of a kind,' says BNE dancer Youn Sou-jung
First Asian dancer to join company, Youn to perform in 'Afanador' at GS Arts Center When Youn Sou-jung first stepped into the audition room for the Ballet Nacional de Espana, artistic director Ruben Olmo knew immediately that she was special. 'I fell in love. She has her own magnificent style. She's one of the proud dancers of our company,' said Olmo during Monday's press conference for "Afanador." And for Youn, it was her dream come true, now a member of the corps de ballet, who started dancing at the age of three. "Since I was young, it was my dream to join BNE. I used to watch their performances and think, 'I have to be part of that one day,'' said Youn in a separate interview with The Korea Herald following the press event. 'But I never believed it would happen. This is a company with a story, and here, dancers can fully dedicate themselves to dance.' Born in South Korea in 1994 and raised in Spain from the age of seven months, Youn became the first Asian dancer to join the Ballet Nacional de Espana in 2019. The company is celebrated for its preservation and reinterpretation of traditional Spanish dance, and Youn remains one of only two non-Spanish dancers in the ensemble. Now in her sixth year with the company, Youn sees her relationship with dance stretching back a lifetime, and she sees no separation between the two. She first encountered flamenco and other forms of Spanish dance in after-school classes. It wasn't long before she knew she wanted to pursue it professionally. 'It's my life. It's who I am. Dance has always been with me. I never questioned it. And from the beginning, it wasn't just about wanting to be a dancer -- it was about wanting to dance Spanish dance specifically.' At the BNE, dancers are expected to master a wide range of traditional forms, from flamenco to escuela bolera, a Spanish dance style that originated as a fusion of popular Spanish dances, ballet and other influences. 'What attracts me most is that you're always learning. Expressing emotions through movement -- it relieves stress. I love how my whole body is involved, from stamping feet to rhythmic phrasing. It's cathartic and exhilarating.' Youn takes pride in representing a company she calls 'truly one of a kind.' 'We are the only national dance company in the world dedicated to traditional Spanish dance of all kinds. That's our biggest strength,' she said. 'Wherever we perform, the response is incredible. The rhythm, the passion -- people really connect with it. Our works elevate traditional dance into something refined and artistic.' Youn is currently in Seoul to perform "Afanador" with the company on Wednesday and Thursday. She described it as 'unlike anything the company has done before -- from the stage design to the lighting, costumes and movement.' 'I'm truly delighted to be performing in Korea with the company,' Youn said. 'Korean audiences are familiar with traditional flamenco, but this production offers something new -- a fresh perspective, a different flavor. I hope it becomes a memorable experience for everyone.'
Korea Herald
29-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Korea Herald
The dance, the company are 'truly one of a kind,' says BNE dancer Youn Sou-jung
First Asian dancer to join company, Youn to perform in 'Afanador' at GS Arts Center When Youn Sou-jung first stepped into the audition room for the Ballet Nacional de Espana, artistic director Ruben Olmo knew immediately that she was special. 'I fell in love. She has her own magnificent style. She's one of the proud dancers of our company,' said Olmo during Monday's press conference for "Afanador." And for Youn, it was her dream come true, now a member of the corps de ballet, who started dancing at the age of three. "Since I was young, it was my dream to join BNE. I used to watch their performances and think, 'I have to be part of that one day,'' said Youn in a separate interview with The Korea Herald following the press event. 'But I never believed it would happen. This is a company with a story, and here, dancers can fully dedicate themselves to dance.' Born in South Korea in 1994 and raised in Spain from the age of seven months, Youn became the first Asian dancer to join the Ballet Nacional de Espana in 2019. The company is celebrated for its preservation and reinterpretation of traditional Spanish dance, and Youn remains one of only two non-Spanish dancers in the ensemble. Now in her sixth year with the company, Youn sees her relationship with dance stretching back a lifetime, and she sees no separation between the two. She first encountered flamenco and other forms of Spanish dance in after-school classes. It wasn't long before she knew she wanted to pursue it professionally. 'It's my life. It's who I am. Dance has always been with me. I never questioned it. And from the beginning, it wasn't just about wanting to be a dancer -- it was about wanting to dance Spanish dance specifically.' At the BNE, dancers are expected to master a wide range of traditional forms, from flamenco to escuela bolera, a Spanish dance style that originated as a fusion of popular Spanish dances, ballet and other influences. 'What attracts me most is that you're always learning. Expressing emotions through movement -- it relieves stress. I love how my whole body is involved, from stamping feet to rhythmic phrasing. It's cathartic and exhilarating.' Youn takes pride in representing a company she calls 'truly one of a kind.' 'We are the only national dance company in the world dedicated to traditional Spanish dance of all kinds. That's our biggest strength,' she said. 'Wherever we perform, the response is incredible. The rhythm, the passion -- people really connect with it. Our works elevate traditional dance into something refined and artistic.' Youn is currently in Seoul to perform "Afanador" with the company on Wednesday and Thursday. She described it as 'unlike anything the company has done before -- from the stage design to the lighting, costumes and movement.' 'I'm truly delighted to be performing in Korea with the company,' Youn said. 'Korean audiences are familiar with traditional flamenco, but this production offers something new -- a fresh perspective, a different flavor. I hope it becomes a memorable experience for everyone.'
