The End: Uruguay Chooses To Allow The Right To Die
NEED TO KNOW
The End: Uruguay Chooses To Allow The Right To Die
URUGUAY
A Uruguayan woman suffering from the terrible, debilitating degenerative disease amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) recently visited lawmakers in her country’s capital of Montevideo. She was attending in support of legislation that would legalize euthanasia in the South American country. The woman, confined to a wheelchair, her condition worsening, did not want to suffer anymore, she recounted to CNN.
“I am getting worse too slowly, I would like this to end,” she said. “I can’t do anything on my own…I have trouble breathing, sleeping…am in pain. I want to know that I can end this when I choose to.”
Opposition politicians like Rodrigo Goñi sympathized with the woman’s plight but did not think the legislation was the answer.
“To thousands of Uruguayans who are suffering unbearably today, to thousands of Uruguayans who today feel like a burden, who are tired of living…who are in the most fragile situation, this Chamber…tells them that it has a solution for them, tells them that it has a solution to this unbearable suffering: to cause their premature death,” said Goñi, according to Latin America Reports.
Clergy in the predominantly Catholic country call the proposal unethical. No doctor, they said, should ever seek to kill their patient, even when the patient approves, wrote Vatican News. Other religious leaders argued that ending anyone’s life prematurely was by definition unnatural and wrong.
Following a highly emotional debate, however, a majority in the lower house voted to decriminalize assisted dying, reported Reuters. Senators in the upper house are now expected to support the so-called “death with dignity” measure, too.
While other Latin American countries permit assisted dying, no other has enacted legislation explicitly allowing euthanasia “by adults with full mental capacity who have been diagnosed with a terminal, incurable and irreversible illness that causes unbearable suffering and severely diminishes their quality of life,” wrote United Press International.
The law is relatively liberal, allowing euthanasia at any time, for example, while other countries like Britain mandate that anyone seeking an assisted death must expect to have a life span of six months or less, according to Live Action, a pro-life news outlet.
Around 62 percent of the public backed the legalization of euthanasia.
President Yamandú Orsi supported the bill, MercoPress reported. “There is a complex philosophical background, where not only ideology but also science plays a role,” he said. “The discussion process has been very productive, and the changes that have been made are very necessary.”
Uruguay, which was one of the first countries in South America to approve abortion and gay marriage, has a strong liberal tradition and may lead the region on this issue, too, observers said.
For example, while Colombia and Ecuador decriminalized assisted dying after court battles, neither created a comprehensive law to regulate it as Uruguay did. Meanwhile, Chile’s assisted-dying bill is stuck in its legislature.
In Uruguay, Eduardo Cánepa, brother of Pablo Cánepa, who is trapped in his own body with an undiagnosed condition and is unable to see, speak or do anything for himself, said he was relieved after the vote. His brother wants to die.
“I don’t want people to die,” he told the Economist. “I want people to be able to choose.”
THE WORLD, BRIEFLY
Australia Expels Iran Envoy Over Antisemitic Attacks
AUSTRALIA
Australia expelled Iran’s ambassador Tuesday over allegations that Tehran was behind at least two antisemitic attacks in the country, NBC News reported.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said the Australian Security Intelligence Organization (ASIO) had “credible intelligence” linking Iran to two arson attacks last year: One on Lewis’ Continental Kitchen restaurant in Sydney and another on the Adass Israel Synagogue in Melbourne.
Both incidents caused significant damage to property but no injuries.
The ASIO emphasized that no Iranian diplomats or embassy staff were directly involved. Still, Albanese suggested Tehran may also have been behind other antisemitic incidents now under investigation.
The decision marks the first expulsion of a foreign ambassador from Canberra since World War II.
Alongside the move, Australia closed its embassy in Tehran and designated Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) as a terrorist organization. Israel’s embassy in Canberra praised the IRGC listing as a “strong and important move.”
Iran rejected Albanese’s claims, insisting that “antisemitism has no place in our culture, history or religion.” Iranian officials hinted the expulsion was influenced by “internal developments” in Australia, pointing to public divisions over the Gaza war and recent mass protests against Israel’s actions, Al Jazeera noted.
The Australia attacks occurred amid Israel’s ongoing conflict in Gaza, which began on Oct. 7, 2023, when Hamas and its allies launched an assault in southern Israel that killed around 1,200 people and took more than 250 hostages.
Israel’s military response has resulted in the devastation of much of the Palestinian enclave, a humanitarian crisis, and the death of more than 62,000 Palestinians, according to the Hamas-run Gaza health ministry.
Australia has seen a rise in antisemitic incidents at schools, synagogues, and homes since the war began nearly two years ago.
Canberra’s relations with Israel have plummeted in recent weeks as Albanese has criticized Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for being “in denial” about the humanitarian situation and famine in Gaza.
Earlier this month, Albanese announced Australia will join France, the United Kingdom, and Canada in recognizing a Palestinian state at the United Nations General Assembly in September.
Last week, Netanyahu condemned the move, calling Albanese “a weak politician who betrayed Israel” and saying that his political record had been “tarnished forever.”
The Australian government played down Netanyahu’s remarks, with Albanese saying he doesn’t “take these things personally.”
Corruption Scandals Threaten Milei’s Popularity and Argentina’s Economy
ARGENTINA
Argentina’s international dollar-denominated bonds dropped Monday to their lowest level in months as corruption allegations involving figures close to President Javier Milei emerged from leaked audio recordings, Reuters reported. The country’s currency and stock market also lost value.
Last week, local media released audio recordings in which a voice resembling that of Diego Spagnuolo, then-head of the National Disability Agency (Andis), can be heard discussing bribery within the agency and suggesting that Karina Milei, the president’s sister and chief of staff, was receiving illicit payments.
In the recordings, some from 2024 and others from early this year, Spagnuolo accuses Human Capital Minister Sandra Pettovello of “playing a dirty trick” by leaving him exposed to Karina Milei and Eduardo “Lule” Menem, an Argentine politician, while pretending to be unaware of the situation, MercoPress wrote.
Spagnuolo also claimed that former Foreign Minister Diana Mondino is “in big trouble.”
A nationwide survey by Poliarquía Consultores found that confidence in Milei’s administration reached its lowest point since he took office in 2023. The Government Confidence Index (ICG) this August fell by 13.6 percent to 2.12 points.
The drop is attributed to the Andis scandal, which is seen as especially delicate as it revolves around the idea that Milei “doesn’t care for the weak and the poor,” according to Marcelo Garcia, director for the Americas at New York-based risk consultancy Horizon Engage.
Garcia warned that a drop in Milei’s popularity could hinder his plans to boost financial markets, as investors are losing confidence in the country’s economy, as stocks, bonds, and the country’s currency are all falling.
Several properties, including Spagnuolo’s residence, were raided Friday as part of a government investigation.
Government authorities, however, have not verified the audio recording’s authenticity, and cabinet chief Guillermo Francos said that, according to Milei, Spagnuolo never mentioned any alleged bribery.
Milei did not address the allegations directly during a Monday speech. However, he said he was not worried about what he described as attacks from the opposition ahead of the midterm elections in October. Milei’s party, La Libertad Avanza, is seeking to expand its influence in the opposition-controlled Congress in the upcoming vote.
Some government officials described the recordings as a “political operation” by the opposition. The audio was “staged and edited,” they insisted, but even if it were genuine, it would be invalid as evidence because it was obtained illegally.
Meanwhile, opposition lawmakers demanded that the Health Ministry, which oversees Andis, answers questions in Congress on the situation.
Sri Lankans Protest Former President’s Arrest on Corruption Allegations
SRI LANKA
More than 1,000 supporters of Sri Lanka’s former President Ranil Wickremesinghe took to the streets Tuesday to protest his arrest over allegations of misusing public funds while in office, the Associated Press reported.
Wickremesinghe, who served as president from 2022 to 2024 and was prime minister six times before that, was detained Friday on allegations that he misused public funds to attend his wife’s graduation ceremony in London following an official trip to the US in 2023.
The first former Sri Lankan head of state to be arrested, Wickremesinghe, is the highest-profile figure facing a corruption probe under President Anura Kumara Dissanayake, who took office last year on an anti-corruption platform.
Over a dozen other former senior government officials are currently being probed for alleged misconduct.
Wickremesinghe, 76, appeared before the court virtually as he was admitted Saturday to the intensive care unit of a state-run hospital over health concerns. Magistrate Nilupuli Lankapura of Colombo city’s Fort district ordered his release on bail set at $16,600 following a lengthy hearing conducted under tight security, Al Jazeera noted.
Protesters wearing black clothes, waving black flags, and calling for Wickremesinghe’s immediate release marched in the streets of Colombo, one of the country’s two capitals.
Wickremesinghe’s party has rejected the allegations, saying the leader had attended the graduation ceremony on an invitation he received in his official capacity.
His arrest has angered opposition lawmakers, who labeled it a political witch hunt and damaging to the country’s democracy.
However, Transport and Highways Minister Bimal Rathnayake countered that Wickremesinghe’s arrest was not political revenge but was carried out according to the country’s law.
DISCOVERIES
Avian Efficiency
All human languages have one thing in common: The more frequently a sound is used, the shorter it tends to be.
This concept, called Zipf’s Law of Abbreviation (ZLA), is one based on the “principle of least effort.”
Birds employ it, too, researchers now say.
“In human language, if we say something a lot, we tend to shorten it – like saying ‘TV’ instead of ‘television’,” said Tucker Gilman, author of a new study, in a statement. “It turns out that the same pattern exists in birdsong.”
While previous research suggested that animal communication might follow ZLA, scientists struggled to find clear evidence of it in birdsong because most birds only produce a few dozen distinct sounds compared with the thousands of words used by humans.
“Studying ZLA in birdsong is far more complex than in human language,” study author Rebecca Lewis said in the statement. “Birds often have very few note types, individuals even within the same species can vary widely in their repertoires, and classifying notes is tricky, too.”
As a result, researchers studied birdsongs by focusing on how often a single bird uses certain note types and how long those notes lasted. This allowed the team to study communication from an individual point of view rather than that of a population.
They applied this system using an open-source tool called ZLAvian, which identifies the presence of ZLA by checking whether real-world patterns match or differ from simulated patterns.
Through ZLAvian, researchers were able to analyze more than 600 songs from 11 bird populations across seven different species.
The results showed that while individual populations didn’t always show clear signs of ZLA, a clearer pattern appeared when data were assembled: More frequently used bird song phrases were shorter on average.
“We know that birds and humans share similarities in the genes and brain structures involved in learning to communicate, but this is the first time we’ve been able to detect a consistent pattern of ZLA across multiple bird species,” Gilman said. “There’s still a lot more work to be done, but this is an exciting development.”