More than 10 months after a nightclub fire in Buenos Aires claimed 194 lives, the victims' relatives are still seeking punishment for those they hold responsible. Every month, they march through the city: to make their demands heard, and to keep people from forgetting.
Although the municipal government has imposed stricter safeguards on club owners since the blaze, illegal concerts at unsafe venues are flourishing.
A combination of negligence and recklessness caused the tragedy at the Cromagnon Republic club on Dec. 30 last year. With the place packed with people, someone set off a flare that ignited the highly flammable ceiling decoration.
Emergency exits were locked, and fire extinguishers did not work. Most of the victims died from smoke inhalation. Rescue teams could do little. They found bodies crowded around the exits and even in the women's bathroom, which had served as a makeshift nursery.
"A massacre," say parents of the victims.
"There's a chain of guilt reaching from the club operator to the band to the mayor of the city," declared Diego Rozengardt, the brother of one of those who died.
Distraught relatives are trying to keep memories of their loved ones alive. They have created a travelling exhibition of victims' photographs. They have planted 194 trees.
Help has come from others, too. A ceramics factory has donated memorial plaques to be put up around the country. Human-rights organizations, civic groups, and celebrities have lent support to victims' relatives and friends.
Meanwhile, the ingredients for similar tragedies in the future -- "profit-seeking by disco operators, corruption in the municipal government and police force" -- still exist, Rozengardt said.
So a hard core of victims' relatives marches every month on the 30th from Plaza Once, the scene of the fire, to Plaza de Mayo, the office of the mayor.
At a Mass held before a recent march, many of the participants had tears in their eyes. Nora Bonomini, who lost a son in the fire, stood on the fringes.
"I can no longer believe in God," she said.
She demands that the guilty be punished.
The ombudsman of the city of Buenos Aires, Atilio Alimena, claims that the municipal government failed to inspect nightclubs in the Argentine capital. He had warned long before the catastrophe that many clubs were flouting safety regulations. Today, just 66 of the 250 discos in operation last December remain open, and oversight has increased.
But safety precautions, such as remodelling, for example, or having a doctor and firefighter on the premises, cost money that cuts the businesses' profits.
Club doorkeepers complain about a rule requiring seats for all concert guests. Small clubs in particular have lost their concession as a result.
Nightlife goes on, though. Bands now often play in private apartments or "art clubs," the doorkeepers keeping their eyes peeled for police. Acting on invitations sent by e-mail, rock music fans still go to relatively cheap concerts by new groups. The venues have become smaller, but no less dangerous.
As the demonstrators left the scene of the fire, Bonomini could no longer hide her tears and anger. She fell into line with the other marchers to fight, as she said, her child's "murderers."
Like the other parents, she was carrying a picture in front of her. Hers showed a smiling boy.
"Never again will I be able to sleep in peace," she said.
Pins hidden in her shoes, head forced down a toilet, kicked in the stomach: South Korean hairdresser Pyo Ye-rim suffered a litany of abuse from school bullies, but now she is speaking out. The 26-year-old is part of a phenomenon sweeping South Korea known as “Hakpok #MeToo,” where people who were bullied publicly name and shame the perpetrators of school violence — “hakpok” in Korean — decades after the alleged crimes. Made famous globally by Netflix’s gory revenge series The Glory, the movement has ensnared everyone from K-pop stars to baseball players and accusations — often anonymous — can be career-ending, with
One of Australia’s two active volcanoes on an island near Antarctica — known as Big Ben — has been spotted by satellite spewing lava. The lava flow on the uninhabited Heard Island, about 4,100km southwest of Perth and 1,500km north of Antarctica, is part of an ongoing eruption that was first noted more than a decade ago. The image was caught by the European Space Agency’s Copernicus Sentinel-2 satellite on Thursday, and is a composite of an optical picture and an infrared image. The lava is seen flowing down the side of Big Ben from near the summit, known as Mawson Peak.
SYMBOLIC: The bill sponsored by a cross-party group of lawmakers was hailed as a ‘historic moment’ in the fight for marriage equality, but is unlikely to pass Lawmakers in South Korea have proposed the country’s first same-sex marriage bill, in a move hailed by civic groups as a defining moment in the fight for equality. The marriage equality bill, proposed by South Korean lawmaker Jang Hye-yeong of the minor opposition Justice Party and co-sponsored by 12 lawmakers across all the main parties, seeks to amend the country’s civil code to allow same-sex marriage. The bill is unlikely to pass, but forms part of a trio of bills expected to increase pressure on the government to expand the idea of family beyond traditional criteria. The two other bills relate to
TIME TO TALK: Among China’s grievances were economic and trade issues related to Taiwan, but both countries emphasized the need to maintain communication US Trade Representative Katherine Tai (戴琪) on Friday raised complaints about China’s state-led economic policies during a meeting with Chinese Minister of Commerce Wang Wentao (王文濤), who objected to US tariffs and trade policies, as well as issues related to Taiwan, their offices said. However, statements from the US Trade Representative’s (USTR) office and the Chinese Ministry of Commerce emphasized the need for Washington and Beijing to maintain communication on trade. “Ambassador Tai highlighted the need to address the critical imbalances caused by China’s state-led, non-market approach to the economy and trade policy,” the USTR said in a statement released after the
RSS