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Yesterday the arc of the moral universe bent a little more toward justice — and even this cynic is heartened by the news.
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Photo: Gustavo Garello / AP
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1. In a first, Argentina convicts officers who tortured trans women during dictatorship
An Argentine court convicted 11 former government officers for committing crimes against humanity on Tuesday in the first trial to focus on sexual violence against transgender women during the country’s so-called Dirty War of the 1970s and ’80s.
Ten of the officers were sentenced to life and one was sentenced to 25 years in prison for participating in a system of violent repression that included murder, torture, sexual violence, and the abduction of children born in captivity. One officer was acquitted.
The plaintiffs shared harrowing accounts of being raped and tortured by the men in one of Argentina’s largest secret detention centers. Human rights organizations estimate that 30,000 people suspected of being dissidents were “desaparecido,” or disappeared, during the reign of the military dictatorship that led the country from 1976 to 1983.
“What is different about this trial is that for the first time in Argentina and in the world, crimes against humanity committed against trans women in the context of state terrorism are condemned,” prosecutor Ana Oberlín told The Associated Press. “It was a good verdict, we are more than satisfied.”
The trial lasted almost four years and involved 600 victims and testimonies from hundreds of witnesses.
The verdict follows massive demonstrations in Argentina on Sunday, which saw tens of thousands of people taking to the streets to mark the anniversary of the 1976 coup that began the dictatorship. President Javier Milei used the occasion to defend the dictatorship and cast doubt on the number of people killed or disappeared.
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2. What the Baltimore bridge collapse can tell us about immigrants working in America
On Wednesday, divers searched for the bodies of six construction workers who have been missing since Baltimore’s Francis Scott Key Bridge collapsed early Tuesday morning. The men, now presumed dead, were immigrants from El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Mexico, according to government entities from each country and an immigrant-services nonprofit.
Minutes before striking the bridge, the ship issued a mayday call saying it had lost power, giving police just enough time to stop traffic on the highway. It’s unclear if the warning was passed to the workers on the bridge, who were filling potholes when the ship struck.
The incident highlights the dangers of construction work — and who ends up doing most of that work — in the United States.
According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, immigrants are more likely to work in construction, natural resources, and maintenance than workers born in the U.S. In 2022, 13.9% of foreign-born workers held these jobs, compared to 7.9% of native-born workers. This disparity gets bigger when looking at only men — 21.6% of foreign-born men held these jobs, compared to 14.4% of native-born men.
In 2021, construction had the highest number of fatalities of any industry. It also had the highest number of “foreign-born Hispanic or Latino worker deaths” at 274, which is 27% of all fatalities in the industry that year.
Related: The Port of Baltimore, where Tuesday’s crash took place, is an important hub for the coal, car, and construction-machinery industries. The port handled 52.3 million tons of foreign cargo worth nearly $81 billion last year, according to Maryland data. The city is also a “niche” port for soybeans — with a focus on high-value soy used in products like tofu and miso.
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3. US hopes to revive Sudan peace talks by mid-April
Special envoy for Sudan Tom Perriello announced on Tuesday that the U.S. is hoping to resume peace talks by April 18 as the Northeast African country nears a year of civil war.
Perriello stressed that, in addition to Sudan and the U.S., the talks should include the African Union, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, and the eight-country East African bloc known as IGAD.
The war — which broke out on April 15, 2023, between the Sudanese Armed Forces and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces — has created “one of the worst humanitarian disasters in recent memory,” according to Edem Wosornu, the director of operations and advocacy for the U.N.’s humanitarian affairs office.
At least 13,000 people have been killed since the conflict began. And Sudan is now suffering the world’s largest displacement crisis, with at least 8 million people having been uprooted from their homes since the war began, including 1.5 million people who’ve fled to neighboring countries, according to data reported in late January by the United Nations.
According to new data released earlier this month, nearly 230,000 children, pregnant women, and new mothers could die in the coming weeks and months due to hunger if they don’t receive food aid.
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In other news
- A record number of refugees — more than 4,600 — have arrived in the U.K. by small boats so far this year, according to data released by the interior ministry on Wednesday. Under Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s plan, those who arrive without permission would be deported to Rwanda, which he hopes will serve as a deterrent. [Reuters]
- Japanese company Oji Holdings announced earlier this week it will stop making diapers for children and focus solely on diapers for adults, as the country’s birth rate hits a record low. [BBC]
- Thailand’s House of Representatives voted overwhelmingly in favor of legalizing same-sex marriage on Wednesday. [CNN]
- On Tuesday, Brazil and France announced a €1 billion four-year plan to protect the Amazon. Deforestation soared during Jair Bolsonaro’s presidency and has been halved since Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva took power in 2023. [Deutsche Welle]
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Say that again
“The super sewer is a massive, expensive pipe and I think the Victorians would be a bit embarrassed that we haven’t come up with a more modern solution than that.” That’s London Waterkeeper’s Theo Thomas talking about the Thames Tideway Tunnel (say that five times fast).
The 16-mile-long pipe, which took the city of London eight years and $6.3 billion to complete, was designed to drastically reduce — but not necessarily eliminate — the amount of raw sewage flowing into the Thames. The tunnel, which was completed on Wednesday, can hold 600 Olympic-sized swimming pools of liquid. [BBC]
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‘Nobody talks about the disability rights in the climate crisis’
Hear Nepalese climate activist Umesh Balal Magar describe how important it is that people with disabilities be included in countries’ climate action plans.
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What we’re watching
If you’re looking to deepen your understanding of Argentina’s “Dirty War,” I recommend watching “La historia oficial,” or “The Official Story.”
The movie, which won the foreign-language Oscar in 1986, follows an upper-middle-class history teacher living in Buenos Aires who comes to realize that her adopted daughter may be the child of a “desaparecida,” a woman taken by the military dictatorship, tortured, and disappeared. It’s a haunting film that gives viewers a false sense of comfort before settling them into a nightmare.
—Laura Adamczyk, staff writer
Thanks for reading. We’ll see you tomorrow.
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Hope O'Dell contributed reporting to today's newsletter.
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