In a bid to answer one of, if not the biggest unsolved mystery of Saturday morning kids’ TV, Netflix is making a new Carmen Sandiego show. Twenty animated episodes are apparently on the cards, with Gina Rodriguez, from Jane the Virgin, already cast t…
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U.S. Vice President Mike Pence reassured Japan of American commitment to reining in North Korea’s nuclear and missile ambitions on Tuesday, after warning that U.S. strikes in Syria and Afghanistan showed the strength of its resolve.
Pence arrived in Tokyo from South Korea, where he assured leaders of an “iron-clad” alliance with the United States in the face of the reclusive North, which has conducted a series of missile and nuclear tests in defiance of U.N. sanctions.
“The era of strategic patience is over and while all options are on the table, President (Donald) Trump is determined to work closely with Japan, with South Korea, with all our allies in the region and with China to achieve a peaceable resolution and the denuclearization of the Korean peninsula,” Pence said in Tokyo before lunch with Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.
Pence and Abe agreed that they needed to persuade China to play a larger role in dealing with North Korea, a Japanese government spokesman said.
North Korea regularly threatens to destroy Japan, South Korea and the United States and it showed no let-up in its belligerence after a failed missile test on Sunday, a day after putting on a huge display of missiles at a parade in Pyongyang.
North Korea’s deputy representative to the United Nations, Kim In Ryong, accused the United States on Monday of creating “a situation where nuclear war could break out an any time” and said the North’s next nuclear test would take place “at a time and at a place where our headquarters deems necessary”.
North Korea’s Vice Foreign Minister Han Song-Ryol told the BBC that missiles would be tested on “a weekly, monthly and yearly basis”.
The North has warned of a nuclear strike against the United States if provoked. It has said it has developed a missile that can strike the mainland United States, but officials and experts believe it is some time away from mastering the necessary technology, including miniaturizing a nuclear warhead.
Pence said on Monday the world had seen Trump’s resolve in the past two weeks, with a U.S. missile attack on a Syrian airfield and the dropping of a powerful non-nuclear bomb on Islamic State fighters in Afghanistan.
The Trump administration has said military action remains an option for dealing with North Korea.
But, mindful that this would likely trigger massive retaliation and casualties in South Korea and Japan, U.S. officials say Trump’s main focus is on tougher economic sanctions.
U.S. officials say tougher sanctions could include an oil embargo, a global ban on North Korea’s airline, intercepting cargo ships and punishing Chinese banks doing business with Pyongyang. They also say greater Chinese cooperation is vital.
“DIPLOMACY FIRST CHOICE”
Susan Thornton, acting U.S. assistant secretary of state for East Asia, said Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and China’s top diplomat, State Councillor Yang Jiechi, agreed in a phone call on Sunday on the need for strict enforcement of U.N. resolutions.
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi repeated China’s line that the crisis could only be resolved by diplomacy.
“I’ve seen that the United States has reiterated it is willing to use political and diplomatic means to resolve this, as this is their first choice,” he told reporters in Beijing.
“Of course I think that any country will feel that political diplomatic means are of course the first choice,” Wang said.
Pence’s economic discussions in Tokyo will be closely watched to see how hard a line Washington is prepared to take on trade. Trump campaigned on an “America first” platform, and has vowed to narrow big trade deficits with nations such as China and Japan.
However, Trump has also shown willingness to link trade to other issues, saying he would cut a better trade deal with China if it exerts influence on North Korea.
China banned imports of North Korean coal, its most important export, in February, and Chinese media have raised the possibility of restricting oil shipments to the North.
But North Korea used Chinese-made trucks to display missiles at the military parade on Saturday, according to photographs, underlining the difficulty in enforcing U.N. sanctions.
China and North Korea maintain “normal contacts, including normal business contacts”, said Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang, when asked about the trucks.
“At the same time, as a permanent member of the U.N. Security Council, China strictly adheres to its international responsibilities, including those from Security Council resolutions,” Lu told a daily briefing.
Impoverished North Korea and the rich, democratic South are technically still at war because their 1950-1953 conflict ended in a truce, not a peace treaty. South Korea hosts 28,500 U.S. troops to counter the threat from the North.
Trump’s decision to launch a missile strike against Syria, a Russian ally, drop a giant bomb on Afghanistan and stick with Obama-era policies on Crimea mean Russian hopes of him befriending the Kremlin have been on the slide.
Russian state media, which hailed his election win, have made a U-turn. On Sunday, media said he was scarier than North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.
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India’s devadasi system, which “dedicates” girls to deities and to a life of sex work in the name of religion, was banned nationwide back in 1988. However, the practice persists in some parts of India.
KARNATAKA, INDIA – Sivamma was just 5 years old when she was “dedicated” as a devadasi in Huligemma Temple, near her village of Muddaballi in Karnataka state.
“I remember it was a grand ceremony attended by over 300 people,” she says, sitting inside her mud house. “There was a feast and I received a lot of gifts, but little did I know that ceremony was going to be a lifelong curse for me.”
Devadasi, which means “servant of God,” is the centuries-old practice of dedicating young girls to Hindu deities. These girls usually belong to the Dalit caste, the lowest of India’s social classes. Once dedicated, they are considered to be inhabited by goddesses and married to Hindu gods, meaning they are never to marry men of flesh and blood.
They are, however, expected to have sex with men – usually from castes considered higher than theirs in the social order. These men enter into arrangements with the girls’ families, one at a time. These “patrons” are expected to pay for the upkeep of the devadasis and their parents, as well as any children they might bear. Because of the devadasis’ religious status, men can have sex with them without being considered unfaithful to their wives. If a devadasi is abandoned by her patron – which activists say often happens after a few years – another man can take his place.
For centuries, the devadasi lived in temples and were expected to oversee their maintenance. In the past century, they started living outside the temples. A succession of local bans, culminating in a nationwide ban in 1988, led to a sharp decrease in the practice. However, activists report that dedications continue in secret. As recently as 2013, estimates put the number of devadasis at 450,000, with most of them found in the states of Karnataka, Telangana and Andhra Pradesh.
Today, many aspects of devadasis’ lives remain unchanged. They continue to participate in religious festivals, notably by keeping fasts and sometimes by dancing. Many also continue to be sexually exploited.
“It is a system that’s thrived on the hegemonic structure of the society,” say Asha Kotwal, general secretary of the All India Dalit Mahila Adhikar Manch, a movement focusing on Dalit women’s issues. “In the name of culture, it legitimizes the subjugation of Dalit women’s bodies to sustain the social hierarchy based on caste and push them into a life of largely unpaid sex work.”
When a devadasi is abandoned and doesn’t find a new patron, she may have to look after her parents as well as her children, and can wind up in extreme poverty. According to the Bangalore-based NGO Sampark, which helps devadasis become financially self-sufficient, many give up this traditional system to move into commercial sex work in large cities.
But no matter what type of work they do, women like Sivamma, who was dedicated 30 years ago, say it’s almost impossible to shed their status in the eyes of society.
“I have to live with the taboo of being a devadasi wherever I go,” she says. “At social functions and weddings, I face a lot of harassment from men from upper castes who know that I am devadasi. I have faced sexual violence on several occasions.”
Throughout her life, Sivamma has had three patrons. She had a daughter with her first patron; the girl is now 19 years old and married. Sivamma’s last patron left her four years ago, and she now works as a laborer on construction sites. A few years ago, she tested positive for HIV and now spends most of her earnings on treatment. She says she contracted the disease from her third patron.
“I feel devastated and angry,” Sivamma says. “Under normal circumstances, I would have been someone’s wife. … There would have been someone to share my problems. But today, I am all alone.”
Smita Premchander, a researcher and the director of Sampark, teaches devadasis business skills and helps them gain access to credit and to various government programs.
“When I first came across devadasis in 1996, I realized they were so much poorer than other members of society,” says Premchander. “Some families supported by a devadasi lived off less than $5 a month. I realized that there was a need to make these women self-sufficient.”
Sampark staff noticed that many sons of devadasi, some as young as 10, worked as porters in quarries. Meanwhile, devadasis’ daughters were being married off before attaining puberty because their dowry, which was already high due to their mother’s social status, would only increase as they aged. So Sampark began paying children’s school fees and offering tailoring classes to the girls so they could delay marriage.
Maruti Pujar, 30, is the son of a devadasi. His mother Kenchavva Pujar, 45, was determined to educate her two sons and worked as a field hand earning 10 cents a day, but it was never enough to meet the costs of education. Her elder son dropped out, but with aid from Sampark, Maruti managed to finish school and now works as an accountant.
“Teachers in school would ask me the name of my father and then mock me for being a son of devadasi,” he says. “I am very proud of my mother for making all these sacrifices so that we could stand on our feet.”
Itavva Jodatti, a devadasi and an executive officer at Mahila Abhivrudhi Mattu Samrakshana Samsthe (MASS), a charity that works with more than 3,600 devadasis in Karnataka, says banning the practice doesn’t mean all of the devadasis’ problems will disappear.
“The path of transformation hasn’t been easy, as many women have HIVand other health problems but don’t have access to good medical facilities and employment,” Jodatti says. “The scars of this age-old practice will take time to heal, and things can improve if our children have better access to mainstream education so they can lead a life of dignity.”
This article originally appeared on Women & Girls Hub. For weekly updates, you can sign up to the Women & Girls Hub email list.
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When making a vegetable risotto, I favor grating some of the vegetable in question or otherwise reducing it to a near-puree and cooking it along with the rice. This adds a more luxurious consistency and infuses flavor right into the grain. Freshness and texture can then come from chunks or dice of the same vegetable added toward the end of cooking. I’ve taken this approach for mushroom risottos, but never to quite the extent that I did the other day, when I used a total of a pound and a quarter (570 g) of mushrooms for just enough risotto to feed Jackie and me plus a friend.
I began with a clump of hen-of-the-woods (maitake) weighing around 10 ounces (285 g). I cut the numerous caps from the stalk and set them aside, then chopped the stalk and simmered it in a quart (liter) of diluted chicken stock, along with a sprinkle of salt, a scrap of kombu for extra savoriness/umami and a few sage leaves to remind myself that an Italian-style dish was in the offing. When this had simmered for half an hour, I left it to steep until tepid, then strained it.
As it was cooling, it occurred to me that this prospective risotto – which would be subtly mushroomy – would benefit from the intensified flavor of mushroom mush cooked along with the rice. So I went to the supermarket on our corner and bought a 10-ounce (285 g) package of ordinary white mushrooms. I wiped them (fairly) clean and finely minced them in the food processor with a couple of leaves of sage; they were just about pureed. After melting a tablespoon of butter in a skillet, I added the pureed mushrooms and some salt and cooked them over medium heat, stirring frequently, until they had reduced to a thick, brown mass – in effect, an allium-free duxelles. Mushrooms being what they are (mostly water), even this dense, thickened, delicious puree remained very moist.
(Remember: Ordinary mushrooms are wonderful things – it’s nice to have the exotica, but I’d use the everyday variety for this entire dish. In a flash.)
To make the risotto I used the old-fashioned method of constant stirring. Nothing new here: I sweated a big shallot, minced, in olive oil; stirred in the rice (something less than a cup of the carnaroli variety – say 225 ml by volume – for the three of us) and cooked it in the oil for half a minute before adding a scant quarter cup (50 ml, say) white wine and reducing it. I then incorporated all of the mushroom puree and began the pleasant task of adding heated-up mushroom-scented stock a little at a time and stirring the risotto energetically. Et cetera: see any old-fashioned risotto recipe or take a look at the story I wrote after a risotto lesson in Venice.
While this was happening, I gave the maitake caps a sauté in minimal olive oil, using highish heat to slightly crisp their edges; they cooked quickly: compared with the stalk, the caps are very tender. You could do this before starting the rice if you’re uneasy about stirring and sautéing at the same time.
When the rice was done, I checked for seasoning (pepper was called for), added the sautéed maitake caps, covered the pan and left it alone for three minutes, at which point I vigorously stirred in a scant ounce (20 or 25 g) of butter and a small handful of a mixture of parsley and sage, chopped. Parsley alone would be fine, and, throughout the recipe, you could use a wee bit of thyme in place of the sage, but only a wee bit lest it take control of the entire dish. At this point I also beat in a little more stock to attain a properly fluid consistency – this may be unnecessary, but be ready for the possibility.
Between all those mushrooms and the kombu-tinged stock, the risotto was so savory that I added no grated parmesan. But I did bring some to the table; after experimental spoonsful, everyone agreed that cheese would be superfluous. But offering it would be neighborly, so you might as well give people the option.
When the Great Mushroom Varieties are available – porcini, chanterelles and a few others – we eat wonderful risottos at home and, occasionally, in restaurants. But they rarely beat this one, with its supermarket-mushroom base.
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