A Scourge Born in Covid Chaos Not Long Ago, Mr
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CHILL TRACKS SUMMER TREAT LUMBER MARKET COOLS MUSICIANS FLOCK WATERMELON, HARBINGER OF INFLATION TO MINDFULNESS SEEDS AND ALL MODERATES ITS CLIMB PAGE 11 | TECH PAGE 15 | LIVING PAGE 7 | BUSINESS .. INTERNATIONAL EDITION | TUESDAY, JUNE 22, 2021 The bishops Nobel halo betray Biden shattered by and his faith a civil war Tom Perriello in Ethiopia ADDIS ABABA, ETHIOPIA OPINION The last time I took communion was in Divisive election is held El Salvador, not long before the pan- demic. As a Catholic, I enjoy exploring while the prime minister how Mass is experienced and enriched charts a violent course by different cultures. But I had a more urgent reason for searching out this BY DECLAN WALSH ritual abroad. It provided my only chance to take the Eucharist, because I As war raged in northern Ethiopia and quietly decided 10 years ago that I could the region barreled toward its worst not in good conscience do so under the famine in decades, a senior American auspices of the United States Confer- envoy flew to the Ethiopian capital last ence of Catholic Bishops. month in the hope of persuading Prime While the Catholic Church is far from Minister Abiy Ahmed to pull his country infallible overseas, I frequently bear out of a destructive spiral that many fear witness to Catholic leaders reminding is tearing it apart. me why my faith called me to a career Mr. Abiy, though, wanted to go for a promoting peace and justice. But back drive. home, the persistent efforts by conser- Taking the wheel, the Ethiopian vative bishops to leader took his American guest, the Bi- The efforts arbitrate who among den administration’s Horn of Africa en- to arbitrate the faithful receives voy, Jeffrey D. Feltman, on an impromp- communion, while tu four-hour tour of Addis Ababa, Amer- who receives failing to practice the ican officials said. The prime minister communion confession and pen- drove past smart new city parks and a reinforce why ance they demand of refurbished central plaza and even the American others, reinforces crashed a wedding where the two men bishops so why the American posed for photos with the bride and often stand bishops so often PHOTOGRAPHS BY ATUL LOKE FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES groom. alone. stand alone. Mucormycosis patients and their relatives at Ahmedabad Civil Hospital in the Indian state of Gujarat. The fungal disease has erupted across India after the coronavirus outbreak. Mr. Abiy’s attempt to change the When the bishops channel, showcasing economic progress met on Friday, they while parts of his country burned, was could have voiced just the latest sign of a troubled trajec- their support for today’s economic and tory that has baffled international ob- racial justice movements. They could servers who wonder how they got him have backed congressional efforts to so wrong. guarantee dignity for children, parents, A scourge born in Covid chaos Not long ago, Mr. Abiy, who faced the aging and the workers who care for Ethiopian voters on Monday in long-de- them. Instead, these men who benefit layed parliamentary elections, was a from a lifetime guarantee of housing, Desperate choices made in beleaguered India hospitals shining hope for country and continent. health care, and income, voted to back a may have made patients vulnerable to ‘black fungus’ After gaining power in 2018, he em- measure that could be an early step barked on a whirlwind of ambitious re- toward limiting communion for Presi- forms: freeing political prisoners, wel- dent Biden — a man of compassion, AHMEDABAD, INDIA and other necessities as infections and coming exiles home from abroad and, empathy and lived but quiet faith. deaths soared. most impressive, striking a landmark This is not the first time the bishops The mucormycosis epidemic adds peace deal with Eritrea, Ethiopia’s old have challenged a practicing Catholic BY EMILY SCHMALL even more urgency to the difficult task foe, in a matter of months. who supports abortion rights. Former of protecting India’s 1.4 billion people. The West, eager for a glittering suc- Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts In the stifling, tightly packed medical Only a small fraction have been vacci- cess story in Africa, was wowed, and was targeted by conservative bishops, ward at Civil Hospital, the ear, nose and nated against the coronavirus, and they within 18 months Mr. Abiy, a onetime in- some of whom even criticized Boston’s throat specialist moved briskly from one remain vulnerable to a third wave and telligence officer, had been awarded the archbishop for presiding over former bed to the next, shining a flashlight into the consequences that could follow. Nobel Peace Prize. Senator Ted Kennedy’s funeral Mass. one patient’s mouth, examining anoth- “Mucormycosis will tail off and go But in just nine months, Mr. Abiy’s I have worked on peace and justice er’s X-rays. back to baseline as the Covid cases sub- halo has been shattered. The civil war issues at home and abroad, and I was The specialist, Dr. Bela Prajapati, side,” said Dr. Dileep Mavalankar, an that erupted in the northern region of always struck by the U.S. bishops’ oversees treatment for nearly 400 pa- epidemiologist. “But it may come back Tigray in November has become a by- myopic focus. But my experiences with tients with mucormycosis, a rare and of- in the third wave, unless we find out why word for atrocities against Ethiopian cit- them during my brief time in Congress ten deadly fungal disease that has ex- it is happening.” izens. shocked me. As a representative, I saw ploded across India on the coattails of Many doctors in India think they Mr. Abiy’s forces have been accused them cherry-pick theology to promote the coronavirus pandemic. know why. The bone-and-tissue-eating of massacres, sexual assault and ethnic partisan ends, favoring a future Su- Unprepared for this spring’s devas- fungus can attack the gastrointestinal cleansing. This month, a senior United preme Court over their congregations tating Covid-19 second wave, many of tract, the lungs, the skin and the sinuses, Nations official declared that Tigray struggling to afford care. India’s hospitals took desperate steps to where it often spreads to the eye socket was in the throes of a famine — the At a time when the Church could save lives — steps that may have and the brain, if left untreated. world’s worst since 250,000 people died model moral accountability for its dec- opened the door to yet another deadly A resident checking on a patient at a mucormycosis ward in Ahmedabad. Treat- Treatment for the disease involves in Somalia a decade ago, he said. ades of criminality and corruption, they disease. ment involves complex and often disfiguring surgery and an expensive drug. complex, often disfiguring surgery and Elsewhere in Ethiopia, ethnic vio- opt instead for the partisan agenda of “The pandemic has precipitated an an uncommon and expensive drug. The lence has killed hundreds and forced their largest donors and the misogyny epidemic,” Dr. Prajapati said. mortality rate is above 50 percent. two million people to flee their homes. A PERRIELLO, PAGE 9 In three weeks, the number of cases of cording to news reports. The federal stark lines between rich nations and Mucormycosis is not passed from per- smoldering border dispute with Sudan the disease — known by the misnomer Health Ministry in New Delhi, which is poor, and the mucormycosis epidemic in son to person. It develops from com- has flared into a major military standoff. The New York Times publishes opinion “black fungus,” because it is found on tracking nationwide cases to allocate India stands as the latest manifestation. monplace spores that sometimes build Even the election on Monday, once from a wide range of perspectives in dead tissue — shot from negligible lev- scarce and expensive antifungal medi- During the second wave, which struck up in homes and hospitals. Doctors be- billed as the country’s first free vote and hopes of promoting constructive debate els up to more than 30,000. States have cine, has not released a fatalities figure. India in April, its creaky, underfunded lieve India’s crowded hospitals, and a chance to turn the page on decades of about consequential questions. recorded more than 2,100 deaths, ac- The coronavirus pandemic has drawn medical system lacked beds, oxygen INDIA, PAGE 5 ETHIOPIA, PAGE 2 U.S. examines the secrecy of art sales Still Processing the art to launder some of his drug cash, The opacity of the market purchasing the works from an estab- is facilitating the flow of lished gallery near Philadelphia’s Mu- seum Row. In 2015, he was sentenced to The real talk. dirty money, experts fear more than five years in prison for deal- ing drugs and for laundering the illicit BY GRAHAM BOWLEY proceeds by taking advantage of one of the art market’s signature features — its The U.S. government agents who raided opacity. a drug dealer’s house in a suburb of Phil- Billions of dollars worth of art adelphia found marijuana and, to their changes hands every year with little or surprise, $2.5 million in cash stashed in no public scrutiny. Buyers typically a secret compartment beneath a fish have no idea where the work they are tank. purchasing is coming from. Sellers are But they were even more surprised to similarly in the dark about where a work discover so much art — 14 paintings on is going. And none of the purchasing re- the walls and 33 more stacked in a stor- quires the filing of paperwork that New York Times culture Listen wherever age unit a few miles from the home of the would allow regulators to easily track writers Jenna Wortham you get your podcasts.