People who agree to become organ donors risk being aggressively harvested when they might otherwise recover

 

 We're getting more like China everyday.

Push for More Organ Transplants Putting Donors at Risk...
 

... Circulatory death donation is different. These patients are on life support, often in a coma. Their prognoses are more of a medical judgment call.

They are alive, with some brain activity, but doctors have determined that they are near death and won’t recover. If relatives agree to donation, doctors withdraw life support and wait for the patient’s heart to stop. This has to happen within an hour or two for the organs to be considered viable. After the person is declared dead, surgeons go in.

The Times found that some organ procurement organizations — the nonprofits in each state that have federal contracts to coordinate transplants — are aggressively pursuing circulatory death donors and pushing families and doctors toward surgery. Hospitals are responsible for patients up to the moment of death, but some are allowing procurement organizations to influence treatment decisions.

Fifty-five medical workers in 19 states told The Times they had witnessed at least one disturbing case of donation after circulatory death.

Workers in several states said they had seen coordinators persuading hospital clinicians to administer morphine, propofol and other drugs to hasten the death of potential donors. ...

Circulatory death donation used to be largely forbidden. That began to change in the 1990s, when a dying patient asked the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center to remove her life support and donate her organs. The hospital honored her wishes, then spent two years creating guidelines for future cases. Use of the practice gradually spread. ...

Trump will crow that Panama has bowed the knee by agreeing not to renew participation in China's Belt and Road Initiative, but Panama was already dissatisfied with China from 2019

 

Events quickly shifted, however, following the election of Laurentino Cortizo as Panama’s president in early 2019. After taking office, Cortizo suspended or cancelled multiple Chinese investment projects. A review by the Panama Maritime Authority (PMA), the government agency that oversees the country’s ports, of the PCCP concession found that the Landbridge-led consortium had failed to comply with numerous contractual terms, including investing only roughly one-fifth of the promised amount, failing to provide key project documentation, and employing much less local labor than promised. The review led to the PMA’s decision to revoke the PCCP concession in June 2021.

More here. 

Panama pledges to end key canal deal with China, work with US after Rubio visit

... José Raúl Mulino, Panama's president, said his nation's sovereignty over the 51-mile waterway, which connects the Pacific Ocean and the Caribbean Sea, will remain unchanged. But he said he would not renew a 2017 memorandum of understanding to join China’s Belt and Road global development initiative and that Panama would instead look to work more closely with the U.S. ...

China's nine-dash-line claim in the South China Sea will finally get its day in court

But China won't be there to defend it.

From the story here in The Diplomat:

On Thursday, October 29, the Permanent Court of Arbitration awarded its first decision in the The Republic of Philippines v. The People’s Republic of China. The court ruled that the case was “properly constituted” under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, that China’s “non-appearance” (i.e., refusal to participate) did not preclude the Court’s jurisdiction, and that the Philippines was within its rights in filing the case. In short, Thursday’s decision means that the Permanent Court of Arbitration rules in the Philippines’ favor on the question of jurisdiction. With the jurisdictional issue resolved, the case can move forward to evaluating the merits of the Philippines’ legal assertions in the South China Sea. ...

First, and most vexing for China, is the status of Beijing’s nine-dash line claim in the South China Sea. Manila argues that the nine-dash line is an excessive maritime claim and not in line with the entitlements for coastal states under UNCLOS. With jurisdiction question resolved, we can look forward to China’s nine-dash line getting its day in international court (although, notably, without China taking part to defend it). China has kept the scope of its nine-dash line ambiguous under formal and customary international law, but once the Court decides on the matter, its ability to maintain ambiguity will be limited.

Second, based on the first point, that the nine-dash line is an excessive claim, the Philippines is arguing that China’s occupation of various features in the Spratly Islands is illegal.