World
2 S. Korean Hospitals Shut Over MERS Fears; 13th Person Dies

A worker wearing protective gears sprays antiseptic solution as a precaution against the spread of MERS, Middle East Respiratory Syndrome, virus at an art hall in Seoul, South Korea, Friday, June 12, 2015. The outbreak of Middle East respiratory syndrome has caused panic in South Korea. (AP Photo/Lee Jin-man)
HYUNG-JIN KIM, Associated Press
KIM TONG-HYUNG, Associated Press
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — Authorities in South Korea temporarily closed two hospitals amid persistent fears over the MERS virus outbreak, which has killed 13 people through Friday, though health officials said they are seeing fewer new infections.
More than 120 people in South Korea have been diagnosed with Middle East respiratory syndrome since the country reported its first case last month. The outbreak, the largest outside Saudi Arabia, has been occurring only in hospitals, among patients, family members who visited them and medical staff treating them. Still, it has caused widespread fears and rumors, and about 2,900 schools and kindergartens remained closed Friday.
South Korean officials have hoped the disease would begin to ease since the virus’ maximum two-week incubation period for those infected at a Seoul hospital considered as the main source of the outbreak ended Friday. However, several hospitals have treated MERS patients, and the later incubation periods for them is raising worries of possible new sources of infections.
Mediheal Hospital in western Seoul and Changwon SK Hospital in the southern city of Changwon were ordered to temporarily shut down after MERS patients were found to have had contact with hundreds of people there before they were diagnosed, according to officials at Seoul and Changwon.
There are currently no MERS patients at the two hospitals, but dozens of medical staff and existing patients are quarantined at the facilities. Mediheal is to reopen on June 23, and Changwon SK on June 24, city officials said.
Central government officials say there is little chance of the virus spreading from those hospitals because they are quarantining people who had contacts with infected people and monitoring them.
“We see no danger of an additional spread,” Jeong Eun-kyeong, a senior official from the Korea Center for Disease Control and Prevention, told a news conference. She said only a small number of new infections could still be reported from those hospitals.
Some experts have said the outbreak could continue if there are a large number of infected people who evaded government quarantine measures and spread the virus.
The Health Ministry reported just four new cases on Friday, after registering 14 Thursday and 13 on Wednesday. About 3,680 people were still isolated on Friday after possible contacts with infected people, a decline from more than 3,800 on Thursday, according to the ministry.
Senior ministry official Kwon Deok-cheol told the news conference that the public should stop worrying too much about the outbreak as the number of new cases has been falling.
Most of the deaths have been of people suffering from pre-existing medical conditions, such as respiratory problems or cancer.
Three MERS patients in their 70s died on Friday, raising the country’s number of MERS-related deaths to 13. The three had suffered from conditions such as pneumonia, asthma, lung diseases and high-blood pressure before they were confirmed as having MERS, the Health Ministry said.
Experts think MERS can spread in respiratory droplets, such as by coughing. But transmissions have mainly occurred through close contact, such as living with or caring for an infected person.
MERS has a death rate of about 40 percent among reported cases. It belongs to the family of coronaviruses that includes the common cold and SARS, and can cause fever, breathing problems, pneumonia and kidney failure.
Copyright 2015 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Activism
Newsom, Pelosi Welcome Election of First American Pope; Call for Unity and Compassion
“In his first address, he reminded us that God loves each and every person,” said Newsom. “We trust that he will shepherd us through the best of the Church’s teachings: to respect human dignity, care for the poor, and wish for the common good of us all.” Newsom also expressed hope that the pontiff’s leadership would serve as a unifying force in a time of global instability.

By Bo Tefu, California Black Media
Gov. Gavin Newsom and First Partner Jennifer Siebel Newsom on May 8 issued a statement congratulating Pope Leo XIV on his historic election as the first American to lead the Catholic Church.
The announcement has drawn widespread reaction from U.S. leaders, including former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who called the moment spiritually significant and aligned with the values of service and social justice.
In their statement, the Newsoms expressed hope that the newly elected pope would guide the Church with a focus on compassion, dignity, and care for the most vulnerable. Newsom said he and the First Partner joined others around the world in celebrating the milestone and were encouraged by the pope’s first message.
“In his first address, he reminded us that God loves each and every person,” said Newsom. “We trust that he will shepherd us through the best of the Church’s teachings: to respect human dignity, care for the poor, and wish for the common good of us all.”
Newsom also expressed hope that the pontiff’s leadership would serve as a unifying force in a time of global instability.
“May he remind us that our better angels are not far away — they’re always within us, waiting to be heard,” he said.
Pelosi, a devout Catholic, also welcomed the pope’s election and noted his symbolic connection to earlier church leaders who championed workers’ rights and social equality.
“It is heartening that His Holiness continued the blessing that Pope Francis gave on Easter Sunday: ‘God loves everyone. Evil will not prevail,’” said Pelosi.
Activism
Retired Bay Area Journalist Finds Success in Paris with Black History Tours
In the late 90s, Stevenson finally realized her dream of living in Paris, now with her daughter. She started exploring the history of Africans in the city and would go on to teach others the same. Her business, which she named Black Paris Tours (BPT), received a significant boost when a family friend gave her a stack of cash and encouraged her to expand on the knowledge that she had only started to share with people she knew.

By Post Staff
There were two things Oakland-born, East Palo Alto-raised Ricki Stevenson always dreamed of:
- Going to New York as a newscaster to tell the true story of Blacks in America.
- Living and working in Paris one day.
Her dreams of life in Paris began when she was three years old and her mother, a former professional dancer, took her to see Josephine Baker perform. She was 11 when her parents took her to the Stanford University campus to meet James Baldwin, who was speaking about his book, “The Fire Next Time.” Ricki says that’s when she knew she’d one day live in Paris, “the city of light!”
But before that would ever happen, she had a tumultuous career as a newscaster across the country that was inspired by her family’s history.
Stevenson recalls marching with Cesar Chavez as he fought for labor rights for farm workers in California.
“Are we Mexican too?” she asked her parents. “No, but we will fight for everyone’s human rights,” they responded to her.
Ironically, Ricki’s paternal family roots went back to Greenwood, Oklahoma, infamous for the 1921 bombing of Black Wall Street. A time when Black people had oil wells, banks, and a thriving business community.
This background would propel her into a 25-year journalism career that gave her the opportunity to interview greats like President Jimmy Carter, PLO leader Yassir Arafat, James Baldwin, Rev. Jesse Jackson, UN Ambassador Andrew Young, Miriam Makeba, and the leaders of South African liberation movements.
A job offer from KCBS radio brought her back to the Bay Area in the 1980s. Then came the switch to TV when she was hired as a Silicon Valley business reporter with KSTS TV, working at the first Black-owned television station in northern CA (created and owned by John Douglas). Along the way, Stevenson worked as an entertainment reporter with BET; coproduced, with her disc jockey brother Isaac, a Bay Area show called “Magic Number Video;” lived in Saudi Arabia; worked as an international travel reporter with News Travel Network; and worked at KRON TV a news anchor and talk show host.
In 1997, Stevenson realized her dream of living in Paris with her young daughter, Dedie. She started exploring the history of Africans in the city and would go on to teach others the same. Her business, which she named Black Paris Tours (BPT), received a significant boost when a family friend, Admiral Robert Toney put a chunk of money in her hand. He said, “Ricki, my wife and I have been coming to Paris for 20 years, but in just two days with you and Dedie, we’ve learned and seen more than we ever did before.”
Years after BPT took off, Ricki met Nawo Carol Crawford and Miguel Overton Guerra, who she recruited as senior scholar guides for Black Paris Tours.
Guerra says he is proud of his work with Black Paris Tours in that it provides a wealth of information about the rich legacy of African and African American history and influence in Paris and Europe.
“I tend to have a feeling for history always being a means of a reference point backwards … you start to understand the history, that it isn’t just the United States, that it began with African people,” Guerra says.
He said that it’s been a pleasure to watch people learn something they didn’t know before and to take them through the city to key points in Black history, like hangout spots for writers like Baldwin and Richard Wright, restaurants in the busiest parts of Paris, the home of Josephine Baker and so much more.
Although the tours are open to all, Guerra hopes that those of African descent from all over the world can embrace that they don’t have to just stay where they are because movies and media have portrayed cities like Paris to be only white, it’s multicultural and accepting to all.
“We’ve been here, and we’ve been there, going way back when. And we shouldn’t be considered or consider ourselves to be strangers in any place that we go to,” he said.
Stevenson notes they’ve had 150,000 people take their tour over the years, with notables like former NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick, Smokey Robinson, Steve Harvey, Miriam Makeba, and more.
Friends and former media colleagues of Stevenson compliment the BPT crew on their knowledge of the city and their ability to always keep it interesting.
“He [Guerra] just had a deep, deep wealth of knowledge and he was constantly supplanting information with historical facts and the like. I love that it was demonstrating and showing how Black people have thrived in Paris or contributed to the culture in Paris,” Candice Francis said.
She toured in the summer of 2022 and stated that in the two weeks that they visited Paris, BPT was the highlight of her trip. She shared that she was proud of Stevenson and the life she’d managed to manifest and build for herself.
“Even if you’re visiting Paris for the tenth time, if you haven’t taken the tour, then by all means, take it,” Francis emphasized.
Magaly Muñoz, Gay Plair and Paul Cobb also contributed to this story. You can book your own adventure with Black Paris Tours at www.blackparistour.com.
Activism
COMMENTARY: Will a Dictator’s Loss Change Trump’s Tune?
What’s happened in Syria has the potential of reshaping the politics of the entire Middle East. The U.S. can’t afford to sit back and do nothing. Now is the time to exert peaceful, diplomatic influence on how Syria maintains stability and goes forward with a new democracy.

By Emil Guillermo
In our polarized country, half of America can’t wait, while many of us still wonder, “where’s Kamala?”
I hope President-elect Trump — who famously said during the campaign that he’d be a dictator on day one — eats his words.
Dictators aren’t doing so well these days.
Last weekend, the dictator Bashar al-Assad was run out of Syria and sought exile with his puppet master/dictator Vladimir Putin of Russia. In just about two weeks, a coalition of rebels applied enough pressure to end a family regime in Syria that lasted 50 years.
al-Assad’s wealthy family dictatorship plundered Syria and ruled in terror.
It sounds all too familiar to Filipino Americans, many of whom came to the U.S. fleeing the Philippine dictator Ferdinand Marcos.
al-Assad’s end was different from the Filipinos who forged a peaceful People Power movement that chased the Marcos family to Hawaii where they sought refuge from their U.S. puppet handlers.
But as in Manila, there was cheering on the streets of Syria. Men, women, and children. Christian, Muslims, different sects and ethnicities, all united against al-Assad.
al-Assad has been described as a genocidal narco-trafficking tyrant, whose friends were America’s biggest enemies, Iran, Hezbollah, and Russia, said Mouaz Moustafa, the executive director of the Syrian Emergency Task Force, on CNN.
Moustafa said it was amazing that there would be no more Russian airstrikes, no more al-Assad gulags torturing civilians. “To see good triumph over evil is an amazing thing,” he added.
But last weekend has some trickle down.
Consider that we are talking about al-Assad, the one Tulsi Gabbard consorted with and hyped to her colleagues when she was in Congress. Now Assad has been shamed into exile with his puppet master Russia, and Gabbard wants to be the U.S. director of national security? Given her wrongheaded judgment on al-Assad, can she be trusted with any national secrets?
It’s still not over in Syria, as now there will be a scramble to see what kind of governing democracy emerges.
Predictably, Donald Trump has said, “The United States should have nothing to do with it. This is not our fight. Let it play out. Do not get involved.”
Nouveau isolationism?
What’s happened in Syria has the potential of reshaping the politics of the entire Middle East. The U.S. can’t afford to sit back and do nothing. Now is the time to exert peaceful, diplomatic influence on how Syria maintains stability and goes forward with a new democracy.
Overall, the ouster of the dictator should give Trump pause.
If by nominating MAGA loyalists like Gabbard, Pete Hegseth and Kash Patel, Trump’s testing the evolution to strongman rule in the U.S., he should consider what happened before last weekend.
In South Korea, a weak president tried to declare martial law and was voted down by Parliament. That’s a faux strongman.
Let’s hope Trump learns a lesson from the week’s news.
The next president sets the tone for a politics that’s already toxic.
He needs to remember the joy in Syria this week when an autocrat was dumped in the name of freedom and democracy.
About the Author
Emil Guillermo is an award-winning Bay Area journalist. His commentaries are on YouTube.com/@emilamok1. Or join him at www.patreon.com/emilamok
-
Activism3 weeks ago
After Two Decades, Oakland Unified Will Finally Regain Local Control
-
Activism4 weeks ago
Oakland Post: Week of May 14 – 20, 2025
-
Alameda County3 weeks ago
Oakland Begins Month-Long Closure on Largest Homeless Encampment
-
Activism3 weeks ago
New Oakland Moving Forward
-
Barbara Lee3 weeks ago
WNBA’s Golden State Valkyries Kick Off Season with Community Programs in Oakland
-
Activism3 weeks ago
East Bay Community Foundation’s New Grants Give Oakland’s Small Businesses a Boost
-
Bo Tefu3 weeks ago
Gov. Newsom Highlights Record-Breaking Tourism Revenue, Warns of Economic Threats from Federal Policies
-
Bay Area3 weeks ago
Chevron Richmond Installs Baker Hughes Flare.IQ, Real-time Flare Monitoring, Control and Reduction System