The fashion and textile industry could generate nearly half a million jobs in sub-Saharan Africa over the next decade. That’s according to the African Development Bank, which launched its “Fashionomics” initiative in 2015 to revitalize the industry. However, designers in the region still struggle to grow their businesses. Lenny Ruvaga reports for VOA from Nairobi.
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Month: November 2017
Finns Want to Look for Remains of Arctic Meteorite
The remains of a blazing meteorite that lit up the dark skies of the Arctic last week are believed scattered near a lake in northern Finland, amateur Finnish astronomers said Wednesday.
The Ursa astronomical association says their calculations show the parts would have crashed in a remote area near the Norwegian and Russian borders.
The meteorite – which Norwegian scientists said gave “the glow of 100 full moons” – was seen in northern Norway and Russia’s Kola peninsula on Thursday for about five seconds.
Marko Pekkola, a scientist with Ursa, said it likely landed in the wilderness almost 1,000 kilometers (620 miles) north of Helsinki. He believed it weighted between 100 kilograms and 300 kilograms (220 pounds and 660 pounds) before it entered the atmosphere, and flew at a speed of 30 kilometers per second (18.6 miles per second) – “in the low end for meteorites.”
Pekkola said the meteorite likely broke into pieces when it entered the atmosphere, producing a blast wave that felt like an explosion. The parts are believed to be spread over an area of about 60 square kilometers (24 sq. miles).
“We don’t know many pieces are out there, it is [exceptional] to find something,” Pekkola said. “I can say that finding one or two pieces is possible.”
The group says it wants to start searching for the remains, though it hasn’t set a date yet.
In 2013, a meteorite streaked across the Russian sky and exploded over the Ural Mountains with the power of an atomic bomb, its sonic blasts shattering countless windows and injuring about 1,100 people. Many were cut by flying glass as they flocked to windows, curious about what had produced such a blinding flash of light.
The 2013 Chelyabinsk meteorite was estimated to be about 10 tons when it entered the Earth’s atmosphere at a hypersonic speed of at least 54,000 kph (33,000 mph). It shattered into pieces about 30-50 kilometers (18-32 miles) above the ground but some meteorite chunks were found in a Russian lake.
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Iraq, GE Sign $400 Million Deal for Power Infrastructure
Iraq and General Electric have signed a deal to develop Iraq’s power infrastructure, which would help bring much-needed electricity to areas facing significant shortages across the country.
GE says in a statement released Wednesday that the more than $400 million contract will help building 14 electric substations and supply critical equipment such as transformers, circuit breakers and other outdoor equipment to revamp existing substations.
GE says the substations will hook up power plants in the provinces of Ninevah, Salahuddin, Anbar, Baghdad, Karbala, Qadissiyah and Basra to the national grid.
It says GE will also help Iraq’s Ministry of Electricity secure funding through various financial institutions.
Despite billions of dollars spent since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion, many Iraqi cities and towns are still experiencing severe power cuts and rolling blackouts.
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Yemen Blockade Leaves Humanitarian Staffers Stranded
Hundreds of humanitarian staffers from nearly 50 agencies are stranded in Yemen or unable to enter the country after a Saudi-led military coalition shut down Yemen’s air, land and sea ports, a U.N. spokesman said Wednesday.
Ahmed Ben Lassoued, a Sanaa-based media official at The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, told The Associated Press that a total of 32 flights have been canceled since Nov. 6, when the coalition ordered a tightening of the Yemen blockade.
He said 220 humanitarian staff from nearly 50 agencies in Djibouti and Amman are waiting to return to northern Yemen. Another 310 passengers are stranded in Sanaa and other duty stations in northern Yemen, waiting to depart.
“The blockade imposed on the humanitarian flights is severely hampering humanitarian operations, impeding humanitarians to provide much-needed assistance to millions of people who rely on it for their survival,” Ben Lassoued said.
The coalition has announced that it’s lifting the blockade after initially tightening it on Nov. 6 after a missile attack on Riyadh by Yemeni rebels known as Houthis.
Ships were ordered to leave the Red Sea ports of Hodeida and Salef, the only lifeline to northern Yemen where most of the population lives. The two ports are under the control of the Houthis.
The conflict in Yemen pits the Shiite Houthi rebels and the ousted president’s forces against the internationally recognized government and its main backer, the Saudi-led coalition.
For more than two years, airstrikes and ground fighting have left over 10,000 people dead, driven 3 million from their homes and destroyed the country’s already fragile infrastructure. International aid groups describe Yemen as the world’s worst humanitarian crisis as millions are at risk of famine.
The New-York based International Rescue Committee on Wednesday urged an end to the blockade, calling it a “collective punishment” of Yemenis that risks driving 500 children into malnutrition every week. It said the closure of Yemeni ports by the Saudi-led coalition as part of its fight against Houthi rebels creates “humanitarian misery for millions of Yemenis.”
The IRC also condemned the international community, saying its silence “is a disgrace and is enabling what could be collective punishment.”
Each week, the group said, 500 children join hundreds of thousands suffering from malnutrition. “Sanctions and inspections should not be used as weapons of war,” the group said in a statement.
On Wednesday, two flights landed in Sanaa airport for the first time. One was tasked with evacuating five staffers of the International Committee of the Red Cross, according to Soumaya Beltifa of the ICRC in Yemen. Al-Masirah TV network, run by Houthis, described it as the first humanitarian flight to come to Sanaa.
A second flight carried Russian diplomats, according to an airport official. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media.
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Tribunal Finds Ex-Bosnian Serb Commander Mladic Guilty of Genocide, War Crimes
The United Nations’ Yugoslav war crimes tribunal ruled Wednesday former Bosnian Serb army leader Ratko Mladic is guilty of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity stemming from the conflict in the former Yugoslavia during the 1990s.
The court convicted Mladic on 10 of the 11 charges he faced, including persecution, extermination, murder, deportation, terror and unlawful attacks on civilians. He was sentenced to life in prison.
“The crimes committed rank among the most heinous to humankind, and include genocide and extermination as a crime against humanity,” judge Alphons Orie said in reading the verdict.
Genocide
The court said Mladic intended to destroy the Bosnian Muslim population in Srebrenica, and in Sarajevo personally directed a campaign of shelling and sniping meant to spread terror and perpetrate murder among civilians.
It also cited as a window into his motivations his expressions of a commitment to seek an ethnically homogenous Bosnian Serb republic.
Mladic appeared in the courtroom, but was not present as Orie read the verdict. He requested a bathroom break partway through Wednesday’s session, which was granted for five minutes but stretched on for 45 minutes.
When the proceedings resumed, his lawyer said Mladic’s blood pressure was dangerously high and requested the judge either stop reading the verdict or skip ahead to the court’s judgment.
Orie said the proceedings would go on as planned, at which point Mladic started yelling until he was ordered removed from the courtroom.
‘Butcher of Bosnia’
After the verdict, U.N. human rights chief Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein praised the court’s decision as a “momentous victory for justice” and the “epitome of what international justice is all about.”
“Today’s verdict is a warning to the perpetrators of such crimes that they will not escape justice, no matter how powerful they may be nor how long it may take,” Zeid said in a statement.
A State Department official said Wednesday the United States supports the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) and respects its ruling.
“We will continue to commemorate the victims of the horrific crimes committed in the former Yugoslavia,” the official said. “We urge the countries and peoples of the region to refrain from divisive rhetoric and work together to build a better future for the entire region.”
WATCH: ICTY Hands Down Mladic Verdict
Mladic, known as the “Butcher of Bosnia,” is the last former military leader to face war crimes charges in the court, which was set up to deal with the aftermath of the Bosnian war that raged from 1992 through 1995.
He was charged with 11 counts of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity for his alleged role in leading sniper campaigns in Sarajevo and the 1995 killings of more than 8,000 Muslim men and boys in Srebrenica — the worst massacre in Europe since World War II.
Prosecutors asked the International Criminal Tribunal to sentence Mladic to life in prison. Last year, attorney Alan Tieger said anything less than a life sentence would be “an insult to the victims, living and dead, and an affront to justice.”
Mladic’s defense lawyer, Dragan Ivetic, accused prosecutors of seeking to make the former general a “symbolic sacrificial lamb for the perceived guilt” of all Serbs during the war. He called for Mladic, 75, to be acquitted on all charges.
At the end of the war in 1995, Mladic went into hiding and lived in obscurity in Serbia, protected by family and elements of the security forces.
Mladic was indicted for genocide and crimes against humanity but evaded justice for 16 years. He was eventually tracked down and arrested at a cousin’s house in rural northern Serbia in 2011.
The Bosnian Serbs’ political leader, Radovan Karadzic, was found guilty of war crimes in March 2016 and sentenced to 40 years in prison.
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Hariri Puts Resignation on Hold
Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri said Wednesday he is putting on hold his resignation at the request of President Michel Aoun.
Speaking at the presidential palace near Beirut after a parade marking Lebanon’s independence day, Hariri said the delay was meant to give time for more discussion with the president.
“Our beloved nation needs in this critical period exceptional efforts from everyone to protect it in the face of dangers and challenges,” he said.
He also reiterated the need for Lebanon to remain neutral on regional conflicts.
Hariri sparked a political crisis earlier this month when he announced from Saudi Arabia that he would step down, and then remained in Saudi Arabia as speculation swirled as to whether he was being detained.
Aoun had said he would not accept the resignation until he could speak with Hariri in person, and after stops in France and Egypt, Hariri arrived back in Lebanon on Tuesday night.
Hezbollah influence
In his resignation speech, Hariri denounced Iran and Hezbollah for sowing friction in Arab states and said he feared assassination. His father, former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, was killed in a 2005 bombing.
Middle East Institute scholar Zubair Iqbal said the entire situation unfolded because of a disruption in the delicate balance of competing influences over Lebanon, including those of Sunni-majority Saudi Arabia and Shi’ite-majority Iran. He said Aoun had been leaning toward Hezbollah, which “established its credentials” in the conflict in neighboring Syria and elsewhere.
“So the point really is, under these circumstances where the conditions were tilting against Hariri and his group, what was to be done? Now the Saudis clearly overreacted,” Iqbal told VOA. “Instead of trying to work out the situation in Lebanon itself they regionalized it, and by regionalizing it they lost all the initiative or all the credentials that is concerned.”
VOA’s Victor Beattie in Washington DC contributed to this report
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The 1990s Balkan Wars in Key Dates
Ahead of the judgement Wednesday of Bosnian Serb army chief Ratko Mladic, here is a timeline of the 1990s Balkans conflicts that tore apart the former Yugoslavia.
- Bickering after Tito dies –
Communist Yugoslavia, which emerged shortly after the end of World War II, was made up of six republics: Slovenia, Croatia, Serbia, Bosnia, Montenegro and Macedonia.
Following the death of its autocratic leader Josip Broz Tito in 1980, the Yugoslav federation found itself in crisis, with bickering between ethnic groups and surging nationalist sentiments.
By the time the Berlin Wall fell in 1989, inter-ethnic relations in Yugoslavia were at breaking point. The first multiparty elections in the republics in 1990 were won mostly by nationalists.
The most prosperous republics, Slovenia and Croatia, started advocating a greater decentralization of Yugoslavia’s government.
But the largest republic, Serbia, led by Slobodan Milosevic, rallied fellow Serbs throughout Yugoslavia in a push for centralized control.
- Slovenia and Croatia declare independence –
On June 25, 1991, the parliaments of Slovenia and Croatia declared independence, which led to the deployment of the Belgrade-controlled Yugoslav army (JNA) towards affected borders and airports.
After a 10-day conflict, the JNA withdrew from ethnically homogeneous Slovenia.
But in Croatia, Serbian troops sided with ethnic Serb rebels who opposed independence, launching what would become a four-year war.
The eastern town of Vukovar was razed to the ground during a siege by Yugoslav forces in autumn 1991, while the medieval Adriatic town of Dubrovnik was severely damaged.
- Bosnian referendum –
In Bosnia, the most ethnically and religiously diverse republic and home to four million people, Muslims and Croats organized an independence referendum.
The move was fiercely opposed by Belgrade-backed Bosnian Serbs, who made up more than 30 percent of the population.
While Serbs boycotted the vote, 60 percent of Bosnia’s citizens voted for independence.
- Bosnian war –
In April 1992 war broke out between Bosnia’s Muslims and Croats, who were on one side, and Bosnian Serbs. Bosnia won international recognition a day later.
Led by Radovan Karadzic and armed by the JNA, the Serbs declared that territories under their control belonged to an entity called Republika Srpska.
Soon after, Bosnian Croats turned against the republic’s Muslims.
- Siege of Sarajevo –
Bosnian Serb troops immediately started a siege of the Bosnian capital of Sarajevo which would last 44 months.
The city’s 350,000 residents struggled to get basic necessities and at least 10,000 were killed by sniping and shelling by Serbs.
By May 1992 Bosnian Serbs controlled two-thirds of Bosnia.
- Ethnic cleansing –
In August the first images of skeletal prisoners in camps awoke the world to the campaign of ethnic cleansing by Serb forces.
An estimated 20,000 women, mostly Muslims, were raped.
- Srebrenica massacre –
In July 1995 Bosnian Serb forces took over the UN-protected “safe area” of Srebrenica in eastern Bosnia and massacred up to 8,000 Muslim men and boys.
Described by two international courts as genocide, the massacre was the worst mass killing in Europe since the end of World War II.
- NATO airstrikes, Dayton agreement –
In August 1995, after the fall of Srebrenica and the bombing of a Sarajevo market in which 41 people were killed, NATO unleashed airstrikes on Bosnian Serb positions.
On November 21, 1995, following three weeks of talks in the US city of Dayton, Ohio, the leaders of Bosnia, Croatia and Serbia agreed to a peace deal.
In December 1995 a NATO peacekeeping force was deployed in Bosnia, which had been divided into a Muslim-Croat Federation, covering 51 percent of the territory, and a Serb entity, the Republika Srpska.
- The Kosovo conflict –
War then broke out in 1998 in Serbia’s southern province of Kosovo between ethnic Albanian rebels seeking independence and Serbia’s armed forces.
The fighting ended in 1999 after an 11-week bombing campaign by NATO, by which time about 13,000 people had been killed and hundreds of thousands had fled their homes.
Kosovo declared independence in 2008, a move Serbia refuses to recognize.
- Legal postscript –
The International Criminal Court for the Former Yugoslavia, established in 1993, has continued prosecuting those responsible for war crimes since the end of the conflicts.
It has indicted 161 people, convicted 83 and acquitted 19. Among those sentenced is Bosnian Serb wartime leader Karadzic, while Milosevic died in prison before being judged.
The court is scheduled to close down on December 31, and a separate tribunal has been set up to handle remaining appeals and other issues.
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Suspected New York Bike Path Attacker Charged
A federal grand jury has returned a 22-count indictment against Sayfullo Saipov in the death of eight people killed during a truck attack on a bike path in New York City.
The Justice Department said Saipov was indicted Tuesday in a Manhattan federal court. He is charged with eight counts of murder, 12 counts of attempted murder, providing and attempting to provide material support to Islamic State, and violence and destruction of motor vehicles resulting in death.
Saipov, an Uzbek immigrant, was hospitalized after he was shot by a police officer. He was arrested after several people were run over by a vehicle Oct. 31 in a midday attack on a popular bike path.
“Consumed by hate and a twisted ideology, Sayfullo Saipov allegedly barreled down a pedestrian walkway and bicycle path on a sunny afternoon on the West Side of Manhattan, killing eight innocent people and injuring at least a dozen others,” said Acting U.S. Attorney Joon H. Kim for the Southern District of New York.
Islamic State claimed responsibility for the truck attack, which was the deadliest assault on New York City since Sept. 11, 2001.
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Trump Indicates Support for Moore in Alabama Senate Race
U.S. President Donald Trump all but endorsed embattled Alabama Senate candidate Roy Moore on Tuesday, saying the former state judge “totally denies” allegations that he sexually molested underage girls years ago.
“I can tell you one thing for sure: We don’t need a liberal person in there, a Democrat,” Trump told reporters at the White House.
Moore’s opponent in the Senate race, Democrat Doug Jones, has a record that is “terrible on crime, it’s terrible on the border, it’s terrible on the military,” Trump said.
Trump said he would announce next week whether he will campaign on the Republican candidate’s behalf.
Moore’s campaign has been in turmoil since The Washington Post published a story detailing the accounts of three women who claimed he pursued them while they were teenagers and he was in his 30s. Three more women have since spoken out with allegations of their own.
Moore has adamantly rejected accusations of sexual abuse, but prominent Republicans, including House Speaker Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, and two former presidential candidates, Senator John McCain of Arizona and former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, have called for him to end his candidacy.
Trump, himself the subject of sexual abuse allegations during his 2016 presidential campaign, which he said were false, had said little about the accusations against Moore until Tuesday. White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Monday that Trump thought it was “up to the people of Alabama who their next senator will be.”
But earlier, White House adviser Kellyanne Conway described Jones as a “doctrinaire liberal” who would vote against tax cuts the Trump administration is pushing Congress to adopt.
Asked whether the White House was asking people to vote for Moore, Conway deflected the question, but said, “I’m telling you we want the votes in the Senate to get this tax bill through.”
One of Moore’s accusers, Leigh Corfman, told NBC on Monday that it took her decades before she regained her sense of trust and confidence in herself after the 1979 encounter she alleges she had with him.
Now 53, Corfman said she was “a 14-year-old child trying to play in an adult’s world” but that she “didn’t deserve to have a 32-year-old man prey upon” her.
“I was expecting candlelight and roses; what I got was very different,” she said. “I felt guilty. I felt like I was the one to blame.
“I met him around the corner from my house — my mother did not know — and he took me to his home,” Corfman said. “After arriving at his home on the second occasion that I went with him, he basically laid out some blankets on the floor of his living room and proceeded to … seduce me, I guess you would say.”
Corfman’s accusations against Moore first appeared in the Post more than a week ago.
She told the newspaper that Moore took off her “shirt and pants and removed his clothes,” touched her over her bra and underpants and guided her hand to touch him over his underwear before she ended the encounter. She asked him to take her home, and he did.
Moore leads an expanding list of lawmakers accused of sexual misconduct. On Monday, the website BuzzFeed alleged that longtime U.S. Representative John Conyers, a Michigan Democrat, paid $27,000 to a woman who alleged that he’d fired her from his Washington staff after she rebuffed his sexual overtures.
Conyers, 88, at first denied the report, then on Tuesday he acknowledged the settlement, which he said he made to avoid protracted litigation. But he continued to deny he had sexually harassed the woman.
Ryan, the leader of the majority Republicans in the chamber, called the allegation “extremely troubling. People who work in the House deserve and are entitled to a workplace without harassment or discrimination.”
Leaders of the House Ethics Committee said they were opening an investigation into the allegations, including whether Conyers had used official resources for impermissible personal purposes. Conyers said he would fully cooperate.
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US Senator: Myanmar Crisis Bears ‘All the Hallmarks’ of Ethnic Cleansing
A United States Senate delegation to Myanmar said Tuesday that the crisis in the Rakhine state “has all the hallmarks of ethnic cleansing.”
“Many refugees have suffered direct attacks including loved ones, children and husbands being killed in front of them, wives and daughters being raped, burns and other horrific injuries. This has all the hallmarks of ethnic cleansing,” Senator Jeff Merkley, an Oregon Democrat, told a press conference at the U.S. embassy in Yangon.
Merkley told reporters that the U.S. Congressional delegation has urged Myanmar’s government to implement the recommendations of the Kofi Annan-led Rakhine Advisory Commission, and to allow the UN and other NGOs access to the troubled region to provide humanitarian assistance.
Tillerson has concerns
In Washington, the U.S. State Department is considering whether to officially designate the conflict as ethnic cleansing.
U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson visited Myanmar last week and expressed concern over “credible reports of widespread atrocities committed by security forces and vigilantes.”
Pope set to visit
The Pope is slated to visit Myanmar from Nov. 27-30, where he is expected to meet with the country’s de facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi.
Merkley is joined on the delegation by four Democrats: U.S. Senator Dick Durbin of Illinois and U.S. Representatives Betty McCollum of Minnesota, Jan Schakowsky of Illinois and David Cicilline of Rhode Island. The Senators and Representatives met with government officials and affected populations in the region, and highlighted the ongoing humanitarian crisis and urgent need for international action to bring an end to the violence.
VOA Burmese and Thet Su Naing contributed to this report
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CBS Fires Journalist Rose After Sex Abuse Allegations Surface
The CBS television network fired veteran newsman Charlie Rose on Tuesday, a day after an explosive Washington Post report recounted stories from eight women who said he had sexually abused them with lewd comments, groping and walking around naked in their presence.
Rose, 75, was co-host of the network’s CBS This Morning news and talk show, and he occasionally appeared on its 60 Minutes investigative news show.
But Rose is perhaps better known for his acclaimed Charlie Rose interview show he has conducted since 1991, in which he has interviewed newsmakers from the worlds of politics, the media and entertainment. PBS and Bloomberg Television, which distributed his self-produced interview show, suspended him Monday after the newspaper account, and they both also ended their contracts with Rose on Tuesday.
Co-hosts critical
Rose’s firing at CBS came hours after his co-hosts on the morning news show sharply condemned him, expressing shock at allegations that he had sexually abused young women who worked with him on the interview show or sought employment from the late 1990s to 2011.
“What do you say when someone that you deeply care about has done something so horrible?” anchor Gayle King said at the opening of CBS This Morning, which she has hosted alongside Rose and Norah O’Donnell. “How do you wrap your brain around that? I’m really grappling with that. That said, Charlie does not get a pass here. He doesn’t get a pass from anyone in this room.”
King said that while the Post’s story did not represent a Rose she knew, “I’m also clearly on the side of the women who have been very hurt and damaged by this.”
O’Donnell said, “This has to end. This is a moment that demands a frank and honest assessment about where we stand and, more generally, the safety of women. Let me be very clear: There is no excuse for this alleged behavior.”
The eight women alleged that Rose had unexpectedly sexually abused them when they were alone with him in work-related settings or on lewd telephone calls. They said he had walked around naked in their presence and had groped their breasts, buttocks or genital areas.
Other allegations
Rose is the latest prominent U.S. man to be the subject of allegations of long-running sexual abuse, a list that includes President Donald Trump, actor Bill Cosby, film producer Harvey Weinstein, journalists, corporate executives and other politicians, including former President Bill Clinton when he was in office in the 1990s.
Rose said in a tweet after the Post published its story, “I deeply apologize for my inappropriate behavior. I am greatly embarrassed.” He admitted behaving insensitively, but wrote that he did not “believe that all of these allegations are accurate.”
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Turkey Named ‘Drumstick’ Is Given Presidential Pardon
President Donald Trump, just prior to beginning his Thanksgiving vacation on Tuesday, carried out a final pre-holiday executive action — pardoning a turkey.
“Drumstick, you are hereby pardoned,” the president declared in the White House Rose Garden, with his wife, Melania, and their 11-year-old son, Barron, alongside.
The turkey, with a 152-centimeter (60-inch) wingspan and weighing 21 kilograms (46 pounds), gobbled when a small child cried, but otherwise remained impassive.
Drumstick bested another bird, Wishbone, in a public pool to determine which turkey would receive executive dispensation.
Drumstick captured about 60 percent of the more than 40,000 votes in a Twitter poll conducted by the White House.
Both birds arrived from the state of Minnesota and received V-I-P — or rather V-I-T — treatment in the nation’s capital, posing in their luxury hotel suite and appearing at a news conference hosted by the National Turkey Federation.
For more than a century, turkeys have been ceremoniously delivered to the White House prior to Thanksgiving — although most years they were intended as the main course for the holiday feast.
But John F. Kennedy in 1963 uttered, “We’ll just let this one grow,” when presented with a big bird that had a sign around its neck reading “Good Eating Mr. President.”
Subsequently, there were sporadic turkey pardons until President George H.W. Bush made it an annual event in 1989.
Barack Obama, in his final Thanksgiving pardon, last year spared two birds — Tater and Tot — as his successor noted at Tuesday’s ceremony.
“As many of you know, I have been very active in overturning a number of executive actions by my predecessor,” said Trump. “However, I have been informed by the White House counsel’s office that Tater and Tot’s pardons cannot under any circumstances be revoked. So, we’re not going to revoke them. So, Tater and Tot, you can rest easy.”
While Drumstick received the presidential pardon, fans of Wishbone should fear not. The other bird will also live out its days at Gobbler’s Rest at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University in Blacksburg, the home of previously pardoned turkeys.
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UN Tribunal to Decide Fate of ‘Butcher of Bosnia’ Mladic
United Nations judges in The Hague will decide within hours on a verdict in the trial of former Bosnian Serb military commander Ratko Mladic, who is accused of war crimes stemming from the conflict in the former Yugoslavia during the 1990s.
Mladic, known as the “Butcher of Bosnia,” is the last former military leader to face war crimes charges in the court, which was set up to deal with the aftermath of the Bosnian war that raged from 1992 through 1995.
Mladic, who has been on trial since 2012, has been charged with 11 counts of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity for his alleged role in leading sniper campaigns in Sarajevo and the 1995 killings of more than 8,000 Muslim men and boys in Srebrenica — the worst massacre in Europe since World War II.
Prosecutors have asked the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia to sentence Mladic to life in prison. Last year, attorney Alan Tieger said anything less than a life sentence would be “an insult to the victims, living and dead, and an affront to justice.”
Mladic’s defense lawyer, Dragan Ivetic, has accused prosecutors of seeking to make the former general a “symbolic sacrificial lamb for the perceived guilt” of all Serbs during the war. He called for Mladic, 75, to be acquitted on all charges.
At the end of the war in 1995, Mladic went into hiding and lived in obscurity in Serbia, protected by family and elements of the security forces.
Mladic was indicted for genocide and crimes against humanity but evaded justice for 16 years. He was eventually tracked down and arrested at a cousin’s house in rural northern Serbia in 2011.
The Bosnian Serbs’ political leader, Radovan Karadzic, was found guilty of war crimes in March 2016 and sentenced to 40 years in prison.
The U.N. tribunal is scheduled to initiate proceedings to deliver the verdict Wednesday.
Some information for this report was provided by AP.
your ad hereUS Charges Iranian National With Hacking HBO Computer Systems
U.S. prosecutors charged an Iranian with hacking into computer systems of the cable TV channel HBO earlier this year, stealing information about the hit program “Game of Thrones” and attempting to extort millions of dollars from the company.
In an indictment Tuesday, prosecutors said 29-year-old Behzad Mesri has had ties to Iran’s military and is a member of an Iran-based hacking group known as the Turk Black Hat security team.
Mesril’s stolen material included video of unaired episodes of several original HBO shows, scripts and plot summaries of upcoming episodes of “Game of Thrones,” and confidential cast and crew contact information, according to the indictment.
Mesri claims to have stolen 1.5 terabytes of data from HBO.
Demanded $6 million in Bitcoin
In late July, Mesri emailed HBO executives on several occasions, threatening to release the material unless the entertainment company paid him $5.5 million worth of Bitcoin digital currency, a ransom amount he later increased to $6 million.
“Hi to all losers! Yes, it’s true. HBO is hacked! Beware of heart attack!!!” he allegedly wrote in one anonymous email. In another he bragged that “HBO was one of our difficult targets to deal with but we succeeded.”
After HBO refused to make a payment, Mesri allegedly posted portions of the stolen videos and five scripts from Game of Throne episodes on websites he controlled.
Mesri has not been arrested, and faces multiple charges, including wire fraud, which carries a maximum sentence of 20 years and one count of computer hacking, which could be punished with up to five years in prison.
More indictments expects
The indictment is one of several cases involving Iranian suspects prosecutors plan to announce in the coming month, the Washington Post reported on Sunday, citing people familiar with the matter. In July, the Justice Department indicted two Iranian nationals with hacking a Vermont-based software company.
“Mesri now stands charged with federal crimes, and although not arrested today, he will forever have to look over his shoulder until he is made to face justice,” said Acting U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York Joon Kim.
Prosecutors allege that Mesri “had previously worked on behalf of the Iranian military to conduct computer network attacks that targeted military systems, nuclear software systems, and Israeli infrastructure.”
As a member of the Turk Black Hat, Mesri is alleged to have conducted hundreds of website defacements in the United States and elsewhere using the online pseudonym Skote Vahshat, according to the indictment.
In a note to journalists, HBO said it had been “working with law enforcement from the early stages of the cyber incident.”
your ad hereZimbabwe Reacts to Mugabe Resignation
People in Zimbabwe react to news of Robert Mugabe’s resignation after 37 years in power, Nov. 21, 2017.
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US Launches New Airstrikes Against Islamic State in Libya
The U.S. military has launched new airstrikes against Islamic State militants in Libya, officials tell VOA.
U.S. Africa Command spokesperson Robyn Mack said the strikes occurred on November 17 and 19 near Fuqaha “in coordination with the Libyan Government of National Accord (GNA).”
Another military official confirmed that several Islamic State militants were killed.
“We are committed to maintaining pressure on the terror network and preventing them from establishing safe haven,” Mack said.
In September, 17 militants were killed during six precision strikes nearly 250 kilometers southeast of Sirte, a coastal city where the U.S. and Libyan government have driven out Islamic State fighters who had tried to establish a hub there in the north African country.
The military carried out about 500 airstrikes last year against the Islamic State fighters in Sirte. And in January, armed drones and B-2 bombers attacked IS training camps in Libya, killing more than 80 militants.
The increase in strikes in Libya and Somalia have led some to suggest the Pentagon may be ramping up pressure on terror groups in Africa, a claim the Pentagon has rejected.
“I do not believe necessarily there’s a ramp-up. It’s the density of targets is such that now there’s some opportunities to do those strikes,” Joint Staff Director Lt. Gen. Kenneth “Frank” McKenzie told reporters last week. “As [the targets] become available and as we’re able to process them and vet them, we strike them,” he added.
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US Military: Drone Strike Kills More Than 100 Al-Shabab in Somalia
A U.S. military drone strike has killed more than 100 al-Shabab militants in Somalia, U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM) said.
Military officials told VOA that Tuesday’s strike hit an al-Shabab training camp in the country’s Bay region, about 200 kilometers northwest of the capital, Mogadishu.
“It’s obvious from what we were seeing that these were militants,” AFRICOM spokesman Lieutenant Commander Anthony Falvo told VOA.
The U.S. military said the strike was conducted in coordination with the Somali government to help Somalia address threats within its territory while targeting the al-Qaida affiliate’s safe havens, which could be used to plan terror attacks across the globe.
The United States has carried out roughly 30 strikes against al-Shabab this year. Earlier this month, U.S. forces killed several militants in a drone strike in the Lower Shabelle region, about 30 kilometers north of Mogadishu.
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US Seeks ‘Genuine Transition’ in Zimbabwe
The United States is urging Zimbabwean leaders to move the country towards a “genuine transition” and allow political space for the country’s opposition and its people to determine their future.
During a small roundtable with State Department reporters late Monday, Acting Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Donald Yamamoto said the implementation of “real, genuine, economic [and] political reforms” is key to meeting the needs of Zimbabweans.
The message came hours before Zimbabwe’s parliament speaker announced President Robert Mugabe had resigned Tuesday.
Yamamoto said the international community “wants to lift sanctions” against Zimbabwe, and wants to see the country play a positive political role in the stability of its neighbors.
The way for Washington to lift sanctions is for Harare to carry out the due process, to respect human rights, and to give the opposition a genuine opportunity to form a government, said Yamamoto.
“What we don’t want is a manipulation by the government or by the ruling ZANU-PF party – holding rush elections, not taking into consideration a lot of the reform issues that the opposition wants to implement; also, not giving political space for Zimbabwe people for them to express what they want to see in a new government,” he said.
U.S. Ambassador to Zimbabwe Harry Thomas has been meeting with officials from ZANU-PF party and the opposition party behind the scenes to try and help push the political process forward.
US urging peaceful democratic evolution
For years, the United States has taken a leading role in condemning the Zimbabwean government’s increasing assault on human rights and the rule of law, calling on the government to embrace a peaceful democratic evolution.
U.S. steps against Mugabe’s rule included financial sanctions against selected individuals and entities, travel sanctions against selected individuals, a ban on transfers of defense items and services, and a suspension of non-humanitarian government-to-government assistance.
Despite strained political relations, the U.S. is the largest provider of development and humanitarian assistance to the people of Zimbabwe.
“We have about $220 million in foreign assistance to Zimbabwe, but none of that goes through the government,” said Yamamoto, adding the U.S. aid goes through NGOs, community leaders, and is focused on health care as well as economic community development.
Yamamoto indicated the U.S. foresaw last week’s military’s intervention.
“You can predict, given [our] assessment in Zimbabwe,” he said, when asked by VOA if the U.S. was informed of the military intervention in advance, amid reports that China and South Africa were given a heads-up.
“The [Zimbabwean] military had made indications [of] what’s acceptable to them [in terms of Mugabe’s actions, and] what’s not acceptable.”
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More Remains of US Army Soldier Killed in Niger are Found
Additional remains of U.S. Army Sergeant La David Johnson were found in Niger on November 12, an unnamed U.S. official said Tuesday.
Johnson and three other U.S. soldiers were killed on October 4 when their convoy was ambushed as it left the village of Tongo Tongo.
The official said medical examiners had verified Johnson’s remains, which were found at the site where his body was recovered.
Members of the U.S. Africa Command and the Niger military, who are investigating the ambush, visited the site on November 12 and are expected to complete the probe in January.
Johnson, a 25-year-old from Florida, was separated from his military unit and his body was not recovered until two days after the ambush.
The attack has come under intense scrutiny in the U.S., where the Pentagon’s initial account of the attack has been questioned. Lawmakers have complained that they received insufficient or conflicting information on the the incident.
The U.S. military is helping Niger deal with threats by members of Islamic State and al-Qaida, but deaths of U.S. servicemen in Niger are rare.
Johnson’s fellow soldiers killed in the attack were Bryan Black, 35; Jeremiah Johnson, 39; and Dustin Wright, age 29.
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Trump, Putin Agree to Support UN in Syrian Peace Process
U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin agreed Tuesday to support the U.N. effort to “peacefully resolve” the nearly seven-year-long Syrian civil war.
The White House said the two leaders talked for more than an hour and stressed the importance of ending the humanitarian crisis in which millions of Syrians have been displaced from their homes. Trump and Putin said the displaced Syrians should be allowed to return and “the stability of a unified Syria free of malign intervention and terrorist safe havens” should be ensured.
Trump talked by phone with Putin a day after the Russian leader held discussions in Russia with Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad about a political resolution to the civil war, which has killed 400,000 people.
The White House said Trump and Putin “affirmed the importance of fighting terrorism together throughout the Middle East and Central Asia and agreed to explore ways to further cooperate in the fight against ISIS, al-Qaida, the Taliban and other terrorist organizations.”
In addition, they discussed ways “to implement a lasting peace in Ukraine,” where pro-Russian separatists have been fighting troops loyal to Kyiv, and how to keep international pressure on North Korea to end its nuclear weapon and missile development programs.
The Kremlin said Tuesday that it had called Assad to the Black Sea resort of Sochi for talks with Putin about Russia’s peace proposals for Syria, ahead of Putin’s summit Wednesday with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Iranian President Hassan Rouhani.
Russia has bolstered Assad’s rule with airstrikes since late 2015 against groups trying to overthrow his regime, with Iranian fighters also supporting Damascus, and Turkey backing the Syrian opposition.
His power ensured, Asssad said he expressed his gratitude to Putin “for all of the efforts that Russia made to save our country.”
Putin, according to the Kremlin, told Assad that Russia’s “military operation is coming to an end. Thanks to the Russian army, Syria has been saved as a state. Much has been done to stabilize the situation in Syria.”
He praised Assad, predicting terrorism would suffer an “inevitable” defeat in Syria.
The Kremlin quoted Assad as saying, “It is in our interest to advance the political process. … We don’t want to look back. And we are ready for dialogue with all those who want to come up with a political settlement.”
U.N.-led peace talks about Syria are scheduled for November 28 in Geneva.
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Cities Adapt to Changing Terror Threats
On November 5, more than 50,000 runners and two million spectators turned out for the New York Marathon. The event took place just a few days after a lone attacker drove a van into cyclists and pedestrians beside a busy Manhattan highway, killing eight people.
Security was beefed up for the marathon: sand-filled sanitation trucks were deployed at key intersections to block vehicles, while hundreds of extra police backed by sniffer dogs and snipers were positioned along the 21-kilometer route.
The precautions underline the changing nature of the terror threat, 16 years after the 9/11 al-Qaida attacks on the same city.
“They are moving towards the lower technology attacks, using knives, using vehicles, and using weapons that they can perhaps purchase on the black market but not have to make themselves,” said leading counter-terror analyst Brooke Rogers of Kings College, London.
He said, beyond short-term, enhanced security, an urban environment can adapt.
“For example, by having blast-proof glass installed in these grand glass structures. Or having different security measures, physical security measures – some of that could be scanning technology, some of it could be CCTV (closed circuit television) based, but also human measures, in terms of the staff not only walking around the perimeter, walking around inside with highly visible uniforms, but also staff who are less visible,” said Rogers.
In France, thousands of extra security personnel including soldiers have been deployed since the 2015 Paris attacks. But Rogers notes they have themselves become targets for terrorists.
London has installed physical barriers to separate vehicles and pedestrians in the wake of this year’s vehicle attacks in Westminster and on London Bridge. Permanent protection has been built around government buildings, with some of it adapted into street furniture like benches. But sectioning off every walkway is simply not practical.
“The amount of engineering that goes into those can cost millions of dollars. But we have to be careful because everything that we secure means that we are then turning the attention of these terrorist groups to softer targets,” said Rogers.
As a result, more attention is being given to educating the public. Since 2010 the U.S. Department for Homeland Security has been running an awareness campaign titled, “If you see something, say something”. In London, the mantra is similar: “See It, Say It, Sorted.”
British authorities have also issued a campaign on what to do if you’re caught in a terror attack – summarized as “Run, Hide, Tell.”
Rogers says such campaigns aren’t pushed hard enough by authorities. “They’re very anxious that if they start making people think about that type of attack in the public places, that they’re going to frighten them and maybe scare them away. We have a lot of evidence that suggests that that is not the case. It doesn’t have a significant impact in terms of the perceived threat at all and in fact it builds higher levels of trust.”
Increasingly, security services see public awareness as a key line of defense against the changing terror threat.
your ad hereVatican, China Swap art in bid to Mend Strained Ties
The Vatican and China will exchange paintings, vases and sculptures in a bid to mend often strained ties through “the diplomacy of art”, officials said on Tuesday.
Forty works from the Vatican will go on show in Beijing’s Forbidden City and 40 from China in the Vatican Museums in unprecedented simultaneous exhibitions in March, art chiefs from both countries told a news conference.
“It will be an event that overcomes borders and time and that unites different cultures and civilizations,” Zhu Jiancheng, the head of the government-backed China Culture Investment Fund, said.
“It will strengthen the friendship between China and the Vatican and it will favor the normalization of diplomatic relations,” he said of the project, in which each side will loan art works to the other.
Relations between the Vatican and Beijing have been strained for decades.
Chinese Catholics are divided between those loyal to the pope – the so-called “underground Church” – and those who belong to state-backed Church known as The Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association.
The main dispute blocking diplomatic ties is the Vatican’s insistence that the pope – and not the government – be responsible for appointing bishops.
Pope Francis and his predecessors Benedict and John Paul have tried to improve relations with Beijing, whose communist party severed relations in 1951. But efforts at agreement have often stalled.
“With no fear and no barriers, beauty and art are truly a vehicle of dialogue,” said Barbara Jatta, the director of the Vatican Museums.
“This is the key of the success that we, at the Vatican Museums, love to call the ‘diplomacy of art’,” said Jatta, the first woman to head the museums, which receive about six million visitors a year.
The simultaneous shows reminiscent of the “ping-pong diplomacy” of the early 1970s, when China and the United States each hosted national teams of the sport as a prelude to President Richard Nixon’s historic trip to Beijing in 1972.
Jatta told Reuters that for the Beijing exhibition, experts would select 39 works of art that originated in China and are now in the Vatican’s Anima Mundi (Soul of the World) ethnological collection, which numbers 80,000 pieces, 20,000 of them Chinese.
“In a sense, 39 of them will be going back home,” she said.
The 40th piece would be an object of Western European Christian art, a painting which has not yet been selected.
The Chinese art works displayed in the Vatican will be 10 paintings by contemporary Chinese artist Zhang Yan and 30 works of art from China’s state collections representing various periods of Chinese history.
your ad hereDefense Minister – Denmark to Ramp up Cybersecurity Efforts
Denmark intends to invest to boost efforts to prevent cyber attacks in a strategy to be presented early next year, its defense minister said on Tuesday.
“We are going to spend more money in this area,” Claus Hjort Frederiksen told Reuters on the sidelines of a conference in Copenhagen, though he declined to disclose a figure.
Cybersecurity is “very high on the agenda” for the right-leaning government, but also for the broad selection of Danish political parties negotiating a new defense strategy for the coming six years, he said.
The government would like to expand an early warning system with sensors that detects when Danish companies or authorities are under attack from, for example, malware.
“To some degree we do have a system today, but we would like to expand it to the strategic infrastructure and to private companies,” he told Reuters.
The government also wants to increase the preventive capacity at the Danish center for cybersecurity to increase its ability to better catch and inform about imminent cyber threats, he said.
World’s no.1 container shipper and one of Denmark’s largest companies Maersk was hit by major cyber attack in June, one of the biggest-ever disruptions to hit global shipping.
The government also works for a deeper cooperation between authorities and private companies in battling cyber attacks, Frederiksen said.
He said he believed companies were sometimes reluctant to inform they had been hit by cyber attacks, because they were afraid to scare off customers or investors.
Frederiksen said he saw the overall cyber threat as “one of the greatest threats of our time.”
“If you can undermine our democratic nations by hacking the energy systems or the communication systems or the financial systems it will undermine our own people’s belief in our societies’ ability to protect them,” he said.
Russia hacked the Danish defense network and gained access to employees’ emails in 2015 and 2016, Frederiksen said in April.
Danish troops will get training in how to deal with Russian misinformation before being sent to join a NATO military build-up in Estonia in January, Frederiksen said in July.
your ad hereUS Re-designates North Korea As State Sponsor of Terrorism
The Trump administration has announced “the maximum pressure campaign” on North Korea to get the regime of Kim Jong Un to end its unlawful nuclear and ballistic missile development and cease all support for international terrorism. U.S. President Donald Trump said Monday that in addition to tougher economic sanctions, North Korea will be redesignated as state sponsor of terrorism.VOA’s Zlatica Hoke reports.
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