Updated July 28, 8:17PM
MOSCOW — Russian opposition figure Alexei Navalny was hospitalized on Sunday after suffering an acute allergic reaction which one doctor said may have been the result of him being poisoned with an unknown chemical substance.Navalny, 43, was rushed to the hospital from jail where he is serving a 30-day sentence for violating tough protest laws, a day after police in Moscow detained more than 1,000 people for an illegal demonstration called for by Navalny.His spokeswoman Kira Yarmysh said Navalny had signs of an acute allergy with “severe swelling of the face and skin redness.”A doctor at the hospital treating him told the Interfax news agency that Navalny had been diagnosed with hives and that he was feeling better.Possible ‘toxic damage’But one doctor who has treated him in the past and was able to speak briefly with him and look at him through the crack of a door on Sunday said she could not rule out that he had been poisoned.”We cannot rule out that toxic damage to the skin and mucous membranes by an unknown chemical substance was inflicted with the help of a ‘third party’,” Anastasia Vasilyeva, the doctor, wrote on Facebook.Vasilyeva, who said Navalny had a rash on his upper body, skin lesions, and discharge from his eye, called for samples of Navalny’s bed sheets, skin and hair to be tested for chemicals.She said she found the fact that she had not been allowed to examine him properly suspicious.The Moscow hospital where Navalny’s spokeswoman said he was being treated could not be reached for comment.No history of allergiesSeparately, Navalny’s lawyer, Olga Mikhailova, wrote on Facebook on Sunday evening that doctors did not know what was wrong with her client, but that she deemed his symptoms strange given that he had never suffered from allergies in the past.Navalny suffered a serious chemical burn to his right eye in 2017 as a result of an assault. Doctors were able to restore his sight and save the eye.He was jailed on Wednesday this week for 30 days for calling for Saturday’s unauthorized march to protest against the exclusion of several opposition candidates from a local election later this year.While Navalny was behind bars, police rounded up more than 1,000 people in the Russian capital during Saturday’s rally in one of the biggest crackdowns in recent years against the opposition, drawing international criticism.A spokeswoman for the U.S. embassy in Moscow, Andrea Kalan, wrote on Twitter on Sunday that the large number of detentions in Moscow and the “use of disproportionate police force undermine rights of citizens to participate in the democratic process.”Opposition activist detainedIn a separate incident on Sunday, Russian activist Dmitry Gudkov, who was among the opposition candidates barred from running in local elections later this year, said he had been detained and taken to a Moscow police station.The reason for Gudkov’s detention was not immediately clear, his spokesman Alexei Obukhov told Reuters.Russia’s Interior Ministry did not respond to a request for comment on Navalny and Gudkov’s detention.Police on Sunday night detained about 10 people, including journalists, who had gathered in front of the hospital where Navalny was being treated.Navalny, a lawyer and anti-corruption activist, has served several stints in jail in recent years for organizing anti-government demonstrations.The European Court of Human Rights last year ruled Russia’s arrests and detention of Navalny in 2012 and 2014 were politically motivated and breached his human rights, a ruling Moscow called questionable.
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Month: July 2019
Nigeria: 65 Killed in Attack by Boko Haram Militants
Boko Haram militants killed at least 65 people at a funeral in northeastern Nigeria, local officials said Sunday, revising the earlier death toll of 23.”It is 65 people dead and 10 injured,” said Muhammed Bulama, the local government chairman. Bulama said he thought the attack was in revenge for the killing of 11 Boko Haram fighters by the villagers two weeks ago.Nigerians last week marked the 10-year anniversary of the rise of the Boko Haram insurgency, which has killed more than 30,000 people, displaced millions and created one of the world’s largest humanitarian crises. The extremists are known for mass abductions of schoolgirls and putting young women and men into suicide vests for attacks on markets, mosques and other high-traffic areas.The insurgent group, which promotes an extreme form of Islamist fundamentalism and opposes Western-style education, has defied the claims of President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration that the insurgency has been crushed. The violence also has spilled into neighboring Chad, Niger and Cameroon.
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Official Set to Replace Puerto Rico Governor Refuses Job
The woman slated to replace Puerto Rico’s governor after he steps down next week said on Sunday she does not want the job.”I reiterate, I have no interest in occupying the position of governor,” Justice Secretary Wanda Vazquez wrote on Twitter. “It is a Constitutional dictum. I hope that the governor identifies and submits a candidate for the position of secretary of state before Aug. 2 and I have told him so.”Governor Ricardo Rossello on Wednesday announced that he would step down on August 2 after nearly two weeks of massive protests triggered by a leaked obscenity-laced chat in which Rossello and close advisers insulted people including women and victims of Hurricane Maria.Puerto Rico Governor Ricardo Rossello speaks as he announces his resignation in San Juan, Puerto Rico, early July 25, 2019.By law, Secretary of State Luis Rivera Marin would have replace Rossello, but he too was involved in the chat scandal and resigned earlier this month.If a new secretary of state isn’t approved in time, the line of succession after Vazquez falls to Secretary of Treasury Francisco Pares and Secretary of Education Eligio Hernandez.The U.S. territory has been rocked by protests since the leak of almost 900 pages of chats between the governor and several island officials. The chats, on the encrypted messaging app Telegram, shocked islanders for their vulgarity and crassness and raised questions about possible conflicts of interest and violations of the law.
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Remaining Iran Deal Signatories Recommit to 2015 Accord
Iran and the remaining world powers in the 2015 agreement to restrain Tehran’s nuclear weapons development signaled new commitment Sunday to staying in the accord, even as Iran said it would diminish its compliance if European countries do not help alleviate the effects of U.S. economic sanctions.Iranian diplomats met with their counterparts from Britain, France, Germany, the European Union, China and Russia in Vienna. Iranian and Chinese envoys voiced their satisfaction as the meeting ended.”The atmosphere was constructive, and the discussions were good,” Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi told reporters. “I cannot say that we resolved everything,” but all the parties are still “determined to save this deal.”The head of the Chinese delegation, Fu Cong, said that there were “some tense moments” during the meeting, but “on the whole the atmosphere was very good. Friendly. And it was very professional.”The parties met after tensions have heightened in the Middle East in recent weeks, with the U.S. and Iran both announcing they have shot down each other’s unmanned drones near the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow maritime passage through which international tankers transport at least a fifth of the world’s crude oil supply.Participants are seen at a meeting held as part of closed-door nuclear talks with Iran, at a hotel in Vienna, Austria, Sunday, July 28, 2019.In addition, Britain seized an Iranian tanker near Gibraltar that London believed was shipping oil to Syria, with Iran’s Revolutionary Guard responding by taking over the British-flagged oil tanker Stena Impero in the Strait of Hormuz. Britain is calling for a European-led naval mission to ensure safe shipping passage through the Strait of Hormuz, but Iran said Sunday such a mission would be send a “hostile message.”Meanwhile, Iran has breached the size of the stockpile of enriched uranium it agreed to in the 2015 international accord and now is enriching it at 4.5% purity, marginally above the 3.67% level called for in the agreement.Iran has warned the European signatories to the nuclear deal that they are not doing enough to alleviate the hobbling effects of U.S. economic sanctions President Donald Trump reimposed when he pulled the United States out of the pact last year on grounds that it was not restrictive enough to keep Iran from manufacturing nuclear weapons.”As we have said, we will continue to reduce our commitments to the deal until Europeans secure Iran’s interests under the deal,” Araghchi said.The Chinese and Iranian diplomats said a higher-level meeting of foreign ministers could be arranged soon to continue talks about the Iranian nuclear deal.
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US Spy Chief Dan Coats to Resign
Updated July 28, 6:50PM; VOA’s National Security Correspondent Jeff Seldin contributed to this report.U.S. President Donald Trump has announced his national intelligence chief, Dan Coats, is resigning after two years on the job and frequent policy clashes with the White House.Trump tweeted Sunday that Coats will step down August 15. He thanked Coats for “his great service to our country.” He said he will nominate Texas Republican Congressman and Trump loyalist John Ratcliffe as his replacement.Trump described Ratcliffe as a “highly respected” former U.S. attorney who will “lead and inspire greatness for the country he loves.”Ratcliffe criticized last week’s testimony of special counsel Robert Mueller before the House Judiciary Committee.He said he agreed with Mueller’s conclusions that Russia’s efforts to meddle in the 2016 presidential election were “sweeping and systematic.”But he excoriated Mueller for including the asterisk in his report that explicitly said Trump was not exonerated.“Can you give me an example other than Donald Trump where the Justice Department determined that an investigated person was not exonerated because their innocence was not conclusively determined?” Ratcliffe asked Mueller.The former special counsel responded, “I cannot, but this is a unique situation.”Ratcliffe shot back: “You can’t find it, because – I’ll tell you why – it doesn’t exist.”FILE – Republican Congressman John Ratcliffe poses questions to former special counsel Robert Mueller, as he testifies before the House Judiciary Committee on his report on Russian election interference, on Capitol Hill, in Washington, July 24, 2019.Trump was often critical of U.S. military and civilian intelligence agencies, especially when they concluded that there was no question about Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election.Coats has been the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) since March 2017. He frequently disagreed with Trump on a number of highly publicized intelligence matters, including U.S. policy toward Russia, North Korea’s nuclear weapons program, and whether Iran violated the 2015 nuclear deal that Trump later abandoned.In July 2018, in his most public rift with Coats and the intelligence community, Trump stood beside Russian President Vladimir Putin and publicly said he doubted U.S. spies’ assessment that Russia had tried to interfere in the election, declaring that Putin had vigorously denied it.Coats afterward issued a statement reiterating the conclusion that Moscow had indeed worked to sway the election results. Shortly afterward, while onstage at a conference, Coats was visibly surprised by an announcement that Trump was planning on inviting Putin to Washington.”That’s going to be special,” Coats said, later apologizing and saying he had not meant to be disrespectful.In December 2018, Coats drew up a report on the November 2018 midterms elections which put Russia in line for possible sanctions for “influence activities and messaging campaigns targeted at the United States”.But, it’s not clear whether sanctions were ever applied. A subsequent report from the U.S. Justice Department found “no evidence to date that any identified activities of a foreign government or foreign agent had a material impact”.Less than two weeks ago, Coats announced the creation of an office to oversee election threats. The election threats executive (ETE) would serve as the DNI’s main adviser “on threats to election security” and will “coordinate and integrate all election security activities, initiatives, and programs” across the intelligence community and other government agencies, according to a statement released by Coats.
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White House Belittles Calls for Trump’s Impeachment
The White House on Sunday belittled Democratic lawmakers who are continuing to advance the case for impeaching President Donald Trump after former special counsel Robert Mueller failed to produce any explosive new allegations against the U.S. leader at last week’s congressional hearings.”This is not over in their minds, which is absolutely bizarre,” acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney told the Fox News Sunday interview show. “This is over. Most folks know it is over.”Mulvaney offered his comments two days after Congressman Jerrold Nadler, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, said that “in effect” the panel has undertaken an impeachment inquiry of Trump.FILE – Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., speaks during a news conference after hearings with former special counsel Robert Mueller, on Capitol Hill in Washington, July 24, 2019.House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, while agreeing to Nadler’s pursuit of the grand jury testimony, has blocked the formal opening of an impeachment inquiry. Instead, Pelosi, while not ruling out impeachment, has supported multiple House committee investigations of Trump, his links to Russia, his business affairs and his administration policies.She and other cautious Democrats have voiced fears about the political repercussions of impeaching Trump, knowing that even if the 435-member House on a simple majority vote impeached Trump, the Republican-controlled Senate almost assuredly would not muster the two-thirds vote needed to oust him from office. Attorney General William Barr has decided no criminal charges are warranted against Trump, a decision that came after Mueller reached no conclusion on the obstruction question, while also not exonerating him.FILE – Former special counsel Robert Mueller checks pages in the report as he testifies before the House Judiciary Committee hearing on his report on Russian election interference, on Capitol Hill, July 24, 2019.Mueller told the congressional hearings that in any event longstanding Justice Department guidelines prohibited the indictment of a sitting U.S. president, although he said Trump could be charged once he leaves office.Nadler told ABC News Sunday that his Judiciary panel already has impeachment resolutions ready for consideration or could draft new ones to send to the full House of Representatives, depending on what new information about Trump might be found in its ongoing investigation.Mueller’s six hours of testimony was often halting, with the prosecutor deflecting dozens of questions about the 448-page report on his investigation. Democratic and Republican lawmakers alike were often frustrated at his refusal to explain the conclusions he reached or disputing their partisan conclusions about the report findings.Even so, Nadler said it was “very important” that Mueller testified.”He broke the lie that the president and the attorney general have been saying to the American people,” that Trump had been totally cleared, Nadler said.A news ABC News-Ipsos survey showed American voters’ views about impeaching Trump were little changed after the Mueller testimony, with 47% saying it made no difference, 27% that it made them more inclined to support impeachment and 26% less inclined.
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Russia’s Navalny Hospitalized With ‘Severe’ Allergic Reaction
A spokeswoman for Russian opposition politician Aleksei Navalny, who is serving a 30-day jail term, says he has been hospitalized after suffering a “severe allergic reaction.”Kira Yarmysh said Navalny was taken from the Moscow detention facility to a hospital on the morning of July 28.The opposition figure and Kremlin foe arrived at the hospital with “severe facial swelling and red rashes on the skin,” Yarmysh tweeted.The source of the allergic reaction has not been determined yet, she wrote, adding that Navalny “never experienced an allergic reaction before.””He is currently in the ward under the supervision of police officers,” she said in a separate tweet. “He is being provided with the necessary medical assistance.”Officials gave no details of Navalny’s condition.He was sentenced last week to 30 days for calling for an unsanctioned protest in Moscow on July 27, during which more than 1,300 people were detained by police, according to an independent group that monitors crackdowns on demonstrations.Leonid Volkov, a top aide to Navalny, tweeted that he had a similar reaction after he served a sentence in the same cell as Navalny last month.Volkov rejected talk of a “conspiracy” and called instead for a “serious inspection” of hygiene standards at the detention center.Navalny had been sentenced to jail about a dozen times in recent years and has served more than 200 days in incarceration.
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Colombia’s Egan Bernal Set to Make History as Tour de France Champ
Twenty-two year old Egan Bernal was set to make history Sunday, as the first Colombian to win the Tour de France—and the youngest cyclist to place first in more than a century.
The 2019 edition of the Tour de France was marked by high drama, including sharp weather swings and a crushing defeat for the French.Only towards the end did a clear winner emerge in Colombia’s Egan Bernal.Interviewed on French TV ahead Sunday’s final sprint from the town of Rambouillet to Paris, Bernal said he was still trying to digest the events. He said he felt good as he raced, but was counting each kilometer that passed. Only when he crossed the line on the next-to-last stage of the race, did he realize he would win.This year’s edition marked the highest route in the Tour’s history, including five summit finishes. That was a plus for Bernal, who is strong on hills.The race started July 6 in Brussels. It wound its way through champagne and wine country, passed through ancient villages and towns and scaled the Alps and Pyrenees. It has always been a social as well as a sporting event; local residents and diehard fans line roads at every stage, cheering the riders on.It seemed like this Tour would finally bring France its first victory in more than three decades. But late last week, French favorite Julian Alaphilippe slid behind.The riders endured some extreme weather this year, including soaring temperatures and a massive hailstorm that triggered mudslides.
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4 Turkish Nationals Freed After Nigeria Kidnapping
Four Turkish citizens have been freed a week after they were kidnapped at gunpoint in Nigeria, the police said. Police said they had “successfully secured the release” of the men on Friday and that no ransom was paid to the kidnappers.Spokesman Frank Mba told AFP on Sunday that the four were in “good health.””We have three suspects in custody and recovered one AK-47 rifle. We are now intensifying our search for others involved,” Mba said.The gunmen snatched the four men after storming a bar in a village in the western Kwara state last Saturday.Local media said the Turks were working for a construction firm in the state.Kidnapping for ransom is common in Nigeria, especially in the oil-rich south and the northwest.Gangs have often targeted foreign workers, and victims are usually released after a ransom is paid.Ten Turkish sailors were kidnapped by armed men from a cargo ship off the Nigerian coast earlier this month.The Nigerian navy has said it is searching for the men in the Niger delta area.
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Myanmar Holds Repatriation Talks with Rohingya Refugees
A Myanmar government delegation has met with representatives of hundreds of thousands of Rohingya Muslim refugees in Bangladesh to discuss creating conditions for their safe repatriation, officials said Sunday.Myanmar’s permanent foreign secretary, U Myint Thu, led a 10-member delegation for the weekend talks in refugee camps in Bangladesh’s Cox’s Bazar region. He said he told the refugees about the preparations being made for their repatriation and agreed to continue talks with them.”We will continue to discuss with the Bangladesh government at the ministerial level as well as the working level at the joint working group,” U Myint Thu told reporters. “I will be meeting (Monday) with the Bangladesh foreign minister in Dhaka and then we will continue to discuss further on the repatriation process and at the ministerial level there will be a meeting in New York on the sidelines of the General Assembly … “He said the Myanmar delegation will bring along representatives of ASEAN, a grouping of Southeast Asian nations, for the next round of talks with the refugees.Buddhist-majority Myanmar has long considered the Rohingya to be “Bengalis” from Bangladesh even though their families have lived in the country for generations. Nearly all have been denied citizenship since 1982, effectively rendering them stateless, and they are also denied freedom of movement and other basic rights.The long-simmering Rohingya crisis exploded in August 2017 when Myanmar’s military launched what it called a clearance campaign in Rakhine state in response to an attack by a Rohingya insurgent group. The campaign led to the mass Rohingya exodus to Bangladesh and to accusations that security forces committed mass rapes and killings and burned thousands of homes.The violence caused more than 700,000 Rohingya to flee to overcrowded refugee camps in neighboring Bangladesh and elsewhere for safety.
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Trump Attacks Baltimore and One of Its Lawmakers
President Donald Trump is engaged in days of attacks on the eastern U.S. city of Baltimore and one of its top officials, Congressman Elijah Cummings, after the African-American lawmaker assailed the Trump administration’s treatment of migrants at the southern border with Mexico.In a string of Twitter comments, Trump called the 68-year Cummings, now in his 13th term in the House of Representatives, a “brutal bully” and claimed that his congressional district “is a disgusting, rat and rodent infested mess.” Trump contended that Cummings’s district is “FAR WORSE and more dangerous” than the border facilities where the government detains migrants who have crossed the U.S. border without documentation…..As proven last week during a Congressional tour, the Border is clean, efficient & well run, just very crowded. Cumming District is a disgusting, rat and rodent infested mess. If he spent more time in Baltimore, maybe he could help clean up this very dangerous & filthy place— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 27, 2019Government statistics show, however, that Cummings’s district, which includes impoverished parts of Baltimore and well-off suburban enclaves adjoining the city, has higher per capita income and higher median home values than the national average.Trump rebuffed criticism of his latest attack on a minority lawmaker. He recently assailed four first-term Democratic lawmakers, all women of color, saying they should “go back” to their home countries, even though all four are American citizens, three of them by birth and the fourth, a Somali refugee, through naturalization.”The Democrats always play the Race Card, when in fact they have done so little for our Nation’s great African American people,” Trump claimed. “Now, lowest unemployment in U.S. history, and only getting better. Elijah Cummings has failed badly!”….a look, the facts speak far louder than words! The Democrats always play the Race Card, when in fact they have done so little for our Nation’s great African American people. Now, lowest unemployment in U.S. history, and only getting better. Elijah Cummings has failed badly!— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 28, 2019In another comment, Trump complained, “Why is so much money sent to the Elijah Cummings district when it is considered the worst run and most dangerous anywhere in the United States. No human being would want to live there. Where is all this money going? How much is stolen? Investigate this corrupt mess immediately!”Why is so much money sent to the Elijah Cummings district when it is considered the worst run and most dangerous anywhere in the United States. No human being would want to live there. Where is all this money going? How much is stolen? Investigate this corrupt mess immediately!— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 27, 2019In recent congressional hearings, Cummings, as chairman of the House Oversight Committee, berated Kevin McAleenan, the acting Homeland Security chief. Cummings attacked McAleenan for the condition of the country’s detention facilities at the border and the government’s lax records on tracking the whereabouts of migrant parents it had separated from children at the border, a months-long problem even after Trump, facing a public outcry, ended family separations.Cummings cited a federal judge’s conclusion that Homeland Security “did a better job of tracking immigrants’ personal property than their children.”Trump countered, “As proven last week during a Congressional tour, the Border is clean, efficient & well run, just very crowded.”As Trump unleashed his attacks, Cummings defended himself, saying, “Mr. President, I go home to my district daily. Each morning, I wake up, and I go and fight for my neighbors. It is my constitutional duty to conduct oversight of the Executive Branch. But, it is my moral duty to fight for my constituents.”Acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney rejected the notion that Trump’s attacks on Cummings were racially motivated.”When the president hears lies [about the immigration facilities], he’s going to attack back,” Mulvaney told the Fox News Sunday interview show. “The president is attacking Cummings for saying things that are not true. It has absolutely nothing to do with race.”
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In Burundi, Fears That Next Year’s Vote Will Be Bloody Again
It made history as the first country to quit the International Criminal Court. Then it kicked out the United Nations human rights office. Even as Burundi’s vice president asserts in a rare interview that the troubled country is now peaceful, reports of abuses are up ahead of next year’s election as some people worry President Pierre Nkurunziza will run once more.An Associated Press visit this month witnessed a government intent on portraying an image of calm while some citizens said they live in fear that the upcoming vote could be bloody, like the one in 2015 that sparked political turmoil that still simmers today.”It’s hard to live in Burundi, there’s no freedom. You can’t express ideas opposing the government as there’s a constant fear of being arrested, kidnapped or killed,” said Sake Mathieu, founder of the Community Association for Promotion and Protection of Human Rights, one of the few rights groups still operating in this East African country of some 11 million people.More than 1,200 people have been killed since Nkurunziza announced he would run for a third term and the government cracked down on the widespread protests that followed, the U.N. says. Nearly 350,000 people have fled the country, the International Crisis Group said last month.FILE – Burundi’s president Pierre Nkurunziza attends a rally to launch the ruling party’s campaign calling for a “Yes” vote in the upcoming constitutional referendum, in Bugendana, Gitega province, May 2, 2018.Concerns are growing that the situation will worsen before the next election set for May 20.Nkurunziza’s ruling party, the National Council for the Defense of Democracy-Forces for the Defense of Democracy, and its youth militia, the Imbonerakure, have been accused by rights groups of killing, torturing, raping and intimidating members of the opposition.”We continue to document people being killed, harassed, disappeared. This is a real campaign against people who are opponents of the ruling party and it’s continuing to build up as we approach the presidential election,” Lewis Mudge, Central Africa director for Human Rights Watch, told the AP.Burundi’s once dynamic civic space continues to shrink. In June, the government shut one of the country’s last civil society organizations. Earlier this year the government ejected the U.N. rights office, angered by its probing of alleged abuses and the former U.N. rights chief’s declaration that Burundi was one of the “most prolific slaughterhouses of humans in recent times.”Local journalists are regularly detained and threatened and few international reporters are allowed in the country. In March the BBC was banned, reportedly for airing a documentary on alleged torture sites that the government considered slanderous.FILE – People with black tape covering their mouths attend a press conference of local journalists to mark World Press Freedom Day at the offices of the Iwacu media group in Bujumbura, Burundi, May 3, 2015.Burundi’s leaders say the country is stable and the streets of the capital, Bujumbura, are bustling with daily life. But behind that facade some residents say that people are living in dread.Nervously peering over the balcony of a hotel room, one 23-year-old checked to see if he had been followed. Since returning to Burundi last year after fleeing the 2015 violence, he has been accused by the Imbonerakure of supporting the opposition, he said. Now he lives in hiding. He spoke on condition of anonymity for his safety.”They have a list of names … If they see you’re here or you return back here, they come to catch you and ask you where you were and what you’re coming to do,” he said.Earlier this month the U.N.’s commission of inquiry on Burundi said the government was trying to “convince the international community that the situation in the country is returning to a state of normalcy,” yet it noted that widespread human rights violations continue.Top officials deny the government is ordering any violence.”Some people may have the motivation to oppress, but that doesn’t mean the government is commanding them to do it,” First Vice President Gaston Sindimwo told the AP in an interview. He called on opposition figures who fled the country to return and participate in the election but said the opposition should not “make trouble” for its organizers.The few remaining opposition groups in Burundi say they experience daily harassment. Agathon Rwasa, head of the National Congress for Freedom, the main opposition party, said he doesn’t believe the election will be fair.Compounding the political unrest is the dire economic and humanitarian situation in a country whose GDP per capita slipped 3% in 2018, according to the U.N.A young boy sits outside his small house in a village on the outskirts of Burundi capital Bujumbura, July 6, 2019.In September the government suspended international aid groups and accused them of not complying with the law. That left the U.N., which has said Burundi has the world’s highest prevalence of chronic malnutrition, with 56% of children stunted. The U.N. says one in three people need urgent aid.In the town of Rumonge outside the capital, locals described the situation as desperate.Aline Ntakirutimana returned to Burundi last year after fleeing to neighboring Congo in 2015. Most of her belongings were destroyed and she said she can’t care for her 10 children, who sometimes go days without food. “I feel sorrow,” the 42-year-old said, hanging her head.Seated beside her on a tattered couch, local chief Cyrien Sanzgueemo said there is no medicine or aid for impoverished village families.Although Nkurunziza has said he won’t run in next year’s election not many people in Burundi believe him, especially after a national referendum last year that approved changing the constitution to extend presidential term limits. Critics accused the government of intimidating people into voting “yes.”The constitutional amendment would allow Nkurunziza to stay in power until 2034.”Without a significant opening of political space, the 2020 elections will take place in a climate of fear and intimidation,” the International Crisis Group said in June.The ruling party has already started campaigning for Nkurunziza, despite his comments on stepping aside. In one march in the countryside about two hours from the capital, a group of Imbonerakure cleared a path for about 30 party loyalists who chanted in unison, “He is going to win again.”
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Hong Kong Police Fire Tear Gas To Disperse Pro-Democracy Protesters
Police in Hong Kong Sunday fired tear gas to disperse thousands of protesters who joined an unsanctioned pro-democracy march, in the latest political unrest gripping the city.Television images showed riot police launching multiple volleys of tear gas at protesters who had set up barricades close to the Liaison Office of the Central People’s Government in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region.Thousands of pro-democracy protesters, as they have done for weeks, marched in central Hong Kong Sunday, demanding the resignation of Hong Kong’s leader and an investigation into police use of force against demonstrators.This week’s demonstration on Sunday, however, was different. Police banned the activists, limiting then to Chater Garden, an urban park in the financial district. Police denied a request to march about two kilometers west to Sun Yat-sen Memorial Park. The protesters quickly spilled over from Chater Garden and marched into the surrounding, unsanctioned areas of Hong Kong, a move that could result in arrests. Clashes with the police Saturday led to 11 arrests and left at least two dozen injured in an outlying district toward the border with mainland China.The police said Sunday they have arrested the organizer of Saturday’s march.
Hong Kong is facing its worst political crisis since its handover to China in 1997. After millions of people marched twice in June against an extradition bill, now suspended, that would have permitted criminal suspects to be sent to China, many residents turned their ire on the police.The police force has used tear gas and rubber bullets twice against protesters who defied police orders. Clashes have left scores injured.
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UN to Double Food Rations for Ebola-Affected People in DR Congo
The U.N. World Food Program says it plans to double food rations to assist 440,000 people affected by the Ebola virus and their contacts over the next six months to respond to escalating needs in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo. The dramatic scale-up of food assistance is aimed at providing essential nutritional support to thousands of people affected by the Ebola virus. Recipients will receive food for 28 days. This is one week longer than the 21-day incubation period, the time interval from infection with the virus to onset of symptoms.The World Food Program says the operation also will allow agencies working to contain the deadly virus to keep tabs on the health situation of contacts of victims and their families, as well as of confirmed and suspected cases.WFP spokesman Herve Verhoosel explains beneficiaries of this expanded program will be required to come to specific distribution sites every week to pick up their food rations.“That help us and that help WHO and the Government to have those people coming to the health centers where they receive the food.” he said. “And, when they receive the food the health team can make the medical check needed in that 21 days period.” Verhoosel says people who have been infected by the Ebola virus and who have recovered, will receive food rations for one year.The WFP spokesman says the operation is running into some problems of acceptance because of community mistrust. He says people affected by Ebola often are stigmatized by their neighbors and some beneficiaries have been threatened because they are seen as posing risks to the community. To encourage community cooperation, he says WFP is planning to quadruple the number of primary schools in Ebola-affected areas that will receive nutritious hot lunches. He says chronic malnutrition is rife in this area, and for many children this is the main or only meal of the day. He says the number of children slated to receive school meals will rise from 17,000 to 70,000.Verhoosel says WFP urgently needs $50 million over the next six months to carry out its operation in conflict-ridden North Kivu and Ituri provinces, as well as in neighboring Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi and South Sudan.
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Moscow’s ‘Disproportionate’ Use of Force Condemned After 1,300 Detained
Police in Moscow detained more than 1,300 people in a day of protests against alleged irregularities in the run-up to local elections, according to an independent group that monitors crackdowns on demonstrations.Officers clad in riot gear used batons against demonstrators who had gathered outside Moscow City Hall on July 27 and roughly detained people.The crackdown continued after the protesters moved to other locations in the Russian capital, chanting slogans such as “Russia without [President Vladimir] Putin!”The United States, the European Union, and human rights groups denounced what they called the “disproportionate” and “indiscriminate” use of force against the demonstrators, who were protesting against the refusal of election officials to register several opposition figures as candidates in municipal polls in September.Opposition leaders said the ban was an attempt to deny them the chance to challenge pro-government candidates.Police officers detain a man during an unsanctioned rally in the center of Moscow, Russia, July 27, 2019.Police said 1,074 arrests were made at the unsanctioned rally, while the OVD-Info independent organization reported 1,373 detentions.A number of those held were released by the evening.Several opposition figures and would-be candidates were among those detained by police, including Ivan Zhdanov, Ilya Yashin, and Dmitry Gudkov.Some protest leaders were detained on their way to the rally in central Moscow.Aleksandra Parushina, a Moscow City Duma deputy from the opposition A Just Russia party, told RFE/RL’s Current Time — a project led by RFE/RL in cooperation with VOA — that she was struck in the head by riot police from Russia’s OMON force, who “brutally” dispersed a crowd that was attempting to form near the Moscow mayor’s office on Tverskaya Street, one of Moscow’s main thoroughfares.”Detention of over 1000 peaceful protestors in Russia and use of disproportionate police force undermine rights of citizens to participate in the democratic process,” U.S. Embassy spokeswoman Andrea Kalan tweeted.In a statement, EU spokeswoman Maja Kocijancic said the “disproportionate use of force against peaceful protesters” undermined “the fundamental freedoms of expression, association, and assembly.”Amnesty International also condemned what it called the “indiscriminate use of force by police, who beat protesters with batons and knocked them to the ground.”The director of the London-based human rights watchdog’s office in Russia, Natalya Zvyagina, said Russian authorities “hit a new low by imposing military lawlike security measures on the unsanctioned rally, blocking access to major Moscow streets and shutting down businesses in advance,” despite the absence of credible reports of potential violence.Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin, a close ally of Putin, had warned beforehand that “order in the city will be ensured.”It is unclear how many people turned up for the rally because authorities prevented a mass crowd from gathering together in any one location.According to police, about 3,500 people gathered near the mayor’s office, including 700 registered journalists and bloggers.However, opposition activists said the number was much higher.The decision to bar opposition candidates from the September 8 City Duma election over what Moscow election officials described as insufficient signatures on nominating petitions has sparked several days of demonstrations this month.A July 20 opposition rally in Moscow drew an estimated crowd of 20,000.Aleksei Navalny, Russia’s most prominent opposition activist who is currently serving a 30-day jail sentence for calling the latest protest, has said demonstrations would continue until the rejected candidates are allowed to run.The 45 members of the Moscow City Duma hold powerful posts — retaining the ability to propose legislation as well as inspect how the city’s $43 billion budget is spent.
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Putin Leads Russian Naval Parade after Crackdown in Moscow
Russian President Vladimir Putin led Russia’s first major naval parade in years on Sunday, the day after a violent police crackdown on anti-government protesters in Moscow.Putin on Sunday morning went aboard one of the vessels in the Navy Day parade in St. Petersburg on the Gulf of Finland. The parade, the biggest in years, included 43 ships and submarines and 4,000 troops.Putin was spending the weekend away from Moscow, the Russian capital, where nearly 1,400 people were detained Saturday in a violent police crackdown on pro-democracy protesters. A Russian group that monitors police arrests gave the figure Sunday, saying it was the largest number of detentions at a rally in the Russian capital this decade.Police wielded batons and wrestled with protesters around the Moscow City Hall after thousands thronged nearby streets, rallying against a move by election authorities to bar opposition candidates from the Sept. 8 ballot for the Moscow city council.
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S. Koreans, Russians Released Days After Boat Drifts to N. Korea
Two South Koreans and 15 Russians returned to South Korea Sunday, about 10 days after their boat drifted into North Korean waters, Seoul officials said.The crew members were aboard a Russia-flagged fishing boat when it was detained by North Korea July 17. The ship had been on its way to Russia after leaving South Korea’s eastern Sokcho port.Seoul’s Unification Ministry said in a statement the crew arrived aboard the same boat at Sokcho port Sunday, a day after they left the North’s Wonsan port. Details of how they were detained, treated and repatriated were still unclear as the ministry said North Korea hasn’t informed South Korea of its decision to release the crew. The ministry said it learned of the boat’s departure from Wonsan on Saturday through various channels that it refused to disclose.The ministry statement said it “positively” assessed the North’s repatriation of the crew members.Ties between the Koreas remain cool amid a lack of progress in U.S.-led diplomacy aimed at ending North Korea’s nuclear program.Seoul said North Korea is holding six other South Koreans it has arrested in recent years on anti-state and other charges.Fishing boats drift across the Koreas’ eastern sea border in both directions. Earlier Sunday, South Korea’s military said a North Korean wooden fishing boat carrying three people crossed the maritime border Saturday night, prompting a South Korean navy ship to tow it to a South Korean port.South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said the North Koreans were under an investigation. South Korea typically returns North Korean fishermen unless they are suspected of espionage. But it also lets them resettle in the South if they want, often triggering angry response from the North.
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Iran Nuclear Deal Nations to Meet, Seek Way to Save Pact
The remaining signatories to the Iran nuclear deal will meet in Vienna on Sunday to try again to find a way of saving the accord after the U.S. pulled out, amid mounting tensions between Tehran and Washington.Envoys from Britain, France, Germany, China, Russia and Iran will take part in the meeting, which comes a month after a similar gathering failed to achieve a breakthrough.Tensions between Tehran and Washington have escalated since last year when U.S. President Donald Trump pulled out of the accord that was aimed at curbing Iran’s nuclear program, and imposed punishing sanctions.In retaliation, Iran said in May it would disregard certain limits the deal set on its nuclear program and threatened to take further measures if remaining parties to the deal, especially European nations, did not help it circumvent the U.S. sanctions.FILE – A picture from Iranian News Agency ISNA, June 13, 2019, reportedly shows fire and smoke billowing from Norwegian owned Front Altair tanker said to have been attacked in the waters of the Gulf of Oman.Tension in Middle EastPressure has continued to mount in the region with a string of incidents involving tankers and drones.The U.S. has said it brought down one and possibly two Iranian drones last week, and blamed Tehran for a series of mysterious attacks on tanker ships in strategic Gulf waters.Iran shot down an unmanned U.S. aircraft in June, after which Trump announced that he had called off retaliatory air strikes at the last minute because the resulting death toll would have been too high.The U.S. and Gulf powerhouse Saudi Arabia have accused Iran of being behind multiple attacks on tankers in the Gulf in June, which Iran denies.On July 19, a British-flagged tanker was impounded by Iran’s Revolutionary Guards with its 23 crew aboard in the Strait of Hormuz.The seizure was seen by London as a tit-for-tat move for British authorities detaining an Iranian tanker off the U.K. overseas territory of Gibraltar in early July.Efforts to save deal falter Efforts by European powers, notably France’s President Emmanuel Macron, to salvage the nuclear deal have so far come to nothing.The remaining signatories, however, have pledged to work toward a breakthrough at a future ministerial meeting, for which no date has yet been fixed.Referring to the need for a “preparatory meeting before the ministerial level meeting that will be necessary,” one European diplomat told AFP it was “imperative to talk to the Iranians after the proven violations of their commitments.”The European Union said earlier this week the extraordinary meeting would be chaired by the secretary general of the European External Action Service, Helga Schmid.It said the talks were requested by Britain, France, Germany and Iran and would examine issues linked to the implementation of Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), under which the 2015 deal is implemented.
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Hong Kong Protesters March to Protest Police Use of Force
Updated at 4:50 a.m.HONG KONG — A sea of black-shirted protesters, some with bright yellow helmets and masks but many with just backpacks, marched down a major street in central Hong Kong on Sunday in the latest rally in what has become a summer of protest.The march followed a short rally at Chater Garden, a park in the financial district, against the police use of tear gas, rubber bullets and other force to break up a protest the previous Sunday.Police had denied permission to the organizers to march to the Sheung Wan district, where the tear gas was used. In a surprise move, the protesters headed in the opposite direction.Chanting “Add oil,” a phrase that roughly means “Keep up the fight,” they walked past government and police headquarters. Their destination was unclear.Protesters face off against riot police at the entrance to a village at Yuen Long district in Hong Kong, July 27, 2019. Protesters wearing black streamed through Yuen Long, even though police refused to grant permission for the march.Seven weeks of protestsHong Kong has been wracked by protests for seven weeks, as opposition to an extradition bill has morphed into demands for the resignation of the city’s leader and an investigation into whether police have used excessive force in quelling the protests.Underlying the movement is a broader push for full democracy in the semi-autonomous Chinese territory. The city’s leader is chosen by a committee dominated by a pro-Beijing establishment, rather than by direct elections.In denying the march, police cited escalating violence in clashes with protesters that have broken out after past marches and rallies.“The police must prevent aggressive protesters from exploiting a peaceful procession to cause troubles and violent clashes,” said Superintendent Louis Lau of the police public relations branch.The police had denied permission for Saturday’s march in Yuen Long, where a mob apparently targeting demonstrators had beat people brutally in a train station the previous weekend.Ghost paper money usually tossed at funerals is left by protesters at the entrance to a village in Yuen Long district in Hong Kong, July 27, 2019.Protests into the nightProtesters and police faced off in the streets well into the night, as they’ve done repeatedly during the summer’s pro-democracy protests.Police said that protesters removed fences from roads to make their own roadblocks and charged police lines with metal poles. One group surrounded and vandalized a police vehicle, causing danger to officers on board, a police news release said.Officers fired tear gas and rubber bullets as demonstrators threw bricks and other objects and ducked behind makeshift shields.v Later, police wearing helmets charged into the train station where a few hundred protesters had taken refuge from the tear gas. Some officers swung their batons at demonstrators, while others appeared to be urging their colleagues to hang back. For the second week in a row, blood was splattered on the station floor.Police said in a statement they arrested 11 men, between the ages of 18 and 68, for offenses including unlawful assembly, possession of offensive weapon and assault. At least four officers were injured.The Hospital Authority said 24 people were taken to five hospitals. As of Sunday morning, eight remained hospitalized, two in serious condition.Riot police block a road into Yuen Long district in Hong Kong, July 27, 2019. Hong Kong police on Saturday fired tear gas and swung batons at protesters who defied warnings not to march in a neighborhood where earlier a mob brutally attacked people.Police criticizedAmnesty International, the human rights group, called the police response heavy-handed and unacceptable.“While police must be able to defend themselves, there were repeated instances today where police officers were the aggressors,” Man-kei Tam, the director of Amnesty International Hong Kong, said in a news release.Police said they had to use what they termed “appropriate force” because of the bricks and other objects thrown at them, including glass bottles with a suspected corrosive fluid inside.
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Little Free Pantry: A Source of Food And Hope
Canned soup, canned tuna, and pasta, among other things — everything you’ll find in an average American pantry, yet these little pantries are not in someone’s home but in the streets, open and accessible to anyone who needs them. Free Little Pantry is behind this initiative, a grassroots organization that was founded Arkansas two years ago, but has spread across the country. For VOA, Nataliya Leonova visited a few of these little pantries in the Washington area. Anna Rice narrates her story.
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Heat Wave Likely to Accelerate Ice Melt in Greenland
As Europe’s record-breaking heat wave drifts toward the Arctic, it threatens to accelerate the melting of ice in Greenland, which already started earlier than normal this year, climate scientists warned Saturday.After breaking records over Europe, the heat wave has swept over Scandinavia and is predicted to move toward Greenland, according to the World Meteorological Organization.“As it is forecast to move over the Arctic it will potentially bring a large amount of energy that will melt ice, both sea ice in the Arctic Ocean and the ice sheet surface over the next 3 to 5 days,” Ruth Mottram, a climate scientist with the Danish Meteorological Institute (DMI), told AFP.Early, warm melting seasonThat heat will add to a summer where the melting season started early and “persistent warm conditions have led to a very large loss of ice.”According to DMI’s models an estimated 170 metric gigatons of water have been added to the world’s oceans from melted ice and snow between July 1 to July 26.100 metric gigatons contribute to about 0.28 millimeters (0.01 inches) of global sea level rise.The expected average would be about 60 to 80 metric gigatons of ice over the same period.“So we’re well over what we would normally have,” Mottram said, emphasizing that the rate of melting can vary greatly from one year to the next.Summer 2012 set recordThere are fears that this year’s ice melt in Greenland could approach the record level set in 2012.In “2012 summer conditions were even more extreme and for several days there was quite intense melt all the way to the summit of the ice sheet at 3,000 meters (9,800 feet) above sea level,” Mottram said.A similar melting event has not been observed this year so far, but with the heat wave approaching Greenland there could be a repeat.Although the melting has been persistent this year, with relatively high temperatures day after day, “though within the normal range,” it is still unlike 2012 when melting was much more driven by “several very extreme melting days,” according to Mottram.But Mottram also noted that higher than average melting coincides with a trend of “increasing melt rates over the last two decades.”Melting ice in Greenland is also quite closely linked to global temperatures, meaning that as global temperatures rise, “we expect more melting to occur.”
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Minister: France Aims for US Digital Tax Deal by Late August
France wants to reach a deal with the U.S. on taxing tech giants by a Group of 7 meeting in late August, Economy Minister Bruno Le Maire said Saturday.He was responding to U.S. President Donald Trump, who on Friday vowed “substantial” retaliation against France for a law passed this month on taxing digital companies even if their headquarters are elsewhere.The law would affect U.S.-based global giants like Google, Apple, Facebook and Amazon, among others.Trump denounced French President Emmanuel Macron’s “foolishness,” though they discussed the issue by phone Friday, according to the White House.Macron confirmed that he had a long conversation with Trump, stressing the pair would “continue to work together in view of the G-7.”“We will discuss international taxation, trade and collective security,” he said Saturday.FILE – French President Emmanuel Macron speaks with US President Donald Trump at the G-20 Summit in Osaka, June 28, 2019. On Friday, Trump Macron of “foolishness” over a move to tax global tech giants, promising substantial retaliation.US companies not the targetHis office earlier said Macron had told Trump that the tax on the tech giants was not just in France’s interest but was something they both had a stake in.Neither side revealed if they had also discussed Trump’s threat to tax French wines in retaliation.Le Maire took the same line at a news conference Saturday: “We wish to work closely with our American friends on a universal tax on digital activities. We hope between now and the end of August — the G-7 heads of state meeting in Biarritz — to reach an agreement.”Leaders of the Group of Seven highly industrialized countries are to meet in the southwestern French city Aug. 24-26.Le Maire emphasized, “There is no desire to specifically target American companies,” since the 3% tax would be levied on revenues generated from services to French consumers by all of the world’s largest tech firms, including Chinese and European ones.US trade investigationBut Deputy White House spokesman Judd Deere noted earlier that France’s digital services tax was already the subject of an investigation at the U.S. Trade Representative’s office, potentially opening the door to economic sanctions.“The Trump administration has consistently stated that it will not sit idly by and tolerate discrimination against U.S.-based firms,” Deere said in a statement.The French law aims to plug a taxation gap that has seen some internet heavyweights paying next to nothing in European countries where they make huge profits, because their legal base is in smaller EU states.France has said it would withdraw the tax if an international agreement was reached, and Paris hopes to include all OECD countries by the end of 2020.The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development is a Paris-based forum that advises the world’s advanced economies.
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Africa’s Booming Cities Face Severe Toilet Crisis
MAKINDYE-LUKULI, UGANDA — The darkening clouds are ominous for many in this urban neighborhood, promising rushing rainwaters stinking of human waste from overflowing septic tanks.
As Africa faces a population boom unmatched anywhere else in the world, millions of people are moving to fast-growing cities while decades-old public facilities crumble under the pressure.
Sewage is a scourge for residents of this community on the outskirts of Uganda’s capital, Kampala. There are no public toilets for 1,200 people. Mud tinged with feces washes into homes during heavy rains.
The sanitation crisis echoes that of cities across the developing world. Some 2.5 billion people, most of them in Africa or Asia, lack access to adequate toilets, U.N. figures show. Governments are increasingly depending on private businesses and philanthropic groups to help manage human waste in cities that were never planned to handle so many people.
One of the fastest-growing cities in the world, Kampala is home to at least 1.5 million people, but authorities say over 3 million pass through daily, usually for work. Yet there are fewer than 800 pay toilets and only 14 free ones, many of them dilapidated with walls often smeared with feces. Kampala Capital City Authority workers remove garbage under a campaign encouraging people to keep neighborhoods clean, in Makindye-Lukuli, Uganda, July 10, 2019.Many people rush to malls to relieve themselves. Even in the buildings of government agencies the toilets are often kept under lock and key, apparently to discourage intruders.
Kampala’s urban sewer system covers less than 10 percent of the population, authorities say. When pit latrines and septic tanks are not safely built, they pose a serious health risk. They leak fecal waste that contaminates swamps and Lake Victoria, the city’s main water source, especially during the rainy season.
Less than 50 percent of the fecal sludge generated in Kampala safely reaches a waste treatment plant," said Angelo Kwitonda, a sewage engineer with the government.The rest of the volume is kept in our homes.”
Outbreaks of cholera and other waterborne diseases are common. Huge costs
Poor sanitation costs Uganda $177 million annually in economic losses linked to disease treatment and lost productivity as people search for places to relieve themselves, according to a World Bank report in 2012. Some 650,000 toilets need to be built to avoid open defecation, it said.
It could get worse. Africa’s urban areas contain 472 million people, a number that is expected to double over the next 25 years, according to a 2017 World Bank report .
The problem of sanitation is very big, so we have had to prioritize," said Najib Bateganya, a Kampala sanitation official who said authorities have been focusing first on improving sanitation in public schools. The next model is going to focus on entrepreneurship, toilets as business,” he said.
Authorities in Kampala have not constructed a single public toilet for years, though a plan exists to set up 200 toilets by 2025 with the support of donors such as the German development agency GIZ.
Kampala Capital City Authority workers empty latrines in Makindye Lukuli, Uganda, July 10, 2019.Private companies have been trying out solutions in poor, crowded neighborhoods such as Makindye-Lukuli, where trash piles up around tin-roofed homes.
A sanitation program backed by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation focuses on emptying septic tanks in households not easily reached by vacuum trucks, which are privately operated.
Using a tool resembling a giant syringe, men in safety suits pump fecal waste into drums that are emptied into a movable tank, for a tiny fraction of the roughly $50 that would be paid to a vacuum truck operator. ‘We must be vigilant’
Whenever it rains, always the unclean places suffer from cholera, so we must be vigilant," said village chairman Stephen Semanda, who encourages residents to report on each other under the new system. Residents receive a meter-long stick that they dip into their toilets. it comes out with anything on it, it means the toilet is now harmful to you,” he said. That’s when a so-called
Ifgulper" should be called in to pump. It is a good business,” she said after supervising the pumping of raw sewage from one stinking latrine.
Nearly two dozen groups operating in Kampala now provide the gulping services, said Winnie Kemirembe of the Gulpers Association of Uganda.
Similar innovations are being tried out elsewhere in Africa. In the West African nation of Burkina Faso, where open defecation is said to be the norm in many villages, the group WaterAid promotes a fundraising initiative under which prominent residents commit their own money toward building public toilets.
In Senegal, whose capital, Dakar, is vulnerable to flooding, aid groups have helped to construct toilets that break down waste onsite, turning it into compost and a source of renewable energy, said Yacine Djibo of SpeakUpAfrica, a Senegal-based group whose work includes advocacy for improved sanitation across the continent.
Other sanitation entrepreneurs in Africa are developing toilet models that might charge as little as 5 cents for an entire day’s use, an improvement on the traditional practice of charging users every time they walk in.
Joel Ssimbwa, a Ugandan businessman who operates private toilets in Kampala, said he is working with community leaders in heavily populated areas to launch a franchise that would allow an entire family to pay once for a day, and for multiple uses." The cheaper, the better,” he said.
Yet even that arrangement still may be unaffordable for the city's poorest residents, said Semanda, the village chief.
On a recent afternoon, he pointed to a neighboring hill where he said a cheap public toilet remained too expensive for some who linger outside, hoping for free entry.
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US Expands Women’s Basketball Training, Will Pay Players
LAS VEGAS — Sue Bird and Diana Taurasi want their USA Basketball legacy to be more than just winning medals.
The four-time Olympic gold medalists came up with an idea for a training plan for USA Basketball leading up to next year’s Tokyo Olympics that would help the Americans go for an unprecedented seventh consecutive title: USA Basketball, which usually trains together only for short periods of time during a crowded calendar, would get a core group of eight players together for five training sessions over the next year. The players would be paid $2,000 a day at each of the training camps and games leading up to the Olympics, with the chance to also earn bonuses.
USA Basketball loved the idea. The new training plan was announced on Saturday before the All-Star Game, with Bird, Taurasi, USA Basketball coach Dawn Staley and national team director Carol Callan in attendance.
“I think as you get closer to the end of your time, you understand you can 100% have an impact as a player. Go out there and move the needle on the court with your play and winning, but there are other ways that I would like to have an impact and one would be this,” Bird said. “Getting paid gives players, who want the option, to stay at home and not go overseas in the winter.”
Joining Bird and Taurasi for the training segments as part of the core group are Sylvia Fowles, Elena Delle Donne, Nneka Ogwumike, A’ja Wilson, Skylar Diggins-Smith and Chelsea Gray. The U.S. will also have a fluid group of players from the national team training pool join the core group. Playing overseas
Many of the U.S. players, including Bird and Taurasi, have played in the winter overseas, where they have been paid potentially 10 times their WNBA salaries. Finding time to train with USA Basketball has been difficult because of the overseas schedules and the WNBA schedule. If the players are paid by USA Basketball, they have more of a reason to stay here.
They can earn roughly $100,000 for participating in all the training sessions.
“It’s legitimate, they knew they had to do it that way,” said Ogwumike, who has played in Russia and China in the winter. “That investment is what the players want. It’s quite amazing to afford that type of opportunity. Not just the investment in us, but the strategic nature of hitting different markets. We’ll have traveling tournaments.
“I was in a moment where I played a half-season in China. Don’t know if I can go overseas again. I have so much available to me here, it would benefit me not to go overseas. For them to put that investment in, that’s huge.”
The U.S. will get together in late September for the FIBA America’s Cup. The Americans will then get together in November and February to train and play in FIBA Olympic qualifying tournaments. The U.S. already has qualified for the Tokyo Games by winning the World Cup last fall. The Americans will also play exhibition games against college teams to train in the fall and winter.
“Our three priorities are to train and prepare for the Olympics, amplify the profile of the women’s national team and raise the profile of women’s basketball as a whole by using the best players in the world,” USA Basketball CEO Jim Tooley told The Associated Press. “Besides training they’ll be auxiliary events around our training. We’ll do some clinics for Boys & Girls Clubs to spread the gospel of the women’s national team.”
Tooley said the training idea is a smaller version of what the U.S. did in 1995-96 that kicked off its run of success.
“That’s when our amazing run started,” he said. “It’s like bookends, almost.”
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