Two-month-old Lahya Kathembo became an orphan in a day. Her mother succumbed to Ebola on a Saturday morning. By sunset her father was dead, too.
They had been sick for more than a week before health workers finally persuaded them to seek treatment, neighbors said. They believed their illness was the work of people jealous about their newborn daughter, a community organizer said, and sought the guidance of a traditional spiritual healer.The Ebola outbreak in eastern Congo is ravaging Beni, a sprawling city of some 600,000, in large part because so many of the sick are choosing to stay at home. In doing so, they unknowingly infect caregivers and those who mourn them.Two-month-old Lahya Kathembo is carried by a nurse waiting for test results at an Ebola treatment center in Beni, Congo, July 17, 2019.”People are waiting until the last minute to bring their family members and when they do it’s complicated for us,” says Mathieu Kanyama, head of health promotion at the Ebola treatment center in Beni run by the Alliance for International Medical Action, or ALIMA. “Here there are doctors, not magicians.”Nearly one year into the outbreak which has killed more than 1,700 and was declared a global health emergency this month, a rise in community deaths is fueling a resurgence of Ebola in Beni. During a two-week period in July alone, 30 people died at home.
Health teams are now going door-to-door with megaphones trying to get the message out.”Behind every person who has died there is someone developing a fever,” Dr. Gaston Tshapenda, who heads the Ebola response in Beni for Congo’s health ministry, told his teams.Fear of treatment centersMany people still don’t believe Ebola is real, health experts say, which stymies efforts to control the disease’s spread.Ebola symptoms are also similar to common killers like malaria and typhoid, so those afraid of going to a treatment center often try to self-medicate at home with paracetamol to reduce fever.
But Ebola, unlike those other illnesses, requires the patient to be kept in isolation and away from the comfort of family.Dr. Maurice Kakule, who became one of this outbreak’s first Ebola patients after he treated a sick woman at his clinic, is now trying to make it easier for those who are ill to get help in and around Beni, near the border with Uganda.
He and other survivors, who are now immune to the disease, run a motorcycle taxi ambulance. After receiving a phone call for help they go to homes, reassure the sick and take them for medical care without infecting others.People’s most common fear is that they will only leave an Ebola treatment center in a body bag, Kakule says.An Ebola treatment center is seen next to the hospital in Beni, Congo, July 13, 2019.”Some have heard of the problem of Ebola but there have been no survivors in their family,” he said. “Since they had relatives die at a treatment center, they think people are killed there and that’s why they categorically refuse to go.”Humanizing careThey fear, too, that they will die alone, surrounded only by health care personnel covered in protective gear from head to toe.To try to humanize the care of patients in isolation, ALIMA’s Ebola treatment center in Beni places some patients in their own transparent room called a “CUBE,” where they can see visitors from their beds. Others share a room with one other patient and a glass window where loved ones can gather.
While there is no licensed treatment for Ebola, patients in eastern Congo are able to take part in clinical trials. That’s a welcome change from the 2014-2016 outbreak in West Africa when many patients entered Ebola centers never to come out alive again. More than 11,000 people died.Still, the measures needed to keep Ebola from spreading remain difficult for many people to accept.”We cannot be oblivious to the fact that when you’re sick with Ebola you’re put somewhere away from your family, with a 50% chance of dying alone from your loved ones,” said Dr. Joanne Liu, president of Doctors Without Borders, which is helping to fight the outbreak. “I don’t blame people for not finding this attractive, despite the fact that we have a clinical trial going on.”The day after the deaths of baby Lahya’s parents, a morgue team in protective clothing carried their carefully encased bodies to a truck for a funeral procession to a Muslim cemetery on the edge of town.
In the background was the sound of workers hammering away as they built more space at the nearby treatment center to accommodate the growing caseload.Lahya developed a fever but has tested negative for Ebola. The infant with round cheeks and gold earrings is in an orphanage for now, while her 3-year-old sister is being cared for by neighbors who hope to raise them both.But the sisters will have to wait a bit longer to be reunited — their adoptive father and former nanny both have tested positive for Ebola and are being treated.’I lost my entire family’The fateful decision to avoid treatment centers haunts survivors like Asifiwe Kavira, 24, who fell ill with Ebola along with eight of her relatives.Health teams came to the house in Butembo, trying to persuade them to seek treatment. Most of the family, though, said they wanted to treat their fevers at home. After three days of negotiations, Kavira finally agreed to seek help, believing she was on the brink of death.She would be the only one to survive.
Her mother, grandmother, brother and four other relatives all died at home. An older sister joined her at the treatment center, but medical care came too late.”I tell people now that Ebola exists,” Kavira says, “because that is how I lost my entire family.”
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Month: July 2019
Nadler: House Panel To Sue for Mueller Grand Jury Material
The House Judiciary Committee is expected to file a lawsuit Friday seeking secret grand jury material underlying former special counsel Robert Mueller’s report.Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler says his panel also will go to court next week to try to enforce a subpoena against former White House counsel Donald McGahn, a key Mueller witness.Nadler says Mueller’s House testimony this week showed there was “considerable collusion” between Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign and Russians and that Trump “engaged in multiple acts of obstruction of justice.”Nadler tells CNN his committee is pursuing the grand jury material to “lay the evidence in detail before the American people.”
Trump has denied there was any obstruction or collusion and has criticized Mueller’s probe. The White House has claimed “absolute immunity” for McGahn.
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Sweden Resists Trump’s Pressure to Free American Rapper A$AP Rocky
An extraordinary diplomatic dispute between the United States and Sweden has escalated with President Donald Trump alleging unfair treatment for a jailed American rap musician.Sweden is rejecting demands from Trump that it free Rakim Mayers, known as A$AP Rocky, who along with two other men, has been formally charged with assault after a street fight that was captured on video.Sweden’s prime minister, Stefan Löfven, has “explained and emphasized the complete independence of the Swedish judicial system, prosecutors and courts,” says Karin Olofsdotter, the Swedish ambassador to the United States. “In Sweden, everyone is equal before the law. The government is not allowed, and will not attempt, to influence legal proceedings.”The White House on Friday did not respond to a VOA query for comment on the Swedish reaction after Trump demanded a day earlier that the Swedes free the artist.”We do so much for Sweden but it doesn’t seem to work the other way around. Sweden should focus on its real crime problem!”Give A$AP Rocky his FREEDOM. We do so much for Sweden but it doesn’t seem to work the other way around. Sweden should focus on its real crime problem! #FreeRocky— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 25, 2019Trump also on Twitter accused the Swedish prime minister of “being unable to act,” adding he “has let down “our African American community in the United States.”Very disappointed in Prime Minister Stefan Löfven for being unable to act. Sweden has let our African American Community down in the United States. I watched the tapes of A$AP Rocky, and he was being followed and harassed by troublemakers. Treat Americans fairly! #FreeRocky— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 25, 2019Prosecutor Daniel Suneson says he’s pressing charges against the three suspects for assault, “because in my judgment what has happened amounts to a crime, despite the objections about self-defense and provocation.” FILE – Members of the entourage of US rapper Rakim Mayers, known by his stage name Asap Rocky, leave a courtroom after a hearing in his trial over a street brawl on July 5, 2019 in Stockholm.The rapper has been in custody since his arrest because he is considered a flight risk.On his Instagram account, however, Mayer alleges the attack was self-defense in response to a man and a second person, who were harassing women and hitting members of his staff.In video obtained by American celebrity news website TMZ, Mayers and two other men can be seen punching and kicking the victim on the ground.Celebrity and criminal justice activist Kim Kardashian West has thanked Trump, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and the president’s son-in-law and adviser, Jared Kushner, for their attention to the case.Trump’s intervention is criticized by some, though, who note the reputation of Sweden’s judiciary (ranking number 4 out of 126 countries World Justice Project’s 2019 Rule of Law Index), compared to other countries. Detractors also point out the U.S. president has been virtually silent about other high-profile cases..The opinion page editor of The Washington Post, Karen Attiah, calls it “absolutely absurd” Trump has reacted more angrily to Sweden’s prime minister over the rapper’s case than he did to Saudi Arabia over the killing of the newspaper’s writer, Jamal Khashoggi, a Saudi dissident and U.S. resident.Absolutely absurd that Trump has reacted more angrily to the Prime Minister of Sweden over the arrest of a rapper than to Saudi Arabia over the vicious killing of U.S. resident and @washingtonpost writer Jamal #Khashoggi. Signed, A Member of the “African American Community” https://t.co/JzpfwftvGb— Karen Attiah (@KarenAttiah) July 26, 2019Others allege a racial motive by the Swedes.”I don’t want to call the race card but that’s what it’s looking like. If it walks like a duck and it quacks like a duck, then it’s a duck,” said Renee Black, Mayers’ mother.Fellow rapper G-Eazy also contends Mayers’ treatment stems from racism, referencing his own arrest in the country a year earlier.”The difference between me and Rocky’s treatment and process in Sweden brings to mind two concepts that disgustingly go hand in hand: white privilege and systemic racism. Let’s call it what it is. He should not be behind bars right now. My heart goes out to my brother,” wrote G-Eazy on Instagram.G-Eazy, whose real name is Gerald Gillum, was arrested in Sweden for violence against a public servant, resisting arrest and possession of narcotics. The rapper pleaded guilty and was fined $8,400.Mayers is due in court Tuesday, and the trial is expected to last three days. He faces a maximum sentence of two years in prison.
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Growing Food Out of Thin (but Moist) Air in Nigeria
Tech savvy farmers in Nigeria are using a farming technique known as aeroponics, in which plants are grown in humid air. The practice is not well known in Nigeria, but those using it are on a mission to make it more popular. In the town of Abeokuta, the technique could make a big difference in a country where violence and desertification have made huge amounts of land unfarmable.Biochemist Samson Ogbole is popularly known as Nigeria’s smart farmer.He and his team are growing crops without soil at a tech-based farm they started three years ago in Abeokuta, in southwest Nigeria.Working to end food scarcityThey say they’re on a mission to eliminate seasonal food scarcity in Nigeria.“Because we’re the ones controlling everything that the plant requires, we’re not depending on seasons,” Ogbole said. “So it’s no longer seasonal farming, it is just farming anytime of the year, meaning we can plant anytime of the year, we can harvest anytime of the year.”But setting up the smart farm was not easy. It required startup capital of more than $180,000, Ogbole said.“We were called wizards, demons, that we are doing something unnatural. So it took a whole lot to try to convince people that there’s nothing demonic about what we are doing,” he added.Farming difficultiesIn Nigeria, about 30 million hectares of farmland is being cultivated, instead of 78.5 million hectares needed for food security.Widespread communal clashes, insurgency and desertification in the north are the top reasons arable land is lost.And only 49% of the cultivated land is fertile, a situation that worries traditional farmers like Abubakar Ibrahim.“I don’t have any other place that I’ll go to farm apart from here,” he said. “And here already the land has become weak. We’re just managing it for us not to stay idle.”No land neededIn contrast, aeroponics does not require land other traditional farm work. Nutrients for the plants are automatically regulated in a recycling system, greatly increasing productivity.Philip Ojo is director general of Nigeria’s National Agricultural Seeds Council. He says the government is encouraging new farming methods.“One very good thing that is actually very important, particularly when you’re using it for yam or cassava, you discover that you can rapidly multiply planting materials that you can use outside there,” he said. “So it’s one of those new technologies that we are even promoting.”Nigeria’s agricultural sector contributes about 40% of the country’s economic activities. The government wants to expand this percentage substantially.For the moment, most farmers lack the technical know-how to enhance productivity and do not have access to high quality seeds to guarantee better harvests.Tech savvy farmers like Ogbole are offering an alternative.
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Outsourcing Appears to be China’s Workaround for US Tariffs
China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is regarded globally as the most ambitious project ever designed for building connectivity infrastructure like roads, railways and ports. New research shows, however, that China is investing just one-third of the BRI funds in connectivity infrastructure and instead is allocating two-thirds of the money for energy projects.The investigation published by the Mercator Institute of China Studies (MERICS) in Berlin suggests that China is building energy facilities with the goal of relocating its surplus industrial capacity to nearly two dozen different countries, analysts said.”China’s initial focus on energy projects creates the preconditions for the next phase of the BRI: industrial build-up and new China-cantered supply chains,” MERICS said in its report, “Powering the Belt and Road.”A portion of Chinese factories have moved to Vietnam and other places in Southeast Asia because of shrinking demand and new environmental laws that have made it impossible for many of them to continue using old machinery. China did its best to convince beneficiary countries it was keen to develop their infrastructure, such as roads, railways and ports. As a result, a large-scale migration of industrial capacity was not expected.China’s goalsFILE – Work is in progress at a new international trade route near Havalian in Pakistan, May 11, 2017, as part of China’s ‘Belt and Road Initiative.’Shifting industries and producing goods in different countries would enable China to escape the tariff hikes imposed on it by the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump. The high tariffs already are causing serious setbacks for much of export-oriented industries in China. Those industrial sectors now are looking for alternative destinations that do not attract high tariffs from the U.S.There are other reasons related to the domestic economy that are prompting the outsourcing to other nations.”The Belt and Road was supposed to provide a runway for some excess capacity, but it may have allowed China’s bloated state-owned enterprises to delay much needed downsizing,” said Jonathan Hillman, senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington.Many of the BRI projects are “more geared toward China’s growth rather than the growth of the project’s host country,” said Ashley Johnson, project manager for Trade, Economic and Energy Affairs at the National Bureau of Asian Research (NBR).FILE – Men work on unloading the rubber imported from Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) countries at a bonded logistics center in Nantong, Jiangsu province, China, May 17, 2019.”These projects are usually constructed by Chinese firms, allowing for the use of excess materials, such as steel, and the ability to take advantage of its own products that have similarly cornered global markets, like solar panels,” she said.Johnson said China’s success in promoting the projects abroad is partly due to the huge unfulfilled demand of a billion people who still have no electricity. Developing and less developed countries are unable to find financial backing for coal-based projects because of the environmental risks involved.”China is filling a financing gap that many development banks cannot, or in the case of fossil fuel projects, will not support,” she said. “Whether the funding goes directly to energy or to connectivity projects more broadly, China is helping these countries meet short-term needs and this is welcomed by many.”Economic logicFaced with a slowing domestic economy and trade challenges from Washington, China is focusing on projects that can be completed in a short period and those that promise good return on investments. Electricity projects serve these requirements much better than long-term projects like roads, railways and ports.”Energy projects can be attractive because they provide more options for recouping investment, as compared to roads and railways,” Hillman of CSIS said.”But they face many of the same challenges, in terms of delays and cost overruns, and they can have additional environmental challenges,” he noted.NBR’s Johnson said China also is trying to strengthen its own energy security through these projects. “China is ensuring a diverse range of energy and electricity suppliers” by investing in oil and liquefied natural gas terminals, and electricity generation in neighboring countries.China has been an advocate of green development based on new energy sources like solar and wind power, in addition to the use of batteries in vehicles. But when it comes to BRI projects in other countries, Beijing thinks differently, according to MERICS.”China is encouraging its energy companies to seek contracts abroad without necessarily prioritizing any sector — Beijing is neither leading a ‘green’ revolution nor a fossil-fuel revival, but rather playing both sides,” the Berlin-based institute said.It also found that China’s energy projects are spread across vast regions. Latin America leads the rest in terms of the volume of completed investments, mostly into renewals and energy distribution. Southeast Asia boasts the highest number of projects, mostly coal-based plants.
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John Fogerty Pulls Out of Troubled Woodstock 50 Festival
John Fogerty has pulled out of Woodstock 50 just weeks before the troubled anniversary event is supposed to take place.A representative for the singer tells The Associated Press that Fogerty, who performed at the original 1969 festival with Creedence Clearwater Revival, will now only perform at a smaller anniversary event at Woodstock’s original site in Bethel, New York.Fogerty appeared alongside the original festival’s co-founder, Michael Lang, in March to announce that Jay-Z, Dead & Company and the Killers would perform at Woodstock 50, set for Aug. 16-18. The anniversary event has faced a series of setbacks, including the loss of a financial partner and permit denials.Fogerty will instead perform at the Bethel Woods Center for the Arts, which is holding its event during the same three-day weekend.
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Girls Report More Harassment Amid Rise in US Cyberbullying
Rachel Whalen remembers feeling gutted in high school when a former friend would mock her online postings, threaten to unfollow or unfriend her on social media and post inside jokes about her to others online.The cyberbullying was so distressing that Whalen said she contemplated suicide. Once she got help, she decided to limit her time on social media. It helps to take a break from it for perspective, said Whalen, now a 19-year-old college student in Utah.There’s a rise in cyberbullying nationwide, with three times as many girls reporting being harassed online or by text message than boys, according to the National Center for Education Statistics.The U.S. Department of Education’s research and data arm this month released its latest survey, which shows an uptick in online abuse, though the overall number of students who report being bullied stayed the same.“There’s just some pressure in that competitive atmosphere that is all about attention,” Whalen said. “This social media acceptance — it just makes sense to me that it’s more predominant amongst girls.”Many school systems that once had a hands-off approach to dealing with off-campus student behavior are now making rules around cyberbullying, outlining punishments such as suspension or expulsion, according to Bryan Joffe, director of education and youth development at AASA, a national school superintendents association.That change partly came along with broader cyberbullying laws, which have been adopted in states like Texas and California in recent years.The survey showed about 20%, or one in five students, reported being bullied, ranging from rumors or being excluded to threats and physical attacks in the 2016-17 school year. That’s unchanged from the previous survey done in 2014-15.But in that two-year span, cyberbullying reports increased significantly, from 11.5% to 15.3%.Broken down by gender, 21% of girls in middle and high school reported being bullied online or by text message in the 2016-17 school year, compared with less than 7% of boys.That’s up from the previous survey in 2014-15, the first time cyberbullying data was collected this specifically. Back then, about 16% of girls between 12 and 18 said they were bullied online, compared with 6% of boys.The survey doesn’t address who the aggressors are, though girls were more likely to note that their bullies were perceived to have the ability to influence others.Lauren Paul, founder of the Kind Campaign, said 90% of the stories she hears while working in schools are girls being bullied by other girls. The California-based nonprofit launched a decade ago to focus on “girl against girl” bullying through free educational programming that reaches about 300 schools a year.Paul recalls meeting one girl who was obsessive about her social media accounts because a group of girls excluded her if she did not get enough likes or follows in any given week. She went so far as to painstakingly create fake profiles just to meet her quota.“Most of the time — if not almost all the time — it’s about what’s going on with other girls,” Paul said. “It’s this longing to be accepted by their female peers specifically and feeling broken if they don’t.”Though Paul primarily hosts assemblies and workshop exercises at middle and high schools, she said there’s been more demand to help younger and older students in recent years. The Kind Campaign has gotten more requests for elementary school presentations and now also regularly gets called to universities to work with sororities.The latest national data may spark new conversations about “Mean Girls” behavior, Joffe said, referring to 2004 movie starring Lindsay Lohan.“It’s a school issue, but it’s just a reflection of broader societal issues,” Joffe said. “I’m not sure schools have any better answer than say, the Twitter company or Facebook. They’re also trying to find answers to what to do about abuses online.”Some tech companies also are taking a stab at what seems like an intractable problem.Instagram unveiled its latest feature this month that uses artificial intelligence to try to stop abuse. Users typing a potentially offensive comment on a photo or video will get a notification that reads: “Are you sure you want to post this?”Many school districts, meanwhile, are beefing up social-emotional learning curriculum beyond just teaching children how to share and express their feelings in the early grades.That’s something Manuela Slye, a Seattle mother with three teenagers, says is a must to prevent cyberbullying. The president of the Seattle Council Parent Teacher Student Association called on her school district to expand its “soft skills” lessons through high school, as is done in a neighboring school district.Seattle Public Schools is working to expand such offerings, though a district spokesman said there hasn’t been a noted rise in cyberbullying among its students.“There needs to be social-emotional development teaching before it goes to cyberbullying, before it goes to doing something online and anonymously, and before you have a problem with someone,” Slye said.
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Saudi Arabia Suspends Visas To People from Congo Over Ebola
Saudi Arabia has stopped issuing visas to people from Congo while citing the Ebola outbreak there, even as the World Health Organization recommends against travel restrictions.Some Muslims in Congo had planned to take part in the annual hajj pilgrimage in Saudi Arabia next month. A letter from the Saudi foreign ministry to Congo’s embassy in Riyadh, obtained by The Associated Press and dated Wednesday, says the kingdom made the decision to protect pilgrims and others.
The letter refers to the WHO decision this month to declare the Ebola outbreak in eastern Congo a global health emergency. More than 1,700 people have died in the year-long outbreak.Saudi Arabia also suspended visas during West Africa’s Ebola outbreak a few years ago.The decision affects anyone coming from Congo, including non-citizens.
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Boris Johnson’s Ancestral Turkish Village Abuzz With Excitement
A village in central Turkey where Boris Johnson traces his Turkish ancestry to is abuzz with excitement and pride over the news that a man they see as one of their own has become the new prime minister of Britain.Residents of the mainly farming village of Kalfat, in Cankiri province, 100 kilometers (62 miles) north of the Turkish capital Ankara, gathered at its main assembly place on Tuesday to celebrate after Johnson won a Conservative Party leadership contest triggered by the resignation of Theresa May, according to town administrator, Bayram Tavukcu. Johnson took office as British prime minister on Wednesday.Residents here dismiss as “political rhetoric” past comments by Johnson that were sometimes deemed to be anti-Muslim or anti-Turkish and said they hope that he will visit Kalfat while in office.“We were honored that someone who has Ottoman genes, who comes from these lands, has become the prime minister of a prodigious country,” said Adem Karaagac, the former administrator of the village of 1,300.Britain’s new Prime Minister Boris Johnson waves from the steps outside 10 Downing Street, London, Wednesday, July 24, 2019.Johnson’s paternal great-great-grandfather, Haci Ahmet Riza Efendi, was born there in 1813 and the house he lived in is still standing. The family members were known as the “Sarioglangiller” which roughly translate as “of the family of the blond boy,” Karaagac said, though it was not known if Johnson inherited his blond hair from his Turkish ancestry.Johnson is usually associated with the British upper middle class because of his family’s wealth and his education at the exclusive schools Eton and Oxford. But he has been known to bring up his Turkish roots whenever challenged about his ability to understand modern Britain’s multiethnic, multicultural nature. During a Conservative Party leadership debate in June, he defended himself against accusations of Islamophobia.“When my Muslim great-grandfather came to this country in fear of his life in 1912, he did so because he knew it was a place that was a beacon of generosity and openness and a willingness to welcome people from around the world,” Johnson said. “I think my Muslim great-grandfather would have been astonished to have found that his great-grandson had become foreign secretary. But he would have been very proud and I think it would be a tribute to this country.”Johnson explored his Turkish roots in a 2008 episode of the BBC genealogy program “Who Do You Think You Are?” When he visited Turkey as foreign minister in 2016, Johnson told journalists that his family was from Kalfat.The remains of an old house where the great great grandfather of Boris Johnson once lived in Kalfat, a village in the Cankiri province, 100 kilometers (62 miles) north of the Turkish capital Ankara, Turkey, July 25, 2019.At least six families currently residing at the village are distantly related to Haci Ahmet Riza Efendi, Karaagac said.Satilmis Karatekin, a distant cousin, said the village would look forward to hosting Johnson in the near future. Boris’ father, Stanley Johnson, visited Kalfat about 10 years ago.“An Englishman with Turkish ancestry has become the prime minister,” said Karatekin, whose grandmother, Fidan Karatekin, was Haci Ahmet Riza Efendi’s cousin. “He may be English, but he carries Turkish blood.”Haci Ahmet Riza Efendi’s son — Johnson’s great-grandfather — was the Ottoman political journalist Ali Kemal who later served as interior minister. Considered pro-British and a “traitor,” he was killed by a mob in 1922 during Turkey’s war of independence.Kemal’s son, Osman Wilfred — Johnson’s grandfather — was raised by his maternal grandmother, Margaret Johnson, in Britain after Kemal’s Swiss-British wife died and he returned to Turkey.When Johnson visited Turkey in 2016, he was given a warm welcome despite basing his Brexit campaign on the possibility that millions of Turks could enter Britain if Turkey joined the European Union and despite the fact that he had composed an offensive poem about Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.Erdogan was among the first leaders to congratulate Johnson this week and expressed hope the Turkish-British ties would flourish under Johnson’s government.Asked about Johnson’s comments on Turkey during the Brexit campaign, Kalfat’s former mayor Mustafa Bal said: “he had to say such things in the political arena, for political gains.”On the BBC show, Johnson described his heritage as being “like honey…or indeed, British sherry” adding “I am the produce of more than one country.” He took a trip to Istanbul to investigate Kemal’s career as a journalist, which led to his murder.Johnson told BBC journalists that “it must have been very, very tough for my grandfather . maybe it was just too ghastly for him” to know that his father was slain.
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Hong Kong Protesters Bring Demonstration to City’s International Airport
More than one thousand people staged a sit-in at the Hong Kong airport Friday, alerting visitors to the recent demonstrations in the metropolis, some of which have resulted in casualties.The demonstrators and airport staff, dressed in black also criticized the police response to attacks on pro-democracy protesters.Cellphone video that appeared on social media shows assailants alleged to be Triad gangsters attacking protesters with pipes and poles at a Hong Kong subway station Sunday.The protests stem from a call to end the now-suspended bill to extradite Hong Kong residents charged with criminal offenses to China for trial as well as demonstrations for democratic reforms and an end to Beijing’s tighter grip on the territory.Hong Kong executive Carrie Lam apologized for the turmoil the extradition bill has caused and declared it “dead.”Another march is planned for Saturday in Yuen Long, the neighborhood where a mob of white-clad men brutally attacked people at a rail station last Sunday following a large pro-democracy rally. Dozens were injured and six arrested, with police alleging some had gang ties.
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Heat Wave Sets New Temperature Records Across Europe
Temperature records are being broken across Europe as a heat wave grips the continent.Hot air moving from the Sahara region has caused temperatures to rise.Paris surpassed its heat record Thursday, with temperatures in the city reaching 42.7 degrees Celsius. Paris’ record had been set in 1947 at 40.4 degrees Celsius.In June, France experienced its hottest day on record, with temperatures reaching 47 degrees Celsius, causing the heat alert system to go to its maximum level of red for the first time.The Netherlands experienced its hottest day on record Thursday, with temperatures reaching 41.7 degrees Celsius. The previous record was set Wednesday, with temperatures reaching over 40 degrees Celsius in the Gilze Rijen municipality near the Belgian border.In Germany, heat records are also being broken, with temperatures reaching 42.6 degrees Celsius. The previous record was set Wednesday, with a high of 40.5 degrees Celsius in Geilenkirchen also near the Belgian border.Belgium also experienced its hottest day Thursday, with highs reaching 40.7 degrees Celsius, also in the western town of Beitem.Many public buildings in Europe lack air conditioning. Additionally, only 5% of homes have cooling units, according to reports.Trains across the continent have stopped, and authorities have advised people to seek cool environments.In Germany, Switzerland and Austria, some communities painted vital rail tracks white in hopes that the light color would bring down the temperature a few degrees.
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North Korea Announces Missile Test, Blasts S. Korean ‘Warmongers’
North Korea has formally announced its latest ballistic missile test, saying the launch was a warning to “military warmongers” in South Korea who are set to soon hold joint military exercises with the United States.North Korean state media showed pictures of Kim Jong Un personally supervising the Thursday test of what it called a “new-type tactical guided weapon.” U.S. and South Korean officials say the projectile was a short-range ballistic missile.The official Korean Central News Agency said the test was meant “to send a solemn warning to the south Korean military warmongers who are running high fever in their moves to introduce the ultramodern offensive weapons into south Korea and hold military exercise in defiance of the repeated warnings.”Complaints about South KoreaNorth Korea has repeatedly complained about South Korea’s recent acquisition of U.S. F-35 fighter jets, as well as upcoming U.S.-South Korea joint military exercises. Pyongyang has warned it may not resume working-level talks with the United States if the drills take place.“South Korean authorities show such strange double-dealing behavior as acting a ‘handshake of peace’ and fingering joint declaration and agreement and the like before the world people and, behind the scene, shipping ultra-modern offensive weapons and holding joint military exercises,” Kim was quoted as saying by KCNA.A view of North Korea’s missile launch Thursday, in this undated picture released by North Korea’s Central News Agency, July 26, 2019.New type of missileSouth Korea’s National Security Council expressed “strong concern” about the launch, which it determined was a “new type of short-range ballistic missile.” That is firmer than Seoul’s response after a similar North Korean launch in May. At the time, South Korea referred to the North Korean weapons as “projectiles.”The U.S. military command in South Korea also assessed that North Korea tested a “new type of missile for the DPRK,” using an acronym for North Korea’s official name. “These two short range ballistic missiles were not a threat directed at the ROK or the U.S., and have no impact on our defense posture,” the statement said.The test raises further doubts about working-level talks, which were supposed to resume shortly after last month’s meeting between Kim and U.S. President Donald Trump at the demilitarized zone separating the two Koreas.Trump, Pompeo optimisticIn an interview with the U.S. cable network Fox News, Trump was optimistic, saying he still gets along “very well” with Kim. “They haven’t done nuclear testing. They really haven’t tested missiles other than, you know, smaller ones. Which is something that lots test,” Trump said.In an earlier interview with Fox News, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said he still believes negotiations will start soon. “We’re working our way towards that. I think we’ll be able to pull that off in just a handful of weeks,” Pompeo said.“North Korea has engaged in activity before we were having diplomatic conversations far worse than this. … I think this allows negotiations to go forward. Lots of countries posture before they come to the table,” he said.Asked about Kim’s unveiling Tuesday of a newly built submarine that is apparently capable of handling nuclear-tipped ballistic missiles, Pompeo said: “We all go look at our militaries. And we all take pictures of them.”UN resolutionUnder United Nations Security Council resolutions, North Korea is banned from conducting any ballistic missile activity. But Trump administration officials have said they do not see North Korea’s short-range tests as a breach of trust.Kim last year declared a moratorium on intercontinental ballistic missile and nuclear tests. During their meeting at the DMZ last month, Kim also promised Trump that he would “continue to avoid launching intermediate range and long-range ballistic missiles,” Pompeo said Thursday.At a State Department briefing Thursday, spokesperson Morgan Ortagus said the Trump administration’s focus is on continued diplomatic engagement with North Korea.“And we continue to urge the North Koreans to resolve all of the things that the president and Chairman Kim (Jong Un) have talked about through diplomacy. We urge no more provocations, and that all parties should abide by our obligations under Security Council resolutions.”FILE – U.S. President Donald Trump, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and South Korean President Moon Jae-in leave a meeting at the demilitarized zone separating the two Koreas, in Panmunjom, South Korea, June 30, 2019.Trump and Kim have held three meetings since June of last year. At their first meeting, both men agreed to work toward the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula. But neither side has agreed on what that idea means or how to work toward it.North Korea wants the United States to provide security guarantees and relax sanctions in exchange for partial steps to dismantle its nuclear program. Washington has insisted it will not ease sanctions unless Pyongyang commits to totally abandoning its nuclear program.North Korea has given the United States until the end of the year to change its approach to the talks. Trump insists he is in no hurry to reach a deal, insisting his friendship with Kim will eventually persuade the young North Korean leader to give up his nuclear weapons.
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Taiwanese ‘Graffiti Village’ Eases Elderly Loneliness
Nestled in the mist-covered foothills of Taiwan’s central mountain range, Ruan Chiao village is virtually devoid of young people, but artist Wu Tsun-hsien is coaxing the Instagram generation back by transforming local homes into a canvas of color.Dipping his brush into a tin of beige emulsion, he carefully applies new layers of paint to his latest production, a vibrant rural scene depicting farmers in traditional weave hats tending to a flock of animals.Behind him, an elderly villager with a walking stick shuffles his way down the main street, which is plastered with Wu’s colorful paintings.“This village is full of old people,” the 55-year-old laments, explaining how the vast majority of youngsters, including his own children, have moved to the city, leaving elderly residents listless and lonely.A local resident walks past a wall painted by Hakka graffiti artist Wu Tsun-hsien in the Taiwanese village of Ruan Chiao, March 30, 2019.But paintings have started to bring young visitors — always keen for a selfie in a photo-friendly location — back.“These drawings attracted many tourists to come and visit. The old people who were left here are no longer so bored. This was my biggest gain,” he beams.Wu is not alone in this adopting this strategy.There are now some half a dozen so-called “graffiti villages” in Taiwan that have been festooned with artwork in a bid to inject some life into rural places that have been emptied of their young.A local resident walks past a house painted by Hakka graffiti artist Wu Tsun-hsien in the Taiwanese village of Ruan Chiao, March 30, 2019.Empty villagesLike many industrialized places, Taiwan’s remarkable economic transformation over the past few decades has upended rural communities and unleashed huge demographic changes.“It’s perhaps a more recent phenomenon than it would have been in some other places,” explains Shelley Rigger, an expert on Taiwan at Davidson College in North Carolina, who said much of Taiwan’s industrial manufacturing stayed in the villages.“People sewed Barbie doll clothing in their houses and then carried it down to a packaging plant in the middle of a village,” she tells AFP, as an example.Ruan Chiao village, for example, used to churn out paper temple offerings.But once much of the manufacturing shifted to mainland China in the late 1990s and Taiwan moved up the value chain, many of those jobs left.“That’s when you see rural areas kind of emptying out,” Rigger adds.A dog sleeps, March 30, 2019, in the courtyard of a house painted by Hakka graffiti artist Wu Tsun-hsien in the Taiwanese village of Ruan Chiao.Aging countryTaiwan’s population of 23 million is also rapidly aging. The birth rate has plummeted — only 180,000 children were born last year, an eight-year low.The Wu family have experienced this flight first hand.The ancestral home is occupied by his wife’s father, 81, and mother, 72, who still work a few plots of land in the hills above the village growing organic vegetables. But Wu’s own children both went to university and have left, one to Australia, the other to a nearby city.Wu’s wife Fan Ai-hsiu explains their bid to draw Instagram-happy crowds of youngsters was less about economics and more about giving her parents something to look forward to.“They want to have conversations with people, that’s what they miss, it’s not about money,” Fan says.But it was not initially an easy task to persuade fellow villagers to use their houses as a canvas.“People here are fairly conservative,” she recalls, adding: “But once the first few paintings went up, they could see it brought people in.”A wall painted by Hakka graffiti artist Wu Tsun-hsien in the Taiwanese village of Ruan Chiao, March 30, 2019.Political themesMost of Wu’s paintings in the village stick to rural pastiches or traditional symbols of good fortune.It is the family home where he really gets to express himself, and which has quickly drawn a mass following on social media.Perched on a slope overlooking the village, the whole house is covered in images, many of which detail Wu’s politics.He’s an avid believer that not enough is being done to tackle climate change, so some of the scenes show apocalyptic scenes of environmental devastation.Others are commentaries on social issues like gay marriage — which he opposes — or how the elderly are treated in an increasingly consumerist society.“This mural depicts the present Taiwanese corrupt society,” Wu remarks as he walks along a huge painted wall featuring hundreds of images.“This one is society’s mayhem due to mobile phones, computers and television … and this one is our cultural loss where many of our Hakka young generations don’t know the culture,” he adds.Hakka graffiti painter Wu Tsun-hsien poses in an empty old house near his home in the Taiwanese village of Ruan Chiao, March 30, 2019.Distinct groupThe Hakka are a linguistically distinct group of people who trace their origins back to southern China. They have lived in Taiwan for some four centuries and make up 15-20% of the population.Evelyn Sun puts on art and food events in Taipei and found out about Wu’s paintings via social media.She visited with friends who all soon found themselves sitting around a table with the Wu family, eating traditional Hakka vegetable dishes and tucking into eggs boiled in a secret recipe of local herbs.The 25-year-old enthuses: “Taiwan has many ‘graffiti villages’ that are beautiful scenic spots where people will just leave after taking pictures.”“But I realized when I came here that every mural here is depicting a social problem faced by society.”A man stands in front his home painted by Hakka graffiti artist Wu Tsun-hsien in the Taiwanese village of Ruan Chiao, March 30, 2019.She hopes other young Taiwanese will explore the nation’s rural villages more often.She explains: “These people are our culture, they are our history, we have to get to know them.”
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Russian Opposition Leaders Remain Determined Despite Raids, Arrest
RFE/RL contributed to this report.Despite the arrest of a top Kremlin critic and police raids on the homes of several political activists, opposition leaders in Russia remained determined to go ahead with a planned protest in Moscow on Saturday.Opposition leader Alexei Navalny was ordered jailed Wednesday for 30 days for calling “unauthorized protests” for this weekend to protest the disqualification of several opposition-minded candidates from the Sept. 8 Moscow city council elections.Election officials have barred about 30 independent candidates from the ballot, saying some of the 5,500 signatures they needed to get on the ballot were invalid. The rejected candidates say the reason for not validating the signatures is to keep genuine independents off the ballots and ensure the ruling United Russia party and others who do President Vladimir Putin’s bidding maintain dominance.Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, who is charged with participation in an unauthorised protest rally, attends a court hearing in Moscow, July 1, 2019.“If the United Russia swindlers don’t register the independent candidates and spit on the opinions of the citizenry, then all of us … will come to the mayor’s office at Tverskaya 13,” Navalny wrote on a social media post earlier this week.Last weekend, more than 20,000 people marched in the streets of Moscow to protest the disqualifications. That’s when Navalny called for an even bigger rally Saturday.Mass protestsRejected candidate Lyubov Sobol, a lawyer with Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation, also called for mass protests after a meeting between the disqualified candidates and Central Election Commission (CEC) Chairwoman Ella Pamfilova.The Russian authorities appear to be adopting a carrot-and-stick approach as the July 27 demonstration nears. Pamfilova met with the opposition candidates and heard their complaints — one of which was that Moscow election officials had refused to meet with them and hear their complaints.Pamfilova promised to consider the complaints of the disqualified candidates, but warned them that the CEC does not have the authority to overturn decisions of the Moscow Election Commission. She said the law grants local election commissions such autonomy to prevent Moscow from exerting influence on them.Pamfilova also urged candidates not to participate in protests, saying “the influence of street protests on the CEC is zero.”Navalny was arrested just hours after the meeting with Pamfilova.On the ballotSixteen regions will choose governors in Russia’s Sept. 8 elections, including the city of St. Petersburg. Fourteen regions and the city of Moscow will select legislative assemblies, and 21 other cities will choose municipal councils.United Russia has entered the election season with a record-low public approval rating. Analysts and Kremlin critics say the authorities are resorting to numerous “dirty tricks” and other tactics to ensure the party maintains the grip on power it has enjoyed through most of Putin’s nearly two decades at the country’s helm.
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Ready to Fight: Biden Leans into Racial Debate With Democrats
Joe Biden no longer plans to turn the other cheek.
His front-running status fragile, the former vice president is embracing an aggressive plan to confront Democratic rivals who have tried to undermine his popularity with black voters.
After ignoring his Democratic competition for much of the year, Biden and his team shrugged off the risks Thursday and leaned into a deliberate campaign to push back against New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker and California Sen. Kamala Harris, the only high-profile African-American candidates in the race.
Biden’s team highlighted Booker and Harris’ past praise of Biden while raising questions about their own records related to race. And Biden’s allies made clear that the former vice president was prepared for a fight in next week’s debate. They also point to numerous surveys showing Biden with durable support among black voters that far exceeds that of Booker or Harris.
“He’s going to forcefully defend his record and not let it get distorted,” declared Cedric Richmond, a Louisiana congressman and national co-chairman of Biden’s campaign. The comments echoed Biden’s own from the night before in Detroit when he warned his competitors that he was “not going to be as polite” in the upcoming prime-time faceoff, where Biden will share the stage with both Booker and Harris.
Biden’s shift underscores the escalating racial rift roiling the Democratic primary just days after President Donald Trump issued racist calls for four female congresswomen of color to leave the country, even though all of them are American citizens. For Democrats, the evolving fight represents an unwelcome distraction away from Trump’s record.
In some respects, however, it is only beginning.Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., speaks during a candidates forum at the 110th NAACP National Convention, July 24, 2019, in Detroit.
Both Harris and Booker have hit Biden in recent weeks by highlighting his support for criminal justice reform that disproportionately hurt the minority community and his willingness to cooperate with segregationist senators in the 1970s, among other trouble spots from his nearly four-decade career in Congress. Booker this week called Biden the “architect of mass incarceration” for his support of a crime bill in 1994.
Biden struggled to defend himself against Harris on race in the first debate, but his team insists he won’t be caught off guard again.
The strategy marks a critical test for Biden, who has worked in the past month, with varying degrees of success, to stress his eight-year partnership with President Barack Obama over a 36-year Senate career he long saw as worthy of the presidency.
In the past month, he has sought to move beyond those early Senate years, attempting to untangle himself from awkward comments lauding his collaboration with segregationist colleagues and his opposition to federally mandated busing. Instead, he has stressed key roles alongside Obama and married his own policy proposals to gains made during that administration.
During a speech in South Carolina last month, he apologized for anguish caused by the segregationist comments, but also said he did not plan to relitigate in 60-second debate answers his long Senate career, a sentiment reflected in some supporters’ observations that Biden has appeared defensive or dismissive.
Biden’s preemptive criticism of Booker’s time as Newark, New Jersey, mayor suggests Biden sees value in a level of defiance. But in some cases, he has come off as defensive and dismissive, even to his supporters.
In an interview, the Rev. Al Sharpton, whose support many candidates covet to help win votes from African Americans, said he didn’t know if Biden could execute the delicate strategy.
“In the past he has had fumbles. We’ll see if he can operate with discipline now,” Sharpton said. He needs to be cautious.''I say from my personal experience that the Biden family truly represents our nation’s highest ideals, a powerful belief in the nobility of public service,” she said.
Indeed, Biden's strategy pits an older white male against two younger people of color at a time when the Democratic Party's most passionate voters are demanding a new generation of diverse leaders.
So far, Biden can take comfort in polls that show him with a commanding edge among black voters. A survey released Thursday by Monmouth University found that 39% of likely South Carolina Democratic voters supported Biden. That was more than any other candidate — including Harris, who had support from just 12%, and Booker, with 2%. Biden's support was particularly strong among black voters, winning 51%.
Biden strategist Kate Bedingfield used his strong support from black voters as ammunition to attack Booker on social media on Thursday, tweeting pictures of poll results that showed Biden far ahead of Booker among black voters.
The day before, she released a statement condemning Booker's tenure as mayor of Newark, where, she said, he ran "a police department that was such a civil rights nightmare that the U.S. Department of Justice intervened.' She also highlighted Booker's "zero-tolerance" policy for minor infractions and a stop-and-frisk policy that disproportionately hurt African Americans.
Biden himself noted this week that Harris has been a vocal supporter long before she used his record on school busing to attack him in the first debate.Democratic presidential candidate, Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., speaks during a candidates forum at the 110th NAACP National Convention, July 24, 2019, in Detroit.
At the 2016 California Democratic convention, Harris heaped praise on then-Vice President Biden.
To complement the campaign against his Democratic opponents, Biden has also tweaked his message on the campaign trail.
Since the first debate, he has almost completely dropped references to his Republican friendships and focused instead on his eight years as President Barack Obama’s vice president.
“I think anybody in this race would love to have the record of achievement alongside Barack Obama that Joe Biden has,” Bedingfield said. “If they want to tear it down, I’d say best of luck to them.”
Democratic strategist Antjuan Seawright worries about the long-term consequences of sustained Democratic attacks on Biden’s commitment to minority communities, who will play a vital role in the November 2020 general election. Still, he says Biden has a real opportunity to project strength ahead of a prospective general election matchup against Trump.
“When you get swung at, you don’t have to swing back, but you also have to show that you know how to fight,” he said.
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Factbox: The 5 Men Scheduled to Die as Federal Executions Resume
The U.S. government plans to resume executions after a 16-year hiatus, picking five killers of children to be the first to die.The five men — four white and one black — range in age from 37 to 67. They are being held in a high-security federal prison in Terre Haute, Indiana, where they will be executed.Here is a look at the five men and their crimes:Daniel Lee, 46, is scheduled for execution Dec. 9.Lee, a white supremacist, was convicted in 1999 for killing an Arkansas gun dealer, along with his wife and 8-year-old daughter.Lezmond Mitchell, 37, is scheduled for execution Dec. 11.Mitchell was convicted in 2003 for killing a 63-year-old grandmother and her 9-year-old granddaughter in Arizona. After stabbing the grandmother to death, Mitchell and his accomplice forced the child to sit next to the body for a more than 50-kilometer drive, before fatally slashing her throat.Wesley Purkey, 67, is scheduled for execution Dec. 13.Purkey was found guilty in 2003 for raping and killing a 16-year-old girl before dismembering and burning her body in Missouri. Months before that murder, Purkey had used a hammer to kill an 80-year-old woman who suffered from polio.Alfred Bourgeois, 55, is scheduled for execution Jan. 13, 2020.Bourgeois was found guilty by a Texas court in 2004 of the murder of his 2-year-old daughter. Witnesses, including family members, told the court that Bourgeois had repeatedly beaten the child before her death. An autopsy found the girl had sustained more than 300 injuries. Bourgeois is the only African American man on the list.Dustin Honken, 51, is scheduled for execution Jan. 15, 2020.Honken was found guilty in 2004 for the shooting deaths of five people in Iowa, including two men, a single mother and her daughters, ages 6 and 10. The Justice Department has said the two men were drug dealers who planned to testify against Honken, a methamphetamine dealer.
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Islamic State Claims Aid Workers’ Kidnap in Northeast Nigeria
Islamic State’s West Africa branch on Thursday claimed responsibility for kidnapping six aid workers in northeast Nigeria.International aid agency Action Against Hunger said that a staff member and five others kidnapped in Nigeria last week had appeared in a video released on Wednesday evening and that they were “apparently in a good condition of health.”Islamic State in West Africa (ISWA), which split from Nigerian Islamist group Boko Haram in 2016, claimed responsibility for the kidnap in a tweet published by the SITE monitoring group.The group has carried out a number of attacks in the northeast over the last few months, including on military bases.It killed a kidnapped aid worker nine months ago.Action Against Hunger said in a statement that the people were abducted last week near the town of Damasak in northeast Nigeria, where the insurgents were active.”Action Against Hunger strongly requests that our staff member and her companions are released,” said the agency.The video was published by The Cable, a Nigerian news organisation, and showed a woman sitting on the floor who identifies herself as “Grace”. Five men sit around her, some with their heads bowed.Behind them is a sheet with the logo of the United Nations refugee agency UNHCR.”We were caught by this army called the Calipha,” she said, before asking that the Nigerian government and Action Against Hunger secure their release. “We don’t know where we are.”Separately, the Nigerian presidency said in a statement that the government was negotiating for the release of the kidnapped aid workers.A source told Reuters that a driver was killed during the kidnap and that all six abductees were Nigerians.
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The Pits: How China’s US Tariff Jab Choked a Cherry Import Boom
For public relations officer Rachel Li, paying top dollar for “beautiful” cherries imported from the United States was a no-brainer.”I heard they are full of iron,” said the Guangzhou-based 33-year-old, “eating them makes me feel healthy, luxurious.” Or it did, until Beijing imposed sky-high tariffs on U.S. cherries and importers took fright, leaving store shelves bereft and consumers like Li needing a different fruit fix.Across China’s metropolises, the appetite of a burgeoning middle class for expensively fresh U.S. cherries has become a symbolic casualty of China’s festering, tit-for-tat trade battle with the United States. A business that grew to nearly $200 million in 2017 from zero in 2000 has now withered to little more than a tenth of its volume peak, customs data shows.With import tariffs for U.S. cherries set at 50%, Beijing has relaxed regulations allowing imports from Central Asia – a region that just happens to be central to President Xi Jinping’s epic ‘Belt and Road’ infrastructure project, an intercontinental initiative worth hundreds of billions of dollars.”It’s an opportune time for China to fiddle with the knobs and to do so in a way that builds economic ties and offers a new market for ‘Belt and Road’ partners,” said Even Pay, senior agriculture analyst at Beijing-based advisory firm China Policy.China’s Ministry of Commerce didn’t immediately respond to a fax requesting comment.May was the last month for which figures were available at the time of writing, typically the first big month in China’s cherry import season. Supplies from Uzbekistan leapt to nearly half of the May total, Reuters’ calculations show, from zero a year earlier, while the U.S. share of the cherry import pie shrank to 38% from nearly 80% in May 2018 – and a near monopoly in May 2017.But total cherry imports into China by volume have plummeted because of the collapse of U.S. shipments: 187 tons in May 2019, versus 337 tons in May 2018 and 1,505 tons in May 2017.Uzbek cherries sell at about 70-80 yuan per kilogram (kg) at retail level, according to four fruit traders, no more than half the 160 yuan ($23.28) per kg that Rachel Li said she happily remembers stumping up for her sweet U.S. cherries.No matter the price, though, the volumes now being shipped in are so small that Li said she hasn’t seen imported cherries for weeks. A search by Reuters for U.S. cherries at a supermarket and smaller groceries in downtown Shanghai on a recent weekday came up empty-handed.’Impossible to Develop’For Victor Wang, the China representative of U.S. Northwest Cherry Growers, it’s now a case of trying keep head above water.Wang said it took 17 years of marketing and government lobbying to help make U.S. cherries some of the most coveted fruits in China – at one stage his suppliers were even exporting more to China than across the border to Canada. But that all changed in 2018, when two rounds of Chinese tariff hikes added 40 percentage points to import charges.FILE – Models take a selfie during a promotional event of Northwest Cherries from the United States at a shopping mall in Shenzhen, China, July 8, 2018.”With such exorbitant costs after the tariff hikes, and impact of a strengthening dollar, it’s impossible to develop the market – we are at best maintaining it for now,” said Wang.Making life harder, Wang said, is the fact that the association has also struggled to advertise the U.S. fruit this year. He said many Chinese media and business partners, including Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba, have declined to provide coverage or to run promotions.Alibaba confirmed that U.S. cherry promotions were halted but rejected any suggestion that was related to U.S.-China tensions. It said the move was due to “market-related factors,” including seasons, holidays and unspecified business opportunities.”Any speculation tied to the current geopolitical climate is groundless,” the retailer said in a statement sent to Reuters.’Belt and Road’ Rules RelaxedJust as U.S. supplies shriveled, Beijing has relaxed a requirement for cherries from ‘Belt and Road’ partners Uzbekistan and Turkey to undergo up to 21 days of pre-shipment cold treatment, making exports easier by allowing fumigation as a pest control measure.That’s opened a trade window not lost on businessmen like Zhu Jianfeng, general manager of Zhejiang Fishing E-Commerce Co., who said he has been investing in unspecified projects in Uzbekistan for years and has “very close ties” with the domestic government.For the first time this year, Zhu’s company imported 300 tons of cherries from Uzbekistan, with plans to boost the volume to 5,000-10,000 tons in 2020.Zhu acknowledged a lack of processing technology in Uzbekistan, saying the cherries are sent by air and have a shelf life of up to five days; U.S. cherries, in contrast, last for up to two weeks when transported by air. Zhu said he planned to help the Uzbek industry upgrade by increasing investment in production lines.Back in Guangzhou, Rachel Li said she’s switched her quest for health and luxury through fruit from cherries to avocados.While market data suggests the produce she’s buying is most likely from Peru, Li said she had stopped paying much attention to where the fruit is from.($1 = 6.8736 Chinese yuan renminbi)
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Philip Morris Launches First Africa Store to Spark Alternative Cigarettes Demand
The South African unit of cigarette maker Philip Morris International opened its first flagship store in Johannesburg on Thursday, as it tries to grow demand in Africa for its alternative heated tobacco product IQOS.The store in Sandton gives Philip Morris access to tourists and business people from Africa who frequent Africa’s richest square mile, allowing it to use its retail footprint as a springboard to expand in the rest of the continent.”If you look at Sandton, it’s the business hub of South Africa and Africa as well so it’s the one place where we need to start with our permanent flagship store,” Philip Morris South Africa Managing Director Marcelo Nico told Reuters at the sidelines of the launch.South Africa is the first and only market in Africa where Philip Morris sells IQOS, an acronym for “I quit ordinary smoking,” which the company says contains up to 95% fewer toxic compounds than regular cigarettes.”We are bringing the first experience of commercializing this technology on the African continent and the objective is, based on this experience over time, roll it out in the rest of the continent,” Nico said.IQOS heated tobacco products are seen on display as cigarette maker Philip Morris International launches its first flagship boutique store in Sandton, Johannesburg, South Africa, July 25, 2019.Philip Morris, maker of Marlboro cigarettes, launched a pilot store in Cape Town in late 2017, which operated for about a year, to test the market’s appetite, Nico said. Over time it plans to return to Cape Town with a permanent store.The firm began selling IQOS in 2017 in South Africa with the affordable 2.4 model and later launched the IQOS 3 and MULTI in November last year.Unlike traditional smoked cigarettes, IQOS devices electronically heat tobacco-filled sticks wrapped in paper just enough to generate an aerosol that contains nicotine. They are different from e-cigarettes such as the popular Juul device, which vaporizes a nicotine-filled liquid.The 160-square-meter (1,722-square-foot) store’s interior is minimalistic with lounge couches, bright lighting and an information section, where consumers are shown the different effects of burnt cigarettes and IQOS through a machine that emits a white cloudy smoke for IQOS and brownish smoke for normal cigarettes.Consumers can also hold their phones up to the large picture displays in the store in order to get detailed information, demonstrations and videos about the product.An estimated 70% of South African adults who have switched to the product since the launch have converted fully to IQOS, the company said in 2018.One such adult is 33-year-old Evans Manyonga, who started using IQOS two years ago because he was “coughing a lot” from cigarettes and has since converted two of his friends.”I don’t smell of cigarettes. I don’t cough. It’s smoother and classier,” Manyonga, who has been smoking for 10 years, told Reuters at the store’s opening.Neil Borthwick, who was trying IQOS for the first time at the launch, said, “you can smoke it anywhere without smoke or ash and it gives you that same satisfaction that you have with a normal cigarette.”
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All Sewn Up? Vietnam Garment Makers Face Hitches in Lucrative EU Trade Deal
For Tran Nhu Tung, Vietnam’s newly signed free trade deal with the European Union presents both huge opportunity, and a logistical headache.The vice chairman of Thanh Cong Textile Garment Investment Trading (TCM) in Ho Chi Minh City is planning a rapid expansion in anticipation of the influx of orders the tariff-slashing EU-Vietnam Free Trade Agreement (EVFTA) promises to bring.”The EVFTA is the game changer that will pave the way for Vietnamese garments to dominate the European market,” Tung said amid the clack of thousands of sewing machines in the metal-roofed factory on the outskirts of Vietnam’s commercial center.Analysts say garments, worth around 10% of Vietnam’s exports and currently subject to EU tariffs of around 9%, will be by far the biggest beneficiary of the EVFTA finalized last month.The EU is already Vietnam’s second largest garment market after the United States, accounting for 15% of the country’s total garment exports last year, Vietnam Customs data shows.Tung expects orders at his factory, which produces company uniforms and sportswear, to increase by at least 15% once the EVFTA, which will reduce duties on nearly half of all garment products to zero, is ratified by the European Parliament.European Commissioner for Trade Cecilia Malmstrom, Romania’s Business, Trade and Enterpreneurship Stefan Radu Oprea and Vietnam’s Industry and Trade Minister Tran Tuan Anh attend the signing ceremony of EVFTA in Hanoi, June 30, 2019.Vietnam a key linkVietnam, backed by more than a dozen free trade agreements, has emerged as a key link in the global manufacturing supply chain.Last December, Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc told a Hanoi business forum that Vietnam had become “one of the world’s big factories.”That capacity, however, is being tested by growing demand — both from the EVFTA and the global disruption of trade caused by the U.S.-China trade war which has seen some manufacturing shift from China to Vietnam and other nearby countries.Staff shortages have already started to manifest in Vietnam’s garment industry, where the vast majority of manufacturers are focused on the labor-intensive sewing and cutting process which makes the Southeast Asian country a popular outsourcing destination for foreign fashion companies.Low pay and long hours are making it hard to meet the new factories’ growing demand for workers, which has increased by 7% since 2018, according to Ho Chi Minh City-based recruitment firm Navigos Search.”This industry always lacks human resources especially high-level employees who have specialized skills,” Navigos managing director Mai Nguyen told Reuters.For TCM’s Tung, who is poised to open a new dyeing plant to keep up with orders, this means embarking on the difficult task of finding a chemical engineer who can lead his next operation.”Finding people to operate dyeing or weaving machines is easy. They are workers, and we can train them,” said Tung. “But finding experienced chemical engineers with a thorough knowledge of chemistry and dyeing is rare.””I can count them on one hand,” Tung added.Sew what?The EVFTA presents another challenge for Vietnam’s garment industry: Strict rules on the country of origin for materials — or the “double transformation” of goods.For manufacturers like Tung, this means both the textile and the finished product itself should be Vietnamese or from a country with which the EU already has a free trade agreement in order to be tariff-free.That’s in part because of strong lobbying from European manufacturers who are already struggling against cheap imports from the likes of China.At a 2013 hearing, European garment manufacturers expressed concern that an FTA with Hanoi could pave the way for cheap Chinese textiles to enter the European market after being transformed into garments in Vietnam. Worried about ChinaItalian textile manufacturers and the European Apparel and Textile Confederation (Euratex) acted during the negotiations to prevent Chinese products that had undergone a finishing process in Vietnam from entering the EU without duties.They also fought to delay the removal of duties for a certain period of time after signing the deal to prevent a sudden flood of Vietnamese products into the European market.”In conclusion, considering the starting conditions, we were able to contain any damage,” Sistema Moda Italia, the federation of Italian textile and fashion manufacturers, said in a statement.Currently, nearly 70% of the raw materials used in Vietnamese garment manufacturing are sourced from overseas, especially China, according to official data. Clothing makers in Vietnam say few can afford the expensive process of producing their own raw materials.”We have no intention of investing in dyeing … It’s capital-intensive and requires highly-skilled workers to operate,” the owner of a small Ho Chi Minh-based factory of around 800 employees told Reuters.’Importing is cheaper, simpler and faster'”Importing is cheaper, simpler and faster for small firms like us,” said the factory owner, who declined to be identified.The factory, tucked in an industrial zone about 20km (12 miles) from the city center, produces mostly women’s apparel and says Germany is its largest export market.”The issue of ‘point of origin’ is important for us. We are considering importing materials from South Korea, which has already established free trade relations with the EU, instead of from China,” the owner said. “The higher costs mean less profit for us, but it’s the best alternative way we can think of at the moment.”
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Trump Promises Bigger Pentagon Budgets Coming
U.S. President Donald Trump may not be done building up the country’s military.Speaking at a welcoming ceremony at the Pentagon for newly sworn-in Defense Secretary Mark Esper on Thursday, Trump hinted he is planning to continue to increase the Defense Department budget.”We had a budget approved when I first came in, billions and billions of dollars more than it was previously,” Trump said. “Then I went to $716 billion.””And I won’t tell you what this one is. I can only tell you it is even more,” he added.A budget deal announced Tuesday by the White House and congressional leaders calls for $738 billion in defense spending in 2020 and another almost $741 billion in 2021.Lawmakers in the House of Representatives approved the deal late Thursday. The U.S. Senate, which must also approve the deal, is set to vote next week.Before coming to the Pentagon Thursday, Trump expressed support for the agreement on Twitter, telling lawmakers they “should support the TWO YEAR BUDGET AGREEMENT which greatly helps our Military and our Vets.”House Republicans should support the TWO YEAR BUDGET AGREEMENT which greatly helps our Military and our Vets. I am totally with you!— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) Secretary of Defense Mark Esper speaks during a full honors welcoming ceremony for him at the Pentagon, July 25, 2019.’Great power competition’The 55-year-old Esper is a former soldier and a former secretary of the Army, and has also worked as a congressional aide and as a lobbyist for Raytheon, the nation’s third-largest defense contractor.
He now becomes the Defense Department’s first permanent leader since former secretary Jim Mattis resigned in December of last year following differences with Trump over U.S. strategy and troop levels in Syria. And he echoed the administration’s message that the country cannot let up on bolstering its military might.”Great power competition has re-emerged as China and Russia seek to displace the United States and shift the balance of power and their favor,” Esper said Thursday. “Iran continues to sow discord and threaten its neighbors throughout the Middle East.””We will continue to strengthen our military and deter conflict in order to preserve the peace and advance America’s interests,” he added.Army Chief of Staff Gen. Mark Milley, left, and others, applaud during a full honors welcoming ceremony for Secretary of Defense Mark Esper at the Pentagon, July 25, 2019.Islamic StateIn addition to competition with Russia and China, and growing tensions with Iran, Esper is faced with an ongoing insurgency by supporters of the Islamic State terror group in Iraq and Syria, and with pressure to help wind down the almost 18-year war in Afghanistan.In a statement earlier Thursday, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told Afghan President Ashraf Ghani that the U.S. remained committed to a “conditions-based drawdown.”Pompeo also said that he had dispatched the country’s highest-ranking military official, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Joseph Dunford, along with Special Representative for Afghanistan Reconciliation Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad, to Kabul to discuss the next steps in the peace process. Separately Thursday, the Senate confirmed Dunford’s replacement, current Army Chief of Staff General Mark Milley.Milley will take over as chairman of the joint chiefs of staff in October, when Dunford’s term comes to an end.
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North Korea Fires 2 Short-Range Missiles, in Message to US
North Korea fired two missiles off its east coast Thursday. The launch comes as Pyongyang complains about upcoming US-South Korean military exercises. While analysts say the launch probably will not derail nuclear talks, it underscores the United States’ inability to move those talks forward, as VOA’s William Gallo reports from Seoul
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Ilhan Omar’s Defiance Resonates With Muslim-American Activists
U.S. Congresswoman Ilhan Omar struck a chord with other Muslim Americans when she denounced a perceived assumption that she is reluctant to condemn or sympathetic to terrorism and atrocities committed by Islamic groups.”Does this need to be on repeat every five minutes?” Omar asked during a Muslim Caucus Education Collective forum in Washington on Tuesday.”So today, I forgot to condemn al-Qaida,” she continued to resounding applause. “So here’s the al-Qaida one. Today I forgot to condemn a FGM [female genital mutilation.] So there you go.”Muslim-American progressive activists at the conference said Omar’s outrage mirrored their anger at having their values and loyalty constantly questioned.Attendees applaud while U.S. Representatives Ilhan Omar (D-MN) and Pramila Jayapal (D-WA) host a town hall meeting on ‘Medicare For All’ in Minneapolis, Minnesota, July 18, 2019.”It was time for someone to say it and she finally did. And we are so proud and so honored to have her in Congress,” said Yasmeen Obeid, a Palestinian-American community activist from San Diego, California.Female genital mutilationOmar was responding to a question about FGM from Ani Zonneveld, president of Muslims for Progressive Values. She asked the Minnesota lawmaker to join with fellow Muslim Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib from Michigan to condemn the practice, in light of a Detroit judge’s ruling last November overturning a federal law that made FGM a crime.FGM involves the ritual cutting of part or all of a girl or woman’s genitals, a traditional practice often associated with Islam. The World Health Organization, or WHO, estimates that 200 million girls and women in 30 countries have undergone FGM. It is most pervasive in Muslim-majority countries in Africa, the Middle East and Asia. Somalia, where Omar was born before she came to the U.S. as a refugee, has one of the highest FGM rates in the world.The WHO says “FGM has no health benefits,” can cause long-term urinary problems, pain during intercourse and lead to an increased risk of childbirth complications.Numerous Muslim organizations, such the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (representing 53 Muslim-majority nations) have condemned FGM as a human rights violation against women and girls.Congresswoman Omar has co-authored legislation with Representative Lois Frankel of Florida denouncing FGM and calling on the international community and federal government to step up efforts to eliminate the practice.IslamophobiaTo some, Omar may have come across as overly defensive when she said she was “quite disgusted” to be asked to condemn FGM, which she has done many times, and to be pressed to address issues that non-Muslim legislators typically are not asked about.Notes line the wall outside the office of Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., July 19, 2019, part of a day-long solidarity vigil organized by anti-war protest group Code Pink, on Capitol Hill in Washington.But to many in the Muslim Caucus forum, Omar was pushing back against contrived and bigoted stereotypes of Muslims in America. Amira Daugherty, a Muslim student activist from Stone Mountain, Georgia, said Congresswoman Omar was demanding to be treated “like every other morally-guided congressperson in the United States.”Omar’s reply also followed repeated attacks on her character and patriotism by President Donald Trump and some of his supporters.At a political rally in North Carolina last week, Trump said Omar “blamed the U.S. for terrorist attacks on our country” and ridiculed her for calling the extremists who carried out the September 11, 2001 attacks as “some people did something.” The crowd at the rally responded by chanting, “Send her back.”The president was referring to a speech Omar made to the Council on American-Islamic Relations in March about discrimination against Muslims, in which she said the group “was founded after 9/11 because they recognized that some people did something and that all of us were starting to lose access to our civil liberties.”Omar stirred controversy in February when she tweeted, “It’s all about the Benjamins” — a reference to U.S. hundred dollar bills, suggesting that financial contributions from Jewish Americans help dictate U.S. support for Israel. She later apologized after being rebuked by Democrats and Republicans alike.Women of colorThe Minnesota Democrat, along with Tlaib, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York and Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts, all congresswomen of color, have been the recent focus of criticism from President Trump, who first tweeted they should go back where they came from.Many of Trump’s verbal attacks on the congresswomen, analysts say, are intentionally inflammatory and meant to energize Trump’s predominantly white and Christian supporters ahead of next year’s presidential elections.
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Britain Begins Escorting All UK Vessels Through Strait of Hormuz
LONDON — Britain has started sending a warship to accompany all British-flagged vessels through the Strait of Hormuz, a change in policy announced Thursday after the government previously said it did not have resources to do so. Tensions have spiked between Iran and Britain since last Friday when Iranian commandos seized a British-flagged tanker in the world’s most important waterway for oil shipments. That came two weeks after British forces captured an Iranian oil tanker near Gibraltar, accused of violating sanctions on Syria. HMS Montrose, a British frigate now in the area, carried out the first mission under the new policy Wednesday evening. “The Royal Navy has been tasked to accompany British-flagged ships through the Strait of Hormuz, either individually or in groups, should sufficient notice be given of their passage,” a government spokesman said. “Freedom of navigation is crucial for the global trading system and world economy, and we will do all we can to defend it,” he added in a statement. The British government had previously advised British-flagged vessels to avoid the Strait of Hormuz where possible and to notify the Navy if they must cross it, but had said it would not be able to escort every ship. A map showing the Strait of HormuzBritain has been seeking to put together a European-led maritime protection mission to ensure safe shipping through the Strait of Hormuz after Iran’s seizure of the tanker in what London said was an act of “state piracy.” The change of policy was not the result of a change made by new Prime Minister Boris Johnson; the government had been working on the plan for a few days, according to an official who asked not to be named.
Uncertain time The U.K. Chamber of Shipping trade association, which previously called for more protection of merchant vessels in the area, welcomed the change. “This move will provide some much-needed safety and reassurance to our shipping community in this uncertain time,” said the chief executive, Bob Sanguinetti. “However, we will continue to push for a de-escalation of tensions in the region.” On any given day, about 15 to 30 large British-flagged ships travel in the Persian Gulf, with up to three passing through the Strait of Hormuz between Iran and Oman, where a pair of two-mile-wide shipping lanes provide the only routes in and out of the Gulf. About a fifth of the world’s oil passes through the strait, and shipping companies are already deploying more unarmed security guards as an extra safeguard. On July 10 the Montrose headed off an apparent attempt by Iranian vessels to block the passage of a British oil tanker at the northern entrance of Hormuz. FILE – This photo from the Iranian state-run IRIB News Agency shows crew members of the British-flagged tanker Stena Impero, seized by Tehran in the Strait of Hormuz, on July 19, 2019, during a meeting.On July 19, the Montrose warned an Iranian patrol boat against interfering with the Stena Impero, but the Iranian vessel, apparently undeterred, proceeded to instruct the oil tanker to alter course and later seized it. The cost of insuring a ship sailing through the region has risen tenfold as risks have risen, which has also prompted some ship owners to avoid the area entirely. “The key issue with the escorts is the rules of engagement,” said Mark Gray, a retired colonel with Britain’s Royal Marines. “The vessels must have the authorization to fire warning shots, and also, if necessary, target rounds against boats and helicopters. If not, the Iranians will call our bluff and board, even if escorted,” said Gray, co-founder of British company MNG Maritime, which runs a U.K.-regulated floating armory 26 nautical miles from the coast of the United Arab Emirates. Gerry Northwood, of maritime security firm MAST and a former Royal Navy captain who has commanded warships in the region, said Iran had operational capabilities throughout the Gulf. “They will be looking for their opportunities to embarrass the U.K. through a failure of its ability to protect its merchant shipping,” he said. In 2007, 15 British Navy personnel from HMS Cornwall were captured by Iran’s Revolutionary Guards after they had completed a routine search of a merchant ship in Iraqi waters. The Royal Navy said earlier this month that the destroyer HMS Duncan was heading to the region. Separately, four mine countermeasures vessels were also deployed, but maritime experts say they could be vulnerable to swarm attacks by Iranian fast boats. Florida meetingRepresentatives of the United States, Britain and other nations were to meet in Florida on Thursday to discuss how to protect shipping in the Gulf from Iran. Washington, which has by far the strongest Western naval contingent in the Gulf, has been calling for its allies to join it in an operation to guard shipping there. But European countries, which disagree with a U.S. decision to impose sanctions on Iran, have been reluctant to sign on to a U.S.-led mission for fear of adding to tension in the region. France, Italy and Denmark support Britain’s idea of an EU-led flotilla in the Gulf, three EU diplomats said Tuesday. Iran says it will not allow any disturbance in shipping in the strait, its state news agency quoted Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi as saying on Tuesday.
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