This report originated in VOA’s Swahili Service.After 29 days at an Ebola treatment center in eastern Congo, fighting for their lives, a mother and her young son were discharged Tuesday amid applause and laughter.“I feel very good and my son also is well,” a smiling Esperance Nabintu told a small crowd gathered outside the treatment center for a short, celebratory news conference. She wiped tears from the cheeks of her 1-year-old son, Ebenezer Fataki, who squirmed and cried.She wore a white T-shirt that proclaimed, in French, “I am cured of Ebola.”Both Nabintu and her child have recovered from the virus that killed Nabintu’s husband weeks ago, doctors say.Theirs are among more than 2,800 confirmed cases of the disease that has claimed nearly 1,900 lives since the outbreak began a year ago in the eastern DRC.Life-saving treatmentsThe mother and son’s release follows scientists’ announcement Monday that two experimental Ebola drug therapies have proved so successful they will be made available to all Ebola patients in the DRC outbreak. Both contain antibodies: REGN-EB3 was developed by Regeneron Pharmaceuticals and mAb114 was developed by the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.It was unclear, as of this writing, which treatment the mother and son received.The fatality rate for this Ebola outbreak – the second-largest in history behind the 2014-15 West Africa outbreak – is 67 percent, according to the World Health Organization. A survivor’s messageThe DRC government has appointed Nabintu to be a goodwill ambassador to help battle another component of the Ebola epidemic: rampant mistrust.While the country has experienced nine other outbreaks since Ebola’s discovery in 1976, the disease previously was unfamiliar in the northeast, a region already destabilized by at least two decades of conflict. People there have been skeptical of the federal government’s intentions and those of Western aid groups that operate or help staff treatment centers.Residents have seen people enter treatment facilities and leave in body bags – making them wary of seeking formal treatment when symptoms emerge.Nabintu – who was treated at a DRC facility operated by the WHO and the medical aid group Doctors Without Borders – wants to change that negative mindset.“My message to everyone is that Ebola is real,” she said. “People should seek a doctor’s attention as quickly as possible when they feel unwell.”
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Month: August 2019
Cameroon Journalists Threatened by Government
Cameroon has threatened all journalists who it says are refusing to be patriotic, after TV reporter Samuel Wazizi was arrested for allegedly supporting separatist fighters in Cameroon’s English-speaking north, west, and southwest regions. The journalists say it is becoming impossible for them to practice their profession, as they face pressure from both separatist fighters and the government.Paul Atanga Nji, territorial administration minister, says Cameroon’s journalists are becoming highly unpatriotic.”They have one main objective, just to sabotage government action, to promote secessionist tendencies,” said Nji. “I urge them to be responsible. Those who do not want to respect the laws will be booked as being recalcitrant and will be treated as such.”Atanga Nji also says most journalists support the opposition and believe that President Paul Biya was not the true winner of the October 2018 presidential election.Macmillan Ambe, president of the Cameroon Association of English Speaking Journalists, CAMASEJ, says the threat from the government is one of many that journalists have faced since the separatist crisis began in 2016.He says journalists should be given the freedom they need to do their work.”When you get the minister of territorial administration giving lessons to journalists on how to report, it just adds to some of the difficulties we are already facing,” said Ambe. “We are subjected to torture, be it physical or psychological. We have also had cases of several journalists who are being called up for questioning, so it becomes very difficult for us to operate.”Ambe was abducted by separatist fighters in the city of Bamenda last February after he criticized their call for families not to send their children to school.More recent threats came after Samuel Waziz, an announcer at Chillen Music Television who has hosted shows critical of the government, was arrested by the military. His lawyers said he was accused of hosting separatist fighters in his farm, an allegation he dismissed.Journalist Promise Akanteh of Royal FM, a radio station in Yaounde who also hosts critical programs, says she has been threatened several times within the past two weeks.”I have had several phone calls threatening me. Do you know that your daughter still needs you? I said, ‘yes, sir.'” So be careful with what you say on air. I do not know who was calling,” said Akanteh. “The person threatens me and says be careful with what you say on air. I am telling you this, another person will not be this nice to you.”The separatists launched their fight in 2017, after English-speakers protested political and economic discrimination in the majority French-speaking country. The government reacted with a crackdown in November 2017 and since then, 2,000 people have been killed, according to the United Nations.
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Octavia Spencer To Be Honored by Gay-Rights Education Group
Octavia Spencer will be honored by the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network with its Inspiration Award at a gala later this year.The group known as GLSEN announced Tuesday that the star of “Hidden Figures and The Helpwill”” receive the honor at the group’s Respect Awards, presented in October in Beverly Hills, California.
GLSEN Executive Director Eliza Byard said in a statement that Spencer “has devoted her career to diverse storytelling, promoting social good and is a steadfast ally for the LGBTQ community.”GLSEN was founded in 1990 to address LGBT issues in K-12 education, and has presented the Respect Awards since 2004.
The group’s past honorees have included Kerry Washington and Ellen Pompeo.
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Report: Hypersonic, Dual-Capable Missiles Pose Huge Global Threat
New missile technologies, including so-called hypersonic systems capable of traveling at more than 25 times the speed of sound, are fueling a new global arms race, according to a new report from analyst group the Russian President Vladimir Putin, fifth left, and other top officials oversee the test launch of the Avangard hypersonic missile from the Defense Ministry’s control room in Moscow, Dec. 26, 2018.The United States, China and Australia also are developing their own systems, said report author Katarzyna Kubiak of the European Leadership Network.“These are going to outmatch existing missile systems by speed and by maneuverability, and are going to be able to potentially bypass any existing air and missile defense systems for years to come. And on top of this, we also witness an exploration in anti-satellite technologies, which include missiles,” said Kubiak.
Hypersonic, Dual-Capable Missiles Pose Huge Global Threat, Report Warns video player.
In this grab taken from footage by the Russian State Atomic Energy Corporation ROSATOM press service, a woman holds roses as people gather for the funerals of five Russian nuclear engineers killed by a rocket explosion in Sarov, Aug. 12, 2019.Kubiak said the global security architecture surrounding missile proliferation is under a huge strain and is being rapidly outpaced by developing technology.“The already very complex security calculus is going to be even harder. So an unbound missile proliferation will aggravate inter-state competition, it’s going to increase costs of maintaining regional and global stability, it’s going to increase the costs and the risks of military encounters,” said Kubiak.The report says the international community urgently needs to put the subject of missiles higher on the political agenda, including the strengthening of existing non-proliferation and transparency measures and negotiating treaties to address new technologies.
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Report Warns Hypersonic, Dual-Capable Missiles Pose Huge Global Threat
New missile technologies – including so-called hypersonic systems capable of travelling at more than 25 times the speed of sound – are fueling a new global arms race, according to a new report. The research warns that the collapse of the Intermediate Range Nuclear Forces Treaty between the United States and Russia last month is just the latest example of the growing pressure on the global security architecture – and new treaties are urgently needed to counter the threat of emerging technologies. Henry Ridgwell reports.
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Pew Survey: 60% in US Hold Dim View of China Amid Trade War
Rising tensions over trade have dimmed Americans’ opinions of China.
A new Pew Research Center poll finds that 60% say they have an unfavorable view of China — up from 47% last year to the highest proportion since Pew started asking the question 14 years ago.
The survey results being released Tuesday found that 24% of Americans regard China as America’s top threat for the future, the same percentage that said so of Russia. North Korea (12%) was the only other country to draw double-digit concern.FILE – Workers rest near a loaded cargo ship at the Tianjin port in China.
The Trump administration and Beijing have been clashing for more than a year over allegations that China steals trade secrets, pressures foreign companies to hand over technology and unfairly subsidizes the country’s own companies.
President Donald Trump has imposed tariffs on $250 billion in Chinese goods and has said that on Sept. 1, he will tax the $300 billion in Chinese imports that he has so far spared. In retaliation, China has imposed tariffs on $110 billion in U.S. products.
Still, the poll finds that only 41% of Americans believe that China’s growing economy is a bad thing for the United States, compared with 50% who called it a good thing. Respondents were far more worried about China’s rising military power: 81% said it was bad, 11% good.
FILE – President Donald Trump poses for a photo with Chinese President Xi Jinping during a meeting on the sidelines of the G-20 summit in Osaka, Japan, June 29, 2019.Half said they had no confidence in President Xi Jinping, the same as last year. In addition to being locked in a trade war with Trump, Xi has overseen a crackdown on dissent in China and a more combative foreign policy in East Asia.
Americans 50 and older were most likely to hold negative views of China (67%, compared with 58% of those ages 30-49 and 49% of those 18-29).
Likewise, 69% of Americans with a four-year college degree expressed disapproval of China, versus 57% of those who didn’t have a degree.
Pew surveyed 1,503 adults from May 13 to June 18.
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US Says it’s Consulting on Asian Missile Deployment
A senior U.S. diplomat says Washington is consulting with its allies as it proceeds with plans to deploy intermediate-range missiles in Asia, a move China says it will respond to with countermeasures.Washington has said it plans to place such weapons in the Asia-Pacific following the U.S. withdrawal from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty.
The U.S. accused the other treaty signatory, Russia, of cheating by developing weapons systems banned under the treaty. However, many analysts say Washington has long sought to deploy intermediate-range missiles to counter China’s growing arsenal.
In a conference call Tuesday, State Department Under Secretary for Arms Control and International Security Affairs Andrea Thompson said governments would decide whether or not to host such missiles.
“That’s a sovereign decision to be made by the leaders of those governments,” Thompson said. “Any decision made in the region will be done in consultation with our allies — this is not a U.S. unilateral decision.”
U.S. mutual defense treaty allies Japan, South Korea and Australia are considered the prime missile base candidates, although Beijing has warned that any nation that accepts such an arrangement will face retribution, likely in the form of an economic boycott or similar sanctions. Although China maintains a large stock of intermediate-range missiles, it says those are unable to reach the U.S. homeland, while missiles deployed by the U.S. in Asia would be within striking distance of mainland China.
While the U.S. decision to leave the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty has placed the future of arms control agreements in doubt, Thompson said the move had brought a “positive response from partners and allies globally, not only tied to the Indo-Pacific but our NATO partners as well.”
She also said Washington hopes Beijing will join in discussions with the U.S. and Russia on a nuclear arms limitation pact after the current agreement, known as New START, expires in 2021. China has said it has no intention of entering into any such trilateral negotiations.
“Part of being a responsible actor … you need to have transparency and responsibility. So we encourage China to come to the table as well,” Thompson said. “The world demands it. That’s what responsible nations do.”
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Paris Streets Near Notre Dame To Be Decontaminated from Lead
Workers are preparing to decontaminate some Paris streets surrounding the Notre Dame Cathedral that have been tested with high levels of lead following the April blaze that damaged the landmark.High fences blocked Parisians and tourists from several streets and a bridge around the monument on Tuesday.The culture ministry said workers plan to use two decontamination techniques. One involves spreading a gel on public benches, street lights and other fixtures to absorb the lead, letting it dry for several days before removing it. Another method will feature high pressure water jets with chemical agents.The cleanup work inside Notre Dame, suspended last month for safety reasons, will resume next week.Hundreds of tons of lead in Notre Dame’s spire and roof melted during the April fire.
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Indonesian Firm Cancels Chinese Loan for Its Trump Project
U.S. President Donald Trump’s son and his Indonesian business partner say a theme park that also features a Trump hotel and condos will no longer have Chinese financing.Donald Trump Jr. said Tuesday at a news conference in Jakarta that his father is not involved in Trump-branded resorts in West Java and Bali.In a move that alarmed Trump critics, MNC Land, the Indonesian company that is developing the theme park owned by billionaire Hary Tanoesoedibjo, said in May that it has hired a subsidiary of Chinese state-owned Metallurgical Corp. to build the park at its Lido City development outside Jakarta.Tanoesoedibjo said the Trump Organization has nothing to do with the theme park and his company has canceled a Chinese bank’s loan for the project.
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After High-Profile Death, Social Media Erupts in Conspiracies
Hours after the death of Jeffrey Epstein, a financier at the center of a sex trafficking case, theories about his death took off on Twitter and Facebook, making their way quickly into mainstream news, a process that social media critics say is becoming all too common. “We’ve always had conspiracy theories,” said Hany Farid, a professor at the University of California, Berkeley. “What is different is the speed and the reach and the fanning of those conspiracy theories in the wake of social media. Now, just about anyone can say just about anything.” On Saturday, Epstein died in a federal prison in New York of an apparent suicide, just weeks after a suicide attempt and before he could stand trial. Trending topicsThe well-connected Epstein had friends across the political spectrum. Theories about how he died and who may have had a role – on both sides of the political aisle – began to spread on social media. Both #TrumpBodyCount and #ClintonBodyCount took hold. In a selfie video posted on Twitter, the comedian Terrence K. Williams tied former President Bill Clinton and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, also once friendly with Epstein, with Epstein’s death. “He had information on the Clintons and the man ended up dead,” Williams said in a video posted to Twitter.NO I WILL NOT DELETE THIS VIDEO! https://t.co/7q2f5CQThA— Terrence K. Williams (@w_terrence) August 12, 2019Accompanying the tweet were hashtags #ClintonBodyCount and #ClintonCrimeFamily. Trump retweeted that message to his 63 million followers on Twitter. Some of the Epstein theories started to “trend,” making top 10 lists of topics people were talking about. “That really is drawing people’s attention to something that may not even be on their radar,” said Irina Raicu, director of the internet ethics program at the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics at Santa Clara University. “And if what is trending is a conspiracy theory, then social media companies just played a part in amplifying that and pulling people in.” The process – from made-up thoughts broadcasted on social media to prominent people amplifying them to the media writing about them — is a troubling sign, one observer said. “We have to start thinking about putting sensible protections online, because we are seeing real-world consequences from what is happening on the social media platforms,” said Farid, of UC Berkeley.What those protections might be remains to be seen. What’s certain is that with each high-profile incident, social media companies face more pressure.
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Kremlin Downplays Russia Protests
The Kremlin on Tuesday downplayed recent protests in Russia and rejected the suggestion they have created a political crisis in the country.Spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters that President Vladimir Putin has not commented on the demonstrations because he does not see them as “exceptional.”Peskov also defended the actions of police, saying their firm actions at the protests was justified.In the latest protest Sunday, tens of thousands of people gathered in central Moscow as they criticized the exclusion of several opposition candidates from upcoming local elections.The protest was one of the largest in Russia in eight years.Police have arrested several thousand protesters at rallies during the past month.
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Protesters Ground Flights at Airport as Police Increase Force, the Latest from Hong Kong
The latest protests in Hong Kong have generated calls from the United States urging all sides to refrain from violence while Canada is warning China to be very careful in how it deals with the demonstrators. The calls came after thousands protestors in Hong Kong grounded flights at the international airport Monday, escalating 10 weeks of protests over a proposal that would subject citizens to extradition by mainland Chinese courts. VOA’s Arash Arabasadi reports.
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Woman Stabbed in Knife Rampage in Australia
One woman was injured during an stabbing attack in downtown Sydney Tuesday.Police in Australia’s largest city say the man unsuccessfully tried to stab other pedestrians as he ran through the central business district during the lunchtime hours.Video posted on Twitter showed the suspected attacker jumping on a car at a busy intersection waving a knife and shouting “Allahu Akbar,” Arabic for “God is great.” The man fell to the street when the car moved, then took off running again shouting “Shoot me!” as he was confronted by a man yielding a crate.The man was later caught by several pedestrians, with the video showing the man pinned to the ground by a crate and a chair as his pursuers cursed him. Just witnessed incredible bravery from members of the public and @FRNSW officers chasing down a man on a stabbing rampage in Sydney’s CBD. He is now under arrest. @7NewsSydney pic.twitter.com/wNKatejHVp— Andrew Denney (@Andrew_Denney) August 13, 2019The woman’s injuries are not life-threatening. Police say the attack appeared to be unprovoked.
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Bitter Harvest for Kurdish Hazelnut Pickers in Turkey’s Black Sea Region
In a region on Turkey’s eastern Black Sea coast, around 75% of the world’s hazelnuts are grown. Throughout August, thousands of migrant workers harvest the nut. It’s a hard job under challenging conditions and offers increasingly diminishing returns for both workers and owners.Millions of hazelnut trees cover the valleys of Ordu and Giresun provinces. Many of the trees grow on the sides of treacherous ravines, making harvesting hazelnuts hard and often dangerous work.The steep valleys of Turkey Ordu province makes harvesting the nut a hard and often dangerous job. (D. Jones/VOA)Pickers work seven days a week, 11 hours a day, for about $300 for the monthlong season.Iskender, who did not want to give his full name, started picking at 15 years old. Now 30, he is in charge of a group of pickers.”We come here to work in a field for 15 days, and then pack everything and travel up the valley to higher villages and work another 15 days,” he said, taking a break from the arduous work.”But we do this because of necessity,” he said. “If you are not obliged to do this, it is a misery that no one can stand.”Iskender started picking hazelnuts when he was 15, now 30 he runs a team of pickers, but regrets having to leave his home in Turkey’s predominantly Kurdish region to work in the hazelnut fields. (D. Jones/VOA)Like most pickers, Iskender made the 700-kilometer journey from Turkey’s predominantly Kurdish region.There are few jobs in the region, which has been economically devastated by the Turkish army’s decadeslong war against a Kurdish insurgency.Iskender’s mother, Mediha, works with her son. Like tens of thousands of others, mother and son were forced to evacuate their village by security forces, losing not only their home but livelihood.”In the past, we used to do agriculture. We used to keep vineyards. We had our own work. We herded animals,”Mediha explained. “But we were left without anything, and out of necessity, we had to come here. And we work here like slaves. There is nothing we can achieve. We would be happy to go back to our village.”Many of the hazelnut migrant workers have to stay in state run camps (D. Jones/VOA)Iskender, Mediha and the other pickers sleep in a cattle shed for the 30-day harvest. Most migrants are forced to stay in state-run camps.Authorities don’t allow access to the camps, which have been criticized by monitoring groups for their poor condition. Official signs outside and inside the camps warn about the illegality of underage workers, though many working in the field appear to be under the legal age of 16. Many hazelnut field owners and workers are reluctant to talk about conditions.Hazelnut pickers who mostly come from Turkey’s predominately Kurdish region work seven days a week, 11 hours a day for the month season. (D. Jones/VOA)’No one is making money’Field owner Hilmi Uzunlar, Iskender and Mediha’s boss, said the days of families planning weddings and other significant financial outlays around the bounty of the hazelnut harvest are long gone.He said years of falling prices due to growing competition and increasing vagaries of climate mean no one is making money.”The sale of hazelnuts only covers the expenses for the workers, fertilizers, maintaining the trees,” Uzunlar said. “We do the harvest, then sell the nuts, and we only break even. After that, we go back to our other jobs to provide for our families.”Hilmi Uzunlar owns hazelnut fields but says because of falling prices there is little money to be made from hazelnuts. (D. Jones/VOA)Earlier this month, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan stepped in at the last minute to announce an increase in the price that hazelnut producers will receive. His family roots are in the Black Sea Region, which is also a crucial electoral power base.Uzunlar grudgingly welcomed the intervention, but said it will do little to change the economics of hazelnut cultivation.”Under these conditions, it is too obvious that the hazelnut has no future,” he said.Alternative producersPressure on growers like Uzunlar is set to grow. Hazelnut buyers are seeking alternative producers to reduce their heavy dependence on Turkey.In the past decade, the U.S. state of Oregon, using the latest technology, has doubled hazelnut production to 47,000 tons and is seeking to double output by 2025.Turkey’s neighbor, Georgia, along with some European countries, is also expanding production. But, Turkey still dwarfs its competitors in output.Kadir Engin, head of Industrialist and Businessmen Association, says the local hazelnut industry needs to modernize to break out of the current economic hardship. (D. Jones/VOA)Kadir Engin, head of the Ordu Industrialists and Businessmen Association, said Turkish nuts also are superior in quality to most of its competitors.Engin is credited in persuading Erdogan to increase this year’s price. But he warns that the region will struggle to end the current economic hardships faced by hazelnut producers.”We can’t get efficient productivity from the old fields because we can’t use modern agricultural production,” he said. “And this causes much higher costs, as the hazelnut is picked from the branches, not from the ground.”Engin warned that little will change, with the trees densely planted and preventing mechanized harvesting.”There is no modern technology in producing or harvesting hazelnuts from aged, old trees,” he said. “These hazelnuts you see are from trees the same age as me — 70, 80 years old. They should be renewed. The fields should be younger.”Changing climatic patterns could also pose a threat. Days before the harvest, the region was deluged by rain that caused widespread flooding. A week later, much of the crop would be lost, an event that has happened in recent years.Such threats to production, analysts warn, will probably expedite hazelnut buyers’ efforts to diversify dependency on Turkey’s Ordu province.A life without hazelnutsIskender dreams of a life that does not depend on hazelnuts.”If I get a normal job with a minimum wage, I won’t come back here next year. It would be enough for me to stay at my home, to be with my kids,” he said.But for he and Mediha, weeks of toil remain. After harvesting the hazelnuts, they will move on to central Turkey for the potato season. Iskender said it will be some time before he sees his three young children again.
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Jay Inslee, 2020 Democrat Battling Trump’s Climate ‘Degradation’
Rarely has a candidate gone far in a US presidential race highlighting a singular issue, but Democrat Jay Inslee is aiming to buck that trend with his commitment to tackling climate change.Unless he does something to dramatically change his trajectory — he has less than one percent support in polls — Inslee, currently the governor of Washington state, likely will be an also-ran in the crowded race to decide who challenges President Donald Trump in 2020.But what he has already achieved makes his candidacy worthy: launching a Democratic policy debate on climate change and how to prevent environmental disaster over the coming decades.Since entering the race in March, Inslee has repeatedly hit the panic button on climate, demanding the United States reverse course and take global warming and environmental protections far more seriously.For Inslee and several other Democratic candidates, the science is clear: dramatic action over the next decade is needed to reduce carbon pollution, or irreparable harm will result.”Unless we defeat the climate crisis, everything else we’ve worked on will be moot,” the square-jawed Inslee, 68, told voters at the Iowa State Fair.Inslee is quick to highlight his economic accomplishments as governor. He has also savaged Trump as a “white supremacist” who is dividing Americans and is hurting farmers with his trade war with China. But “climate change is the big banana, and we’ve got to make sure we take care of it,” he told AFP in an interview on the sidelines of a recent Iowa Democratic dinner featuring 20 of the party’s presidential hopefuls. Trump, Inslee has stressed, has denied the climate crisis, ending important Obama-era regulations and pulling the United States out of the Paris climate accord.And on Monday, Trump rolled back key provisions of the Endangered Species Act, the popular law that helped save the bald eagle and grizzly bear.”I’ll stand up against him on his weakest point, which is his environmental degradation,” Inslee said.US voters have rarely considered climate change a top-priority presidential election issue, but that is changing. An April CNN poll labeled it as the single most important issue to Democratic primary voters, topping health care.As a candidate, Inslee has introduced a sweeping and sophisticated climate mission, which popular liberal congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez praised as the “gold standard.”It calls for zero carbon emissions across the economy within the next quarter century, including 100 percent carbon-neutral electricity and zero-emission new cars and buses by 2030.The plan would require a staggering $9 trillion in investment and create eight million jobs. It would also likely encounter fierce resistance from the fossil fuel industry, and from many Republicans in Congress who oppose such drastic steps.Clean energy economyInslee, who himself drives an electric car and wants to end the use of coal, has hammered away on the issue — most of his speaking time at the Democratic debates has addressed climate change. And that likely has inspired leading Democratic candidates to release their own ambitious climate plans.Inslee insists he is a multi-faceted candidate who can beat Trump “like a $2 mule” in the election. He stood up to the president when he instituted a ban on arrivals from Muslim-majority countries, and blasted the administration’s family separations at the US-Mexico border as “the darkest moment” of Trump’s presidency.He points to securing the largest teacher pay raise in the nation, expanding paid family leave and instituting what he says is the first public health option in the United States.”If you do things to bring diversity to your community, to bring people together instead of intolerance, if you build a middle class instead of trickle down, just giving everything to the top one percent, if you take care of clean air and clean water, you have the biggest economic growth in America,” Inslee added. “That’s what we’ve done in the state of Washington.” And he explained climate change is not a singular issue, but one that affects health, national security, and the economy.”We know the biggest job creator right now is in clean energy,” he said.
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White House Hopeful Gabbard Pauses Campaign – for Army Drills in Indonesia
Democratic presidential hopeful Tulsi Gabbard will take a break from the race for the White House, she said in an interview aired Monday, to take part in military exercises in Indonesia.”I’m stepping off of the campaign trail for a couple of weeks and putting on my army uniform to go on a joint training exercise mission in Indonesia,” the 38-year-old Hawaii National Guard member told CBS News.”I love our country. I love being able to serve our country in so many ways including as a soldier,” added Gabbard, a Hawaii congresswoman since 2013, who is polling at around one percent in the contest to become the Democratic nominee for 2020.”So while some people are telling me, like, ‘Gosh this is a terrible time to leave the campaign, can’t you find a way out of it?’ You know that’s not what this is about,” she said.Gabbard, the first Hindu member of Congress and its first Samoan American, is among the youngest candidates in the Democratic field.Seen from the outset as an outsider, she has delivered confident debate performances, particularly in the second round at the end of July.Pundits in Detroit, Michigan, praised the congresswoman for a forceful argument in favor of ending “regime change” wars and instead pouring the money into improving communities back home.She served in Iraq from 2004 to 2005.
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South Sudan Activists Ramp Up Pressure for Unity Government
South Sudan activists on Monday began a campaign to pressure the country’s warring parties to meet a fast-approaching deadline to form a unity government as part of their 2018 peace agreement. The Civil Society Forum, a coalition of more than 100 organizations, on Monday marked the beginning of a 90-day countdown to the November deadline for the ruling party and opposition to form a government. “We have not got much time left. There are a lot of tasks that need to be accomplished and business should not remain as usual,” Geoffrey Lou Duke, a member of the coalition, told AFP.South Sudan descended into war in 2013 when President Salva Kiir accused his former deputy and fellow former rebel leader Riek Machar of plotting a coup.The parties signed a peace deal in September for Kiir to form a government with Machar, but the sides already missed the first deadline, which was in May. Activists say scant progress has been made since then, including on vital security measures to stabilize a country reeling from nearly six years of conflict. The fighting has been marked by ethnic violence and brutal atrocities, and left about 380,000 dead while some four million have fled their homes.Security fundsBefore any unity government is formed, the parties are supposed to canton their fighters and redeploy them as part of the national army, police and other security forces. Foreign donors say it is up to Kiir’s administration to fund the security reforms. Parties to the peace deal say its implementation will cost $285 million but that only around $10 million has been provided. Machar’s party says he will not return to Juba until the security reforms are complete. “We have to see a sense of urgency and we do not want to see another situation where we give all sorts of excuses for having failed to form the transitional government,” Jame David Kolok, another member of the Civil Society Forum, told AFP Monday. “The campaign is to make sure every second from now onwards counts.”
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More Than 10,000 Guns Surrendered in New Zealand Buyback
Gun owners in New Zealand turned in more than 10,000 firearms in a buyback program established after the country’s worst mass shooting in modern history.New Zealand banned most automatic and semi-automatic weapons after a gunman shot and killed 51 people and wounded scores more at two Christchurch mosques in March.As of Sunday, 10,242 firearms had been surrendered since the program began last month. Another 1,269 have been handed in under an amnesty program that allows people to turn in their guns without any questions about how or when they obtained them, New Zealand police said Monday.The buyback program will continue until Dec. 20. New Zealand lawmakers vowed to toughen the country’s gun laws after the shootings.”On March 15, the nation witnessed a terrorist attack that demonstrated the weakness of New Zealand’s gun laws,” Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said at the time. “The guns used in this attack had the power to shoot continuously. The times for the easy availability of these weapons must end. And today, they will.”A bill to ban semi-automatic weapons was introduced in parliament two weeks after the shooting. Australia also introduced a nationwide gun buyback program after a shooter killed 36 people in 1996. About 650,000 weapons were collected. It also banned semi-automatic and pump-action rifles and shotguns.Since then, research has shown, Australia has had no mass shootings, and homicides and suicides by gun have both reduced dramatically.
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City Officials Deflect Questions About Turkish Memorial in Albania’s Capital
This story originated in FILE – Policemen stand atop military armored vehicles after troops involved in the coup surrendered on the Bosphorus Bridge in Istanbul, Turkey, July 16, 2016.The city of Tirana’s official website, however, made no mention of the event, nor were city hall officials able to provide any records of discussion or documentation about placing the monument on public property, let alone the renaming of public parks and streets.Few answersAsked about who granted permission to place the memorial, Tirana Mayor Erion Veliaj appeared to dodge the question.FILE – U.S.-based cleric Fethullah Gulen at his home in Saylorsburg, Pennsylvania, July 29, 2016.Two-hundred media outlets have been closed, and dozens of reporters jailed.Observers say Erdogan has been using commemorations of the attempted coup, which he blames on his political nemesis, exiled cleric Fethullah Gulen, to consolidate his base amid growing voices of discontent and recent electoral setbacks.The 77-year-old Gulen, a one-time ally of Erdogan, has lived in self-imposed exile in the eastern U.S. state of Pennsylvania for nearly two decades, but Washington has resisted Erdogan’s demand he be returned to his homeland to face charges that he directed the takeover attempt from across the Atlantic.Albania, whose Prime Minister Edi Rama is close with Erdogan, also blames Gulen for the 2016 coup.Just days after last month’s ceremony to unveil the monument, the Turkish Embassy in Tirana posted a statement on its official Facebook page, saying, “With the participation of our Albanian brothers and sisters, we successfully and proudly inaugurated the “15th of July Street of Martyrs” and the “15th of July Democracy Park.”
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UN Probing 30 North Korean Cyberattacks in 17 Countries
U.N. experts say they are investigating at least 30 instances in 17 countries of North Koreans using cyberattacks to illegally raise money for its nuclear program — and they are calling for sanctions against ships providing gasoline and diesel to the country.Last week, The Associated Press reported that North Korea illegally acquired “as much as two billion dollars” from its increasingly sophisticated cyber activities against financial institutions and cryptocurrency exchanges, quoting the experts’ summary.
Their lengthy report, recently seen by AP, reveals that neighboring South Korea was hardest-hit, the victim of 10 cyberattacks, followed by India with three, and Bangladesh and Chile with two each.
Thirteen countries suffered one attack — Costa Rica, Gambia, Guatemala, Kuwait, Liberia, Malaysia, Malta, Nigeria, Poland, Slovenia, South Africa, Tunisia and Vietnam, it said.
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Italian Senate Cuts Short Vacation to Set No-Confidence Vote
The Italian Senate will return Tuesday from its summer vacation to set a crucial date for a no-confidence vote on Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte’s populist government.That development followed a meeting Monday of party whips in the Senate who failed to unanimously agree on the date of the no-confidence vote.Interior Minister Matteo Salvini declared last week that his right-wing League party no longer supports Conte and is pressing for a no-confidence vote in the next few days. He’s calculating that Conte will lose and resign, triggering what Salvini hopes will be a new election as early as this fall.Eager to become premier himself, Salvini wants to go to the polls as soon as possible to capitalize both on the League’s rising popularity and the waning support for his senior coalition partner, the populist 5-Star Movement.FILE – Italian Deputy Premier and Interior Minister, Matteo Salvini, gestures as he addresses the Senate in Rome, July 11, 2019.Italy’s main opposition party, the center-left Democratic Party (PD), is already divided over its future strategy. Party secretary Nicola Zingaretti issued a call for unity Monday, reiterating that the key decision on whether and when to call an early election is in the hands of President Sergio Mattarella. He added that the Democrats are not afraid of facing an early ballot.But former premier Matteo Renzi, who still has a strong influence among the Democrats’ senators, suggested Sunday the party should seek a possible alliance with the 5-Stars and other moderate forces to stop Salvini and derail his plan for a new election in October.Sales tax, migrant issuesItaly has to draft a painful budget law by the end of October and have it approved by parliament by the end of the year. The government in place will have to find about 23 billion euro ($25.8 billion) in financial resources to avoid a planned sales tax hike, which would prove highly unpopular with voters and weigh on the electoral campaign.Depending on the outcome of the no-confidence votes in the Senate and the House, the president could still try to guide the creation of a transition government, headed by Conte or someone else, to handle the budget law and lead Italy to a new election that could be as late as next year.Still, it’s not clear that such a government would win the needed majority in parliament.Salvini’s strong anti-migrant stance is credited with the League’s surge in popularity. After claiming just 17% of the vote in Italy’s 2018 national election, the League won 34% in European elections this spring.The 5-Stars, meanwhile, have seen their support shrink from nearly 33% in the 2018 election to 17% in the European elections in May.
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Early Study Results Suggest 2 Ebola Treatments Saving Lives
Two of four experimental Ebola drugs being tested in Congo seem to be saving lives, international health authorities announced Monday.The preliminary findings prompted an early halt to a major study on the drugs and a decision to prioritize their use in the African country, where a yearlong outbreak has killed more than 1,800 people.
The early results mark “some very good news,” said Dr. Anthony Fauci of the U.S. National Institutes of Health, which helped fund the study. With these drugs, “we may be able to improve the survival of people with Ebola.”The two drugs — one developed by Regeneron Pharmaceuticals and the other by NIH researchers — are antibodies that work by blocking the virus.FILE – A man receives a vaccine against Ebola from a nurse outside the Afia Himbi Health Center in Goma, July 15, 2019.While research shows there is an effective albeit experimental vaccine against Ebola — one now being used in Congo — no studies have signaled which of several potential treatments were best to try once people became sick. During the West Africa Ebola epidemic several years ago, studies showed a hint that another antibody mixture named ZMapp worked, but not clear proof.
So with the current outbreak in Congo, researchers compared ZMapp to three other drugs — Regeneron’s compound, the NIH’s called mAb114 and an antiviral drug named remdesivir.
On Friday, independent study monitors reviewed how the first several hundred patients in the Congo study were faring — and found enough difference to call an early halt to the trial. The panel determined that the Regeneron compound clearly was working better than the rest, and the NIH antibody wasn’t far behind, Fauci explained. Next, researchers will do further study to nail down how well those two compounds work.The data is preliminary, Fauci stressed. But in the study, significantly fewer people died among those given the Regeneron drug or the NIH’s — about 30% compared to half who received ZMapp. More striking, when patients sought care early — before too much virus was in their bloodstream — mortality was just 6% with the Regeneron drug and 11% with the NIH compound, compared to about 24% for ZMapp, he said.
Among people who receive no care in the current outbreak, about three-fourths die, said Dr. Michael Ryan of the World Health Organization. All of Congo’s Ebola treatment units have access to the two drugs, he added, saying he was hopeful that the news would persuade more patients to seek care — as soon as symptoms appear.Quick care ‘vital’Tackling Congo’s outbreak has been complicated both by conflict in the region and because many people don’t believe Ebola is real and choose to stay at home when they’re sick, which spurs spread of the virus.”Getting people into care more quickly is absolutely vital,” Ryan said. “The fact that we have very clear evidence now on the effectiveness of the drugs, we need to get that message out to communities.”Fauci said Regeneron and Ridgeback Biotherapeutics, which has licensed the NIH compound, told authorities enough doses are readily available.One issue researchers will have to analyze: Occasionally people who receive the Ebola vaccine still become sick, including some in the treatment study, which raises the question of whether their earlier protection inflated the drugs’ survival numbers.
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US Authorities: Friend Bought Gear for Dayton Mass Killer
U.S. authorities said Monday that a friend of the Dayton, Ohio, gunman who killed nine people in a 30-second burst of mayhem bought him body armor, a gun accessory and a 100-round magazine earlier this year.Ethan Kollie is seen in this undated file booking photo provided by the Montgomery County Sheriff.Prosecutors in the Midwest city said that Ethan Kollie told authorities that he bought the items for the shooter, Connor Betts, and kept them at his apartment so the shooter’s parents would not find the gear.The details behind the items used by Betts surfaced as the authorities charged Kollie with lying about not using marijuana on a federal firearms form he filled out to buy a pistol that was not used in the mass shooting.Betts, 24, carried out the attack in the nightlife district of Dayton early on Aug. 4, killing his 22-year-old sister, Megan Betts, and eight others and wounding 27 more before police spotted him and killed him just as he was about to run into a bar. Police have yet to disclose a motive behind the assault.The Dayton carnage occurred 13 hours after authorities allege that a Texas man targeted and shot Hispanics at a Walmart store in the U.S.-Mexican border city of El Paso, killing 22 and injuring another two dozen. The accused shooter, Patrick Crusius, 21, had complained about an “invasion” of Texas by Hispanics. If convicted, he could face the death penalty.
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Cosby Lawyers Ask Appeals Court to Toss #MeToo Conviction
Updated 6:40 pm, Aug. 12, 2019.A Pennsylvania appeals court on Monday questioned why actor Bill Cosby never got a supposed non-prosecution agreement in writing as his lawyers asked the panel to overturn his sexual assault conviction.Cosby, 82, is serving a three- to 10-year prison term for drugging and molesting a woman at his home in what became the first celebrity trial of the (hash)MeToo era.The three-judge panel asked why Cosby’s top-shelf lawyers didn’t follow the norm and get an immunity agreement in writing, and approved by a judge, when accuser Andrea Constand first came forward in 2005.”This is not a low-budget operation. … They had an unlimited budget,” said Superior Court Judge John T. Bender. “Could it be they knew this was something the trial court would never have allowed?”Cosby’s lawyers have long argued that he relied on the promise before giving testimony in Constand’s 2005 lawsuit that proved incriminating when it was unsealed a decade later.Judge Carolyn Nichols echoed Bender’s point, asking, “how can the elected district attorney bind that office in perpetuity?”Cosby’s lawyers also attacked Montgomery County Judge Steven O’Neill’s decision to let five other accusers testify when Cosby went on trial last year, after more than 60 accusers came forward and his deposition was unsealed. Prosecutors said they chose women whose accounts showed that Cosby had a “signature” crime pattern. Bender seemed to agree, interrupting defense arguments that their stories had significant differences.”The reality of it is, he gives them drugs and then he sexually assaults them,” he said. “That’s the pattern, is it not?”Kristen L. Weisenberger, representing Cosby, said one of the women wasn’t even sure she’d been violated. But prosecutors said that’s how Cosby planned it.”The defendant should not be rewarded because she has no recollection because of the drugs he gave her,” Assistant District Attorney Adrienne Jappe argued.The court’s decision on how many other accusers should be allowed to testify will be closely watched by sexual assault survivors and defense lawyers as men like movie mogul Harvey Weinstein await trial in #MeToo-type cases.O’Neill had allowed just one other accuser at Cosby’s first trial in 2017, when the jury failed to reach a verdict.Cosby’s lawyers called the decision to let five testify at the retrial arbitrary and prejudicial. However, the panel said judges are not bound by their earlier trial rulings.Cosby, who is serving time at a state prison near Philadelphia, was not in court for the arguments at the Pennsylvania Capitol in Harrisburg. The court typically takes several months to issue decisions.Long beloved as “America’s Dad” for his TV role as Dr. Cliff Huxtable, Cosby has called his encounters with Constand and other accusers consensual.In his deposition, Cosby acknowledged getting quaaludes in the 1970s to give to women before sex, including 19-year-old Therese Serignese, whom he had met at a Las Vegas hotel. Serignese traveled from Florida to attend Monday’s hearing.”Remember, there are 60 accusers,” she said. “Out of 19 prior bad act witnesses requested by the prosecutors, the judge only allowed five. I say Bill Cosby got a good deal there.”
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