The Niger Delta is where Africa’s largest oil producer pumps out its most lucrative natural resource.But while companies like Shell and ExxonMobile operate there and extract billions of dollars worth of crude oil, most of the people in the region are extremely poor. Their traditional livelihoods as farmers and fishermen have been badly affected by more than 6,000 oil spills that have damaged the environment over the past 50 years.People ride a boat past an oil discharge facility in Lagos, Nigeria, Nov. 10, 2016.A 33-year-old local activist and petroleum engineer, Legborsi Yamaabana, has come out to denounce a $1 billion environmental remediation project that was launched in the community of Ogoni in 2016.The project, recommended by the Members of the joint task force, part of the Bodo oil spill clean-up operation, inspect the site of an illegal refinery near the village of Bodo in the Niger Delta, Aug.2, 2018. Yamaabana is the president of the Ogoni Youth Federation, which claims to have 11,000 members. The federation has filed a lawsuit against HYPREP, the government agency in charge of coordinating the cleanup. The Federation wants to know exactly how the money is being spent. It also claims HYPREP is not following the recommendations of the U.N. Environment Program contained in In this photo taken May 18, 2013, an abandoned illegal refinery is seen at the creeks of Bayelsa, Nigeria.HYPREP rejects these criticisms. The agency’s head of communications and community engagement, Isa Wasa, told VOA that the contracted companies do meet the criteria for doing the work.”All the contractors are qualified because there are certain documents that they had to present, which they did,” Wasa said.Responding to claims that local communities are not benefiting from the cleanup project, Wasa added that at least 400 local residents have been given jobs to work at the sites. HYPREP says more than 20,000 people have received free health care during a medical outreach mission that the agency organized and that they’re working on getting clean water to communities.But deep skepticism over the effort remains. HYPREP signposts are being destroyed. Earlier this year, local youth burned a HYPREP bus that was carrying government staff and journalists.Celestine AkpoBari, a veteran environmental activist, says people in the region have expected too much, too soon from the cleanup. But he acknowledged it’s understandable they are disillusioned.”The people have been pushed to the wall. They’ve been told lies over a million times,” Celestine saidEnvironmentalists say it could take 30 years to sanitize and restore the region’s environment. Activists warn that if the government fails to deliver, people may resort to violence.
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Month: September 2019
French Experts Restore Three Sudanese Relics
A team of French diggers has restored three Sudanese artifacts, including a 3,500-year-old wall relief, and it handed them to the African country’s national museum Thursday, a French archaeologist said.
The three artifacts were discovered at separate archaeological sites in recent years in Sudan and were restored by a French team of experts.
The items are a wall painting of an ancient Kandaka Nubian queen, a Meroite stela and a wall relief inscription believed to be almost 3,500 years old. A stela, discovered at Sedeinga pyramids, is displayed at the National Museum of Sudan in Khartoum, Sept. 19, 2019.”The idea is to give back to the museum the most important archaeological pieces discovered and restored,” said Marc Maillot, director of the French archaeological unit deployed in Sudan.
The wall painting was found at El-Hassa site, the stela at Sedeinga and the relief at the temple of Soleb, where French diggers along with Sudanese counterparts have conducted extensive archaeological work for several years.
On Thursday, the three artifacts were handed over to the Sudan National Museum to mark the completion of 50 years of French archaeologists’ presence in the country.
For decades, international archaeologists have worked extensively in Sudan, proving that the northeast African nation has its own extensive wealth of ancient relics and was not merely a satellite of neighboring Egypt.
Archaeologists are convinced that many kingdoms still lie buried, waiting to be discovered.
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Huawei Faces Public Test as it Unveils Sanction-Hit Phone
Chinese tech giant Huawei launched its latest high-end smartphone in Munich on Thursday, the first of its mobile devices not to carry popular Google apps because of U.S. sanctions.”Today because of the U.S. ban … we cannot pre-install” Google’s applications, said Richard Yu, who heads Huawei’s consumer business group, as he unveiled the group’s latest Mate 30 and Mate 30 Pro models.But heading off fears that a phone without popular apps like Whatsapp, YouTube or Google Maps could not succeed, he stressed that the equivalent platform by the Chinese giant offered a choice of 45,000 apps through the Huawei App Gallery.Richard Yu, head of Huawei’s consumer business group, speaks on stage during a presentation to reveal Huawei’s latest smartphones Mate 30 and Mate 30 Pro in Munich, Germany, Sept. 19, 2019.Yu added that the Chinese giant was investing US$1 billion (900,000 euros) into its Huawei Mobile Services (HMS) core software ecosystem, as he urged app developers to bring their creations to the system.Huawei, targeted directly by the United States as part of a broader trade conflict with Beijing, was added to a “blacklist” in Washington in May.Since then, it has been illegal for American firms to do business with the Chinese firm, suspected of espionage by President Donald Trump and his administration.As a result, the new Mate will run on a freely available version of Android, the world’s most-used phone operating system that is owned by the search engine heavyweight.OS warsWhile Mate 30 owners will experience little difference in the use of the operating system, the lack of Google’s Play Store — which provides access to hundreds of thousands of third-party apps and games as well as films, books and music — could be unsettling.Household-name services like WhatsApp, Instagram and Google Maps will be unavailable.The tech press reports that this yawning gap in functionality has left some sellers reluctant to stock the new phones, fearing a wave of rapid-fire returns from dissatisfied customers.With the trade conflict with the U.S. unlikely to be resolved imminently, Huawei has little choice but to ramp up the development of its own “ecosystem” of devices, apps and services that would bind users more closely to it.The world’s second-largest smartphone maker after Samsung, Huawei earlier this month presented its proprietary operating system HarmonyOS, a potential replacement for Android.The Mate 30 will not yet have HarmonyOS installed.But it could make for a new round in the decades-old “OS wars” between Microsoft’s Windows and Apple’s Mac OS, then Android versus Apple’s iOS.European roleMeanwhile, Eric Xu, current holder of Huawei’s rotating chief executive chair, has urged Europe to foster an alternative to Google and Apple.That could provide an opening for Huawei to build up Europe’s market of 500 million well-off consumers as a stronghold against American rivals.”If Europe had its own ecosystem for smart devices, Huawei would use it … that would resolve the problem of European digital dependency” on the United States, Xu told German business daily Handelsblatt.He added that his company would be prepared to invest in developing such joint European-Chinese projects.
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Sanders Still Wants a Revolution, But Now He’s Got Company
Bernie Sanders is still leading a revolution. But his ideas no longer feel quite so revolutionary.The Vermont senator acknowledges that many of his top proposals, which were dismissed as radical four years ago, have been adopted by much of the crowded 2020 Democratic presidential primary field: “Medicare for All,” tuition-free college, spending trillions to combat climate change and a national $15 per hour minimum wage. But he’s out to prove that his second presidential campaign is still about fresh energy and ideas even if its refrains now sound familiar.“Not only can I lead it, I think I am the person to lead it,” Sanders said in an interview at a plumbers and pipefitters union hall in Las Vegas, when asked if he could helm a revolution when so many of his presidential rivals agree with him.“What we need to do is to look at somebody who four years ago had the courage to break new ground in this country,” he added. “We’re continuing to break new ground today.”But there are signs that may not be enough. The campaign is restructuring its staff in key early voting states as the 78-year-old Sanders faces crosscurrents that weren’t in play four years ago. No longer the sole progressive alternative to an overwhelming favorite in Hillary Clinton, Sanders is one of several candidates making explicit appeals to the party’s left wing. This time, his rivals have taken him seriously from the start, a sign of his name recognition but also a status that subjects Sanders to more scrutiny and criticism than at this stage of the 2016 campaign.And some of Sanders’ younger competitors are calling for generational change, an issue that could resonate because of questions raised about the readiness for the presidency of another senior candidate, 76-year-old former Vice President Joe Biden.FILE – Supporters wave signs in support of Democratic presidential candidate Senator Bernie Sanders, as he speaks during a campaign rally in Denver, Colorado, Sept. 9, 2019.Not all Democrats have embraced Sanders’ core principles. Kamala Harris is a co-sponsor of his Medicare for All legislation, but the California senator now says she doesn’t favor its call to scrap all private health insurance. Biden, the early front-runner in the primary, has repeatedly hammered Sanders over the plan’s costs.Few candidates line up more closely with Sanders than Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren. While they don’t agree on everything, Warren is such a fan of Medicare for All that she’s repeatedly declared, “I’m with Bernie,” when it comes to health care.Because they agree on so much, Warren is becoming a growing threat to Sanders. She packed tens of thousands of supporters into New York’s Washington Square Park on Monday, harkening back to Sanders’ success in attracting massive 2016 crowds. On the same day, she picked up an endorsement from the progressive Working Families Party, which backed Sanders’ first campaign.A national NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll released Tuesday found Warren leading Sanders among Democratic primary voters 25% to 14%. Biden still came out on top at 31%. Sanders is in second behind Biden in other national and early state surveys.Sanders is working to fortify his campaign, recently parting ways with his political director in Iowa, which holds the nation’s first caucus, and replacing his state director in New Hampshire, a state critical to Sanders’ efforts given his landslide primary victory there in 2016.“They have some challenges,” Brian Fallon, who was chief spokesman for Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign, said of Sanders’ team. “In a binary race, there were a lot of people who united around an alternative to Clinton. There continue to be true blue Bernie supporters and that probably gives him the most stubborn floor of support of any candidate, but those numbers are smaller. The non-establishment vote is spread around.”Sanders rejected the notion that the primary may eventually force liberal Democrats to choose between him and Warren, saying, “I think that Sen. Warren, who is a friend of mine, is running her campaign. We are running our campaign.”FILE – Democratic Senators Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren participate in the first of two Democratic presidential primary debates hosted by CNN, at the Fox Theatre in Detroit, Michigan, July 30, 2019.Warren has similarly praised her longtime friendship with Sanders rather than answer questions about whether a showdown is coming.Still, there are questions about how long the holding pattern can last. On Sunday, Sanders will travel to Oklahoma, where he’ll attend a Comanche Nation Fair Powwow. While he’s not expected to directly talk about Warren, the trip will take Sanders to her native state a month after she apologized to Native Americans over her past claim to tribal heritage. Sanders has also gotten more aggressive with Biden lately, ticking through a list of the former vice president’s unpopular votes while he was in the Senate — including supporting the Wall Street bank bailout.With just over four months before primary voting begins, Sanders said he doesn’t believe anyone in so crowded a field will carry states with 50% of the vote.“So the question is, who is going to get the 30, 35, 40% of the vote that you need to carry the states?” he said. “I think that because of our strong grassroots movement we are in a strong position to do that.”Sanders’ advisers, meanwhile, argue that his appeal now goes beyond political insurgency, noting that he campaigned hard for Clinton after the 2016 primary and that he has begun working more closely with state parties this cycle, trying to build support through traditional channels.Fallon also noted that Sanders has been ahead of many of his rivals on things like joining striking McDonald’s workers in Iowa — giving him revolutionary political cred that rises above policy overlap with other candidates.“With the Bernie crowd, that’s the space to say, `Don’t settle for imitators,”’ Fallon said.A lot of Sanders’ central message remains the same, though, and still appeals to voters.“I think I’ve heard a lot of what he’s said already,” said Alejandro Hernandez Jr., a 23-year-old federal employee who saw Sanders at a recent Latino issues forum in Las Vegas. “But just to see his actual energy and presence, the way he commands the room and really the elegance with which he speaks, it’s truly impressive.”
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Macron Says Yellow Vest Crisis ‘Very Good For Me’
President Emmanuel Macron has said he believes the yellow vest protests that rocked France since last year have been good for him as they made him listen and communicate better, in an interview published on Thursday.The yellow vest (gilets jaunes) protests, which often descended into violent clashes with the police, erupted last November, with demonstrators accusing Macron of being aloof and unaware of the needs of ordinary French people.Now over two years into his five-year term, Macron is hoping in the next phase of his term to focus on his ambitious vision for reforming not just France but also the EU.”In a certain way, the gilets jaunes were very good for me,” Macron told Time magazine in an interview for a front-page cover story. “Because it reminded me who I should be.”He acknowledged that the protests had made him aware that he needed to be less disconnected.”My challenge is to listen to people much better than I did at the very beginning,” he said, for the story entitled “Macron’s Moment”.”I probably provided the feeling that I wanted to reform even against people.”And sometimes my impatience was felt as an impatience (with) the French people. That is not the case,” he said, adding that his impatience was with France’s system itself.”Now, I think I need to take more time to explain where we are and what we want to do exactly.”Analysts say that for now, Macron appears to have seen off the worst of the yellow vest protests, which are still taking place every weekend but on nothing like the scale of six months ago.But he has to keep an eye on his own popularity and France’s powerful unions as he seeks to implement reforms at home. The Paris metro last Friday saw its worst strike in years over a planned pension overhaul.He has also taken an active role on the international stage, though his drives to defuse the Iran nuclear dispute and also bring peace to Ukraine could yet be derailed.Time quoted Macron as saying he was currently in a “Death Valley” period between setting out his reforms and seeing them bearing fruit.”The end of Death Valley is the day you have results,” he said. “Building this new France is my obsession.
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Japan Court: TEPCO Execs Not Guilty in Fukushima Disaster
A Japanese court ruled Thursday that three former executives of Tokyo Electric Power Company were not guilty of professional negligence in the 2011 disaster at the Fukushima nuclear power plant because ensuring absolute safety at nuclear plants was not a government requirement at that time.The ruling by the Tokyo District Court ended the only criminal trial related to the nuclear accident that has kept tens of thousands of residents away from their homes because of lingering radiation contamination.Lawyers representing the 5,700 Fukushima residents who filed the criminal complaint said they will push prosecutors to appeal the decision. A group of supporters stood outside the court Thursday with placards reading “Unjust ruling.”The court said ex-TEPCO Chairman Tsunehisa Katsumata, 79, and two other former executives were also not guilty of causing the deaths of 44 elderly patients whose health deteriorated during or after forced evacuations from a local hospital and a nursing home.The executives were accused of failing to anticipate the massive tsunami that struck the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant on March 11, 2011, following a magnitude 9 earthquake, and of failing to take measures that might have protected the plant.Katsumata and co-defendants Sakae Muto, 69, and Ichiro Takekuro, 73, pleaded not guilty at the trial’s opening session in June 2017. They said predicting the tsunami was impossible.Three of the plant’s reactors had meltdowns, spreading radiation into surrounding communities and into the sea.Prosecutors in December requested five-year prison sentences for each executive, accusing them of not doing enough to guard against the threat of a large tsunami despite knowing the risk.In its ruling, the court said the defendants held responsible positions at TEPCO, but that did not necessarily mean they were responsible for taking measures beyond those in the legal regulatory framework.It said there is no proof they could have foreseen that a tsunami could flood the plant the way it did in 2011.TEPCO officials were aware of a need to improve tsunami prevention measures and were considering taking steps by 2008 and 2009, but those steps were in line with government safety standards at the time.The prosecutors argued that TEPCO could have prevented the disaster had it halted the plant to install safety measures before the tsunami. But the court said the company’s responsibility to supply electricity to the public meant that idling the plant would have had a “social impact,” and that possible measures were likely not ready in time.The acquittal disappointed dozens of Fukushima residents and their supporters who attended the ruling.“Who is going to take responsibility then? It was TEPCO that caused the accident, there is no mistake about it,” said Masakatsu Kanno, a Fukushima resident whose father died after being evacuated from a hospital.Hiroyuki Kawai, a lawyer for the plaintiffs, said the decision must be appealed.“The ruling showed that the judge did not understand the dangers of nuclear plants at all, and it was sympathetic to the company executives and their management decisions,” Kawai said. “The ruling sounded as if it was written by supporters of nuclear energy.”Prosecutors had told the court that the three defendants had access to data and scientific studies that anticipated the possibility of a tsunami exceeding 10 meters (33 feet) which could trigger a loss of power and a severe accident.Defense attorneys told the court that the tsunami prediction was not well established. They said the actual damage was larger than projected, and that if TEPCO had taken steps based on the projection, it would not have prevented the disaster.TEPCO declined to comment directly on the ruling but pledged to devote itself to the compensation of disaster-hit people and the cleanup of the plant and its surroundings while enhancing the safety of nuclear plants “with unwavering determination.”Katsumata apologized “to the people for causing tremendous trouble” in a statement released by his lawyer.More than eight years since the disaster, the Fukushima plant has been stabilized and being decommissioned — a decades-long process that is still at an early stage. TEPCO is struggling with massive amounts of treated but still radioactive water that is stored in 1,000 tanks on the compound, hampering the cleanup work.Prosecutors said TEPCO was conducting a tsunami safety review following a 2007 earthquake in Niigata in northern Japan that damaged another TEPCO plant, and the three former executives routinely participated in that process. In March 2008, a TEPCO subsidiary projected that a tsunami as high as 15.7 meters (47 feet) could hit Fukushima, prompting the company to consider building seawalls, but the executives allegedly delayed the idea to avoid additional spending.Prosecutors presented hundreds of pieces of evidence including emails between safety officials and the two vice presidents that suggested increasing concern and a need for more tsunami defenses at the plant. More than 20 TEPCO officials and scientists testified in court.Government and parliamentary investigations said TEPCO’s lack of a safety culture and weak risk management, including an underestimation of tsunami risks, led to the disaster. They said TEPCO colluded with regulators to disregard tsunami protection measures.The company has said it could have been more proactive with safety measures, but that it could not anticipate the massive tsunami that crippled the plant.TEPCO has spent 9 trillion yen ($83 billion) on compensation related to the disaster. It needs to spend an estimated 8 trillion yen ($74 billion) to decommission the plant and 6 trillion yen ($55 billion) for decontamination.
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US, Chinese Trade Deputies Face off in Washington amid Deep Differences
U.S. and Chinese deputy trade negotiators were set to resume face-to-face talks on Thursday for the first time in nearly two months as the world’s two largest economies try to bridge deep policy differences and find a way out of a bitter and protracted trade war.The negotiations, on Thursday and Friday, are aimed at laying the groundwork for high-level talks in early October that will determine whether the two countries are working toward a solution or are headed for new and higher tariffs on each other’s goods.A delegation of about 30 Chinese officials, led by Vice Finance Minister Liao Min, were set to launch talks on Thursday morning at the U.S. Trade Representative’s (USTR) office near the White House. The U.S. side is expected to be led by Deputy Trade Representative Jeffrey Gerrish.The discussions are likely to focus heavily on agriculture, including U.S. demands that China substantially increase purchases of American soybeans and other farm commodities, a person with knowledge of the planned discussions told Reuters.Two negotiating sessions over the two days will cover agricultural issues, while just one will be devoted to the strengthening of China’s intellectual property protections and the forced transfer of U.S. technology to Chinese firms.”Sessions on agriculture will get a disproportionate amount of air time,” the source said, adding that one of these sessions also will include a focus on U.S. President Donald Trump’s demand that China cut off shipments of the synthetic opioid fentanyl to the United States.The president is eager to provide export opportunities for U.S. farmers, a key Trump political constituency that has been battered by China’s retaliatory tariffs on U.S. soybeans and other agricultural commodities.
U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, in an interview on Fox Business Network on Thursday, said it remained unclear what China wants and that “we will find out very, very shortly in the next couple of weeks.””What we need is to correct the big imbalances, not just the current trade deficit,” Ross said. “It’s more complicated than just buying a few more soybeans.”Currency on tableU.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, who will participate in the October talks along with USTR Robert Lighthizer and Chinese Vice Premier Liu He, has said that currency issues will be a focus of the new rounds of talks.Mnuchin formally declared China a currency manipulator last month after the yuan weakened against the dollar, accusing Beijing of reducing the strength of its currency to gain a trade advantage.
Trump has said that China failed to follow through on agricultural purchase commitments made by its president, Xi Jinping, at a G20 leaders summit in Osaka, Japan as a goodwill gesture to get stalled talks back on track. China has denied making such commitments.When such purchases failed to materialize during U.S.-China trade talks in late July, Trump quickly moved to impose 10% tariffs on virtually all remaining Chinese imports untouched by previous rounds of tariffs.But in an easing of tensions last week, Trump delayed a scheduled Oct. 1 tariff increase on $250 billion worth of Chinese imports until mid-month, as China postponed tariffs on some U.S. cancer drugs, animal feed ingredients and lubricants.”The atmospherics are improving but … President Trump is going to stand firm,” U.S. Vice President Mike Pence told Fox Business Network in an interview that aired on Thursday Beijing also is seeking an easing of U.S. national security sanctions against telecom equipment maker Huawei Technologies, which has been largely cut off from buying sensitive U.S. technology products.The trade war, which has dragged on for 14 months, has rattled financial markets as policymakers and investors worry about the broadening global economic fallout of the dispute.The specter of a global recession has prompted central banks around the world to loosen policy in recent months. The Federal Reserve on Wednesday cut rates for the second time this year, saying the reduction provided “insurance against ongoing risks,” including weak world growth and resurgent trade tensions.Ideological divideTrade experts, executives and government officials in both countries say that even if the September and October talks produce an interim deal that includes purchases and a reprieve for Huawei, the U.S.-China trade war has hardened into a political and ideological battle that runs far deeper than tariffs and could take years to resolve.Jon Lieber, a principal in PwC’s national tax services practice, said a “very narrow agreement” in October would do little to solve fundamental differences between the two countries.To keep markets steady, the two sides could well “string along the talks for a longer period of time,” he added.Representative Kevin Brady, the top Republican on the House Ways and Means Committee, told reporters on Wednesday that he was cautiously optimistic about the talks.
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African Children Will Make Up ‘Half of World’s Poor’ by 2030
African children are being left further and further behind and will make up more than half of the world’s poor by 2030, according to a new report.The stark warning comes as more than 150 world leaders prepare to attend the U.N. Sustainable Development Summit in New York beginning Sept. 25 to work on tackling global poverty.The United Nations has agreed on 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). No. 1 on the list is eradicating extreme poverty by 2030. But the world will fall well short of that target, according to the report by Save the Children and the Overseas Development Institute, which delivers a devastating verdict on global efforts to eradicate extreme poverty among children in Africa.“On our projection, children in Africa will account for around 55% of all extreme poverty in the world by 2030,” said Kevin Watkins, chief executive of Save the Children UK.
African Children Will Make up Half of World’s Poor by 2030 video player.
A child, who fled with others from his village in northern Burkina Faso following attacks by assailants, eats inside a school on the outskirts of Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, June 15, 2019.The report criticizes African governments for failing to develop coherent policies, and also warns that the IMF, the World Bank and other donors are failing in their response.Watkins said dramatic changes in approach are urgently needed.“Transferring more monetary resources to children who are living in poverty has to be part of the solution,” Watkins said. “But we also know that money is not enough. It’s critically important that these children get access to basic nutritional services, the basic health interventions, and the school systems that they need to escape poverty.”The report warns that if poverty reduction targets are not met, the world will also fall short on other sustainable development goals in education, health and gender equality.
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In new Sudan, Women Want More Freedom, Bigger Political Role
On her daily walks from home to her job at a primary school in the city of Port Sudan, Khalda Saber would urge people to join the protests against the three-decade rule of Sudan’s autocratic President Omar al-Bashir.
At school, she rallied fellow teachers to join the pro-democracy uprising.“I was telling them that there is nothing to lose, compared with what we have already lost. I was telling them that we have to take to the streets, demonstrate and express our rejection to what’s happening,” she said.One January morning, two months after the protests erupted, plainclothes security forces snatched Saber off a bus and took her to the feared security and intelligence agency’s local office.
There, she was detained in a newly built wing in a prison in the capital, Khartoum, alongside other protesters. She said security forces beat her and the other new arrivals for several hours.Saber spent 40 days in detention. She was among many thousands of Sudanese women who risked their lives leading protests that eventually pushed the military to overthrow al-Bashir in April.Several turbulent months followed as the protesters feared the military would cling to power, before a power-sharing deal in July. An interim, civilian-led government was sworn in last month.Amid high hopes for a new era, many Sudanese women like Saber are looking for greater freedoms and equality. They seek to overturn many of the restrictive laws based on Islamic jurisprudence, or Sharia, that activists say stifle women’s rights.
“For sure the whole Sudanese people have an interest in this revolution, but we, the women, had a bigger interest and motivation to make it happen,” Saber said.Al-Bashir came to power in an Islamist-backed military coup in 1989, adopting a harsh interpretation of Islamic law that diminished the ability of women to participate meaningfully in public life, Human Rights Watch said in a 2015 report.Public order laws imposed an Islamic dress code on women and restricted their ability to move freely or, if unmarried, with male colleagues, said Jehanne Henry, an associate Africa director at the New York-based rights group. Violators faced lashing in public and hefty fines.
But the end of al-Bashir’s rule would lead Saber, who worked with a local NGO on women’s rights issues for years, to flee the country. She spoke to The Associated Press from her home in self-imposed exile in the Egyptian capital, Cairo.Along with her husband and two daughters, Saber escaped Sudan just two days after al-Bashir’s ouster on April 11.She says the family was threatened, mainly by the Rapid Support Forces, a paramilitary group which grew out of the notorious Janjaweed militias that al-Bashir used in the conflict in Sudan’s Darfur region.
Saber had documented the RSF’s rights violations, especially against women, through testimonies before and during the uprising.“There were threats that they would attack my daughters,” she said.
Following her release in March, she had immediately joined demonstrations at the main sit-in outside the military’s headquarters in Khartoum. “At this time, the threats were increased. I found no way but to leave (the country),” she said.Saber’s story reflects a wave of violence against women during the protests. A Sudanese rights group, Sudanese Women Action, said in a report released earlier this month that women protesters faced an “unprecedented amount of violence and human rights violations” that amounted to “serious atrocities.” Twelve women and a 7-year-old girl were killed in the protests, it said.The group said it documented at least 26 cases of rape as security forces broke up the protest camp outside the military headquarters in early June. Dozens more rape cases weren’t reported or documented “due to fears of reprisals or stigma,” the group alleged.During the uprising, Saber said countless women in both rural and urban areas participated in the demonstrations.“It was not strange to see so many women at the front in the marches,” she said. “This is because of growing awareness of women’s rights. Women in time realized they have to stick to their demands.”After five months in Cairo, Saber remains wary. “Fear and dread still exist. It is too early to go back to Sudan,” she said.Sudan’s democratic transition remains fragile. But the appointment of several women to the interim government _ including Sudan’s first female foreign minister, and two women in an 11-member sovereign council has raised hopes that the role women played in the uprising will lead to change.Henry, the HRW associate director, said the new government is committed to several legal reforms, including changes needed to achieve gender equality. Family and inheritance laws “clearly discriminate against women, limiting their ability to inherit property equally,” she said.Wifaq Gurashi, a women’s rights activist in Khartoum, said the government should prioritize annulling all laws that restrict women’s movement and freedoms, and implement policies that offer broader opportunities for women.“With a little determination, we will be represented fairly,” said Gurashi, who was herself briefly detained during the uprising in February.But, she said, women face formidable obstacles.‘It’s a long way (to go), especially to get rid of the traditional way of thinking in this masculine and authoritarian society,” Gurashi said.
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Belgian Fighter Jet Crashes in France, Pilot Hits Power Line
A Belgian F-16 fighter jet crashed Thursday on a road in western France and one of its pilots is hanging from a high-voltage electricity line after his parachute got caught, according to French authorities.No injuries have been reported, but surrounding homes have been evacuated as emergency workers try to extract the suspended pilot safely.The plane was traveling from Belgium to a naval air base in France when it came down between the towns of Pluvigner and Landaul, in Britanny, according to a statement from the regional prefecture, or administration.Two pilots were aboard, and both ejected before the crash. One was safely rescued but the other got stuck on the power line.The plane itself was not armed, the statement said.Local newspaper Le Telegramme showed images of the pilot hanging from the line, black smoke and flames rising from the area and a house it said was damaged in the crash.A national police spokeswoman said no injuries have been reported among residents in the area. She said about 100 police have surrounded the crash site and are investigating what happened.
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China Attacks Pelosi For Meeting Hong Kong Activists
BEIJING (AP) _ China’s foreign ministry on Thursday accused U.S. congressional leader Nancy Pelosi of making irresponsible remarks about pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong, one day after she welcomed activists from the city to the U.S. Capitol.Spokesman Geng Shuang said Pelosi and other American lawmakers had confused right and wrong by engaging with what he termed Hong Kong separatists.“We urge the U.S. to stop bolstering radical violent forces in Hong Kong that advocate Hong Kong independence, and stop intensifying words and actions that undermine the prosperity and stability of Hong Kong,” he said at a daily briefing.Pelosi, the Democratic speaker of the House of Representatives, was joined by Republican lawmakers at a news conference Wednesday with democracy activists including Joshua Wong and pop singer Denise Ho.She sided with their demand for fully democratic elections and thanked them for “challenging the conscience” of the Chinese government and the world.Pelosi has monitored China from her early years in Congress, when she appeared with other lawmakers in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square to pay tribute to protesters who died in 1989 pro-democracy protests.Anti-government protests demanding democracy have riven Hong Kong all summer, with no resolution in sight.
The protesters believe that China is eroding the rights and freedoms that Hong Kong has under a “one country, two systems” framework that allows the semi-autonomous city to have its own legal system.The U.S. House of Representatives is expected to advance legislation that would require an annual review of Hong Kong’s special economic and trade status, providing a potential check on the Chinese government’s influence.Geng said Hong Kong is an internal Chinese issue, and that China accepts no interference in its internal affairs.“We strongly urge the U.S. to … respect China’s sovereignty, stop interfering in Hong Kong affairs in any form and stop promoting the review of relevant Hong Kong-related proposals,” he said.
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Warren Surges in Democratic Presidential Race
A new poll shows Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren surging into second place in the Democratic presidential race behind former Vice President Joe Biden.The latest NBC News-Wall Street Journal poll found Biden leading the Democratic field with 31% percent support, followed by Warren at 25% and Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders in third place with 14%.South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg came in fourth place with 7% support, followed by California Senator Kamala Harris at 5% and entrepreneur Andrew Yang with 4%.Harris has been losing steam in recent polls after she had a brief bump following the first Democratic candidates debate in June.Biden and Warren were the only two candidates to gain significant support in the latest NBC News-Wall Street Journal poll, an increase from an earlier survey done in July.
Warren Surging in Democratic Presidential Race video player.
Former Vice President Joe Biden speaks at the Galivants Ferry Stump, Sept. 16, 2019, in Galivants Ferry, S.C.Biden also was back on the campaign trail this week with a stop in Miami, Florida.“Everybody knows who Donald Trump is, even his supporters know. They have no illusions. But we have got to let them know who we are. We have got to let them know who we are.”Biden consistently targets President Trump in his remarks, well aware of polls that have shown he would be the strongest challenger to Trump in next year’s election.Debate aftermathAll the candidates are back on the campaign trail after last week’s spirited debate in Houston.During the debate, New Jersey Senator Cory Booker urged his rivals to temper their attacks on each other.“We have got one shot to make Donald Trump a one-term president, and we cannot lose it by the way we talk about each other or demonize and degrade each other.”Senator Cory Booker works his way through the spin room after the 2020 Democratic U.S. presidential debate in Houston, Sept. 12, 2019.Analysts note that there has been little change in the top ranks of the Democratic challengers after three debates, with Biden, Warren and Sanders leading the pack.“The ultimate thing you want to know, though, out of these debates is, did anybody change their standing? And I think among those three candidates, the answer is probably not really,” said Associated Press Washington Bureau Chief Julie Pace.Biden’s statusSo far, Biden appears to be doing just enough to hold his lead, according to University of Virginia analyst Larry Sabato.“Joe Biden did reasonably well. I think he did better than in the first two debates,” Sabato told VOA via Skype. “That is not to say he gave a perfect performance. He always manages to work in some odd things like encouraging people to listen to their record players.”Sabato added that Biden continues to benefit from the notion that he would be the strongest Democrat to take on President Trump next year.“There is a reason why they [Democrats] have made a tentative choice. Democrats have clarified their entire nominating process and boiled it down to one question: Who can defeat President Donald Trump? That is what they care about.”Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., participate in the first of two Democratic presidential primary debates hosted by CNN, July 30, 2019, in the Fox Theatre in Detroit.Warren versus BernieEven though Sanders and Warren are battling for second place, Warren has been the one on the rise in the polls, as evidenced by the latest NBC News-Wall Street Journal poll.“The challenge for Sanders is that there is a viable, additional option in Elizabeth Warren,” said Emory University political scientist Andra Gillespie. “And so I think what we are paying attention to now in these surveys is whether or not Elizabeth Warren’s ascendance is actually coming at the expense of a Bernie Sanders. And so I think that is still an open question.”According to various accounts, President Trump appears to be keeping a close eye on the Democratic race and frequently weighs in with assessment and comments.During a recent rally in Fayetteville, North Carolina, Trump was generally dismissive of the entire Democratic presidential field.“You don’t have any choice, you have to vote for me,” Trump told the crowd. “What are you going to do? Put one of these crazy people running our country again?”Democrats hold their next debate in October in Ohio, and it appears there will be more than 10 candidates, likely meaning two nights of debates.Billionaire environmental activist Tom Steyer has met the qualifications for the fourth debate, joining the 10 Democrats who were on stage in Houston earlier this month.
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Trump Orders New ‘Very Significant’ Sanctions on Iran
U.S. President Donald Trump has ordered additional sanctions against Iran after receiving reports that Tehran is most likely responsible for Saturday’s attacks on Saudi Arabia’s oil facilities. The president said Wednesday that he had directed Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin to stiffen existing sanctions. He also named his fourth national security adviser Wednesday. VOA’s Zlatica Hoke reports.
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Ex-Japanese Energy Company Executives Acquitted in Fukushima Disaster
Three former executives of Tokyo Electric Power Co. have been acquitted in Tokyo District Court on criminal charges related to the 2011 meltdown of three reactors at the Fukushima nuclear plant in northeastern Japan.Prosecutors had accused former TEPCO chairman Tsunehisa Katsumata and former vice presidents Sakae Muto and Ichiro Takekuro of professional negligence for failing to act on studies that showed Fukushima could be at risk from the threat of a tsunami. The trio was also accused of causing the deaths of more than 40 people who died after having been forced to evacuate the area near the plant.Katsumata, Muto and Takekuro were the only people facing criminal prosecution involving the disaster. Prosecutors had asked the court to sentence each executive to five years in jail in a trial that lasted more than two years.A powerful 9.0 magnitude earthquake in March 2011 triggered a massive tsunami that killed 20,000 people and caused the meltdown of Fukushima’s three nuclear reactors in northeastern Japan, making it the world’s worst nuclear crisis since the 1986 Chernobyl disaster.
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Notions of Peace, Reintegrating Fighters Fade with Afghan Violence
Prospects for peace in Afghanistan appeared more remote Thursday after an attack on a government building in eastern Afghanistan killed nine and the Taliban warned of attacks on polling centers just days ahead of the country’s planned elections.The latest spate of bombings across Afghanistan, including an attack earlier this week targeting President Ashraf Ghani, follow the collapse of peace talks between the United States and the Taliban.Moreover, there are the concerns that the ever-growing anger and animosity may make it that much more difficult that an eventual deal, including the Afghan government, if reached, will ever take hold.Of particular concern to some U.S. officials is the fate of about 60,000 full-time Taliban fighters who would be forced to lay down their weapons and find a new way of life, likely within the communities they once battled.“The reintegration of former fighters into society — a complex and long-term process with social, economic, political, security and humanitarian dimensions —will be critical for Afghanistan to achieve lasting peace and stability, a goal crucial to U.S., coalition and Afghan interests,” according to a newly released report by the Office of the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR).How to employ former fighters?The challenge will be massive. In addition to the full-time Taliban fighters, U.S. officials estimate there are 90,000 seasonal fighters, some of whom may also need to be integrated into the workforce.Making prospect all the more daunting, Afghanistan’s economy is struggling, stifled in part by an ongoing drought and facing slowing growth and high levels of unemployment.FILE – Taliban fighters prepare to guard a gathering, in Shindand district of Herat province, Afghanistan, May 27, 2016.U.S. officials also worry about pervasive government corruption and the allure of criminal networks making money from illegal drugs.Put together, it is enough for SIGAR to warn that conditions are “not conducive to a successful reintegration program.”Failure to eventually reintegrate tens of thousands of Taliban fighters, should the Taliban and the Afghan government ever reach an agreement, could also be costly.“If ex-combatants are not accepted by their communities or are unable to find a new livelihood, they may be vulnerable to recruitment by criminal groups or terrorist organizations like the Islamic State Khorasan, the local branch of the Islamic State active in eastern Afghanistan,” the report warns.Peace talks deadHowever, such challenges may still be far off.The White House this week labeled the latest Taliban attacks, which killed almost 30 civilians at an election rally in Parwan province, “cowardly.”U.S. President Donald Trump “has made clear that he will not negotiate a peace agreement while the Taliban continues such attacks,” the statement said.Afghan government officials have also bristled, repeatedly, at the way negotiations between the U.S. and the Taliban have played out, with the government sidelined in the initial talks.“The people of Afghanistan and their elected representatives have been eager to engage in a meaningful peace process,” Afghan Ambassador to the U.S. Roya Rahmani, told a Washington audience last week.“We know peace is on the horizon,” she added. “We also know it will come on our terms.”Forcing US outMeanwhile, the Taliban have been reaching out to U.S. adversaries such as Russia, China and Iran in the hopes of finding ways to force the U.S. to leave Afghanistan.“The purpose of these visits is to inform leaders of these countries about the peace talks and President Trump’s decision to call off the peace process at a time when both sides had resolved all outstanding issues and were about to sign a peace agreement,” a senior Taliban official in Qatar said Wednesday.FILE – Navy Adm. William McRaven, commander, U.S. Special Operations Command, testifies on Capitol Hill in Washington, March 5, 2013.The developments have some former U.S. military officials warning reconciliation and reintegration may not be possible for the foreseeable future.“I never thought negotiations with the Taliban were a good way to go,” former U.S. Special Operations Command Commander, retired Admiral William McRaven, said during a forum in Washington Wednesday.McRaven, perhaps best known for overseeing the raid that led to the death of al-Qaida founder Osama bin Laden in Pakistan in 2011, warned the U.S. military will have to stay in Afghanistan to counter the Taliban for years to come.“If we negotiate some sort of settlement with the Taliban and that settlement calls for the withdrawal of all U.S. troops from Afghanistan, it won’t be six months or a year before all the blood and treasure we have put into Afghanistan will have been reversed,” he said.
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US Expects Serbia-Kosovo Talks to Restart After October 6 Kosovo Election
New U.S. Special Envoy to the Western Balkans Matthew Palmer said Washington expects talks between Serbia and Kosovo to restart after Kosovo’s Oct. 6 election.In an interview with VOA on Wednesday, Palmer said the U.S. is hopeful that the new Kosovo government is “one that’s prepared to suspend the tariffs that are an obstacle to the resumption of the dialogue process.”He urged Kosovo to “take control of its own destiny” and “recognize that its priority is a deal with Serbia on normalization, and suspending the tariffs is part of that.” Palmer said the U.S. is hopeful that Serbia will then respond with suspending the de-recognition campaign against Kosovo.Talks between the two nations have been put on pause since last year over Kosovo’s decision to impose a 100% tax on imported goods from Serbia.Kosovo Prime Minister Ramush Haradinaj abruptly resigned in July after being summoned as a suspect before a war crimes tribunal in The Hague. Kosovo will hold a snap election Oct. 6 following his resignation.The following are excerpts of the interview:VOA: Good afternoon, Special Envoy Palmer, thank you very much for talking to Voice of America.Palmer: Thanks for having me on your show.VOA: What are the policy priorities in your new role? Given this is a new position created under the current administration, is it an increase of the U.S. interests and commitments to the Western Balkans? Palmer: Certainly, I think the decision by the secretary of state to appoint a special representative for the Western Balkans demonstrates clearly and in a concrete fashion our commitment to the region, our commitment to be a partner for the region, and our ambition to help the region move closer into the Western community of nations.So I look at my role as being really in position to help the countries of the Western Balkans fulfill their aspirations for European and Euro Atlantic Integration.We’re hopeful that that begins with North Macedonia and Albania being given the opportunity to open successful negotiations with the European Union.We (would) then like to see Serbia and Kosovo return to the negotiating table and reach an agreement on normalizing their relationship, and of course we’d like to see Bosnia-Herzegovina continue the reform process and move closer on its European and Euro-Atlantic path as well.It’s a big agenda. There’s a lot of work to do, but I’m committed to staying in close partnership with the region and helping those countries.VOA: As you mentioned, getting Kosovo and Serbia to restart the talk is one of the priorities. How?Palmer: Well I think the first thing that we need to do is wait until Kosovo has its elections on Oct. 6. They’ll then be in a process of government formation.We will make clear our expectation that the next government of Kosovo is a pro-dialogue government, that’s one that’s prepared to suspend the tariffs that are an obstacle to the resumption of the dialogue process, that’s prepared to put together an empowered negotiating team that is prepared to engage with Serbia at the negotiating table, seriousness of purpose to achieve an agreement on normalizing relationship. The United States will be with them, together, to every step of this process.But Kosovo needs to take control of its own destiny.VOA: What is your expectation of the October 6 election? Palmer: Well, it’s really up to the people of Kosovo.But whatever political party emerges in the polls to be in a position to try and put together a coalition.We hope that that party will move quickly toward government formation and toward putting together a coalition committed to re-engage in the dialogue process, in serious fashion. VOA: The sticking points seem to be one, Kosovo’s tariffs against Serbia imports; and two, Serbia’s diplomatic campaign to block Kosovo. What will the U.S. do about it? What are the possible solutions? Palmer: Well, what we’d like to see is we’d like to see the next Kosovo government recognize that its priority is a deal with Serbia on normalization, and suspending the tariffs is part of that. We’re hopeful that Serbia will then respond with some incentives on its part and that would include potentially suspending the de-recognition campaign against Kosovo.And with that as a basis: tariff suspension and termination of the de-recognition campaign, the parties can go back to the negotiating table in a positive atmosphere, with an eye toward getting to an agreement.VOA: Would you renew your push, such as a joint letter from you and the White House National Security Council, urging Kosovo to remove the 100% tariffs, now that [Special Presidential Envoy for Hostage Affairs at the State Department Robert] O’Brien will be at the NSC?Palmer: Sure. When I speak on behalf of the U.S. government, I’m not simply speaking on behalf of the State Department. As a special representative, I will be presenting positions of the United States that includes the National Security Council, which includes the office of the secretary of defense. And we speak as the American government with a single voice, with a single policy.So when I go to Kosovo, when I meet with Kosovo officials, I speak on behalf of the United States — that presupposes the entire American government. VOA: If the stagnation continues, would it have a negative impact on the U.S. support to help Kosovo and Serbia integration into the Western community?Palmer: We remain committed. We were prepared to partner with Belgrade, partner with Pristina, partner with the Serbian authorities, partner with the authorities in Kosovo, in pursuit of that goal and objective.We can’t do this by ourselves.The parties themselves have to be leading the separation. We want a solution that is locally owned, that is durable and salable on both sides. One that the United States and others in the European community can get behind.We’re partners with them in this process. They’re the ones that need to be (inaudible).VOA: If I may, I would like to pivot to China’s role. As China is expanding its Belt and Road Initiative, some analysts are saying the Chinese investments in the Western Balkans are gaining momentum. Is it a negative when you are advocating for the U.S. policy priorities? What is its implication to the U.S. relations with the region? Palmer: We understand that the countries of the Western Balkans are going to make the best deal that they can for themselves and their publics as they look to develop big infrastructure priorities. This is normal and would be appropriate.What we are doing is trying to ensure that there is a level playing field so that American companies, Western companies are able to compete fairly for these opportunities as they arise. And we are encouraging the governments in the Western Balkans to consider broadly whether some of these deals with China are in their best interests.We’ve certainly seen in other cases that are involved in the Belt and Road — the kind of predatory debt approach to these programs where China’s upfront number will be very appealing to the government in question, but the maintenance costs, the lack of job creation by the Chinese brings to the projects; most importantly, the debts that affect the ability of these countries to maintain the capital goods they acquire, really create long-term costs and the consequences that they haven’t thought through as carefully as they might be.So there are security considerations. There are financial considerations and there are issues of the broader relationship with these countries would like to establish with multinational corporations that need to be factored into that decision.VOA: As Secretary of State (Mike) Pompeo frequently tells allies the risks of using Huawei in the build out of 5G, Serbia is intensifying its cooperation with Huawei. How do you explain to countries such as Serbia, which might see the Chinese equipment and financial packages are the most attractive?Palmer: Here again, what we’re asking people to do is consider the totality of what it is that there is certainly something like telecoms infrastructure, is it a matter of national security as much as it is a financial investment on the part of governments in question?And do they really want to be engaged in doing business with a company that has demonstrated that it is not secure and we are encouraging Serbia and other countries in the Western Balkans to make sure that they prioritize the security of their networks in addition to prioritizing the attractiveness of the financial picture that may be the upfront.VOA: Albania. There are many critics against current prime minister of becoming more autocratic. Is the U.S. concerned of the Socialist majority? What is your take of current political situation in Albania?Palmer: Sure. What we would like to see is the current political impasse in Albania resolved.We have a good, close partnership with the current government of Albania as we had a good, close partnership with the previous governments of Albania.The United States doesn’t pick winners and losers in the (local politics), anywhere, particularly in the Western Balkans where I’m trying to do my job.We work with the governments that are elevated through democratic elections. We understand the desires on the part of the opposition to see reforms implemented and we support the goal of course.There are very specific recommendations that the OSCE has made about electoral reform in Albania. We would like to see a dialogue between the government and the opposition on those reforms. And when that agreement is reached, the next elections to be conducted on that basis.In the meantime, it’s important that Albania get a constitutional court in place so that court to adjudicate on some of the (inaudible) that would rise to that level from the political sphere.The people of Albania can rely on friendship and partnership with the United States. Our allies, our partners are Albania and the Albanian people. Politics is politics, but the relationship between the United States and Albania is strong.VOA: North Macedonia. What are the concrete steps the United States can help North Macedonia to integrate into the Western community?Palmer: Sure. We’re very hopeful that North Macedonia will get the opening of the accession negotiations following the European Council meeting on Oct. 16.We believe that the government in North Macedonia has cleared that bar many times over. And in fact the European Commission has recommended the opening of the accession negotiations with Skopje for the last nine or 10 years in a row. So we’ve made that position clear to our European partners. We think that would be tremendously helpful.North Macedonia, of course, could help its own cause by continuing to pursue the reform agenda to implement the new law on the special prosecutor’s office.There are consultations negotiations on that issue in Skopje that are ongoing. We would like to partner with the government in North Macedonia in support of the reform agenda. We’d like to help that country move forward.We’re also hopeful that North Macedonia will move forward quickly on the NATO track and that we can look to bringing North Macedonia in as the 30th member of NATO. Ideally as early as December.
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US Lawmakers Pledge Support for Hong Kong Pro-Democracy Activists
VOA Mandarin Service’s Xu Teng contributed to this report.CAPITOL HILL — U.S. lawmakers will move next week to begin passing legislation combating human rights abuses in Hong Kong, an action intended to send long-term support to democracy activists there.If passed, the bill would allow President Donald Trump to use the Magnitsky Act to sanction Hong Kong and Chinese authorities for human rights abuses, while ensuring protesters are not denied entry visas to the United States and that Hong Kong is complying with U.S. sanctions and laws.A Trump administration official told a Senate panel Wednesday the U.S. had already been successful in supporting the efforts of pro-democracy activists.”I’ll take a little credit, the U.S. government, on having applied sufficient pressure and encouraged Beijing to do the right thing in Hong Kong,” David Stilwell, assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific Affairs, said in testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. After months of protests, activists in Hong Kong succeeded in forcing the withdrawal of an extradition bill widely seen as an incursion by the mainland Chinese government. Hundreds of thousands of protesters took to the streets in June to protest that legislation, fearing it would threaten the autonomy of the city and endanger dissidents.Hong Kong’s Chief Executive Carrie Lam addresses a news conference in Hong Kong, Sept. 5, 2019.Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam withdrew the bill in September but has not responded to activists’ push for other demands, including amnesty for arrested protesters and an investigation into police brutality.Sen. Marco Rubio told VOA the Senate version of the legislation is expected to come up for a vote in the Foreign Relations Committee at the end of September.”It is mostly technical changes on the process of determining the status of autonomy,” he said Wednesday of the work that still needs to be done on the legislation. “The State Department, which will be in charge of implementing the bill, had some technical suggestions. We’re implementing and incorporating those.”House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Mike McCaul, R-Texas, delivers a “State of Homeland Security” address on the war with Islamic State, Dec. 7, 2015.House Foreign Affairs ranking member Michael McCaul said the committee would begin work marking up their version of the bill next week. The two versions of the legislation would still have to be reconciled before heading to Trump to be signed into law.”Chinese authorities will not get away with using violence and intimidation to squash the fundamental freedoms, freedom of speech, of assembly, of demonstration that are guaranteed by law to the people of Hong Kong,” House Foreign Affairs Chairman Eliot Engel said of the House legislation. “It also sends the message that Beijing’s attempt to undermine Hong Kong’s autonomy is not just a problem for the people of Hong Kong; it’s a concern of the United States, as well.”Pro-democracy activist Denise Ho said the House bill would send a powerful message.”This is a message to these Hong Kong people that we are not isolated in this fight,” Ho said. “We are in the forefront of this very global fight for universal values.”Ho is one of a number of activists in Hong Kong’s pro-democracy movement on Capitol Hill this week, pushing U.S. lawmakers to take action on the legislation.U.S. assistance to Hong Kong enjoys an unusually bipartisan measure of support in Washington, uniting lawmakers from both sides of the aisle in support of the movement.Lawmakers are also working on legislation that would ban the sale of police equipment to Hong Kong.FILE – Rep. Jim McGovern, D-Mass., speaks on Capitol Hill in Washington, May 7, 2014. McGovern is calling for a new U.S. policy on Tibet.”U.S. companies should not be complicit in the crackdown on pro-democracy protesters,” said Rep. Jim McGovern, a Democrat who is co-sponsoring the bill along with Republican Rep. Chris Smith.Senate Democrats expressed concern the Trump administration is not fully utilizing the Hong Kong Policy Act to bring pressure to bear on China. Passed in 1992, the legislation separates Hong Kong from mainland China in U.S. eyes for trade and economic purposes. U.S. presidents can modify the act if Hong Kong becomes less autonomous, leveraging pressure on China.”It’s difficult to nail down exactly one aspect of that or one area we can push on. I would say that I’m fully aware of the act. And we’ve been in a long discussion on its implementation, the impacts on both the U.S. and on China,” Stilwell said Wednesday.He also said he had no information on the possibility the administration could use other legal avenues to identify individuals for financial sanctions.
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Swedish Teen Climate Activist Urges US Lawmakers to ‘Follow the Science’
Swedish teenage climate activist Greta Thunberg appeared before a U.S. Congressional committee Wednesday, urging law makers to “listen to the science” and take action on global climate change.The 16-year-old Thunberg has been in Washington since last week when she joined U.S. and indigenous activists for a protest designed to build support for a global climate strike on Friday and put pressure on lawmakers to take action on climate change.She was one of four students to appear Wednesday before a joint hearing of the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Europe, Eurasia, Energy, and the Environment and the Select Committee on the Climate Crisis.She submitted a report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in lieu of her testimony, and told the lawmakers to “follow the science:””Well, well I don’t see a reason to not listen to the science, is such just such a thing that we should be taking for granted that we listen to the current best available united science. It’s just something that everyone should do. This is not political opinions, political views or my opinions, this is, this is the science, so yeah,” she said.Later on Wednesday, Thunberg joined seven young Americans who have sued the U.S. government for failing to take action on climate change on the steps of the Supreme Court. They urged political leaders and lawmakers to support their legal fight and take action to phase out the use of fossil fuels.Thunberg first gained notoriety last year when she began skipping school each Friday to protest outside the Swedish parliament. She was joined by other students and later founded the ‘Fridays for Future’ weekly school walkouts around the world to demand government climate-change action.Her organization of “climate strikers” reached 3.6 million people across 169 countries. She has been in the United States since last month when she sailed in to New York on a solar-powered boat to attend a U.N. climate summit.
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With Bolton Out, US Sends Official to Reassure Russia
The United States this week dispatched Assistant Secretary of State Philip Reeker, a top State Department official for Europe, to Moscow to meet with his Russian counterpart in what analysts say is an atmosphere of rising tensions and mistrust between the two countries. The U.S. official’s visit follows the ouster of John Bolton as national security adviser, a development that has left some in Russia wondering what direction relations may take next. For Ricardo Marquina and Olga Pavlova in Moscow, Jim Bertel reports.
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2 US Senators Warn Trump Against Nuclear Deal With Saudis
Two U.S. senators are warning the Trump administration against a nuclear cooperation deal with Saudi Arabia, fearing it could set off a nuclear arms race in the volatile Middle East.”Sharing nuclear technology with Saudi Arabia, especially without adequate safeguards, will give Riyadh the tools it needs to turn the crown prince’s nuclear weapons vision into reality,” Democratic senators Ed Markey and Jeff Merkley said in a letter to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Energy Secretary Rick Perry.FILE – Senator Ed Markey, a Democrat, speaks to reporters at Logan Airport in Boston, Massachusetts, Jan. 21, 2019.Both lawmakers are members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. They say making such a deal with the Saudis will “fail to promote U.S. leverage or influence.””If the Trump administration turns a blind eye to the kingdom’s behavior at home and abroad while concluding an agreement that could fast-track its potential pursuit of a nuclear weapon, Congress will reject any such agreement,” the senators wrote.They added that Saudi Arabia’s “disregard for fundamental human rights and humanitarian standards” should not be rewarded.The State Department and Department of Energy have not publicly responded to the letter.Saudi Arabia has balked at the strict nonproliferation conditions, including U.N. inspections, that would come with nuclear cooperation with the United States.The inspections are meant to ensure that the Saudis are not enriching uranium and reprocessing spent nuclear fuel that could allow them to build a bomb.Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has said his country would seek nuclear weapons if Iran developed a bomb.
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UN Chief Rules Out Meeting Venezuela’s Guaido in New York
U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Wednesday ruled out meeting Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido if he attends next week’s General Assembly, despite the support he has among most Western and Latin American nations.”No, that’s not being planned,” the U.N. chief told a news conference about the annual global summit when asked if he would meet Guaido.FILE – Venezuela’s National Assembly President and self-proclaimed interim President Juan Guaido speaks to the press in Caracas, Venezuela, Sept. 16, 2019.He added, however, that the United Nations maintained “regular contact” with Venezuela’s opposition.More than 50 nations recognize Guaido as the interim president, but leftist leader Nicolas Maduro’s government holds Venezuela’s U.N. seat and enjoys backing from Security Council members Russia and China.Guterres said that the United Nations will not be the setting for negotiations between Maduro and the opposition.But he voiced hope for a resumption of dialogue between the government and opposition sponsored by Norway, which broke down last month.Maduro petitionFILE – Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro speaks during the IX anniversary of the Bolivarian Military University of Venezuela in Caracas, Sept. 3, 2019.Maduro, who presides over a crumbling economy that has caused millions to flee the oil-producing nation, is not scheduled to travel to New York for the General Assembly.But his government plans to present signatures of Venezuelans to denounce U.S. President Donald Trump over economic sanctions.U.S. officials and opposition leaders have already attacked the petition, and accused the Maduro government of threatening to withhold badly needed food aid for Venezuelans who do not sign.Guaido delegationGuaido, in turn, has said he will send a delegation to the U.N. General Assembly to denounce Maduro’s alleged support for former FARC rebels in neighboring Colombia.Two dissidents from the demobilized rebel group, Ivan Marquez and Jesus Santrich, have announced a return to arms.The United Nations took the lead in the 2016 agreement in which the FARC laid down its arms and ended half a century of war, with the world body recently renewing a verification mission in Colombia for one year.”I will use this summit to talk about everything with Venezuela and Colombia because I think it’s very important to avoid an escalation of conflict in the region,” Guterres said.
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Malay Muslim Parties’ Pact Rattles Nerves in Multiethnic Malaysia
A new political alliance between Malaysia’s two largest Malay Muslim parties is rousing fears the move could further stall the government’s progressive agenda and raise already simmering racial and religious tensions in the country.
Ethnic Malays and other indigenous groups known as Bumiputra make up nearly two-thirds of Malaysia’s 31.8 million people, with Chinese and Indians accounting for 21% and 6%, respectively. The country’s Muslims, Buddhists and Hindus make up roughly the same mix.
The ruling Pakatan Harapan coalition drew heavily on Chinese and Indian votes to pull off a shock election defeat last year of Barisan Nasional, the political juggernaut that had ruled the country since independence from Britain in 1957. ‘Power should be with us’
UMNO, the driving force behind Barisan, formalized an alliance with the Islamist PAS party on Saturday in a bid to win back power and reverse course on policies they say are eroding the constitutional privileges of the country’s majority Malays and Muslims.
“As the majority of this country, we should form the government. The power should be with us,” PAS spokesman Kamaruzaman Mohamad told VOA in explaining the reason for the alliance.
“If we want to defend the rights of Islam, the rights of Bahasa Melayu [the Malay language], the special rights of the Bumiputra and Malay, we have to be united so that we can [raise] our voice, we can show our strength, so that this government will not abuse these special rights.” FILE – Members from UMNO, in red, and members of PAS wave their parties’ flags during an event announcing an alliance between the two in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, Sept. 14, 2019.Kamaruzaman dismissed speculation of any coming communal discord.
“We are Muslim and non-Muslim. We are living together harmoniously with no bad incident,” he said, insisting the alliance would not change that.
“We are not going to abuse any right of any religion or any race. That is … clearly stated in the Constitution. So there is no issue that we are going to spark any racial tension.” Adib Zalkapli, a Malaysia-based director of Bower Group Asia, a consultancy, said the parties would continue, however, to play on the country’s entrenched ethnoreligious fault lines to woo voters.
“That is their founding principles, if you like. They got together on the basis of Malay unity and Muslim unity, and claims … by the party operators that Malay Muslims are being marginalized by the new government. So you can expect more of this racial rhetoric from the new alliance,” he told VOA.
UMNO and PAS had been flirting with a pact for some time. Since Pakatan’s surprise victory last year, they have handed the ruling coalition a series of defeats in three consecutive by-elections by running a single, joint candidate in each. Eyes on next election
Adib said UMNO’s move to make the alliance official signaled that the party was banking on Malay Muslim votes over those of the more diverse Barisan coalition, which it still fronts, to win the next general election, due by 2023.
But he is skeptical it will work, noting that Malaysia has never had a monoethnic coalition running the government in its history.
What the new allies can do, Adib said, is hold back Pakatan’s more progressive policy plans and move it to the right.
They have been at it already.
The parties stirred up fears of lost privileges among Malays to pressure the new government into abandoning election pledges to sign a U.N. convention on racial discrimination and to ratify the Rome Statute, which would have seen Malaysia join the International Criminal Court. Pakatan’s efforts to repeal an anti-fake-news law also were shot down in the Senate, which the opposition controls. Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad is pictured during a news conference in Putrajaya, Malaysia, Sept. 18, 2019.The string of defeats and U-turns has hurt the new government. Opinion polling by the Merdeka Center, a research group, shows its approval rating plunging from 79% just after the general election to 39% in March.
An UMNO-PAS alliance “may not be able to win power, but it could potentially force the government to adopt some of its ideology or its political ambition,” Adib said. “In the case of PAS, the Islamist party, the party has obviously sharia ambition. So the danger is that this alliance will be able to force the government parties to dance to their tune.” ‘Klang Valley narrative’
Others think the fears of rising tensions are more perception than reality.
Shamsul Amri Baharuddin, who heads the National University of Malaysia’s Institute of Ethnic Studies, called it the “Klang Valley narrative,” so named for the area around Kuala Lumpur, the capital, where the country’s professionals and NGOs are concentrated.
“They read what is on the ground based on what they do. If they see a traffic jam, they think [it] is also a racial and ethnic traffic jam,” said Shamsul, who thinks class concerns now mostly trump racial or religious ones, noting that Malaysia has not had any race riots since the late 1960s.
He recently wrapped up a two-year, government-funded study on Malaysia’s race relations that found an encouraging amount of ethnic intermingling and a prevailing attitude of inclusion.
“So I always say there’s a lot of tongue wagging in this country, but not parang waving,” Shamsul said, referring to a local machete-like cutting tool.
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From Patients to Doctors, Fear Rules in Zimbabwe’s Hospitals
Fear is crippling Zimbabwe’s already struggling health system, as doctors and patients alike are staying away. The disappearance of an outspoken young doctor who led a strike for higher public-sector wages has only made the situation more dire. VOA’s Anita Powell reports from Harare.
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From Patients to Doctors, Fear Rules in Zimbabwe’s Hospitals
HARARE — If there is one thing that unites doctors and patients in Zimbabwe’s ailing public health system, it’s fear.The system is struggling to function amid a shattered economy and triple-digit inflation. Administrators, doctors and patients told VOA that hospitals often have a hard time getting supplies. And government doctors say they can’t make ends meet on an average salary worth just $100 a month.But as they have learned, speaking out has consequences.FILE – Peter Gabriel Magombeyi, acting president of the Zimbabwe Hospital Doctors Association, pictured in Harare in Sept. 3, 2019, was reportedly abducted from his home.(C. Mavhunga/VOA)That became evident with the sudden disappearance of Dr. Peter Magombeyi, a junior doctor who led a strike over public-sector pay. He went missing over the weekend, and colleagues say he had received threats from people he identified as being members of Zimbabwe’s Central Intelligence Organization.A different kind of fear afflicts patients. Dorcas Nyatoti, who is 36, says she hasn’t seen a doctor in decades, and not for lack of trying. When her feet — afflicted by childhood polio — give her pain, she grits her teeth or takes over-the-counter drugs. She says that’s because every time she has approached a hospital, she’s quoted terrifying prices despite her lack of income.”I feel pain but there’s nothing I can do,” she told VOA in her one-room apartment, which she shares with four other people, in one of Harare’s poorer areas. “Because this is the road I’m on. This is my country.”And fear is what kept teacher Milka Gwatiringa from seeking help for more than a decade, as an abdominal tumor grew to a staggering 12 kilograms before it was successfully removed by doctors at the nation’s largest hospital.”I had so many fears,” she said. “So I was not willing to come, I was very much afraid.”The fear isn’t just over medical costs. Dr. Shingirai Meki, the urologist who led Gwatiringa’s surgery, says patients are scared of the uncertainty in the public hospitals.”A lot of patients, a lot of people are suffering in their homes, they are scared, they are not sure what is going to happen to them,” he said. “So she [Gwatiringa] is a wonderful success story which we wish everyone to be aware.”VOA met with Magombeyi, the strike leader, last week before he went missing. At the time, he was blunt about Zimbabwe’s challenges — and his own.”I love Zimbabwe, and my colleagues would agree with me, that they also love Zimbabwe,” he said. “We love our country, it’s beautiful. However, it doesn’t negate the fact that when the economy is deteriorating like this, we are forced to think outside the box.”Two days later, he was gone. Fellow doctors have marched in Harare this week, demanding his return.
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