Hong Kong pro-democracy activist Joshua Wong says he has been banned from running in the city’s upcoming local council elections.Wong posted the notice he received from an election commission officer on his Twitter page Tuesday declaring his candidacy invalid. He angrily tweeted that the decision proves “how Beijing manipulate the election with political censorship and screening.” I become the only candidate banned from running in November’s District Council Election as Returning officer, Laura ARON ruled my nomination invalid this morning. It proved how Beijing manipulate the election with political cersorship and screening. pic.twitter.com/mwZNKUApFM— Joshua Wong 黃之鋒 ? (@joshuawongcf) October 29, 2019A government spokesman issued a written statement saying Wong’s candidacy was invalidated because he has advocated for “self-determination” for Hong Kong. The 23-year-old Wong, along with fellow student activists Nathan Law and Alex Chow, stormed a courtyard on the grounds of the government’s headquarters in September 2014, which led to the “Umbrella Revolution” that shut down several major highways for more than two months, demanding fully free elections. The protests were launched after Beijing reneged on promises of universal suffrage by 2017, but ended without winning any concessions from the Hong Kong government.The semi-autonomous city has been mired in nearly five months of massive and oftentimes violent protests since June, sparked by a proposed bill that would have allowed criminal suspects to be extradited to mainland China. The protests have evolved into demands for full democracy for Hong Kong, along with an independent inquiry into possible use of excessive force by police and complete amnesty for all activists arrested during the demonstrations. Masked activists have vandalized businesses and the city subway system, and attacked police with bricks and homemade gasoline bombs.Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam warned Tuesday that city’s economy could see negative economic growth this year due to the protests.Hong Kong enjoys a high degree of autonomy under the “one government, two systems” arrangement established when China regained control of the financial hub from Britain in 1997. But political activists and observers say Beijing is slowly tightening its grip on the territory and eroding its basic freedoms.
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Month: October 2019
Trump Tweets Photo of Military Dog Wounded in Baghdadi Raid
President Donald Trump on Monday outed a military working dog that tracked down the head of the Islamic State.Trump tweeted a photo of a Belgian Malinois that he said worked with a team of special forces in the capture of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi in a tunnel beneath a compound in northeastern Syria.The name and other details about the dog remain a secret.”We have declassified a picture of the wonderful dog (name not declassified) that did such a GREAT JOB in capturing and killing the Leader of ISIS, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi!” the president tweeted.Gen. Mark Milley, the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, told reporters earlier Monday that the animal “performed a tremendous service” in the Saturday night raid.Al-Baghdadi set off an explosion that killed himself and three children and apparently wounded the dog.Milley said the dog was “slightly wounded” but is now recovering and has returned to duty with its handler at an undisclosed location. He and Defense Secretary Mark Esper said the U.S. is protecting the dog’s identify by keeping any information about the canine classified for now.”We are not releasing the name of the dog right now,” Milley said. “The dog is still in theater.”The U.S. military commonly uses the Belgian Malinois to guide and protect troops, search out enemy forces and look for explosives. The breed is prized for its intelligence and ability to be aggressive on command, said Ron Aiello, president of the United States War Dogs Association.”That’s the kind of dog you want to lead a patrol like this,” said Aiello, a former Marine dog handler whose organization helps active duty and retired military dogs. “They are the first line of defense. They go out front.”Not releasing the name makes sense as a security precaution for the same reason you wouldn’t identify the troops who take part in the raid, he said. “There could be retaliation.”A Belgian Malinois service dog named Cairo accompanied U.S. Navy SEALs in the 2011 raid that killed Osama bin Laden, the leader of al-Qaida, in Pakistan. President Barack Obama met the canine at a ceremony to honor the commandos.Trump gave a dramatic account of the raid in Syria, variously saying there was one dog and multiple canines involved in the operation. He said that as U.S. troops and their dogs closed in, the militant went “whimpering and crying and screaming all the way” to his death.”He reached the end of the tunnel, as our dogs chased him down,” Trump said.
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Envoy for North Korea Expected to Get No. 2 State Dept. Job
The U.S. special envoy for North Korea, Stephen Biegun, is expected to be nominated as early as this week to be second-in-command at the State Department, officials said Monday.Two Trump administration officials and a congressional aide familiar with the selection process said the White House is expected to nominate Biegun to be the next deputy secretary of state in the coming days. The officials were not authorized to discuss the matter publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.Biegun would replace John Sullivan, who has been nominated to be the next U.S. ambassador to Russia. Both positions require Senate confirmation.Biegun has had a prominent role in the delicate negotiations that led to historic meetings between President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.A former Ford Motor Co. executive who served in previous Republican administrations and has advised GOP lawmakers, Biegun has led as yet unsuccessful negotiations to get North Korea to give up its nuclear weapons since being appointed to his current post in August 2018. He is expected to keep the North Korea portfolio if he is confirmed to the new post, the officials said.His nomination has been expected since mid-September, but its timing has been unclear amid turmoil in the State Department over the House impeachment inquiry into the administration’s policy toward Ukraine.Sullivan was nominated to be envoy to Moscow in September although his confirmation hearing before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee was just set for Wednesday, making Biegun’s nomination to fill the soon-to-be vacant No. 2 spot at the State Department more urgent.Sullivan’s confirmation hearing is likely to be dominated by questions from committee Democrats about Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election and his role in Ukraine policy.Former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch testified to impeachment investigators earlier the month that Sullivan was the official who informed her that she had lost Trump’s confidence and was being recalled early from Kyiv. Democrats are expected to use Wednesday’s confirmation hearing to press Sullivan on the extent of his involvement in Ukraine and why the department bowed to a campaign to oust Yovanovitch spearheaded by Trump’s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani.
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Ghanaian Victims Urged to Speak Out After Sex-for-Grades Investigation
The University of Ghana is looking into the allegations against staff in a BBC investigation, which found teachers harassing would-be students. The “Sex for Grades” documentary showed university lecturers at both the University of Ghana and the University of Lagos propositioning female reporters who were posing as students. Ghanaian activist Eugenia Baffour, who contributed research to the investigation, says abusers often operate with a sense of impunity. However, she says, the fallout is prompting more victims to speak out. “Something good has already come out even for the number of stories that came out,” Baffour said. “The kind of courage and strength it gave a lot of victims and survivors to speak out about their abusers was a huge step for us in the right direction when it comes to us not being silenced anymore as a victim.”As first reported by the BBC, there are increasing allegations of sexual harassment by teachers at West African universities.The University of Ghana’s Anti-Sexual Harassment Committee is investigating two of the accused, who have both denied the allegations.The head of the University of Ghana’s Anti-Sexual Harassment Committee, Dr. Margaret Amoakohene, says the accusations are being investigated. (Stacey Knott/VOA)The committee head, Margaret Amoakohene, says they are intensifying their outreach but need student victims to come forward.”All we ask of them is don’t endure any humiliation, don’t endure any harassment,” Amoakohene said. “Let us take that responsibility, and once you inform us, you are virtually saying, ‘I am unloading this burden on you. Take it up.’ And we shall do that. But, if you don’t tell us, and you keep it to yourself, you are emboldening the perpetrator.”The university’s Student Representative Council (SRC) Women’s Commissioner, Awurakua Addo Nyorko, says that while the allegations of sex-for-grades are disturbing, they are not new.She hopes the scandal will bring awareness to students who were not familiar with the university’s policy — that they can and should report harassment.”We feel over the years, there hasn’t been the enabling environment for victims to approach the SRC and address or inform them about these malpractices or these mishappenings that are going on,” she said. “So, we are creating the enabling environment so it’s a peer-to-peer group.”Meanwhile, the student council is launching a campaign to support victims of sexual harassment and also one to educate teachers about inappropriate behavior with students.
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Russian Opposition Leaders, Foundation Ordered to Pay $1.4 Million to Putin’s Chef
A Moscow court has ordered two prominent opposition leaders and their foundation to pay $1.4 million in compensation to a company associated with President Vladimir Putin’s personal chef.The court ruled on Monday that Aleksei Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation financially damaged the business interests of Moscow Pupil, a food supplier to schools in the nation’s capital, the opposition leader said on his Instagram page.Lyubov Sobol, a member of the Anti-Corruption Foundation who helped lead protests in Moscow this summer, is among the defendents named in the lawsuit. Moscow Pupil is connected to Yeveny Prigozhin, who is considered a close associate of Putin.The Anti-Corruption Foundation published a video blaming Prigozhin’s company for a breakout of food poisoning in Moscow schools and kindergartens in December. Russia’s Investigative Committee pointed the finger at another supplier named VITO-1, Russian daily Kommersant reported.Moscow Pupil said it lost a major supply contract because of Navalny’s video. As part of its ruling in favor of Moscow Pupil, the court also demanded the Anti-Corruption Foundation delete the video.”So, they poisoned children in schools and kindergartens. Cases of dysentery have been documented. However, we should pay,” Navalny said in a statement on his Instagram page.
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67-Year-Old Becomes China’s Oldest New Mother
A 67-year-old retired Chinese doctor has given birth in Zaozhuang city, the hospital announced Monday.The woman, identified only by her last name, Tian, delivered a healthy girl by Caesarean section on Friday, possibly becoming China’s oldest new mother.”The child was bestowed on the two of us by heaven,” Tian’s 68-year-old husband, identified as Huang, told Chinese news site guancha.cn.The baby weighed 2.56 kilograms at birth.The parents told local media that she will be named Tianci, which means “gift sent from heaven.”Tian joins a number of older Chinese women trying for another child after Beijing lifted its one-child policy in 2016.The couple already has two adult children, including a son born two years before the one-child policy was adopted in 1979. It is not known if the couple will face consequences for breaking the new two-child rule.Local media speculated that the delivery makes Tian the oldest woman to give birth in China. The previous record was held by a 64-year-old who gave birth to a boy in 2016.In September, 73-year-old Errant Mangy gave birth to twin girls conceived through in vitro fertilization in southern India. She is believed to be the world’s oldest new mother.
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Cambodian Village Depends on EU Program That May End
Trach looks like any other ordinary rural Cambodian village on the fringes of the municipal district of Chbar Mon in Kampong Speu province, with its dusty and bumpy roads surrounded by paddy fields and the standing palm trees for which the province is known.Trach Village in Cambodia’s Kampong Speu Province where many young villagers make a living by becoming factory workers. (Aun Chhengpor/VOA Khmer)This village in the Ka Haeng commune of the Samraong Tong district is steps from National Road 4, which connects the capital city of Phnom Penh with Sihanoukville, the primary seaport. As the nation’s garment manufacturing industry expands, National Road 4 guides it west to the southwest coast.Krech Thon is at home as her children and neighbors gather for a drink. Workers, many of them from the garment factories, have returned to their homes for one week to celebrate the annual late-September ancestral Buddhist festival, Pchum Ben.It is hard to find a single household in Trach that does not have at least one family member, usually a younger one, employed in the garment industry.Trade agreementRelying on the garment factories – directly and indirectly – Trach village is likely to be hit hard if the European Union revokes the preferential trade arrangement Cambodia enjoys under the Krech Thon, a long-time resident of Trach Village, becomes a food vendor at a nearby factory. (Aun Chhengpor/VOA Khmer)Krech Thon, a longtime resident of her village, has seen changes over the years. “People are getting a little better off with more brick-made houses and fences, and more young people drinking,” she told VOA Khmer with a laugh.All four of Krech Thon’s four children work in Phnom Penh garment factories. And when factories appeared near the village, she began selling food to the workers.The importance [of the factories] is that my children are employed and I myself have a business opportunity to sell foods out there so that we have a combined higher income,” she said.Of the 115 households in the village, accounting for about 570 people, 75% of the residents rely on working in the garment factories or selling food to those employed by them, said Svay Tem, the village chief.Industry’s beginningsTen years ago, as garment and luggage factories began arriving along the National Road 4, Phan Sorphea began selling food, including fried fish, rice and meatballs, to the workers.“Although I did not plan it, I have this as my main source of income now,” Phan Sorphea, 37, said, adding she earns between 40,000 to 60,000 riel [$9 to $15] per day after expenses.“I could also join the factories as a worker, but I decided to remain a food vendor so that I could have enough money to spend every day, although as a worker, you have a salary at the end of the month,” she added. “It is a matter of choice.”But she, as is true of almost all the villagers in Trach, knows nothing about the possible EBA revocation. Not even Kong Sina, the wife of Trach village chief Svay Tem, knows about tensions between the Cambodian government and the EU.Of the couple’s five children, four work in the village-based factories, making suitcases and footwear destined for Europe and America. Kong Sina said she focused on her business and had close to no knowledge of current Cambodian affairs, such as the EBA investigation.Food vendor Kong Sina emerges from her kitchen in Trach Village of Cambodia’s Kampong Speu province. (Aun Chhengpor/VOA Khmer)“I only see the trucks carrying the products packed in big [shipping containers], but I have no idea where they travel to,” she said, adding that she understands the factories contribute to local prosperity.“Without factory jobs and food-selling, we will return to farming rice and herding cattle to make a living,“ said Kong Sina, 52, who spends 250,000 riel [about $62.50] per day to prepare all the food she sells for 300,000 riel ($75) to factory workers after a shift.“I find it hard to make a profit now with increasing food prices, leaving me only some 50,000 riel [$12] profit [per day],” Kong Sina said. “But it is an easy money. All I need to set up is a wooden table and a large umbrella.”“This helps us a lot,” she said. “I have enough to support my household spending on a day-to-day basis.”’Worried’ about trade statusVillage chief Svay Tem, who can speak at length the importance of garment factories to his villagers, said that he was “worried” about what might happen if Cambodia loses its EBA status, and in a worst-case scenario, factories move to countries with less-expensive production. “The young people would have no jobs here, many of them,” he said.Krech Thon agreed that without factories, her household would be in trouble. “We live to earn money. We need to have some money to survive,” she said.She worries about losing her business and her children losing their jobs. She, like other villagers, said it would be difficult to replace their current incomes by returning to their traditional occupation, farming.Cambodian garment factory workers ride on the back of a truck as they head to their factory outside Phnom Penh, Oct. 26, 2019.At the national level, the Cambodian economy has moved away from agriculture. The sector accounted for only 18.1% of the GDP in 2018. By comparison, Chim Sokun, emigrated ten years ago from Trach Village, giving up his farmed land, to look for jobs at a garment factory in Kandal Province. (Aun Chhengpor/VOA Khmer)“For villagers here, garment industry and factory works are vital to their livelihoods. Why? Without factories, we do not know what we can do to make a living. This is for Trach village and beyond, in my opinion,” Chim Sokun said.“We can no longer rely on agriculture here because it offers little yield and we lack irrigation” needed to farm outside the rainy season, he said. “We used to rely on growing rice, but that changed 10 years ago when there was a higher demand for labor in the garment industry.”Benefits of factoriesNov Sorphoan agreed. The 36-year-old mother of two lived in the village and inherited a farming plot of slightly more than 1 hectare from her parents – both of whom farmed. But she chose to get up at 3 a.m. every day to cook rice and prepare food to sell to factory workers. The $12.50 or so a day she cleared from that enterprise helped her secure a $20,000 home-repair loan.The combination of changing weather patterns and the growing expense of hiring farmworkers meant “I could only grow rice once a year during the rainy season,” said Nov Sorphoan, whose husband, Sim Thina, 38, works in a a Phnom Penh garment factory.Nov Sorphoan felt that she had tried her best at farming, but said she decided to continue selling food to factory workers so she could provide a better education for her two children, so they can “have a better job” than working in the paddy fields.For Krech Thon, the mother of four, growing industrialization and the changes the factories have brought to her village are a fait accompli.“Yes, we feel a nostalgia for certain areas with rice paddy fields and natural ponds that were sold into industrial purposes and were filled in,” Krech Thon said.“I want these factories to remain in place for many more years to come so that future generations will have jobs,” she added, before getting up to pat her new grandson.Vicheika Kann contributed to this report.
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16 Killed in Burkina Faso in Suspected Jihadist Attack
Suspected jihadists killed 16 villagers in northern Burkina Faso on Monday in an incident highlighting the increased presence of Sahel-based Islamists in the area, local and security sources said.The gunmen came to Pobe-Mengao, about 200 km (160 miles) north of the capital Ouagadougou, threatening to take away children and telling villagers to help them buy weapons, a security source told Reuters.When they refused, they were shot dead, the sources said. A security source told Reuters that the death toll had reached 16.An Islamist insurgency with links to Islamic State and al-Qaida has crossed into Burkina Faso this year from neighboring Mali, igniting ethnic and religious tensions, especially in northern regions.Attacks by Islamist militants as well as clashes between herding and farming communities have surged since, killing hundreds of civilians and soldiers in a country that used to be a pocket of relative calm in the Sahel.The government did not immediately comment on the killings.
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Groups Want Tanzania to Roll Back Laws Stifling Dissent
Two rights groups are calling on Tanzania’s government to ease restrictions on dissent and freedom of expression imposed since President John Magufuli came to power in 2015.Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch issued reports on Tanzania at a joint news conference Monday in Kenya’s capital, Nairobi. “Magufuli’s administration has passed many laws that restrict the work of journalists and intend to repress activities of civil society organizations,” said Roland Ebole, lead researcher for the Amnesty International report. He said the president needs to “carefully reflect on his government’s record of ruthlessly disemboweling the country’s human rights framework.” Human Rights Watch Africa researcher Oryem Nyeko said upcoming local and general elections will not be fair unless the government takes a different approach to perceived opponents.
“The finding we have that the media and civil society are effectively silenced does not create a good environment for free and fair elections,” he said. “So, we are encouraging and urging the government to ease these restrictions on civil society and the media to amend the restrictive laws.”VOA contacted Tanzanian officials to comment on the reports, but received no response.The Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch reports are based on interviews with dozens of journalists, politicians, activists and other observers in Tanzania.Magufuli came to power in November 2015 promising to fight corruption. Previously, he was known for shutting down companies and firing government workers without due process.
Once in office, he shut down anyone who challenged his authority. In 2016, legislators approved a Magufuli-backed law that gave security agencies the power to search media organizations, seize their equipment and close them without a court order. Since then, the government has used the law to shut down five news outlets.Tanzania’s Press Freedoms Under Legal ThreatsTeaser DescriptionJournalists say they are arrested for criticizing government, which denies crackdown and argues laws prevent media abuseMuthoki Mumo of the Committee to Protect Journalists — who was arrested in Tanzania in 2018 — says the government cannot root out corruption while oppressing journalists, who are often the ones who report on officials’ misdeeds.“He came to power with an aggressive anti-corruption agenda,” Mumo said. “But the question that comes up again and again when we do this research: How do you expect to implement this, or how do you expect to achieve these goals when there is no free press?” According to the rights groups, the government has also banned the gatherings of opposition politicians, and prosecuted some politicians on fabricated charges.
Zitto Kabwe, a parliamentarian representing Kigoma, says the country is going through hard times in relation to human rights abuses. “Since 2015, many opposition politicians have cases before the court … because of their political stance,” he said Monday. Kabwe is one of them. He was arrested after raising concerns about citizens killed in Kigoma’s Uvinza District.Journalists in Tanzania are afraid to write independently or publish following the July arrest of investigative journalist Erick Kabendera.“It is evident that the working environment for journalists in Tanzania is hard,” said Kajubi Mukajanga, secretary general of the Media Council of Tanzania. “The work of a reporter and editor are not responsibilities that anyone can take up easily. Families of editors are living in fear, unsure whether loved ones will return from work or whether their news outlets will be open the following day.” Kabwe said the world should not keep quiet while Tanzanians are living in fear and suffering. “The world should not remain silent when Magufuli’s administration is breaking all the tenets of democracy, freedom of speech, freedom of expression, media freedom,” he said Monday.’Magufuli has been in office for four years and is up for reelection next year.Mohammed Yusuf, Hubba Abdi contributed to this report.
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IS Victims See Satisfaction But No Closure in Leader’s Death
For Georges Salines, whose 28-year-old daughter Lola was killed when Islamic extremists went on a bloody rampage in Paris in 2015, the death of the man who inspired the attack brought a welcome “sense of satisfaction.”But like other survivors and families of victims of the Islamic State group, Salines stressed that the death of its leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, does not mean the fight against terrorism is over.“It would have been even better if al-Baghdadi could have been captured and sent to trial,” Salines told The Associated Press. “That was probably impossible. We knew that for a long time.”Al-Baghdadi was responsible for directing and inspiring attacks by his followers around the world. In Iraq and Syria, he steered his organization into committing acts of brutality on a mass scale: massacres of his opponents; beheadings and stonings that were broadcast to a shocked audience on the internet; and the kidnapping and enslavement of women.His death was announced Sunday by U.S. President Donald Trump, who said al-Baghdadi detonated an explosive vest while being pursued by U.S. forces in Syria, killing himself and three of his children. It was another major blow to the Islamic State group, which in March was forced by U.S. and Kurdish forces out of the last part of its self-declared “caliphate” that once spanned a swath of Iraq and Syria at its height.The Islamic State group claimed responsibility for the Nov. 13, 2015, attacks on Paris cafes, the national stadium and the Bataclan concert hall that left 130 people dead, including Lola Salines and Thomas Duperron, 30. Duperron’s father, Philippe, who is president of French victims’ association 13onze15, which takes its name from the date of the attacks, said al-Baghdadi’s death was “not bad news.”“One major player of the Islamic state group’s actions has disappeared,” he told AP, although he said that his group would not express joy at any death.A trial of suspects in the Paris attacks is expected to begin in 2021. French prosecutors said this month that the judicial investigation of the attacks has ended and that 1,740 plaintiffs have joined the proceedings. Fourteen people have been charged in the case, including Salah Abdeslam, the only surviving suspect of the group of assailants.FILE – Georges Salines, left, whose daughter was killed in the 2015 Paris attacks by IS militants, and lawyer Jean Reinhart leave the Elysee Palace in Paris, after a meeting with French President Francois Hollande.French magistrates had recently issued an international arrest warrant for al-Baghdadi in a counterterrorism investigation for “heading or organizing a criminal terrorist conspiracy.”Arthur Denouveaux, a Bataclan survivor and president of the Life for Paris victims’ group, told the French newspaper Le Parisien “us, the victims, are not seeking revenge … but a desire for justice.”Al-Baghdadi’s death is “symbolically is a major blow to the operational capacities” of the IS group, he said.“It is essential to continue the fight for the security of the region and also of European countries,” Denouveaux added.The IS group claimed responsibility for three suicide bombings in Brussels on March 22, 2016, that killed 32 people at its airport and in a metro station. Philippe Vansteenkiste, who lost his sister in the airport bombing and went on to become director of V-Europe, an association of victims of those attacks, said he knows the fight is not over.“This is a new step in the fight against Daesh, but I’m not naive,” Vansteenkiste said, using an Arabic acronym for the militant group. “Their spiritual leader has been hit, but Daesh and many sleeping cells still exist, either in Syria or in our country.”The parents of Steven Sotloff, an American-Israeli journalist who was killed by IS, thanked Trump and the U.S. forces that conducted the raid that led to al-Baghdadi’s death.“While the victory will not bring our beloved son Steven back to us, it is a significant step in the campaign against ISIS,” Shirley Sotloff told reporters at their Florida home.In 2014 and 2015, the militants held more than 20 Western hostages in Syria and tortured many of them. The group beheaded seven U.S., British and Japanese journalists and aid workers and a group of Syrian soldiers. Sotloff was among them.In Jordan, Safi al-Kasasbeh, whose son was slain by the IS group in 2014, said he was “very happy” to learn of al-Baghdadi’s death.“I wished that I killed him with my bare hands,” al-Kasasbeh said. “This was one of my dreams, if not to be the one who kills him, at least to witness the moment when he gets killed. But Allah didn’t want that to happen.”Muath al-Kasasbeh was a fighter pilot who was captured by IS militants after being shot down while fighting in a U.S.-led coalition in Syria. The militants locked him in a cage and burned him to death, and later broadcast video of his death on the internet.In Syria and Iraq, among the main victims of al-Baghdadi’s organization, residents expressed relief at the demise of the man who presided over the self-styled “caliphate.”In the Iraqi city of Mosul, still in ruins two years after it was liberated from IS, there was no closure.“His death is a fraction of the sins and misdeeds he inflicted on the victims who lost their lives in the Old City area and whose bodies until now are still under the rubble. All because of him and his organization,” said resident Mudhir Abdul Qadir.“We hope that the culture of al-Baghdadi’s and Daesh is killed forever. … Killing this culture is the real victory,” said Mehdi Sultan, a government employee in the Iraqi capital Baghdad.Like others, however, he was not optimistic. “One al-Baghdadi goes out, another comes in. It’s the same old story.”Perhaps nowhere is al-Baghdadi more reviled than among Iraq’s Yazidi community, who are still unable to return home or locate hundreds of women and children kidnapped and enslaved by IS five years ago. The Yazidis are followers of an ancient religion with ties to Zoroastrianism,The militants rampaged through the Sinjar region in northern Iraq in August 2014, destroying villages and religious sites, kidnapping thousands of women and children, and trading them in modern day slavery. The United Nations called the attacks genocide.Nadia Murad, a Yazidi woman who was among those kidnapped and enslaved, welcomed the news of his death.“Al-Baghdadi died as he lived — a coward using children as a shield. Let today be the beginning of the global fight to bring ISIS to justice,” she tweeted, using another acronym for the militant group. Murad, who won a Nobel Peace Prize for her activism against genocide and sexual violence, called for all those IS members captured alive to be brought to justice in an open court for the world to see.“We must unite and hold ISIS terrorists accountable in the same way the world tried the Nazis in an open court at the Nuremberg trials,” she wrote.
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The Controversy Over Closed-Door Hearings in Trump’s Impeachment Inquiry
U.S. President Donald Trump and some congressional Republicans have accused Democrats in the House of Representatives of failing to conduct a transparent impeachment inquiry. They allege Democrats are impeaching a duly elected president behind “closed doors,” hiding the process from the American public.Here’s what you need to know about the controversy.Are House Democrats impeaching Trump behind closed doors?House Democrats have begun the impeachment process by holding an impeachment inquiry, in which the House formulates specific charges of misconduct against the president. This impeachment inquiry is a fact-finding process which can lead to an impeachment, but the two are not the same.Impeachment will occur if the House of Representatives holds a full floor vote passing Articles of Impeachment. The U.S. Constitution grants the House the ability to impeach the president and other officials for “Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.” The term “high crimes and misdemeanors” is not defined by the Constitution but could be interpreted to include abuses of power.Congressional Democratic leaders have said allegations that Trump temporarily withheld nearly $400 million in congressionally-approved U.S. aid to pressure Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy to assist in digging up political dirt on Democrats in the 2020 election campaign would be considered an abuse of power if proven true.While Democrats have said they will continue to hold closed hearings as they gather evidence, they also have said they will go public and release more details in the coming weeks.Is this process different from prior impeachment inquiries?In previous impeachment inquiries, the House Judiciary Committee took the lead in investigating allegations and held impeachment hearings in public. But House Speaker Nancy Pelosi designated the House Intelligence Committee the lead committee to investigate the allegations against Trump.Due to the sensitive nature of the Intelligence Committee’s work, hearings are almost always held in private, behind the closed doors of a secure area known as the SCIF, or Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility. SCIFs are very closely monitored and secured to ensure that the sensitive materials discussed within are not obtained by foreign governments or spies.FILE – House Intelligence Committee Chairman Rep. Adam Schiff leaves a secure area where he was taking part in the House impeachment inquiry into President Donald Trump, on Capitol Hill, Oct. 23, 2019.Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff has the ability to determine if a hearing can be held in public and did so recently when the acting director of national intelligence, Joseph Maguire, testified last month about the whistleblower allegations that triggered the formal launch of the impeachment inquiry.Schiff has said his committee will release transcripts of interviews with witnesses and hold open hearings at the appropriate time in the probe.Are House Democrats denying Trump “due process” as some Republicans allege?Democrats argue the impeachment inquiry is roughly comparable to the process of a grand jury in the United States. Grand juries hear evidence during depositions — witness interviews that allow jury members to determine the validity of an accusation before a trial. Under that process, witnesses are interviewed privately in part, to avoid coordination or adjustment of testimony.Members of three House committees involved in the inquiry are allowed into the SCIF during these depositions. In total, close to a quarter of the entire U.S. House of Representatives is allowed to be in these depositions. Of those 109 House members, 47 are Republicans who sit on the committees. Many of the House Republicans who forced their way into the SCIF last week to protest the lack of due process were already allowed to be in the room and had attended previous depositions.Under this process, the House committees like grand juries will hear depositions and determine if the evidence warrants drawing up Articles of Impeachment. Those articles will then be debated in public on the floor of the House. If the House passes Articles of Impeachment, the Senate will be required to hold a trial in public to determine if Trump should be removed from office.Is the impeachment inquiry legitimate?Trump argues his administration is not required to comply with subpoenas — legally binding orders from House Democrats requesting documents needed for the investigation — on the grounds the impeachment inquiry is not legitimate until the House of Representatives votes to formalize it.In a letter earlier this month, Trump’s White House counsel, Pat Cipollone, wrote, “The House of Representatives has never attempted to launch an impeachment inquiry against the President without a majority of the House taking political accountability for that decision by voting to authorize such a dramatic constitutional step.”The House did vote to formalize impeachment inquiries for Presidents Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton, but there is no rule in the Constitution requiring such a move. Pelosi told reporters, “There’s no requirement that we have a vote. And so, at this time we will not be having a vote.”The Constitution does not specify any rules for the process, simply granting the House of Representatives “the sole Power of Impeachment” and the Senate the power to try “all Impeachments.”
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In Chicago, Trump Calls City an Embarrassment to US
President Donald Trump used a conference of police chiefs on Monday to slam the host city as “embarrassing to us as a nation” under the leadership of its top cop, who skipped the event over disagreements with Trump’s immigration policies.Trump has frequently criticized Chicago for its crime problems and status as a sanctuary city, one of scores of cities around the country that refuse to work with federal authorities to round up people who are living in the U.S. illegally.“It’s embarrassing to us as a nation,” Trump said. “All over the world they’re talking about Chicago. Afghanistan is a safe place by comparison.”Trump also lashed out at Police Superintendent Eddie Johnson, who angered Chicago’s police by skipping Trump’s first appearance in the city as president.Chicago Police Supt. Eddie Johnson listens to a question as he responds to remarks made by President Donald Trump at the International Association of Chiefs of Police Convention, Oct. 28, 2019, in Chicago.“More than anyone else he should be here, because maybe he could maybe learn something,” Trump said, claiming Johnson puts the needs of illegal immigrants above the needs of the law-abiding residents of Chicago.“Those are his values and frankly those values to me are a disgrace,” Trump said, vowing to never to give priority to the needs of illegal immigrants. “I want Eddie Johnson to change his values and to change them fast.”Chicago’s police department had no immediate comment on Trump’s remarks.Johnson’s decision to skip Trump’s address angered the city’s chapter of the Fraternal Order of Police, which said in a Facebook post that “such a gesture would be an insult to both President Trump and the office of the presidency itself and would be a mark of disgrace upon the city throughout the entire nation, including Mayor Lori Lightfoot.” Lightfoot has also refused to meet with Trump while he is in her city.FILE – Mayor of Chicago Lori Lightfoot speaks during her inauguration ceremony in Chicago, May 20, 2019.Then FOP Lodge 7, which represents rank-and-file Chicago police officers, announced that it had cast a vote of no confidence in Johnson.The vote might please Trump, who likes to tell officers not to treat crime suspects so gently and was cheered at last year’s gathering of the same police chiefs’ organization in Orlando, Florida, when he advocated the use of the “stop and frisk” policing tactic that has been deemed unconstitutional.The president’s visit also comes as more than 25,000 members of the Chicago Teachers Union have been on strike since Oct. 17.At the conference, Trump signed an executive order creating a presidential commission on law enforcement to study issues like substance abuse, homelessness and mental illness, the White House said. The order calls for establishing a framework for better training, recruiting and retaining law enforcement officers.The president also announced that the Justice Department will begin a stronger crackdown on violent crime in the United States, targeting gang members and drug traffickers in high-crime areas.“Let’s call it the surge,” Trump said.Johnson, meanwhile, is under internal investigation after he was found sleeping in a city-owned vehicle earlier this month. Lightfoot said the superintendent, who called for the investigation, told her he had “a couple of drinks with dinner” before he fell asleep at a stop sign while driving home. Johnson blamed the episode on a change in his blood pressure medication.While in Chicago, Trump is scheduled to headline a campaign luncheon that’s set to raise approximately $4 million for a joint fundraising committee benefiting Trump’s reelection effort and the Republican National Committee, according to the GOP.Trump last visited Chicago in 2016 as a presidential candidate for what supposed to be a campaign rally on the campus of the University of Illinois at Chicago. But after fights broke out between supporters and protesters awaiting his arrival at the arena, Trump canceled the event before he took the stage.Trump said then that he had consulted with Chicago police before making the decision. But the city’s top cop at the time, interim Superintendent John Escalante, disputed Trump’s characterization.
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Trump Calls Baghdadi ‘a Sick, Depraved Man’
President Donald Trump, celebrating last weekend’s U.S. commando raid against Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi in Syria, belittled him Monday as “a sick and depraved man and now he’s dead.”Trump told police chiefs at a convention in Chicago, “He’s dead, he’s dead as a doornail, and he didn’t die bravely I can tell you that.”The U.S. leader declared, “He should have been killed years ago, another president should have gotten him.” He claimed that the U.S. now has “tens of thousands of ISIS prisoners under tight supervision.”Syria oil fields
Trump also said the U.S. plans to keep oil fields inside Syria worth $45 million a month in revenue, guarded by American troops, even as he has withdrawn most other U.S. forces from northern Syria just south of the Turkish border.Trump’s victory remarks about the raid came as the U.S. Department of Homeland Security said it is operating at a “heightened state of vigilance” following the death of al-Baghdadi, but that there are no plans to issue a National Terrorism Advisory System alert unless “we develop specific or credible threat information” to share with the public.”Our security posture will remain agile, we will continue to mitigate and respond to the ever-evolving threat landscape,” the DHS said in a statement Monday a day after Trump announced that U.S. military special forces operation in northwest Syria successfully targeted and “violently eliminated” Baghdadi.“Last night the United States brought the world’s number one terrorist leader to justice,” said Trump, speaking from the White House, explaining that the IS leader detonated a suicide vest in a dead-end tunnel, also killing three of his children.“No (U.S.) personnel were lost in the operation,” according to Trump, but a large number of al-Baghdadi’s fighters were killed and others were captured. He said the Islamic State leader, who was hiding in a tunnel tried to flee, “was screaming, crying and whimpering” in his last moments.
The chief of the Islamic State group, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, purportedly appears for the first time in five years in a propaganda video in an undisclosed location, in this undated TV grab taken from video released April 29 by Al-Furqan media.Buried at sea A U.S. official confirmed to VOA that Baghdadi has been buried out at sea.Trump said he is considering releasing parts of the video footage of the raid. “We’re thinking about it, we may,” he told reporters before leaving for the Chicago speech.The Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces said the Islamic State spokesman and Baghdadi’s “right-hand man,” Abu Hassan al-Muhajir, was also killed in the U.S. operation. U.S. officials have yet to confirm his death.A U.S. official told VOA the operation was staged from a base in Iraq. Trump said eight helicopters flew slightly over an hour to reach the compound.There were also “many other ships and planes” supporting a large group of U.S. fighters who “blasted their way in so quickly” and then “all hell broke loose,” Trump said Sunday as he described the raid in detail.Russia “did not know the mission,” Trump explained, but allowed the U.S. helicopters to fly over areas in Syria it controlled.Trump also thanked Iraq, Syria and Turkey for unspecified cooperation and expressed appreciation to the Syrian Kurds for providing helpful information.Initial reports of the IS leader’s death were greeted with a degree of skepticism as Baghdadi’s demise had previously been erroneously reported several times in recent years. Since 2016, the United States had offered a reward of up to $25 million for information to help bring Baghdadi to justice. Only one other person, al-Qaida leader Ayman al-Zawahiri, has a reward that high.
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WFP Executive Director Hopeful of ‘New Day’ in Sudan
The executive director of the United Nations’ World Food Program has wrapped up a visit to Sudan after helicoptering into the volatile South Kordofan region to assess humanitarian needs.David Beasley told VOA’s South Sudan in Focus that the trip came about after he recently sat down with the leaders of Sudan, the rebel SPLM-North and South Sudan and received commitments to allow humanitarian workers unfettered access to the region, a development he called “quite extraordinary.”“We’ve seen people coming together, political enemies coming together from Sudan government as well as South Sudan government to allow us access to areas that had been denied for literally eight years,” Beasley said Friday.Last week, Beasley said, the WFP was able to send the first barge from Kusti, Sudan into Renk, the northernmost town in South Sudan. The barge arrived in Renk on Friday.Beasley said using a barge lets the WFP save a significant amount of money “and allows us to access the people that we’ve not been able to access.”Getting to this point was not easy. Rebels in Sudan’s Blue Nile and South Kordofan regions have battled the government for years, and Sudan’s government blocked acccess to the areas, located in Sudan’s Nuba Mountains, along the South Sudan border. However, the political climate changed this year with the overthrow of longtime president Omar al-Bashir and the installation of a joint military-civilian government.Sudan’s ex-president Omar al-Bashir leaves the office of the anti-corruption prosecutor in Khartoum, Sudan, June 16, 2019.“I sat down with the Prime Minister (Abdalla) Hamdok (of Sudan) and Hemeti (Lt. Gen. Mohamed Hamdan), whom you know are very powerful leaders inside Sudan, and I sat down with each one of these leaders individually for several hours in discussing why this is important, why this is a signal to the world of a new dawn and a new day,” Beasley said.When asked how he got beyond the mistrust of the political leaders, Beasley said it was as though he were witnessing a new “spirit” among Sudanese leaders.“Because Hamdok had told me when I met him during the U.N. [General Assembly] in New York that he wanted to prove his extensive desire to open up humanitarian access anywhere we wanted to go in Sudan was real,” Beasley said.Beasley said he put Hamdok to the test by saying, “I’m going to come to Sudan within a month a two.”Beasley noted he not only had to get permission from Sudan’s military and intelligence leaders but from rebel leaders who controlled the Nuba Mountains, including Abdulaziz al-Hilu, the leader of the SPLM-North.“I had a long, extensive conversation with Abdulaziz as well as [South Sudan President] Salva Kiir as well as [South Sudanese opposition leader] Riek Machar explaining how critical this was, we must show cooperation for all the people,” Beasley told South Sudan in Focus.There were bureaucrats “down below who fought it,” according to Beasley, but he warned the leaders that he would hold them accountable for the impediments down below you.”He told them they had to truly change the system “all the way down to the ground, the grassroots level and they did, they made it happen, they worked together,” Beasley told VOA.He cautioned that this “is not the end of the story, we got a lot more work to do but this is an extraordinary beginning of what appears to be a new day.”Beasley said he was moved by the spirit and resilience of the people he met in Kauda, despite having no humanitarian assistance for years.“They could not believe that I was there from the United Nations and our team so you could see the excitement that maybe this is the beginning of a new day,” said Beasley.Serious humanitarian needs that include health care, education and food security remain in the Nuba Mountains, according to Beasley, even though the near daily bombing campaigns ordered by former President Omar Al Bashir ended years ago in the region.
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Growing Uncertainty Looms Over Democrats’ 2020 Primary
Look no further than Pearl City Station, a plain brick building set along the banks of the Mississippi River, to understand the growing sense of uncertainty seeping into the Democratic Party’s 2020 primary contest.Inside, 200 Iowa Democrats recently sized up Joe Biden, the former vice president and one of their party’s leading presidential candidates. He engenders respect and admiration but generates little excitement.One elderly man sitting in the back of the room fell asleep as the former vice president shared his vision for America’s future in unusually hushed tones for nearly 45 minutes without taking questions.Afterward, David Metz, a member of the county Democratic committee, said that despite a campaign season that has already featured millions of dollars spent, countless miles logged and four debates staged, there is a deepening feeling of indecision among local voters who now have less than 100 days to finalize their 2020 pick.“Nobody knows what to do,” Metz said. “They’re all afraid. There’s a lot of anxiety.”In almost every campaign cycle, there comes a phase of indifference, fear and difficult questions. But in the 2020 cycle, Democratic officials hoped that the fervent desire to beat Trump would eventually lead to an enthusiastic embrace of its presidential field.The lack of enthusiasm for Biden’s candidacy underscores a broader trend emerging in the states that matter most in the Democratic Party’s high-stakes presidential nomination fight: Primary voters appear to be getting less certain of their choice as Election Day approaches.The historically large field, while in part of measure of the desire to oust the incumbent president, has also made it harder for the top contenders to forge a more focused contest. Nine Democrats so far have qualified for the party’s November debate and a dozen more are still fighting for attention. Among the top tier, the liabilities of Biden, Sen. Elizabeth Warren and Sen. Bernie Sanders, in particular, are becoming more visible as Iowa’s Feb. 3 caucuses approach.Major donors and party leaders across the country have publicly and privately raised concerns about the direction of the primary election recently as well. But interviews with dozens of primary voters across Iowa and New Hampshire in recent days reveal a pervasive feeling of unease.Polling suggests that the number of undecided voters in Iowa has jumped significantly in recent weeks. And even among those who have a favorite candidate, most say they could change their mind before voting begins.Tom Steyer, a billionaire progressive activist, is among those lower-tier candidates aggressively fighting to capitalize on the uncertainty. He’s vowed to spend at least $100 million of his own money in the campaign, although he acknowledged in a weekend interview that his investment could shift up or down depending on conditions on the ground.“We’re three months out from Iowa and we thought that there would be a lot of indecision, but it’s definitely higher than we would have expected. No question,” Steyer said. “That is something that has to be true if I’m going to win. And it is true.”Just ask the voters.In New Hampshire, Greg Bruss, a 68-year-old retired teacher, says he’s usually volunteering for a candidate by this time in the primary cycle. That’s not the case this year as he mulls voting for either Sanders or Warren.“The times are that much more dire,” Bruss said. “I don’t want to get it wrong.”Former New Hampshire state Sen. Bette Lasky says she’s impressed with the Democratic field, but she’s remained on the sidelines as well, even after hosting house parties for several candidates.“Generally, I don’t have trouble making up my mind,” she said. “But (it’s) difficult for me to get out there behind any one candidate.”Back in Iowa, 43-year-old Waterloo school employee Danielle Borglum said she expected to finalize her decision after watching the last debate, but she couldn’t do it.“I didn’t realize the amount of people that we had as candidates!” Borglum said. “So many people have a plan. Is anyone really right?”Bev Alderson, a 59-year-old retired teacher from Mt. Pleasant, Iowa, said that she has “a couple of frontrunners, but they’re not etched in stone.”“There’s too much to be said yet. There’s too many things that are happening and going on, it’s just too early,” she said.While significant, history suggests that the uncertainty currently defining the 2020 primary season is not totally unique.Before Iowa’s 2004 contest, for example, former House Majority Leader Richard Gephardt, Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman and Vermont Gov. Howard Dean all led the polls at times before then-Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry made a late surge to win.And three months before Iowa’s 2008 Democratic caucuses, most polls had Hillary Clinton with a significant lead over John Edwards and a little-known Illinois senator named Barack Obama. Obama, of course, went on to win the Iowa caucuses by almost 8 points and Clinton finished third.That history, backed by polling that shows most voters could still change their minds, is convincing low-polling underdog candidates to keep fighting.“One of the things I’ve learned by listening to the people of Iowa is they tend to make up their minds fairly close to caucus night,” former Texas Rep. Beto O’Rourke told reporters during a forum in Des Moines last week.New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker, who hasn’t topped 3% in any Iowa poll since April, said he was encouraged by a crowd of 200 that showed up to see him speak the night before. He said he’s getting a clear message from voters who say, ”‘I’m excited about you — you’re first on my list, or you’ve moved up from four to two,’ which I’m learning is really important in the Iowa caucuses.”And former Housing Secretary Julian Castro warned supporters last week that he’d need to raise $800,000 by the end of the month to keep his campaign alive. But he, too, seized on the large number of undecideds.The primary campaign, Castro said, is “more unstable than it’s ever been.”“You have a lot of people in these polls that, even though they express a preference for one candidate or another, are saying that they can still change their mind,” he said. He added: “Three months is probably 10 lifetimes in politics.”Jennifer Konfrst, a first-term Iowa state senator, agrees.She’s supporting Booker, but she says many of her friends have already changed their minds about which candidate they like best.“So many of my friends have three top choices — and they’re not the same three,” she said. “Anybody who says they know what’s going to happen is lying.”
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Turkey: 20 People Detained over Suspected IS Links
Turkey’s state-run news agency says police have detained 20 foreign nationals suspected of links to the Islamic State group.Anadolu Agency said Monday the suspects were detained in the capital Ankara by anti-terrorism police. There was no immediate information on their nationalities.The sweep came a day after the United States announced that IS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi was killed in a U.S. raid in Syria.Turkey was also hit by a wave of attacks in 2015 and 2016 blamed on the Islamic State group and Kurdish militants that killed around 300 people.In the last major attack, 39 people were killed when a gunman opened fire at an Istanbul nightclub during New Year celebrations in the early hours of 2017. The attack was claimed by IS.
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Iran Lawyer: No Proof of Charges Against 2 French Citizens
An Iranian lawyer representing two French researchers in custody in Tehran says prosecutors have given no evidence of spying and security charges against them, the semi-official ISNA news agency reported Monday.The report quoted lawyer Saeid Dehghan as saying Roland Marchal was detained on security charges in June while visiting Iran to see Iranian-French fellow academic Fariba Adelkhah.
Iran disclosed in July the arrest of Adelkhah, a prominent anthropologist who holds dual French-Iranian nationality. Adelkhah often traveled to Iran for her research on post-revolutionary Iranian society.
Iran said she was arrested on espionage charges.
France revealed earlier this month that Marchal had also been arrested. The revelation came after Iran rejected as “unacceptable” a call by France for the release of Adelkhah. Iran does not recognize dual nationality for its citizens.
Marchal was in Iran to celebrate the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Fitr that ends the holy month of Ramadan with Adelkhah when he was arrested, according to a statement from the African Studies Association in France.
Since Marchal’s detention became public, academics around the world have demanded Iran release the two academics. The Paris university Sciences Po issued a statement calling the detentions “scandalous, appalling and arbitrary.”
Dehghan, the lawyer, said he has visited both his clients twice. Their cases are currently under review at the office of the prosecutors dealing with security and espionage charges.
“So far, neither of the cases has been sent to a court for trial,” said the attorney.
Monday’s ISNA report was the first mention in Iran of Marchal’s arrest, after his detention was reported by the French newspaper Le Figaro earlier this month.
The French consul in Iran has visited Marchal, a sub-Saharan Africa specialist at Sciences Po, multiple times in jail and is in touch with his family, according to French officials.
An association of researchers at Sciences Po and other institutions said in an October statement that colleagues had flagged the disappearance of Marchal and Adelkhah in Iran to French authorities on June 25.
Professor Richard Banegas at Sciences Po, who worked closely with Marchal, said he believed they were arrested around June 6. The scholars kept Marchal’s imprisonment confidential at the recommendation of the foreign ministry, even after Adelkhah’s detention became public.
Iran has also detained at least two other dual nationals: Iranian-British anthropologist Kameel Ahmady and Iranian-British national Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe. They have been accused of spying and of links to foreign intelligence agencies.
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After UK Truck Deaths, Prospering Vietnam Asks Why Workers Go Abroad
Today Vietnam has one of the fastest growing economies in the world, high levels of optimism in public opinion surveys, and good relations with its old wartime enemies, the United States and France. So locals were caught off guard by the high-profile deaths in Essex, which suggest that some thought they could find more opportunity abroad than at home.FILE – Police forensics officers attend the scene after a truck was found to contain the bodies of 39 refugees, in Thurrock, South England, Oct. 23, 2019.British police found 39 people dead in a truck last week, prompting fears that the deceased were the victims of human trafficking. Several people have been arrested in the United Kingdom and one man has been charged with manslaughter and conspiracy to traffic people. Vietnam’s prime minister has ordered an investigation into whether this was a case of human trafficking.Some here are surprised that people would spend tens of thousands of dollars, equivalent to hundreds of millions of Vietnam dong, to leave, even though Vietnam has a fast-growing economy that has lifted many out of poverty. One local noted that such money could be used to find work domestically.“No matter what the country is, this is sad and depressing,” one poster on the news site Vnexpress said of the deaths. “I think the current life in Vietnam is not too difficult. Instead of spending hundreds of millions to go abroad, that amount of money in Vietnam could create many jobs.”Vietnamese were surprised to hear their compatriots had gone abroad to find work, since the country has become much richer in recent years, from hotel resorts, to luxury boutiques. (VOA/Ha Nguyen)Life in Vietnam has improved for many people, and it is a different place than it was in wartime. In the 1960s and ’70s, waves of boat people left the violence of the Vietnam War. It was a time when some in the country would go hungry, most had only bicycles at best for transportation, and few could do business with the outside world amid international isolation.Sill, labor migration continues to be a reality, with Vietnamese choosing to go to work in factories in Russia, construction in Libya, or cannabis farms in the UK. Drive around smaller towns like Da Lat, and there are signs posted by brokers offering to take workers overseas.Le Minh Tuan, father of 30-year old Le Van Ha, who is feared to be among the 39 people found dead in a truck in Britain, cries while holding Ha’s son outside their house in Vietnam’s Nghe An province.Some say it is not always helpful to label the workers as modern slaves, or victims who were tricked into human trafficking. In the UK example, researcher Nicolas Lainez said treating Vietnamese as victims who need to be saved by police could be “a smokescreen to conceal the severe control over human mobility enforced by the UK and its European counterparts, the deregulation of labor markets, the prevarication of workers, and the increase in inequality under neoliberal policies.”In other words, he says authorities treat labor migration as an issue of public safety or criminal activity, rather than take responsibility for state policies that are harmful to workers and migrants.
“These structural forces, ignored in discussions on modern slavery, leave both citizens and non-citizens with little or no protection, and encourage labor exploitation and migration on a large scale,” Lainez wrote in a blog post.In Vietnam’s less-developed towns, like Da Lat, brokers post signs offering to take Vietnamese abroad to find work. (VOA/Ha Nguyen)Vietnamese have also viewed the latest tragedy as a case of disadvantaged workers, in search of a better life.“They did not have enough money to leave as entrepreneurs,” one Facebook poster commented of those who died in the truck. “They went to look for a good future and take care of their families but ended up trapped … but the result is heartbreaking … Condolences to the victims.”
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After UK Truck Deaths, Vietnam Asks Why Workers Go Abroad
Today Vietnam has one of the fastest growing economies in the world, high levels of optimism in public opinion surveys, and good relations with its old wartime enemies, the United States and France. So locals were caught off guard by the high-profile deaths in Essex, which suggest that some thought they could find more opportunity abroad than at home.FILE – Police forensics officers attend the scene after a truck was found to contain the bodies of 39 refugees, in Thurrock, South England, Oct. 23, 2019.British police found 39 people dead in a truck last week, prompting fears that the deceased were the victims of human trafficking. Several people have been arrested in the United Kingdom and one man has been charged with manslaughter and conspiracy to traffic people. Vietnam’s prime minister has ordered an investigation into whether this was a case of human trafficking.Some here are surprised that people would spend tens of thousands of dollars, equivalent to hundreds of millions of Vietnam dong, to leave, even though Vietnam has a fast-growing economy that has lifted many out of poverty. One local noted that such money could be used to find work domestically.“No matter what the country is, this is sad and depressing,” one poster on the news site Vnexpress said of the deaths. “I think the current life in Vietnam is not too difficult. Instead of spending hundreds of millions to go abroad, that amount of money in Vietnam could create many jobs.”Vietnamese were surprised to hear their compatriots had gone abroad to find work, since the country has become much richer in recent years, from hotel resorts, to luxury boutiques. (VOA/Ha Nguyen)Life in Vietnam has improved for many people, and it is a different place than it was in wartime. In the 1960s and ’70s, waves of boat people left the violence of the Vietnam War. It was a time when some in the country would go hungry, most had only bicycles at best for transportation, and few could do business with the outside world amid international isolation.Sill, labor migration continues to be a reality, with Vietnamese choosing to go to work in factories in Russia, construction in Libya, or cannabis farms in the UK. Drive around smaller towns like Da Lat, and there are signs posted by brokers offering to take workers overseas.Le Minh Tuan, father of 30-year old Le Van Ha, who is feared to be among the 39 people found dead in a truck in Britain, cries while holding Ha’s son outside their house in Vietnam’s Nghe An province.Some say it is not always helpful to label the workers as modern slaves, or victims who were tricked into human trafficking. In the UK example, researcher Nicolas Lainez said treating Vietnamese as victims who need to be saved by police could be “a smokescreen to conceal the severe control over human mobility enforced by the UK and its European counterparts, the deregulation of labor markets, the prevarication of workers, and the increase in inequality under neoliberal policies.”In other words, he says authorities treat labor migration as an issue of public safety or criminal activity, rather than take responsibility for state policies that are harmful to workers and migrants.
“These structural forces, ignored in discussions on modern slavery, leave both citizens and non-citizens with little or no protection, and encourage labor exploitation and migration on a large scale,” Lainez wrote in a blog post.In Vietnam’s less-developed towns, like Da Lat, brokers post signs offering to take Vietnamese abroad to find work. (VOA/Ha Nguyen)Vietnamese have also viewed the latest tragedy as a case of disadvantaged workers, in search of a better life.“They did not have enough money to leave as entrepreneurs,” one Facebook poster commented of those who died in the truck. “They went to look for a good future and take care of their families but ended up trapped … but the result is heartbreaking … Condolences to the victims.”
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Italy’s Salvini Triumphs in Regional Elections in Umbria
A right-wing coalition scored a net victory in a local election in the central Italian region of Umbria, official data from the Interior Ministry showed on Monday, giving a boost to Matteo Salvini’s League party. The vote in tiny Umbria, a traditional center-left stronghold with less than 900,000 inhabitants, restores impetus to Salvini after a political blunder led to his party losing a spot in the country’s national government this summer.The hard-right leader walked out of the ruling coalition his party had formed with the anti-establishment 5-Star Movement in August, expecting to trigger a national election that polls predicted he would win.Instead, 5-Star hooked up with the centre-left Democratic Party (PD), shunting Salvini into opposition. Donatella Tesei, a senator for the League, who was also backed by the far-right Brothers of Italy and former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi’s Forza Italia, won the top seat as governor with 57.6% of the votes.The new 5-Star/PD alliance failed its first electoral test as Vincenzo Bianconi, leader of the civic alliance backed by the two parties, garnered 37.5% of the ballots.Claudio Ricci, a right-wing independent candidate, got only 2.65% of the votes, cast by 65% of the region’s citizens. Salvini defined the victory – the eighth in a row for the center-right in regional ballots since the last national election in March 2018 – as a “chapter in history.”The chief of the League had criss-crossed landlocked Umbria for weeks, promoting his national pledge to introduce a flat-tax rate many economists say Italy cannot afford, but which the League insists is needed to revive the sluggish economy. His message found fertile ground in Umbria, where output slumped 15.6% in the decade after the 2007-2008 global financial crisis, compared with a 5.2% slide across Italy, according to Bank of Italy data.Tesei told a news conference there would be “a lot of work” and that she would relaunch the economy, tackle unemployment and dedicate resources to reconstruction in the region after an earthquake struck three years ago.”We must reverse the trend… revise expenses and free up resources that must be invested to improve the quality of services for citizens and companies,” Tesei said in an interview with daily Il Messaggero published on Monday.After the results came in, Salvini defined the current government as “unauthorized” and added its time was running out. But premier Giuseppe Conte was quoted as saying that it would be a mistake for his government to stop for the results in a region which represented only 2 percent of the national population. More important tests lie ahead that could potentially undermine the new national government.In December, the poor southern region of Calabria goes to the polls and it will be the turn on Jan. 26 of Emilia Romagna, a northern region with more than four times the population of Umbria and which is the historic heartland of Italy’s left. Opinion polls show the League, with its anti-migrant, anti-tax message, has shed little support since it lost power nationally, and remains easily Italy’s most popular party, with around 30% of the vote.
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Fenner Wind Farm’s Lessons on the Growing Power of Renewable Energy
When the Fenner Wind Farm went online in upstate New York in early 2002, it was the largest in the United States. Today it’s still up and running and providing electricity for thousands of homes. It also serves as a teaching tool about renewable energy. Dmitrii Vershinin visited the farm and has more in this story narrated by Anna Rice.
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Maryland University Trusts Drones With Organ Delivery
Drones are being taught to deliver food and medical supplies to customers. Now, doctors and scientists at the University of Maryland at College Park are creating special, custom-made drones that can literally save lives. Alexey Gorbachev has the story narrated by Anna Rice.
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Why Fewer Typhoons Are Reaching Normally Hard-Hit Parts of Asia
In Taiwan, a tropical storm killed two people in August and a low-strength typhoon brushed the northeast coast just over a month later. Normally the western Pacific island gets hit head on by three to four typhoons ever year from June through October. Typhoons, which pack higher winds than other tropical storms, often kill five to 10 people per event and destroy infrastructure.But for the past three years Taiwan and the Philippines, an archipelago to its south, have missed their historical average typhoon counts because of high water temperatures over the mid-Pacific where typhoons originate and shifts in upper-atmosphere winds, meteorologists believe.The Philippines can get up to 20 of the raging storms per year. The systems called cyclones and hurricanes in other parts of the world bring winds strong enough to blow down trees and rainfall that can quickly turn streets into rivers. They typically prompt mass evacuations and shut down transportation including flights.*/
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Embed” />CopyListenJason Nicholls, senior meteorologist with American forecasting service AccuWeatherJason Nicholls, senior meteorologist with American forecasting service AccuWeather audio player.Jason Nicholls, senior meteorologist with American forecasting service AccuWeather“General bias is in the Indian Ocean and in the Pacific has been for waters to be warmer than normal and global warming may have something to do with that,” according to Jason Nicholls, senior meteorologist with American forecasting service AccuWeather.Warmer watersOcean temperatures in the central and eastern Pacific Ocean have heated up since 2017, causing typhoons to form relatively far from Taiwan and the Philippines that lie to the west, Nicholls said.Upper-level steering winds ultimately push the storms north, eventually affecting Japan, South Korea and eastern China, he said. “They have more time to get picked up and curved off to the north and northeast,” Nicholls said.Western Pacific waters are relatively cool this year, he said, meaning fewer storms form near the east coasts of Taiwan or the Philippines. Warm waters remain around the equator near the international dateline, he said. In the 1980s and 1990s waters around the Pacific and Indian oceans were cooler “as a general rule.”Asia’s deadliest storms each year, including the 2013 super-typhoon that killed 6,340, often reach the Philippines, a largely impoverished country that has struggled historically to cope. No full-blown typhoons, only weaker tropical storms, have made landfall there to date this year.Heading northMost of the 21 typhoons in Asia this year so far reached Japan, South Korea and China because of the northbound trend. The most severe, Typhoon Hagibis, killed 80 people in eastern Japan earlier this month.“If in a situation where Pacific Ocean high pressure is weak and higher north, before reaching Taiwan typhoons will follow the high pressure northward and reach Japan,” said Chen Meng-shih, long-range forecast section chief with Taiwan’s Central Weather Bureau.*/
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Embed” />CopyListenChen Meng-shih, long-range forecast section chief with Taiwan’s Central Weather BureauChen Meng-shih, long-range forecast section chief with Taiwan’s Central Weather Bureau audio player.Chen Meng-shih, long-range forecast section chief with Taiwan’s Central Weather Bureau Warming ocean temperatures will “drive cyclonic storm activity,” the advocacy group Union of Concerned Scientists said in a December 2018 report. Other scientific reports say ocean temperatures will make the storms stronger.Ocean temperatures are going up because the water absorbs heat from “increased concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere”, mainly from fossil fuel consumption, the civic group International Union for Conservation of Nature says.Too wet or not wet enough?Lack of typhoons has spared crops, infrastructure and human lives. Typhoon Mitag, Taiwan’s biggest storm of 2019, caused just $60,485 in crop damage, the government’s Council of Agriculture found. Mitag passed east of the island on October 1.In a more typical case, Typhoon Soudelor killed six people, cancelled 300 flights and cost farmers $9.42 million in Taiwan.In the Philippines, dry weather has accelerated municipal-level infrastructure projects that heavy rainfall could otherwise delay, said Jonathan Ravelas, chief market strategist with Banco de Oro UniBank in metro Manila. The government is in the midst of a 5-year, $169 billion infrastructure renewal drive to attract investment.*/
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Embed” />CopyListenJonathan Ravelas, chief market strategist with Banco de Oro UniBank in metro ManilaJonathan Ravelas, chief market strategist with Banco de Oro UniBank in metro Manila audio player.Jonathan Ravelas, chief market strategist with Banco de Oro UniBank in metro Manila.But the dearth of typhoons has cut valuable rainfall too, Ravelas said. Parts of Metro Manila have rationed water this year partly for lack of precipitation.“You’d rather have more rains but on the other side you have lots of calamities,” he said. “It’s a double-edged sword, so to speak.”
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California Hopes Winds Driving Wildfires Subside as Crews Work on Containment
California Governor Gavin Newsom says there are hopes that by later Monday the near historic winds that are driving a huge wildfire in the northern part of the state will “substantially settle down” as some 3,000 people work to put out the blaze.”We’re not out of the woods, but we are leaning in the right direction,” Newsom said at a late Sunday briefing.The western U.S. state is commonly hit by numerous wildfires at this time of year with the combination of low humidity and strong winds combining to create favorable conditions for fire growth.Firefighters had said the Kincade Fire, named for a local road where the flames are believed to have started in Sonoma County, was at 10% containment, but as of late Sunday that had dropped to 5% with the fire at about 22,000 hectares in size.Cal Fire said the blaze had already destroyed about 100 structures.California State Senator Mike McGuire said 4,600 people have gone to shelters in Sonoma County.Statewide, about 180,000 people have evacuated their homes to seek safety from wildfires. Newsom declared a state of emergency Sunday and said there is “no question” the evacuations have saved lives.”Go means go,” he said, encouraging people to heed any evacuation orders.In Southern California, fire officials said a much smaller wildfire in Santa Clarita near Los Angeles was 70% contained, but not before it destroyed several dozen buildings.The California utility company Pacific Gas & Electric shut off power to nearly 1 million homes and businesses across Northern California, some with little notice, as part of a strategy to try to prevent surges from downed power lines sparking more fires.Businesses are angry that the power cuts have cost them tens of thousands of dollars, and residents bitterly complain about the inconvenience of going days without electricity, especially those who need power for life-saving medical devices.California authorities blame PG&E lines for sparking last year’s wildfires that killed 85 people and destroyed entire towns. The utility, facing billions of dollars in lawsuits, was forced to declare bankruptcy earlier this year.Governor Newsom, who had criticized the utilities, said the state will spend $75 million to help residents and businesses deal with the power cuts. He said the state has a lot of work to do toward putting electrical wires underground and to manage forests in order to prevent both wildfire damage and the need to shut off the power.
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