Television stars and local officials have brought holiday cheer to the homeless in the Skid Row section of Los Angeles. Mike O’Sullivan reports, the volunteers brightened the holiday for the growing numbers of people facing homelessness.
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Month: December 2019
American Newlyweds are ‘Progressing’ from Volcano Burns
The families of American newlyweds who were badly injured during a volcanic eruption in New Zealand said Tuesday the two are progressing as well as could be hoped for given the extent of their injuries.The couple, Lauren Urey, 32, and Matt Urey, 36, from Richmond, Virginia, remain hospitalized in New Zealand. They were visiting White Island two weeks ago on their honeymoon when the volcano erupted, killing 19 people and leaving more than two dozen others with severe burns from the scalding steam.Meanwhile, authorities on Tuesday called off the search for two bodies they believe were washed out to sea from the island soon after the eruption. Police Superintendent Andy McGregor said extensive shoreline and aerial searches had not turned up anything new.The families of the newlyweds issued a statement through New Zealand police.”There are no words to express how horrible this has been for everyone involved, but we are very lucky and grateful that although Lauren and Matt are severely injured, they’re still with us,” the families said.They said that while the two were progressing as well as could be hoped for, “they both have a tremendously difficult and long road to recovery ahead of them.”The families said in the statement they wanted to thank the healthcare professionals that helped save their loved ones, as well as police and the American consulate in New Zealand.The families said a GoFundMe page had been set up by the couple’s close friends to help with expenses such as lost wages and ongoing medical care. The campaign had on Tuesday raised $51,000 toward a goal of $100,000.On the GoFundMe page, organizer Aaron McKendry said on Dec. 14 that the couple had already undergone multiple surgeries and had many more to come in a process that would take months.White Island, also known by its Maori name, Whakaari, is the tip of an undersea volcano about 50 kilometers (30 miles) off New Zealand’s North Island and was a popular tourist destination before the eruption.Many people have questioned why tourists were still allowed on the island after New Zealand’s GeoNet seismic monitoring agency raised the volcano’s alert level on Nov. 18 from 1 to 2 on a scale where 5 represents a major eruption, noting an increase in sulfur dioxide gas, which originates from magma.Police reported earlier that crews on a police boat had spotted a male body in the water near the island two days after the eruption, but large waves prevented them from recovering it before it sank.Police have identified the pair believed to be washed out to sea as New Zealand tour guide Hayden Marshall-Inman, 40, and Australian teenager Winona Langford, 17.New Zealand authorities are investigating the circumstances around the disaster.
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Curt Flood Set Off Free-agent Revolution 50 Years Ago
Curt Flood set off the free-agent revolution 50 years ago Tuesday with a 128-word letter to baseball Commissioner Bowie Kuhn, two paragraphs that pretty much ended the career of a World Series champion regarded as among the sport’s stars but united a union behind his cause.St. Louis had traded the All-Star center fielder to Philadelphia just after the 1969 season. Flood broke with the sport’s culture of conformity and refused to accept the Cardinals’ right to deal him, becoming a pioneer and a pariah.After weeks of discussions with the Major League Baseball Players Association, Flood began the union’s equivalent of Lexington and Concord, challenging the reserve clause in first shot of a labor war that would consume the sport for more than a quarter-century.“After 12 years in the major leagues, I do not feel that I am a piece of property to be bought and sold irrespective of my wishes,” Flood wrote in his Dec. 24 missive. “I believe that any system which produces that result violates my basic rights as a citizen and is inconsistent with the laws of the United States and of the several states.“It is my desire to play baseball in 1970 and I am capable of playing. I have received a contract offer from the Philadelphia club, but I believe I have the right to consider offers from other clubs before making any decisions. I, therefore, request that you make known to all the major league clubs my feelings in this matter, and advise them of my availability for the 1970 season.” Flood, baseball union lost first roundFlood and the union lost that fight in a lawsuit that went all the way the U.S. Supreme Court, but the union’s fight went on.“If there had not been the person who was going to step out there and take the bullets, there wouldn’t have been anything,” Flood’s widow, the actress Judy Pace, said last weekend. “So he was the man who stepped out of the foxhole to go and challenge.”The reserve clause was struck down in 1975 by arbitrator Peter Seitz in the case of pitchers Andy Messersmith and Dave McNally, and it took eight work stoppages from 1972 through 1995 to achieve long-term labor peace.Flood, a .293 career hitter, was long gone from the field by then. After sitting out the 1970 season, he had 40 more plate appearances in 1970 for Washington and told the Senators he was retiring via telegraph sent from John F. Kennedy Airport in New York en route to Spain. His only further employment with a major league team before his death from throat cancer in 1997 would be as an Oakland Athletics radio broadcaster for part of the 1978 season. “All the groundwork was laid for the people who came after me. The Supreme Court decided not to give it to me, so they gave it to two white guys,” Flood once said. “I think that’s what they were waiting for.”Average MLB salary is $4 millionBaseball’s average major league salary has risen from just under $25,000 at the time of Flood’s letter to just over $4 million this year, an escalation testament to the power of free agency. When Gerrit Cole signed his $324 million, nine-year contract with the New York Yankees last week, the pitcher paid tribute to Flood and to Marvin Miller, the transformative union head finally elected to baseball’s Hall of Fame on Dec. 9.“Challenging the reserve clause was essential to the blossoming sport we have today,” Cole said, later adding: “I just think it’s so important that players know the other sacrifices that players made in order to keep the integrity of the game where it is, and so I hope everybody has that conversation about Curt Flood on the bus.”The National League adopted a reserve clause binding a player to his team in December 1879. Since 1947, paragraph 10 (a) of every Uniform Player’s Contract stated the club could renew the existing contract “for the period of one year on the same terms.” Teams claimed the renewed contract also could be renewed under that provision.Flood was a teammate of future major league stars Frank Robinson and Vada Pinson at McClymonds High School in West Oakland, California. He signed with Cincinnati for $4,000, appeared in just eight games for the Reds over the 1956 and ’57 seasons and was traded to St. Louis. He played for the Cardinals’ World Series champions in 1964 and ’67, becoming a three-time All-Star and winner of seven straight Gold Gloves. His salary rose to $90,000.Trade sparked Flood’s lawsuitOn Oct. 8. 1969, St. Louis traded the 31-year-old outfielder with Tim McCarver, Joe Hoerner and Byron Browne to Philadelphia for Dick Allen, Jerry Johnson and Cookie Rojas. Flood issued a statement saying: “If I were younger, I certainly would certainly enjoy playing for Philadelphia. But under the circumstances I have decided to retire from organized baseball, effective today, and remain in St. Louis where I can devote full time to my business interests.”Flood conferred with his lawyer, Allan Zerman, and met with Miller and union general counsel Dick Moss the following month for four hours over lunch at the Summit Hotel in New York and discussed plans for a lawsuit against Kuhn, the AL and NL, both league presidents and the 24 clubs. The union retained former Supreme Court Justice Arthur Goldberg to represent Flood.When the union executive board met Dec. 13 at the Sheraton Hotel in San Juan, Puerto Rico, it voted 25-0 to give Flood the union’s support and pay his legal expenses, a group that included future Hall of Famers Roberto Clemente, Reggie Jackson, Brooks Robinson, Joe Torre and Jim Bunning.Los Angeles Dodgers catcher Tom Haller asked Flood whether race was a factor in his decision.“I think the change in black consciousness in recent years has made me more sensitive to injustice in every area of my life,“ Miller quoted Flood as saying in the union leader’s 1991 book, a “Whole Different Ball Game.” “But I want you to know that what I’m doing here I’m doing as a ballplayer. … I think it’s absolutely terrible that we have stood by and watched this situation go on for so many years and never pulled together to do anything about it.” Letter to KuhnFlood sent his letter to Kuhn on Dec. 24. Kuhn wrote back Dec. 30 and released both letters.“I certainly agree with you that you, as a human being, are not a piece of property to be bought and sold. That is fundamental in our society and I think obvious,” he wrote.“However, I cannot see its applicability to the situation at hand.”Flood sued on Jan. 16 in federal court in Manhattan, claiming antitrust violations and involuntary servitude, among other allegations. The trial lasted from May 19 through June 10 and witnesses included Jackie Robinson and Hank Greenberg.“Since baseball remains exempt from the antitrust laws unless and until the Supreme Court or Congress holds to the contrary, we have no basis for proceeding to the underlying question of whether baseball’s reserve system would or would not be deemed reasonable if it were in fact subject to antitrust regulation,“ U.S. District Judge Irving Ben Cooper wrote on Aug. 12.The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals unanimously affirmed on April 7, 1971, in a decision by Judges Sterry Waterman, Leonard Moore and Wilfred Feinberg.Traded to SenatorsFlood was traded from the Phillies to Washington in November 1970, hit .200 with two RBIs in 13 games for the Senators in 1971 and failed to show up for an April 26 game against Minnesota. He sent team owner Bob Short a telegram that said “a year and a half is too much. Very serious personal problems mounting every day.”His case went on, and the Supreme Court ruled 5-3 against Flood on June 19, 1972. Justice Harry Blackmun refused to overturn the prior Supreme Court decisions in 1922 and 1953 that baseball was not interstate commerce.“If there is any inconsistency or illogic in all this, it is an inconsistency and illogic of long standing that is to be remedied by the Congress, and not by this Court,” Blackmun wrote.Messersmith-McNally caseSeitz ruled three years later in the Messersmith-McNally case that the renewal applied for one year only. The current system of free agency after six years of Major League Service was agreed to on July 12, 1976, and the salary surge began.Nolan Ryan broke the $1 million average salary mark after the 1979 season, Roger Clemens $5 million after 1990, Albert Belle $10 million following 1996, Alex Rodriguez $20 million after 2000 and Clayton Kershaw $30 million after 2013. In the Curt Flood Act of 1998, Congress made major league contract negotiations subject to antitrust law.“He did draw that line in the sand,” current union head Tony Clark said of Flood. “If he hadn’t been willing to do that. I think all of our histories change in our sport and others.”
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Former US Adviser Warns of ‘Imminent’ North Korea Risk
Former U.S. national security adviser John Bolton on Monday sharply criticized President Donald Trump’s North Korea policy, warning that the Asian country posed an “imminent” threat.”The risk to US forces & our allies is imminent & more effective policy is required before NK has the technology to threaten the American homeland,” tweeted Bolton, who was dismissed in September amid growing disagreements with Trump, particularly regarding his North Korea policy.The erstwhile adviser, a longtime hawk on North Korea, was openly skeptical of the 2018 summit between Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, and encouraged the U.S. president to be cautious.The denuclearization process has been largely deadlocked since the collapse of a second summit in Hanoi at the start of this year. North Korea promised an ominous “Christmas gift” earlier this month if Washington does not give ground by the end of December.FILE – North Korea’s leader Kim Jong Un, right, walks with U.S. President Donald Trump at the Capella Hotel on Sentosa island in Singapore, in this picture taken June 12, 2018, and released from North Korea’s Korean Central News Agency.In an interview with news site Axios published Monday, Bolton also said he thinks the Trump administration does not really intend to stop Pyongyang from becoming a legitimate nuclear power capable of firing missiles at other countries, otherwise “it would be pursuing a different course.””The idea that we are somehow exerting maximum pressure on North Korea is just unfortunately not true,” he said.Should North Korea conduct a major test or make some other significant provocation after the ultimatum expires, Bolton said he hopes Washington will acknowledge its mistake and say, “We’ve tried. The policy’s failed.”The U.S. should then work with allies to show that “when we say it’s unacceptable, we’re going to demonstrate we will not accept it,” he added.Bolton also criticized Trump for saying the North Korean short-range missile tests don’t bother him.”When the president says, ‘Well, I’m not worried about short-range missiles,’ he’s saying, ‘I’m not worried about the potential risk to American troops deployed in the region or our treaty allies, South Korea and Japan,'” he charged.”We’re not nearly three years into the administration with no visible progress toward getting North Korea to make the strategic decision to stop pursuing deliverable weapons,” Bolton said, noting that “time is on the side of the proliferator.”
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US Pulls Ambassador from Zambia
The State Department has withdrawn the U.S. ambassador to Zambia after he strongly criticized the south African country for jailing a gay couple for having sex.A State Department spokesperson said Ambassador Daniel Foote’s job in Zambia is “no longer tenable” because Zambian President Edgar Lungu said he no longer wants to work with Foote.”Despite this action, the United States remains committed to our partnership with the Zambian people,” the spokesperson said, adding that the U.S. “firmly opposes abuses against LGBTI persons. Governments have an obligation to ensure that all people can freely enjoy the universal human rights and fundamental freedoms to which they are entitled.”Ambassador Foote said last month that he was horrified by the 15-year prison sentence a Zambian court handed out to two men for having sex in what the court said was “against the order of nature.”When Zambian officials criticized Foote’s reaction, he said all they want are diplomats “with open pocketbooks and closed mouths.”Zambia has not yet commented on Foote’s withdrawal. The country gets hundreds of millions of dollars in U.S. aid every year.
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Beijing Attacks US For ‘Weaponization’ of Outer Space
Beijing warned Monday that the US was turning the cosmos into a “battlefield,” after Washington announced a new military arm called the Space Force.Following concerns that China and Russia are challenging its position in space, U.S. President Donald Trump signed the 2020 National Defense Authorization Act on Friday — which created a new branch of the U.S. military.Beijing responded by accusing the US of “pursuing the weaponiZation of outer space”.”These actions from the U.S. strongly violate the international consensus of the peaceful use of outer space… posing a direct threat to outer space, peace, and security,” said foreign ministry spokesman Geng Shuang at a regular press briefing.Geng called for the international community to “adopt a prudent and responsible attitude to prevent outer space from becoming a new battlefield”.The Space Force will be the sixth formal force of the U.S. military, after the Army, Air Force, Navy, Marines, and Coast Guard.”Going to be a lot of things happening in space, because space is the world’s newest warfighting domain,” Trump told members of the military gathered for the signing.It will be comprised of about 16,000 air force and civilian personnel, some already taking part in the Space Command, according to Air Force Secretary Barbara Barrett.China has been making significant investments in space in recent years and pouring billions into its military-run space program, with hopes of having a crewed space station by 2022.In November it completed a test of its Mars exploration lander, ahead of Beijing’s first mission to the red planet slated for 2020.The U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency warned in a report earlier this year that China and Russia have both developed “robust and capable” space services for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance.”China and Russia, in particular, are developing a variety of means to exploit perceived US reliance on space-based systems and challenge the US position in space,” it said.
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Refugee Paroled in California Murder Case, Detained by ICE
A Cambodian refugee who drew support from immigrant groups was released Monday from a California prison after being granted parole in a murder case, then immediately turned over to federal agents for possible deportation, his attorney said.Gov. Gavin Newsom allowed the parole of Tith Ton, now 40, who spent 22 years in prison for killing a rival gang member.“It’s deeply disappointing that the governor is choosing to work with ICE,” said Anoop Prasad, an attorney with the Asian Law Caucus. “It’s an unjust and illogical practice that is tearing apart communities in California.”Immigrant rights groups want Newsom to end policies allowing the transfer of prison inmates to federal authorities despite California’s efforts to provide a sanctuary for immigrants.This Dec. 23, 2019 booking photo shows Tith Ton, a Cambodian refugee released from California’s San Quentin State Prison on Dec. 23, 2109, but immediately turned over to federal agents for possible deportation.Prasad argued that Ton had turned his life around in the past two decades and become a substance abuse counselor. In approving his release, Newsom must have agreed that Ton no longer poses a danger to the community, Prasad said. Newsom’s office didn’t comment other than to confirm that he had allowed the parole.“We followed normal procedure,” corrections department spokesman Jeffrey Callison said of Ton’s release.Dozens of people rallied last month on the lawn of the state Capitol in support of Ton and others from Southeast Asia who face possible deportation.The groups want Newsom to end a corrections department policy of notifying immigration officials of impending releases after the agents file detainers or present an arrest warrant.A 2017 California law bars local and state agencies from cooperating with immigration authorities involving cases against those who have committed certain crimes, mostly misdemeanors. The rights groups say it also applies to the state prison system.Ton was picked up Monday by a private government contractor in what immigrant groups contend is a violation of federal law, his attorney said. Newsom this year vetoed a bill that would have blocked private companies from picking up paroled immigrants in California.In an unrelated parole action, Newsom recently announced that he is denying the parole of Stanley “Little Tookie” Williams IV, son of Crips co-founder “Tookie” Williams. The son, also a Crip, is serving a 16 years-to-life sentence for second-degree murder in the slaying of a rival gang member, a 20-year-old woman in Los Angeles, when he was 18.Williams has not demonstrated that he understands his “triggers for future violence” nor sufficiently abandoned gang life, Newsom wrote.His father was executed in 2005 for the murders of four people in in Los Angeles despite celebrity support for a stay. He had asserted his innocence, saying he had dropped out of the notorious gang, regretted helping to form it, and written books designed to deter youth from gang life.California’s most recent execution came about a month later. Newsom has declared a moratorium on executions while he is governor.
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Ivory Coast Issues Arrest Warrant for Presidential Candidate Soro
Ivory Coast has issued an arrest warrant for Guillaume Soro, a former rebel leader and candidate in next year’s presidential election, four government sources said on Monday, just before he was due to return home after more than six months overseas.The move against Soro, who retains the loyalty of many former rebel commanders who now hold senior positions in the army, could significantly escalate tensions ahead of an election next October that is seen as a test of Ivory Coast’s stability.About 3,000 people died in a brief civil war that followed the victory of President Alassane Ouattara in a 2010 election.Ouattara won re-election in 2015 but has given mixed signals about whether he will seek a third term, adding to uncertainty about the vote in Francophone West Africa’s largest economy.Soro had been scheduled to return to Ivory Coast on Monday for the first time since May but diverted his private flight from Paris to neighboring Ghana “for security reasons,” his adviser, Alain Lobognon, said.Lobognon said he was not aware of an arrest warrant. The sources said the warrant charged Soro with trying to destabilize the country and misusing public funds, but they provided no further details. A police spokesman said he did not know about the warrant.Outside Soro’s headquarters in Ivory Coast’s commercial capital, Abidjan, riot police fired tear gas to disperse more than 100 supporters who had gathered, a Reuters witness said.Police later detained Lobognon and another Soro ally, Souleymane Kamarate Kone, near the headquarters and took them to an unknown location, Lobognon’s wife, Amira, told Reuters. The police spokesman could not be reached again to comment.Soro, 47, led the rebels who tried and failed to oust then-president Laurent Gbagbo in 2002. His forces installed Ouattara in the presidency during the civil war that followed the 2010 election, which was fought largely along regional and ethnic lines.Soro then served for several years as speaker of the National Assembly but has since fallen out with Ouattara, who is widely expected to back his prime minister, Amadou Gon Coulibaly, in the 2020 presidential election.However, Ouattara said last month he would run for another term if his predecessors, Gbabgo and Henri Konan Bedie, were candidates. His opponents say that would violate constitutional term limits.Gbagbo was acquitted earlier this year of crimes against humanity at the International Criminal Court in The Hague but remains in Europe while the prosecution appeals the verdict.Bedie, who was president from 1993-99, has yet to say whether he will run.Ivory Coast is the world’s largest producer of cocoa and was the fastest-growing economy in West Africa last year.
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Cambodia’s Working Moms Turn to Baby Formula
Before Sim Ark gave birth to her second child, she didn’t think much about what a workplace needed to accommodate a new mother.Now that she’s a working mother rather than a stay-at-home mom as she was with her first child, Sim Ark knows.”I want to have a daycare facility right in my workplace so that I can visit my baby while working,” said Sim Ark, 29, who works at the You Li International factory in Bavet city, in Cambodia’s Svay Rieng province.Three months after giving birth to her son Ham Ya Oudom, after many calls from factory administrators, Sim Ark returned to work. She didn’t want to risk losing her job.Her absence from home during the day meant the baby switched from breastfeeding to bottle-fed meals of infant formula. At night, he switched back to breast milk unless Sim Ark found herself working overtime, which she says causes her milk to dry up.Everyone in Sim Ark’s house — Phing Tithya, her husband, 29; Sim Lat, her sister, 40; and So Yam, her mother, 80 — knows how to mix breast-milk substitute (BMS) with boiled water or bottled mineral water to feed Ham Ya Oudom, a healthy, hungry baby who is happy except when he wakes up. Then, unless one of his adults carries him on a walk around the house or the village, he cries.Sim Lat, 40, carries her nephew Ham Ya Oudom on a walk while waiting for his mom to come back from work, at Svay Ta Yean commune, Svay Rieng province, Cambodia, Oct. 11, 2019. (Khan Sokummono/VOA Khmer)Although Sim Ark and other garment workers would like to be able to breastfeed their children until they are at least 6 months old, as doctors recommend, they don’t know how to raise the issue with their employers.”I’m not sure how it look like if we had [a daycare facility in a factory]. Maybe a family member could come and help [in the facility] to look after the baby,” Sim Ark said, only to add, “then nobody would be available to do the work at home.” Worrying changeThe change in Ham Ya Oudom’s routine when his mother returned to work helps explain why the rate of breastfeeding is declining in Cambodia, a change that worries child development experts.In 2010, 74% of Cambodia’s infants younger than 6 months were breastfed. By 2014, the most recent year available, Cambodia had gone from having one of the highest rates of breastfeeding to a middling 65%, according to the latest available government data confirmed by UNICEF.Cristian Munduate, UNICEF representative for Cambodia, in Phnom Penh, Oct. 17, 2019. (Khan Sokummono/VOA Khmer)It is “a drastic decline,” said Cristian Munduate, a UNICEF representative in Cambodia, who described breastfeeding as “the best practice for a child during its first 6 months of life — the first natural vaccine that a child receives.”Appropriate breastfeeding practices could prevent an estimated 823,000 child deaths every year worldwide, according to UNICEF, and breastfeeding contributes to improved cognitive development, school achievement and future earning potential, according to research published in the medical journal The Lancet. The current rate of breastfeeding is estimated to cost about $1 million a year in treating children with diarrhea and pneumonia and mothers with type II diabetes, according to a report by Alive & Thrive, a global initiative to ensure mother and infant health. Breastfeeding alleviates all three conditions.The Alive & Thrive report suggests Cambodia stands to lose $83 million a year because of future cognitive losses associated with inadequate breastfeeding.Law vs. realitySeveral factors contributed to Cambodia’s declining rate of breastfeeding. Among them, according to UNICEF, are the lack of peer and government support for breastfeeding, the difficulty of juggling infant care with a job, and the aggressive marketing of infant formula.With about 2.4 million women ages 15 to 34 participating in the country’s labor force, Cambodia has a law guaranteeing many women the opportunity to breastfeed, Munduate said.Yet law and reality have yet to mesh, as Lim Buyheak, 35, a Ph.D. candidate in clinical psychology at Vietnam National University, knows.She has breastfed her daughter Heng Vichetsoma since she was born five months ago. She bought an electronic breast milk pumping kit for $145 and attempted to use it to pump and store her breast milk. Pumping turned out to be so difficult, she gave up. She now works on her thesis from home just to be able to breastfeed her daughter.With like-minded young mothers, Lim Buyheak formed a Facebook group in November. It now has about 160 members who promote breastfeeding and support each other.
“When I breastfeed in public, I feel like I am odd,” Lim Buyheak told VOA by phone. “For instance, when I was at the AEON, everyone takes out feeding bottles to feed the baby, and I hold my shirt to the side to breastfeed” at the upscale Phnom Penh shopping mall.”At first, I felt a little bit shy as well,” she said. “Now I feel very good to have support from my friends.”Sim Ark and Phing Tithya, a baker in Sneang village, Svay Ta Yean commune, have two boys: Ham Yarith is 5 years old, and Ham Ya Oudom is 5 months old.Sim Ark’s unmarried sister Sim Lat cares for the boys while their parents work.Although Sim Ark’s factory allows postpartum mothers one hour a day for breastfeeding, her job is 20 kilometers from home, a 30-minute motor scooter ride away. She’s not alone in leaving her children with relatives.In another household, Ouk Sokha, 58, sings lullabies to lull her 10-week-old grandson to sleep. Ouk Sokha has tended 11 grandchildren over the past eight years as her five daughters and one son have left their babies with her along with cans of baby formula and feeding bottles.Ouk Sokha, 58, rocks her 11th grandson, who is two-and-a-half months old. She feeds her grandson baby formula while his mom works at a factory, at Svay Ta Yean commune, Svay Rieng province, Cambodia, Oct. 11, 2019. (Khan Sokummono/VOA Khmer)”I want my daughter to have the opportunity to earn money,” Ouk Sokha said. “If she had to breastfeed, there was no way she could go to work.”As a young mother, Ouk Sokha breastfed each baby while working in the family’s rice fields.”In my generation, we all breastfed,” she said. “Feeding [their infants] with baby formula is more preferable now.”Rocking the baby’s bamboo cradle, Ouk Sokha said she fed her grandson five bottles of formula per day.On average, the 10-week-old baby consumes seven cans of infant formula per month. Each can costs about $12. The Sot Sam Aun, 30, a doctor in at Samaki Roumdoul Referral Hospital in Svay Rieng province, Oct. 12, 2019. (Khan Sokummono/VOA Khmer)Doctors such as Sot Sam Aun, 30, at Samaki Roumdoul Referral Hospital in Svay Rieng, where about 20 women go for delivery service every month, said women receive counseling to avoid BMS unless they cannot produce milk because of health issues or “are getting busy.”However, BMS companies make presentations once or twice a year to midwives who work in the hospital and are often closer to the young mothers than doctors.”But we know that their marketing contradicts the [health] ministry’s guidelines, which emphasize the benefits of breastfeeding,” said Sot Sam Aun, so the BMS presentations “are not allowed to be held inside the hospital.”Although Cambodia prohibits the promotion of BMS in a hospital or health center, the Facebook page for Nutrilatt Cambodia shows mothers receiving BMS at high-end private clinics in Cambodia.Nutrilatt Cambodia Managing Director Tim Sovannara said gifts of BMS to new mothers are “preparation” for those times when a mother cannot breastfeed because for whatever reason. “It is just a present for the delivery,” he said. “We did not force them to use it.”
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Zimbabwe Facing Christmas Woes as Economy Struggles
Zimbabweans are heading into the Christmas holiday facing one of the worst economies in years. Frequent power cuts, long fuel lines, a months-long doctors strike, soaring inflation, and cash shortages are making it hard to be festive. Columbus Mavhunga reports from the capital Harare.
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Church of England Questions Ethics of Investment in AI
The Church of England has launched a study into an existential question: do its investments in big-tech giants contradict the Christian faith?The Church’s Ethical Investment Advisory Group (EIAG) will determine whether some of the new technologies undermine “the very idea of God”, a spokesman for the Church told AFP on Monday.The year-long review was first reported by The Daily Telegraph newspaper.EIAG was set up in the early 1990s to help make sure that more than £12 billion ($15.5 billion, 14 billion Euros) in assets held by the Church’s various institutions are put to ethical use.”Artificial intelligence [AI] is an important element of this review,” the spokesman said.The EIAG is in talks with technology experts as well as politicians and theologians “to try to make sense of the issues”, the spokesman said.It wants to reach a conclusion “that is not only grounded in theology and distinctly Anglican but is also practical”, he added.EIAG did not specify how much money the Church has invested in the likes of Google’s parent company Alphabet and Amazon.The Church’s 2018 annual report also reported investments in drugs development companies AstraZeneca and GlaxoSmithKline.”Some argue that tech has brought enormous benefits to society but others note a growing realization of the limitations and downsides of technology,” the spokesman said.
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US Senate Leader Not Ruling out Witnesses in Trump Impeachment Trial
U.S. Senate Majority leader Mitch McConnell says Republicans have not ruled out calling witnesses in the impeachment trial of President Donald Trump.”We haven’t ruled out witnesses,” McConnell told “Fox & Friends.” on Monday. “We’ve said, ‘Let’s handle this case just like we did with President Clinton.’ Fair is fair.”Last week, the top Republican lawmaker dismissed calls by Senate Minority leader Chuck Schumer to hear from four officials during a Senate impeachment trial, including former National Security Adviser John Bolton and Acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney. The officials had refused to testify during the House impeachment inquiry of the president.On a near straight party line vote, the Democrat-controlled House of Representatives approved two articles of impeachment against Trump last Wednesday, making him only the third U.S. president to be impeached in the country’s 243-year history. He is accused of abusing the power of the presidency to benefit himself politically and then obstructing congressional efforts to investigate his actions.The allegations stem from a July call with Ukraine’s president in which Trump asks for an investigation into one of his chief political rivals.House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has said she will not send the articles of impeachment to the Senate or choose impeachment prosecutors until the Senate agrees on rules governing the process.House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of Calif., readies to strike the gavel as she announces the passage of article II of impeachment against President Donald Trump, Dec. 18, 2019, on Capitol Hill in Washington.The Senate is not authorized to begin a trial until it receives the articles from the House.Trump lashed out at Pelosi Monday, tweeting that she “gives us the most unfair trial in the history of the U.S. Congress, and now she is crying for fairness in the Senate, and breaking all rules while doing so. She lost Congress once, she will do it again!Trump has insisted he did nothing wrong in his push to get Ukraine to investigate one of his chief 2020 Democratic challengers, former Vice President Joe Biden and, his son Hunter Biden’s lucrative work for a Ukrainian natural gas company. Trump had also called for a probe into a debunked theory that Ukraine meddled in the 2016 election.A section of a White House memorandum describing President Donald Trump’s call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy in this copy of the memorandum released by the White House in Washington, Sept. 25, 2019.Trump made the appeal for the Biden investigations at a time when he was temporarily withholding $391 million in military aid Kyiv wanted to help fight pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine.The U.S. president eventually released the money in September without Zelenskiy launching the Biden investigations, proof, Republicans have said, that Trump had not engaged in a reciprocal quid pro quo deal, the military aid in exchange for the Biden probe.Trump has on countless occasions described his late July call with Zelenskiy as “perfect,” when he asked him to “do us a favor,” to investigate the Bidens and Ukraine’s purported role in the 2016 election. As the impeachment controversy mounted, Trump has subsequently claimed the “us” in his request to Zelenskiy referred not to him personally but to the United States.
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Boeing CEO Resigns
Aerospace giant Boeing’s CEO is resigning, effective immediately Monday, as the company continues to grapple with decreased confidence in its 737 Max jet.Dennis Muilenburg is stepping down, following an announcement last week that Boeing would halt production of the 737 Max. The jet was grounded worldwide in March after a second 737 Max crash, killing a combined total of 346 people.”The Board of Directors decided that a change in leadership was necessary to restore confidence in the Company moving forward as it works to repair relationships with regulators, customers, and all other stakeholders,” the company said in a statement.Boeing’s current board chairman, David Calhoun, will officially assume the post on January 13th.An Ethiopia Airlines 737 Max crashed just after takeoff in March, killing all 157 people on board. Five months earlier, the same type of plane flown by the Indonesian airline Lion Air crashed shortly after takeoff, killing 189 people.Investigators have focused on the MCAS system in the planes, a new automated flight system that was not included in previous versions of the 737. Investigators believe a faulty sensor in the MCAS system pushed the nose of each plane down and made it impossible for the pilots to regain control.
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UN: Civilians Caught in Eastern Ukrainian Conflict
A report by the Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights finds civilians in conflict-torn eastern Ukraine remain at risk of human rights violations and death despite an easing of hostilities between the Ukrainian government and Russian-backed rebels in the Luhansk and Donetsk regions.The U.N. report welcomes recent diplomatic measures taken by the leaders of Ukraine, Russia, France and Germany to ease the plight of civilians caught in the conflict in eastern Ukraine. France and Germany mediated a December 9 meeting in Paris between Russia and Ukraine, aimed at finding a peaceful solution to the conflict. Some 13,000 civilians have been killed since war broke out in April 2014.The U.N. reports the freedom of movement by civilians has improved. It says they now can move safely across the contact line that separates the warring parties to visit their families. Despite this positive development, U.N. Deputy High Commissioner for Human Rights Kate Gilmore says civilians in the conflict zone remain unprotected and are subject to abuse and gross human rights violations. Gilmore warns that as long as active hostilities continue, people are at risk of being maimed or killed. She says her office has received reports of killings and extrajudicial executions committed on both sides of the contact line.“We also continued to document cases of arbitrary arrests and detention, of torture and ill-treatment of Ukrainians occurring in government-controlled territory and in territory controlled by the so-called self-proclaimed ‘republics’ as well as in the Russian Federation.” FILE – A Ukrainian soldier passes by a destroyed Butovka coal mine as he approaches a frontline position in the town of Avdiivka in the Donetsk region, Nov. 9, 2019.The U.N. report also documents violations of international human rights and humanitarian law in Crimea, which was illegally annexed by Russia in March 2014.U.N. monitors say they have received reports that Ukrainians apprehended in Crimea have been deported to Russia, where they have been subjected to torture and denied access to medical care.The Ukrainian ambassador to the U.N. in Geneva, Yurii Klymenko, says the report reflecting the situation on the ground is not encouraging. He says the rebels in the Donbass continue to break a cease-fire agreed to in June in Minsk. He says shelling continues causing deaths, injuries and destruction.The ambassador accuses Russia of resorting to fraud and trickery to legitimize its illegal occupation of Crimea, while persecuting and penalizing innocent people living in the occupied territory. Russia annexed Crimea after Moscow declared the region Russian territory.
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Inescapable Effects of Climate Change Jeopardize Livelihoods Across East Africa
As the Earth heats up, weather and climate patterns are changing dramatically around the globe. Africa felt the effects of those changes in 2019, experiencing cyclones, droughts and unstoppable rains that jeopardized livelihoods.Sixty-two-year-old David Kemboi sorts out dry maize stalks on his 21-hectare farm in Kenya’s Trans Nzoia County.He turns the stalks of what could have been a bountiful harvest into silage — for feeding his 15 herd of cattle.He said the heavy rains that have rocked different parts of Eastern Africa cause the crops to fail.”At the time of growing crops we expected optimum yields, we had invested heavily on all the crops that we grew, but unfortunately, we were not able to get a good harvest out of all that, which means a lot of money was just thrown to the dogs. We didn’t get anything out of that and we do not expect to get anything elsewhere other than from this land because we depend on rain-fed agriculture,” he said.Trans Nzoia county where Kemboi settled after retirement in 2017 is known for growing predominantly maize, Kenya’s staple food.Apart from the excessive rain, farmers in the area have faced pests and disease challenges.”Every time we go to harvest the maize, there is rain and when it gets wet, it gets spoiled very quickly. That one has had adverse effects in growing of maize and also in beans. Beans, the first crop we didn’t have any harvest at all. It all went bad because of these heavy rains,” said Kemboi.
Inescapable Effects of Global Warming Jeopardize Livelihoods in Africa video player.
Embed” />Copy LinkWidespread floodingMillions of people have been displaced as a result of widespread flooding this year across large parts of Somalia, Kenya, Uganda, South Sudan and Ethiopia.The floods have led to hundreds of deaths. In November, South Sudan declared a state of emergency in 27 affected areas with close to a million people affected.The Kenya Meteorological Department attributes the rains to an irregularity known as Indian Ocean dipole, an oscillation of surface temperature of the sea, which brings weather extremes to countries neighboring the Indian Ocean.Benard Chanzu is the deputy director of Kenya’s Meteorological services. He said nearly all of Kenya has received above-average rainfall this year.”In some stations, I can quote like Meru stations, we have seen records which are showing that what has been received is more than 200 percent of the long term average, that is what is usually received in the area,” said Chanzu.FILE – People stand on debris blocking a highway after River Muruny burst its bank following heavy rains in Parua village, about 85 km northeast of Kitale, in West Pokot county, western Kenya, Nov. 24, 2019.More extreme weather aheadWith levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere climbing to new highs, Dr. John Recha, a scientist specializing in climate and agriculture research, said Africans can expect more extremes in years to come.”We will therefore have more effects of climate change affecting the weather patterns specifically the rainfall patterns, climate change will be more intense and therefore the climate variability that is having these extreme events of the droughts and the floods will be more frequent and more intense going into the future,” he said.The solution for Kemboi and other farmers, according to experts like Recha, lies on adapting to climate change.That, he said, would require help from government and agencies to implement new agricultural practices such as alternative irrigation methods and efficient water storage for farmers.
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Inescapable Effects of Global Warming Jeopardize Livelihoods in Africa
As the earth heats up, weather and climate patterns are changing dramatically around the globe. Africa felt the effects of those changes in 2019, experiencing cyclones, droughts and unstoppable rains that jeopardized livelihoods. From Nairobi, Rael Ombuor reports on what lies ahead for the continent.
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French Army Carries out First-Ever Drone Strike during Mali Operations
France’s armed forces said Monday it had carried out a drone strike for the first time, during operations in Mali at the weekend in which it said 40 “terrorists” were killed.On Saturday, French President Emmanuel Macron had announced that French forces had “neutralized” 33 jihadists in the central Malian region of Mopti, in an operation that had started the previous night.In a statement, the French military command said the drone strike happened during a follow-up operation Saturday in which another seven jihadist fighters were killed.As French commandos were searching the combat zone in Ouagadou forest, 150 kilometers (90 miles) from the town of Mopti, “they were attacked by a group of terrorists on motorbikes,” the statement said.A Reaper drone and a French Mirage 2000 patrol opened fire to support the ground troops, it said.”This is the first operational strike by an armed drone,” the statement said, confirming an earlier report published in the specialist blog Le Mamouth.The strike came just two days after the French army announced it had finished testing the remotely-piloted drones for armed operations.It has three drones, based near Niamey, the capital of Niger.The operation at the weekend was in an area controlled by the Katiba Macina, a ruthless Islamist group founded by radical Mopti preacher Amadou Koufa.Two Malian gendarmes who had been held hostage were freed, and French troops seized a number of armed vehicles, motorbikes and weaponry, “delivering a very heavy blow” to the jihadists, according to Monday’s statement.France previously said it had killed 25 jihadists in two operations in the Sahel this month.Last month, 13 French soldiers were killed in a helicopter crash as they hunted jihadists in the north of Mali — the biggest single-day loss for the French military in nearly four decades.France has a 4,500-member force which has been fighting jihadists in the fragile, sprawling Sahel since 2013. Forty-one soldiers have died.
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Amid Western Condemnation, Putin Opens Crimea Bridge to Rail Traffic
Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday took part in a ceremony officially opening a controversial bridge from mainland Russia to the Russian-occupied Crimean Peninsula to rail traffic.Kyiv, the United States, and European Union have condemned Russia’s construction of the bridge, calling it a violation of Ukraine’s sovereignty, with the Western powers imposing sanctions on firms associated with the building of the 19-kilometer long structure.Flanked by local government officials, Putin thanked the workers for their efforts to build “this huge project,” in a ceremony broadcast live on state-run Russian TV.In November, the privately owned Grand Service Express railway company announced that the first train would depart from St. Petersburg for Sevastopol on December 23 and would travel 2,741 kilometers in 43.5 hours.The segment from Moscow to Simferopol — the peninsula’s capital city — is scheduled to depart on December 24 and travel 2,009 kilometers in 33 hours.The bridge cost $3.7 billion to build and is Europe’s longest, surpassing the Vasco de Gama bridge in Portugal.The railway section of the bridge marks its expanded use after Putin opened the connection on May 15, 2018, for vehicle usage.On that day, Putin was shown live on state television at the wheel of a Kamaz truck in a convoy of vehicles that crossed what Russia calls the Crimean Bridge — a symbol of Moscow’s control over the Ukrainian peninsula.Russia’s Federal Road Transport Agency, also known as Rosavtodor, said on December 22 that Putin would take part in the ceremonies on December 23.Crimea is connected to the mainland in Ukraine only, so the bridge is the sole link between the peninsula and Russia.People watch a giant TV screen with Russian President Vladimir Putin, inside, riding a train across a bridge linking Russia and the Crimean peninsula in Taman, Russia, Dec. 23, 2019.Ukraine has condemned the project not only for violating the nation’s sovereignty and territorial integrity but also for its low clearance, which has encumbered maritime shipping traffic for Ukraine.The spokeswoman of then EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini at the time said construction of the bridge “constitutes another violation of Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity by Russia.””The construction of the bridge aims at the further forced integration of the illegally annexed peninsula with Russia and its isolation from Ukraine, of which it remains a part,” an EU spokeswoman said.The U.S. State Department also condemned Russia’s construction of the bridge, saying it was done “without the permission of the government of Ukraine.”“Russia’s construction of the bridge serves as a reminder of Russia’s ongoing willingness to flout international law,” a spokeswoman said in May.Sanctions imposed by the EU and the United States have targeted those involved in the construction, including businessman Arkady Rotenberg, a close Putin ally whose company won construction rights for the bridge.Russia seized and annexed Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula in 2014. The annexation has not been recognized by the world community.Russia has also supported separatist fighters battling Kyiv’s forces in eastern Ukraine in a war that has killed more than 13,000 people since 2014.
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North Korea May Be Misreading the 2020 US Election, Analysts Warn
With North Korea signaling bigger provocations in 2020, some analysts worry the country’s leader, Kim Jong Un, could overplay his hand and make a dangerous miscalculation, especially if Kim believes he can affect U.S. President Donald Trump’s reelection chances.North Korea has set an end-of-year deadline for the U.S. to offer more concessions in nuclear talks, and promised Washington a sinister “Christmas gift,” possibly a long-range missile test, which could upset nearly two years of diplomacy between Trump and Kim.The moves suggest an emboldened Kim believes he can hold out for a better deal, possibly because he sees Trump as weakened by impeachment and a tough reelection campaign that is set to enter a more intense phase.Trump, who has portrayed his outreach to Kim as a major foreign policy victory, has at times directly linked North Korea with his 2020 reelection chances, despite little if any evidence suggesting it will be a major issue for U.S. voters.North Korea hasn’t explicitly threatened to interfere with the election. However, its state media accuse the U.S. of deliberately prolonging the nuclear talks to preserve a Trump foreign policy win during election season. North Korean officials have also said Trump is “very fretful” and must be in “great jitters” about what Pyongyang is about to do following Kim’s end-of-year deadline.“They truly believe they can influence the presidential election in November,” said Bong Young-shik, who teaches at Seoul’s Sogang University. “North Koreans think the world revolves around North Korea… it’s a very unfortunate miscalculation and misunderstanding.”Trump takes credit… but for what?North Korea’s confidence may stem in part from Trump, who at times portrays the stalled nuclear talks as having already succeeded.FILE – Kim Jong Un and President Donald Trump shake hands prior to their meeting in Singapore, June 12, 2018.After his initial summit with Kim in 2018, Trump famously declared, “There is no longer a Nuclear Threat from North Korea.” In reality, North Korea never agreed to give up its nuclear weapons and has been steadily increasing its arsenal, according to experts.Trump has also taken credit for Kim’s self-imposed, two-year-long moratorium on long-range missile and nuclear tests. By threatening to end that suspension, Kim appears to be trying to bolster his leverage.Earlier this month, Trump directly warned Kim against provocations during the U.S. presidential campaign.“I’d be surprised if North Korea acted hostilely,” Trump said in early December. “He knows I have an election coming up. I don’t think he wants to interfere with that, but we’ll have to see.”Not a big factor in 2020Trump’s statement appeared to grant Kim leverage many believe he would not otherwise possess. Polls have long suggested domestic, not foreign policy, issues are typically the most important in U.S. presidential elections.Only 3% of registered U.S. voters said foreign policy is the top issue facing the country, according to a May poll by FILE – A man watches a TV showing a file image of a North Korea’s missile launch during a news program at the Seoul Railway Station in Seoul, Aug. 6, 2019.“A provocation at this stage will have a conventional, security, or even military response, and they’ll be surprised because they thought they were able to play U.S. domestic politics, when in fact they’re not,” Delury said. “Everyone knows the election is not about North Korea.”In 2017, Trump exchanged nicknames and threats of nuclear war with Kim. At one point, Trump threatened to “totally destroy” North Korea. Reports suggested the Trump administration was considering a preemptive military attack on North Korea — a so-called “bloody nose” strike — in what some described as an attempt to deter North Korea from further provocations.According toFILE – People watch a television news screen showing U.S. President Donald Trump, South Korean Moon Jae-in and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un meeting at the truce village of Panmunjom in the DMZ, at a railway station in Seoul, June 30, 2019.“He wants to be able to say he made a deal. I think that’s the big thing he’s after,” said Gwenda Blair, a Trump family biographer who has followed Trump’s real estate and other deals for decades.Blair said Trump is not likely to welcome any reminder that his North Korea policy has not resulted in Kim giving up his nuclear weapons.“He wants to hang on to that [win] as a bullet point,” she said, adding, “he can’t engage with anything that might threaten that.”It’s not clear how Trump would respond to a major North Korea provocation, such as a long-range missile or nuclear test.Senior U.S. military officials have said they are closely watching North Korea as the deadline approaches.Mark Milley, the chairman of the U.S Joint Chiefs of Staff, last week acknowledged the North Korean threats, stressing the U.S. is “prepared for whatever.”
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New Construction Seen at Missile-Related Site in North Korea
A new satellite image of a factory where North Korea makes military equipment used to launch long-range missiles shows the construction of a new structure.The release of several images from Planet Labs comes amid concern that North Korea could launch a rocket or missile as it seeks concessions in stalled nuclear negotiations with the United States.North Korea has warned that what “Christmas gift” it gives the U.S. depends on what action Washington takes.One of the new satellite images taken Dec. 19 shows the March 16 Factory near Pyongyang, where North Korea manufactures trucks used as mobile launchers for its long-range missiles.Jeffrey Lewis, director of the East Asia nonproliferation program at the Middlebury Institute, tweeted that the construction appeared to be an expansion of the factory.Nuclear talks between Washington and Pyongyang have been stalled since a February summit between leaders Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un fell apart.Earlier this month, North Korea carried out two major tests at its long-range rocket launch and missile engine testing site in the country’s northwest.The other images released by Planet Labs show that site before and after the Dec. 7 test.
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Service Member Killed in Afghanistan, US Military Says
The U.S. military has announced that a U.S. service member was killed in action Monday in Afghanistan.In making the announcement, the U.S. Forces-Afghanistan did not provide further details on where and how the casualty occurred.The Taliban, in a statement sent to journalists, claimed the U.S. casualty occurred in the volatile northern Kunduz province.The insurgent group said it targeted Afghan and American soldiers with a roadside bomb as they tried to conduct a joint raid against Taliban positions in the Char Dara district.The Taliban controls most of Char Dara while the Afghan government controls the district headquarters. The insurgents hotly contest many districts in Kunduz, which has twice briefly fallen to the Taliban in recent years.The Taliban claimed another U.S. soldier along with an Afghan commando were seriously wounded in the blast. Taliban claims are difficult to verify from independent sources and are often exaggerated.Monday’s fatality brings the number of American soldiers killed this year in Afghanistan to at least 19.The 18-year-old Afghan war, America’s longest, is said to have cost Washington nearly $1 trillion and the lives of around 2,300 U.S. service members.
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China, S. Korea, Japan Meet Over Trade, Regional Disputes
The leaders of China, Japan and South Korea are holding a trilateral summit in China this week amid feuds over trade, military maneuverings and historical animosities. Most striking has been a complex dispute between Seoul and Tokyo, while Beijing has recently sought to tone down its disagreements with its two neighbors.Economic cooperation and the North Korean nuclear threat are the main issues binding the Northeast Asian troika. While no major breakthroughs are expected at the meetings, the opportunity for face-to-face discussions between the sometimes-mutual antagonists is alone considered significant. Below is a look at the current state of relations among the three.Japan-South KoreaTensions rooted in South Korean resentment over Japan’s 20th century colonial occupation spiked this year to a level unseen in decades as they traded blows over wartime history, trade and military-to-military cooperation.The countries managed to strike a fragile truce in November after intervention by the United States, which was concerned about the growing rift between its two key Asian allies. Seoul then walked back a declaration to terminate a bilateral military intelligence-sharing agreement with Tokyo, an important symbol of their three-way security cooperation driven by the nuclear threat from North Korea and China’s growing regional clout.Tokyo, in turn, agreed to resume discussions with Seoul on their dispute over Japan’s tightened controls on exports of key chemicals used by major South Korean companies to make computer chips and smartphone displays. Japan’s controls were widely seen as retaliation for South Korean court rulings that called for Japanese companies to offer reparations to aging South Korean plaintiffs for their World War II forced labor. Last Friday, Japan announced that it will ease export restrictions on one of the chemicals.South Korean President Moon Jae-in and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe will hold a one-on-one meeting on Christmas Eve on the sidelines of the trilateral summit.”Considering the recent difficulties in bilateral relations, holding the meeting itself has a large meaning,” Kim Hyun-chong, deputy chief of South Korea’s presidential National Security Office, said in a briefing in Seoul. “We hope that … the meeting will help keep the momentum of dialogue alive and provide an opportunity for improvement in South Korea-Japan relations.”China-South KoreaSouth Korea’s relations with China, its biggest trading partner, have been strained over Seoul’s decision to host a U.S. anti-missile system that Beijing perceives as a security threat.China says the real purpose of the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense, or THAAD, system placed in southern South Korea is to peer deep into its territory, rather than to warn of North Korean missile launches.China retaliated by restricting Chinese tour group visits to South Korea, boycotting South Korean television shows and other cultural products, and wrecking the Chinese business operations of major South Korean retailer Lotte, which provided the land for the missile system.While Beijing’s fury appears to have subsided, there’s also uneasiness in Seoul over increasing Chinese and Russia air patrols over waters between South Korea and Japan. Experts say those are designed to test the strength of security cooperation between the U.S. allies.South Korea has been eager to arrange a visit by Chinese President Xi Jinping next year. Han Jung-woo, a spokesman for Moon, said the president plans to use his one-on-one meeting with Xi in China on Monday to “discuss ways to develop South Korea-China ties and facilitate bilateral exchanges and cooperation and also exchange deep views over the political situation of the Korean Peninsula.”Japan-ChinaChina’s relations with Japan had been more acrimonious than with any other foreign state, but have in recent years undergone a remarkable transformation, partly as a result of the U.S.-China tariff war.Planning is underway for a state visit by Xi to Japan in the spring, made possible by the temporary shelving of contentious political issues and Beijing’s desire to exploit regional dissatisfaction with Washington over its trade policies.”At this juncture, it is common sense for China to improve relations with its neighbors Japan and South Korea,” said Shi Yinhong, a professor of international relations at Beijing’s Renmin University.However, some in Japan oppose Xi coming at a time when more than a dozen Japanese citizens have been arrested on spying allegations in China and Chinese naval and coast guard ships routinely violate Japanese waters around disputed East China Sea islands.Japan also considers China’s growing maritime activity in regional seas and the upgrading of its military as a threat along with North Korea’s missile and nuclear programs. Tokyo has responded by upgrading its own defense capabilities and working with Chinese rival India, as well as with Southeast Asian countries and Australia.
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Africa’s Opposition Parties Say Struggle Against Entrenched Leaders is Generational
Opposition politicians in Africa face tough challenges — including arrest, intimidation and violence — as they struggle to upend decades of rule by the parties that originally brought liberation from colonialism. But their struggle, they say, is not only an African movement — it’s a global generational shift towards accountability and a departure from authoritarian leadership. VOA’s Anita Powell met with two of the continent’s most vocal opposition leaders, and reports from Johannesburg.
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Notre Dame to Miss First Christmas Mass in 200 Years
For the first time in more than 200 years, France’s historic Notre Dame Cathedral will be dark and silent for Christmas.The iconic Gothic structure was ravaged in April by a fire that destroyed parts of the roof, the spire and vault.”This is the first time since the French Revolution that there will be no midnight Mass” at Notre Dame, said cathedral rector Patrick Chauvet.Christmas services have been moved a mile away to Saint-Germain l’Auxerrois, a church dating back to the 7th century.There has been a Christmas service every year at the UNESCO World Heritage site through France’s sometimes tumultuous history. The only time it was forced to close was during the anti-Catholic revolutionary period in the late 18th and early 19th centuries.President Emmanuel Macron has set a timetable of five years to complete repairs on the eight-centuries-old structure.French prosecutors have opened an investigation into the cause of the fire, suggesting that it might have been the fault of a stray cigarette or an electrical malfunction.
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