Tens of thousands of people rallied in the Belarus capital Sunday and called for President Alexander Lukashenko to resign after disputed election results, a postelection crackdown, and a heavy military presence in the city.Protesters, many wearing and waving the opposition’s colors of red and white, chanted “freedom” and “we will not forget, we will not forgive” as they walked in the Minsk city center. They briefly gathered near the president’s residence before dispersing peacefully.People take photos sitting on the roof as Belarusian opposition supporters with a huge old Belarusian national flag march to Independence Square in Minsk, Belarus, Aug. 23, 2020.Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, the opposition candidate who fled to Lithuania after the election and claimed to have won from 60 to 70% of the vote, said Saturday that Belarusians must “struggle for their rights” and not be distracted by Lukashenko’s claims that the country was under military threat.Also, it was announced Saturday that U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Stephen Biegun will visit Lithuania and Russia next week for talks on the Belarusian postelection crisis.Tsikhanouskaya’s team said Saturday that Biegun would meet the opposition candidate in Lithuania.RFE/RL contribute to this report.
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Month: August 2020
Explainer: Why Revolt in Belarus is Different From Ukraine
A former Soviet republic on the fault line between Russia and Europe is boiling with revolt this summer. Sounds familiar — but Belarus 2020 isn’t Ukraine 2014, and that’s why it’s hard to predict what will happen next. Here is a look at what’s different this time, and why it matters: No real leader The uprising in Belarus erupted last week in a democratic vacuum, in a country where challengers to President Alexander Lukashenko are jailed or exiled and where there is no experienced parliamentary opposition. So those at the forefront of Minsk protest marches have been ordinary Belarusians, instead of established political leaders like those who helped galvanize crowds and funding for Ukraine’s 2014 protest movement, centered around the Maidan independence square in Kyiv. In Belarus, “the absence of bright leaders undoubtedly weakens the protests … Leaders bring awareness,” independent political analyst Valery Karbalevich said. So Belarusian protesters formed a new Advisory Council this week to try to “offer the street a clear plan and agenda,” he said. However, opposition figure Maria Kolesnikova argues that the mass protests this month in Minsk, which came together in decentralized clusters via messaging app Telegram, show that Belarusians no longer need a vertical hierarchy telling them what to do. And a leaderless protest has one key advantage, she said: “It cannot be beheaded.” Orderly protests When unprecedented crowds of 200,000 people marched through the tidy, broad avenues of Minsk on Sunday, they came to a halt at red traffic lights, waiting obediently until they turned green. In Ukraine, by contrast, “protesters burned tires and threw Molotov cocktails,” said Syarzhuk Chyslau, leader of the Belarusian White Legion organization. That’s in part because the Minsk marches lack the kind of far-right and neo-Nazi militant groups that joined Ukraine’s uprising and fanned the violence. It’s also because Belarusians aren’t driven by the deep-seated anger at Russian influence that fueled Ukraine’s uprisings in 2004 and 2014, or Georgia’s ground-breaking Rose Revolution in 2003. While Ukraine has been geopolitically split between pro-West and pro-Russian camps since the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, Belarusians are broadly Moscow-friendly. Not a single European Union flag has appeared at the Minsk rallies, and the protesters aren’t pursuing NATO membership at the Kremlin’s expense; they just want to freely choose their own leader after an election they believe was stolen from them. Pavel Latushko, a former Lukashenko loyalist now on the protesters’ Advisory Council, hopes this could allow Belarusians to count on help from both Brussels and Moscow to settle the current tensions. “If the EU and Russia together acted as a mediator in resolving the Belarusian crisis, this would be an ideal option,” Latushko told The Associated Press. Economics While Ukraine’s protest movement built a huge tent camp in the center of Kyiv, complete with food delivery and security forces, the only perks for protesters in Belarus so far are bottles of water. “There are no oligarchs in Belarus who would give money for hot meals, medical treatment and tents. Even to pay police fines, Belarusian protesters collect money themselves,” analyst Alexander Klaskouski said. Unlike Ukraine’s largely privatized economy, Belarus’ economy remains 80% state-run, and little has evolved since the Soviet era. That makes it even more remarkable that workers at state-run factories have joined this week’s protests and strikes. “The structure of the economy allowed Ukrainians not to be afraid of the state, which in Belarus could throw any person out on the street with nothing at all,” said Klaskouski. The EU and U.S. also had economic interests in Ukraine before its 2014 uprising, but have only a marginal role in the largely closed-off Belarusian economy. Moscow’s role Given that, the Kremlin can’t easily portray Belarus’ protests as a Western-backed effort to sow chaos in its backyard the way it could in Ukraine. Russia used that argument to justify its annexation of the Crimean Peninsula and backing for separatist rebels in eastern Ukraine in a war that still simmers, six years on. But Russia’s role in Belarus is pivotal, as the country’s top trade partner and main military ally. So far, Russian President Vladimir Putin has made it clear to Germany and France that they should steer clear of any interference, but hasn’t revealed how he wants to deal with the protesters or with Lukashenko, the only leader in the former Soviet space who’s been in power longer than Putin himself. Potential parallels Ukraine has been a cacophonous democracy for much of the 29 years since winning independence from the USSR, and Belarus is dubbed Europe’s last dictatorship — but they share some similarities. “Lukashenko made the same mistake as [former Ukrainian President Viktor] Yanukovych — he began to brutally beat peaceful protesters, which sparked a tsunami of popular protest, insulted dignity and triggered a revolution,” said analyst Vladimir Fesenko, director of the Penta Center in Kyiv. Belarusian economist Dmitry Rusakevich, 46, participated in the Kyiv protests on the Maidan, and now goes out to Minsk’s Independence Square every evening. “Maidan woke up Belarusians and showed that we need to fight for freedom,” he said. “It took the calm Belarusians a long time to muster the courage to say no to the dictator.”
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Pompeo Heads to Mideast as Part of Trump’s Arab-Israeli Push
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Sunday headed to the Middle East, the first of two senior U.S. officials to travel to the region this week as the Trump administration presses an ambitious Arab-Israeli peace push that President Donald Trump hopes will burnish his foreign policy credentials ahead of November’s election. Pompeo is traveling to Israel, several Gulf Arab states and Sudan and will be away when he is scheduled to speak on Tuesday to the Republican National Convention, which will nominate Trump for a second term. Should Pompeo appear by remote or recorded video, it will break a long tradition of secretaries of state declining to participate in the public political nomination process.Previous secretaries of state have shunned overtly partisan rhetoric. Pompeo’s three immediate predecessors made a point of being out of the country and unavailable during their political parties’ presidential nominating events. If Pompeo’s planned speech to the convention goes ahead, he is likely to tout Trump’s Mideast policies and the recent agreement between Israel and the United Arab Emirates to normalize relations. To accelerate progress in the region, Pompeo is expected to be followed to many of the same destinations later in the week by Trump’s senior adviser and son-in-law, Jared Kushner, diplomats said.The separate visits come as the administration seeks to capitalize on momentum from the historic agreement between Israel and the UAE.Pompeo, Kushner to Mideast as US Presses Arab-Israeli PeaceNeither trip is expected to result in announcements of immediate breakthrough In addition to Israel and Sudan, the State Department said Pompeo would travel to Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates. Officials said stops in Oman and Qatar are also possible. “The U.S. commitment to peace, security, and stability in Israel, Sudan, and among Gulf countries has never been stronger than under President Trump’s leadership,” the State Department said in a statement announcing Pompeo’s trip.Kushner and his team are expected to visit Israel, Bahrain, Oman, Saudi Arabia and Morocco on their trip, which is scheduled to begin at the end of the week, according to the diplomats, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the itinerary has not yet been finalized or publicly announced.In Israel, Pompeo will meet with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “to discuss regional security issues related to Iran’s malicious influence, establishing and deepening Israel’s relationships in the region, as well as cooperation in protecting the U.S. and Israeli economies from malign investors,” the State Department said.”Malign investors” is a reference to China, which is seeking to gain a commercial foothold in Israel.In Khartoum. Pompeo will meet Sudanese Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok “to discuss continued U.S. support for the civilian-led transitional government and express support for deepening the Sudan-Israel relationship,” the department said. Sudan is eager to be removed from the U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism and normalizing ties with Israel would be a step toward that goal.However, removal from the terrorism list is also dependent on completion of a compensation agreement for victims of the 1998 bombings of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. A tentative deal struck several months ago is still awaiting finalization. Neither Pompeo’s nor Kushner’s trip is expected to result in announcements of immediate breakthroughs, but both are aimed at building on the success of the Israel-UAE agreement by finalizing at least one, and potentially more, normalization deals between Arab countries and Israel in the near future.The administration has forged ahead with those efforts over Palestinian objections and without any indication the Palestinians are willing to enter negotiations with Israel. The Arab world had long held that a settlement to the long-running Israeli-Palestinian conflict was a prerequisite for a comprehensive Arab-Israeli peace.Israel and the United Arab Emirates announced on Aug. 13 they would establish full diplomatic relations, in a U.S.-brokered deal that required Israel to halt its contentious plan to annex occupied West Bank land sought by the Palestinians. The agreement was a key foreign policy victory for Trump as he seeks reelection and reflected a changing Middle East in which shared concerns about archenemy Iran have largely overtaken traditional Arab support for the Palestinians.Last week, the administration took the controversial step in the U.N. Security Council of triggering the restoration of all international sanctions on Iran, something that only Israel and the Gulf Arab nations have publicly supported. Thirteen of the 15 council members, including U.S. allies Britain, France and Germany, have rejected the move.The State Department had no immediate comment on Pompeo’s plans to address the Republican National Convention, which would be an unprecedented and unconventional step for any Cabinet member let alone the secretary of state who oversees a corps of career diplomats steeped in nonpartisanship.Like his two immediate predecessors, John Kerry and Hillary Clinton, both of whom were unsuccessful Democratic Party nominees for president, Pompeo was a member of Congress before joining the executive branch. Both Clinton and Kerry eschewed the Democratic National Convention while they served as America’s top diplomat.When President Barack Obama was officially nominated for a second term during the party convention in 2012, Clinton was literally half a world away, traveling to the Cook Islands, Indonesia, China, East Timor, Brunei and far eastern Russia. When Clinton was nominated in 2016, Kerry was traveling in Europe and Southeast Asia.It’s not just Democrats. When Republicans nominated John McCain in 2008, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was on a trip to Portugal, Libya, Tunisia, Algeria and Morocco.
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Comatose Russian Dissident Visited by Wife in Berlin Hospital
The wife of Russian dissident Alexei Navalny, who is being treated for suspected poisoning at a Berlin hospital, visited her husband Sunday, according to the Associated Press.Yulia Navalnaya and an aide did not speak to reporters as they entered the German capital’s Charité hospital to see Navalny. He is in an induced coma and breathing with the aid of a ventilator.Navalny, who was flying to Moscow from Siberia Thursday, fell ill during the flight, prompting the plane to make an emergency landing in Omsk, in Siberia. His aide said Navalny had drunk black tea at an airport cafe. Supporters of Navalny, a well-known critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin, believe the tea was laced with poison.Yulia Navalnaya, wife of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, speaks with the media outside a hospital, where Alexei receives medical treatment in Omsk, Russia, Aug. 21, 2020.Navalnaya pushed to have her husband, 44, flown for treatment in Berlin. After his arrival Saturday, hospital spokeswoman Manuela Zingl told AP he would undergo extensive diagnostic tests and that doctors wouldn’t comment on his illness or treatment until they were able to evaluate the results. AP’s report did not include a timeframe for that.On Saturday, Russian health authorities, who at first balked at allowing Navalny to be flown to Germany, said tests hadn’t shown any poisons in his system.Before Friday’s decision to allow treatment in Germany, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov indicated the government would help facilitate the move and wished Navalny a “speedy recovery.” Peskov said the government would investigate the incident should toxicology reports show Navalny had been poisoned. The case has attracted international attention.German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Emmanuel Macron expressed concern last week over Navalny’s condition.U.S. Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden also weighed in, saying Navalny’s “coma after being poisoned” was “unacceptable.”Donald Trump continues to cozy up to Russia while Putin persecutes civil society and journalists. Now, opposition leader Alexei Navalny is in a coma after being poisoned. It’s unacceptable. Unlike Trump, I’ll defend our democratic values and stand up to autocrats like Putin. https://t.co/OLjoGDaG4f— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) August 21, 2020The U.S. Embassy in Moscow indicated it was monitoring the situation.“If true, the suspected poisoning of Russian oppositionist Aleksey #Navalny represents a grave moment for Russia, and the Russian people deserve to see all those involved held to account. Our thoughts are with his family,” said U.S. Embassy spokeswoman Rebecca Ross in a tweet.Charles Maynes in Moscow contributed to this report.
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Secretly Recorded, Trump’s Sister Says He Has ‘No Principles’
In previously undisclosed recordings, Maryanne Trump Barry, a former U.S. appellate court judge, voices a withering, highly critical assessment of her younger brother, President Donald Trump.“All he wants to do is appeal to his base,” Barry said in a conversation secretly recorded by her niece, Mary Trump, who recently published a top-selling book condemning the president’s outlook on life as she watched it in family gatherings during his formative years.“He has no principles. None. None,” the now-83-year-old Barry said of her brother, the U.S. leader, during 15 hours of taped conversations that her niece secretly recorded.The Washington Post, which released some of the recordings in a story Saturday night, said it sought comment about the tapes from Barry and White House officials on Friday and Saturday. The paper reported that it did not receive a response. After the Post published the account of Barry’s views of her brother, the president said in a statement late Saturday, “Every day it’s something else, who cares. I miss my brother, and I’ll continue to work hard for the American people. Not everyone agrees, but the results are obvious. Our country will soon be stronger than ever before!”FILE – President Donald Trump listens during a White House meeting in Washington, July 9, 2020.White House chief of staff Mark Meadows was dismissive of the accusations on the “Fox News Sunday” show, saying, “Another day, another political attack.”The recording disclosed by the Post referred to a time earlier in the Trump presidency when he sought to halt thousands of undocumented immigrants from entering the United States from across the Mexican border and for a while separated children from their parents.“I mean, my God, if you were a religious person, you want to help people. Not do this,” Barry said.The retired judge said how appalled she was at how her brother acted as president.“His … tweet and lying, oh my God,” she said. “I’m talking too freely, but you know. The change of stories. The lack of preparation. The lying. Holy s**t.”She lamented “what they’re doing with kids at the border” and surmised that her brother “hasn’t read my immigration opinions” in court cases.In one instance, she berated an immigration judge for failing to treat an asylum applicant with respect.“What has he read?” Mary Trump asked her aunt about the president. “No. He doesn’t read,” Barry responded.At another point in the recording reported by the newspaper, Barry said to her niece, “It’s the phoniness of it all. It’s the phoniness and this cruelty. Donald is cruel.”Mary Trump, 55, told the Post recently that her uncle is unfit to be president and she plans to do “everything in my power” to elect Democrat Joe Biden.Mary Trump’s father, Fred Trump Jr., died in 1981 of an alcohol-related illness when she was 16. In her book, “Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World’s Most Dangerous Man,” she says Donald Trump and his father mistreated her father.A spokesman for Mary Trump, Chris Bastardi, said that she began taping conversations with Barry in 2018 after concluding that her Trump relatives had lied about the value of the family estate two decades earlier when Fred Trump Sr., the president’s father and family patriarch, died. During a legal battle over her inheritance, she at first was set to receive far less than she expected, but the dispute was settled privately in 2001.
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China Launches Advanced Warship for Pakistan Navy
China has launched the first of four “most advanced” warships it is building for Pakistan amid deepening defense and economic ties between the two allied nations.The development comes as both the countries are locked in border tensions with their mutual neighbor India.The Pakistan Navy said Sunday that Chinese state-owned Hudong Zhonghua Shipyard in Shanghai held the launching ceremony for the Type-054A/P frigate, with top officials from the service in attendance.The Navy said in a statement the vessels are state of the art frigates equipped with modern surface, subsurface and anti-air weapons and sensors. “These ships will significantly contribute in maintaining peace and security in our area of responsibility,” it added.The launching ceremony of Type-054 frigate built for Pakistan Navy was held at Hudong Zhonghua Shipyard, Shanghai, China. (Courtesy Image: Pakistan Navy)The statement did not mention the cost of military vessels, but reported estimates are more than $350 million each.Once constructed, the ships will be one of the largest and technologically advanced surface platforms of the Pakistan Navy fleet, boosting its capability to respond to future challenges, the service said.The Chinese builder is expected to deliver all four units to Pakistan by 2021, which Chinese media said could “double the combat power” of the Pakistan Navy fleet.Pakistani officials said the Type-054A/P frigate is in service with China’s People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) and recognized as its backbone.China and Pakistan are jointly producing various military-related hardware, including the JF-17 multirole combat aircraft, demonstrating the strong mutual defense ties. Economic tiesThe two allies in recent years have also cemented economic cooperation under Beijing’s global infrastructure Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).The BRI-related China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) has brought nearly $30 billion in Chinese investment over the past six years, building Pakistani roads, ports and power plants.Critics, however, see the investments as a burden on heavily indebted Pakistan.U.S. officials have termed CPEC loans as a “debt trap” for Islamabad, though Pakistan and China dismiss the criticism, saying it has stemmed from “a lack of information and misunderstandings” about the collaboration.Chinese President Xi Jinping is due to visit Islamabad later this year that Pakistani officials say will boost the BRI-linked economic cooperation. Xi was expected to visit Pakistan in May but the trip was canceled because of the coronavirus pandemic.Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi last week hosted his Pakistani counterpart, Shah Mehmood Qureshi, for a bilateral “strategic dialogue,” where the two sides agreed to push ahead with new mega projects under CPEC. They include a $6.8 billion railway program to improve Pakistan’s main railway line, known as Main Line 1 (ML1), which runs for nearly 1,900 kilometers.“Both China and Pakistan reaffirmed the vitality of the time-tested and all-weather strategic cooperative partnership between the two countries,” a post-meeting joint statement said.
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White House: ‘Breakthrough’ Coming for Coronavirus Treatment
The White House says President Donald Trump will announce a “major therapeutic breakthrough” Sunday night for the treatment of coronavirus, the pandemic that has killed more than 176,000 people in the U.S. and infected nearly 5.7 million, more than in any other country across the world. Trump’s announcement is coming a day after he accused, without evidence, “the deep state, or whoever” at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration of “making it very difficult for drug companies to get people in order to test the vaccines and therapeutics.”
The U.S. leader claimed, without evidence, in a Twitter remark that officials at the drug regulatory agency “obviously … are hoping to delay the answer until after November 3rd,” the date of his re-election contest against Democrat Joe Biden. “Must focus on speed, and saving lives!” White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany said late Saturday that Health and Human Resources Secretary Alex Azar and FDA chief Stephen Hahn would attend the announcement with Trump, a day ahead of the start of the Republican National Convention, where Trump will be renominated for a second four-year term. FILE – Nurse Kathe Olmstead prepares a shot as the world’s biggest study of a possible COVID-19 vaccine, developed by the National Institutes of Health and Moderna Inc., gets underway, July 27, 2020, in Binghamton, N.Y.Numerous U.S. health experts have said that a coronavirus vaccine will not be available before the end of the year or into early 2021, and then only if tests on the efficacy of the vaccine now starting in several countries, including the U.S., prove successful. Trump, mindful of accusations from Biden and opposition Democrats that he has bungled the handling of the coronavirus in the U.S., has often said that treatment for the infectious disease is nearing and has contended that the virus will simply disappear. He has acknowledged that his re-election chances would be helped with a medical breakthrough before Election Day. WATCH: Republicans Gather in Charlotte to Renominate President Trump Sorry, but your browser cannot support embedded video of this type, you can
download this video to view it offline.Download File360p | 10 MB480p | 14 MB540p | 18 MB720p | 37 MB1080p | 74 MBOriginal | 84 MB Embed” />Copy Download AudioAs he accepted the Democratic presidential nomination last week, former Vice President Biden said, “After all this time, this president still doesn’t have a plan” to fight the pandemic. “He failed to protect America. And, my fellow Americans, that is unforgivable.” White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, on the “Fox News Sunday” show, defended Trump’s tweet complaining about the pace of testing overseen by the FDA. “We’re not going to cut corners on research,” Meadows said. “We are going to cut the red tape. I applaud the president for putting out the tweet.” A Biden supporter, Delaware Senator Chris Coons, said in a separate Fox interview that Trump has “failed to act responsibly” in dealing with the coronavirus. “He’s lost on the highway and refuses to ask for directions,” Coons contended. “Donald Trump failed to confront this pandemic.”
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Former Ukrainian Premier Tymoshenko Tests Positive for Coronavirus
Former Ukrainian prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko has tested positive for the novel coronavirus and is in serious condition with a fever, her party’s spokeswoman said on Sunday. Tymoshenko, 59, who twice served as premier before her defeat in the 2010 presidential election, became the first high-profile Ukrainian politician known to have contracted COVID-19. Parliament has been on summer vacation since mid-July. “Her condition is assessed as serious, her temperature is up to 39 [Celsius],” the spokeswoman for her Fatherland party said, declining to say whether Tymoshenko had been hospitalized or give further detail. Ukraine has experienced a sharp rise in infections this week, with a new 24-hour total of 2,328 cases reported on Saturday. The overall number of infections reached 104,958 along with 2,271 deaths. Tymoshenko rose to prominence as co-leader of Ukraine’s Orange Revolution in 2004 in which pro-Western Viktor Yushchenko was confirmed as president after a court declared the election result to have been rigged in favor of his pro-Moscow foe. She served twice as prime minister under Yushchenko before the two fell out after years of political turmoil. Tymoshenko ran for president in 2010 and lost to Russian-backed Viktor Yanukovich and in 2011 was sentenced to seven years in prison on abuse of office charges, which she denied, calling the accusations politically motivated. She was freed from prison in early 2014 after Yanukovich was toppled in a popular uprising that put Ukraine on a path away from former Soviet master Moscow toward closer ties with the European Union and the United States.
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Timeline: Three Years on, a Look at the Rohingya Crisis
This month marks the third anniversary of the fleeing of more than 730,000 Rohingya from Myanmar’s Rakhine State to Bangladesh after a military-led crackdown in response to an attack by Muslim militants on Myanmar security posts.Here is a timeline of events in the crisis: Aug. 25, 2017 – Muslim insurgents of the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA) attack 30 police posts and an army base in the north of Rakhine State. Aug. 26, 2017 – As fighting spreads between the army and ARSA, thousands of Rohingya flee to Bangladesh. Sept. 2, 2017 – More than 2,600 houses are razed in Rohingya-majority areas in the week following the Aug. 25 attack, the government says. Sept. 11, 2017 – The U.N. human rights high commissioner calls the military operation “a textbook example of ethnic cleansing.” Sept. 19, 2017 – Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi vows to punish the perpetrators of rights violations but does not address U.N. accusations of ethnic cleansing. Oct. 12, 2017 – Rohingya Muslims are not natives of Myanmar, says the army commander-in-chief, Senior General Min Aung Hlaing, during a meeting with U.S. ambassador Scot Marciel. Nov. 2, 2017 – Suu Kyi urges people “not to quarrel” on her first visit to Rakhine since the crackdown. Nov. 27-Dec. 2, 2017 – Pope Francis visits Myanmar and Bangladesh, avoiding the word “Rohingya”, which is rejected by Myanmar, until meeting refugees in Bangladesh. Dec. 21, 2017 – The United States imposes sanctions on 13 “serious human rights abusers and corrupt actors” including the general who oversaw the crackdown against the Rohingya. Jan. 10, 2018 – The military says its soldiers murdered 10 captured Muslims in Inn Din village in Rakhine during insurgent attacks. Feb. 23, 2018 – Myanmar has bulldozed at least 55 Rohingya villages that were emptied during the violence, Human Rights Watch says. March 12, 2018 – Myanmar’s military is building bases where Rohingya homes and mosques once stood, Amnesty International says. April 11, 2018 – Seven Myanmar soldiers are sentenced to 10 years of hard labor for the Inn Din massacre. Sept. 13, 2018 – Suu Kyi says in hindsight her government could have handled the situation in Rakhine better. Nov. 15, 2018 – A Rohingya refugee repatriation effort stalls amid protests in camps. Jan. 4, 2019 – Rakhine nationalist Arakan Army insurgents kill 13 policemen as Myanmar marks Independence Day, setting off more conflict. March 18, 2019 – Myanmar’s army says it has set up a military court to investigate its conduct during the 2017 crackdown. May 27, 2019 – A military spokesman says Myanmar has granted early release to seven soldiers jailed for the Inn Din killings. June 22, 2019 – Authorities order telecoms companies to shut internet services in the conflict-torn west, an operator says, where government troops are fighting Arakan Army rebels. Aug. 20, 2019 – The U.N. refugee agency and Bangladesh authorities launch a new repatriation bid, but it fails after no refugees agree to return. Nov. 11, 2019 – Mostly Muslim Gambia files a genocide case against Myanmar at the International Court of Justice (ICJ). Nov. 14, 2019 – The International Criminal Court approves a prosecution request to investigate crimes against humanity against the Rohingya in a separate case. Nov. 26, 2019 – Myanmar begins a military investigation into killings of Rohingya at Gu Dar Pyin village during the 2017 crackdown. The army later announces soldiers have been punished. Dec. 11, 2019 – Suu Kyi appears at the ICJ in the Hague and rejects accusations of genocide against the Rohingya as “incomplete and misleading.” Jan. 20, 2020 – Government-appointed panel investigating allegations of abuse say they had found no evidence of genocide but war crimes were possible. Jan. 23, 2020 – The ICJ orders Myanmar to take urgent measures to protect the Rohingya remaining inside Myanmar. Jan. 25, 2020 – Two Rohingya women are killed and seven people wounded when shells hit a village. The army rejects accusations it was responsible from a lawmaker, a villager and Arakan Army rebels. Feb. 21, 2020 – Myanmar’s army says it will court-martial soldiers over abuses against Rohingya in two more villages during the 2017 crackdown. April 16, 2020 – Bangladesh rescues 396 Rohingya from a boat adrift for weeks after failing to land in Malaysia. At least 32 die on board. Several other boats adrift for months before landing in Indonesia and Malaysia. April 29, 2020 – The U.N. envoy to Myanmar says it is committing war crimes in Rakhine after civilians are hit with air and artillery strikes in the conflict against insurgents. Myanmar says the allegations are “biased.” May 25, 2020 – Myanmar files a report on its adherence to measures to protect the Rohingya to the ICJ. Details are not published.
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Tropical Storm Marco in Gulf Aiming at Louisiana, Tropical Storm Laura Also on the Way
Tropical Storm Marco is swirling over the Gulf of Mexico heading for a possible hit on the Louisiana coast as a hurricane, while Tropical Storm Laura knocked utilities out as it battered Hispaniola early Sunday, following a track forecast to take it to the same part of the U.S. coast, also as a hurricane.It would be the first time two hurricanes appear in the Gulf of Mexico simultaneously, according to records dating to at least 1900, said Colorado State University hurricane researcher Phil Klotzbach.A hurricane watch was issued for the New Orleans metro area, which Hurricane Katrina pummeled in August 2005.The projected tracks from the U.S. National Hurricane Center late Saturday pointed to both storms being together in the Gulf on Monday, with Marco hitting Louisiana’s coast around midday and Laura making landfall in the same general area Wednesday. But there was still much uncertainty surrounding the forecasts for the two storms.”It’s entirely possible that the volatile shifts seen in the models could continue,” the hurricane center said.Laura was centered about 95 miles (150 kilometers) east of Port-au-Prince, Haiti, Sunday morning, with maximum sustained winds of 45 mph (75kph). It was moving west-northwest at 18 mph (30 kph).Crews armed with megaphones in the Dominican capital of Santo Domingo had urged dozens of residents in flood-prone areas to evacuate before Laura’s heavy rains hit. The storm left more than 100,000 people without water in the Dominican Republic on Saturday night, while earlier it snapped trees and knocked out power to more than 200,000 customers in neighboring Puerto Rico. It was also whipping at Haiti, which shares Hispaniola with the Dominican Republic, and forecast to move over Cuba on Sunday night or Monday.Officials in the Florida Keys, which Laura might pass over on its route into the Gulf, declared a local state of emergency and issued a mandatory evacuation order for anyone living on boats, in mobile homes and in campers. Tourists staying in hotels were warned to be aware of hazardous weather conditions and consider changing their plans starting Sunday.Marco, meanwhile, was centered about 395 miles (635 kilometers) south-southeast of the mouth of the Mississippi River and was moving to the north-northwest at 13 mph (20 kph). It had maximum sustained winds of 70 mph (110 kph) and could become a hurricane sometime Sunday.New warnings were added Sunday morning — including a storm surge warning from Morgan City, Louisiana to Ocean Springs, Mississippi, and a hurricane warning from Morgan City to the mouth of the Pearl River. A tropical storm warning included Lake Pontchartrain in Louisiana, and metropolitan New Orleans.Storm surge up to 6 feet (2 meters) was forecast for parts of coastal Louisiana and Mississippi.Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards, who declared a state of emergency Friday, asked President Donald Trump for a federal emergency declaration. “The cumulative impact of these storms will likely have much of Louisiana facing tropical storm/hurricane force impacts for a much longer period of time than it would with any one hurricane,” he wrote.People in Louisiana headed to stores to stock up on food, water and other supplies. Raymond Monday of Gretna, though, had only a generator on his cart at Sam’s Club. “We’ve got a freezer full of food” at home, along with large containers of water, he said.Both storms were expected to bring 3 to 6 inches (8 to 15 centimeters) of rain to areas they were passing over or near, threatening flooding.The hurricane center said the storms were not expected to interact as the region faces an unusually active hurricane season.”We are in unprecedented times,” Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves said at a news conference Saturday as he declared a state of emergency. “We are dealing with not only two potential storms in the next few hours, we are also dealing with COVID-19.”
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Thousands of Belarusians Gather for Anti-Lukashenko Rally as Army Issues Warning
Tens of thousands of people gathered in the Belarusian capital, Minsk, for a rally Sunday against the disputed reelection of President Alexander Lukashenko and a postelection crackdown amid a heavy military presence in the city amid a fresh warning from the army. Crowds filed down streets of the city center for what is being billed as the March of New Belarus as protests entered a 15th day in the Eastern European country of 9.5 million.FILE – Opposition supporters protest against disputed presidential elections results at Independence Square in Minsk, Belarus, Aug. 18, 2020.Thousands of people have taken to the streets of Belarus since Lukashenko, in power since 1994, was declared the winner of the August 9 poll. More than 7,000 people have been detained and hundreds beaten by police. The EU and the United States have criticized the vote and condemned the postelection crackdown. Human chains of solidarity with Belarus were planned for later Sunday in 26 countries, including Lithuania, where the human line hopes to stretch to the border with Belarus. Thirty-one years ago, on August 23, 1989, an estimated 2 million people joined arms across the three Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania in a protest against Soviet rule that became known as the “Baltic Way.” Belarusian opposition politician Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya addresses the nation in Vilnius, Lithuania, in this still image taken from handout video released Aug. 21, 2020.Svyatlana Tsikhanouskaya, the opposition candidate who fled to Lithuania after the election and claimed to have won from 60 to 70 percent of the vote, said Saturday that Belarusians must “struggle for their rights” and not be distracted by Lukashenko’s claims that the country was under military threat. “We are people of Belarus and we are a majority and we will not step away. We are not afraid of them anymore,” she told the AFP news agency. Her comments came as Lukashenko again claimed NATO troops in Poland and Lithuania were “seriously stirring” near Belarus’s borders. Dressed in military fatigues, Lukashenko told a military unit in Hrodna Saturday that Belarus’s army must “protect the territorial integrity of our country,” adding “military support is evident.” NATO said the claims were “baseless.” “As we have already made clear, NATO poses no threat to Belarus or any other country and has no military buildup in the region,” it said in a statement last week. Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda also denied the accusation Saturday. “The regime is trying to divert attention from Belarus’s internal problems at any cost with totally baseless statements about imaginary external threats,” Nauseda told AFP. The Lithuanian Foreign Ministry also announced Saturday that U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Stephen Biegun will visit Lithuania and Russia next week for talks on the Belarusian postelection crisis.Tsikhanouskaya’s team said Saturday that Biegun would meet the opposition candidate in Lithuania. No election in Belarus under Lukashenko has ever been deemed free or fair by the West.
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South African Thought to be World’s Oldest Man Dead at 116
A South African believed to be the world’s oldest man died Saturday. He was 116 years old and a survivor of the 1918 Spanish Flu.Fredie Blom’s family said he died of natural causes at Tygerberg Hospital in Cape Town.Blom was born May 8, 1904, in the rural town of Adelaide, near the Great Winterberg mountains of Eastern Cape province, but he was not listed by Guinness World Records.The oldest man on record is Bob Weighton, 112, in Britain.South African media, however, have described Blom as “unofficially” the world’s man.He was the only survivor of a family whose other members died during the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic. Blom also went on to survive two world wars and South Africa’s apartheid.Blom was married for 46 years to a woman named Jeanette and became the father of her three children. He became the grandfather of five.
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South Korea Warns It’s on Brink of Nationwide Pandemic
“We’re on the brink of a nationwide pandemic,” the director general of the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Sunday. Jung Eun-Kyeong said “new cases are increasing in all 17 regions” across South Korea. The 397 new COVID-19 cases reported late Saturday represented the highest daily jump in cases since March. Health Minister Park Neung-hoo said Saturday that new nationwide restrictions, which begin Sunday, followed nine days of triple-digit increases in coronavirus cases. A man reads posted directions to receive the COVID-19 testing at a makeshift clinic in Seoul, South Korea, Aug. 20, 2020.South Korea’s nationwide ban on large gatherings closes churches, nightclubs, beaches and stops fans from attending professional sports events. Jung said 841 new cases could be traced back to an anti-government rally held this month by a right-wing preacher who heads the Sarang Jell Presbyterian Church. Another group of cases in South Korea has been traced to a Starbucks, officials say. FILE – A pick-up truck passes a sign for free COVID-19 testing, in San Antonio, Texas, Aug. 14, 2020.Johns Hopkins University reported 23.2 million COVID-19 cases worldwide early Sunday, with more than 800,000 deaths. The U.S., as it had for months, leads the world in the number of COVID-19 infections with 5.6 million, followed by Brazil with 3.5 million and India with more than 3 million. Health officials in the U.S. believe the number of infections in America may be 10 times greater than reported because of a lack of testing and reporting. COVID-19 cases are starting to emerge from the massive 10-day motorcycle rally held earlier this month in Sturgis, in the U.S. state of South Dakota, authorities say.Thousands of bikers rode through the streets for the opening day of the 80th annual Sturgis Motorcycle rally, Aug. 7, 2020, in Sturgis, S.D.Health officials in Minnesota, Nebraska and South Dakota say they have identified infections connected with the rally. Authorities warn, however, that the full extent of infections from the rally will not be known for some time. Children age 12 and older should wear a face mask in the same situations an adult should, while 6-year-olds to 11-year-olds should wear them as risks require, the World Health Organization and UNICEF said, to stem the spread of the coronavirus. Older children could play more of a role in virus transmission than younger children, the two organizations said, adding that more information is needed to help understand how children of all ages may help spread the virus, which causes COVID-19. The situations in which older children should wear a face mask include when a distance of 1 meter from others cannot be guaranteed and when there is widespread transmission in the community, the WHO and UNICEF said in a document dated August 21. For younger children, parents should consider their children’s access to a mask and ability to use it, the intensity of transmission in the area, and adequate adult supervision, the two organizations said. Children younger than 5 should not be required to wear masks, the WHO and UNICEF said. U.S. President Donald Trump, without evidence, Saturdaty accused employees of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration of working to slow testing of COVID-19 vaccines until after the November presidential election. President Donald Trump speaks during a news conference at the White House, Aug. 19, 2020, in Washington.In a tweet, Trump said the slowdown is the work of the so-called “deep state,” a conspiracy theory suggesting federal workers constitute a hidden government entrenched within the legitimate government. Trump’s comments came after Reuters first reported on Thursday that a senior FDA official said he would step down if the Trump administration approved a vaccine before it was declared safe and effective. U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi told reporters Saturday on Capitol Hill that Trump made a “dangerous statement” about FDA employees and added Trump is “beyond the pale.”
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Black Boxes from Downed Ukraine Jet Show Missiles Hit 25 Seconds Apart, Iran Says
Analysis from the black boxes of a downed Ukrainian passenger plane shows it was hit by two missiles 25 seconds apart and that passengers were still alive for some time after the impact of the first blast, Iran said on Sunday.The announcement by the head of Iran’s Civil Aviation Organization marks the first official report on the contents of the cockpit voice and data recordings, which were sent to France for reading in July.Tehran has said it accidentally shot down the Ukraine airliner in January, at a time of extreme tensions with the United States. All 176 people aboard the plane were killed.”Nineteen seconds after the first missile hit the plane, the voices of pilots inside the cockpit, indicated that the passengers were alive … 25 seconds later the second missile hit the plane,” Touraj Dehghani-Zanganeh was cited as saying by state television.Iran has been in talks with Ukraine, Canada and other nations that had citizens aboard the downed plane, and who have demanded a thorough investigation into the incident.”The data analysis from the black boxes should not be politicized,” Zanganeh said.Iran’s Revolutionary Guards shot down the Ukraine International Airlines flight with a ground-to-air missile on January 8, just after the plane took off from Tehran, in what Tehran later acknowledged as a “disastrous mistake” by forces on high alert during a confrontation with the United States.Iranian and Ukrainian officials have held talks on the compensation to families of the victims. Another round of talks is set for October.
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US-Led Troops Withdraw From Iraq’s Taji Base
United States-led international coalition troops withdrew from Iraq’s Taji military base on Sunday and handed it over to Iraqi security forces, Reuters witnesses and the coalition said.The base, 20 kilometers north of Baghdad, had been the site of frequent rocket attacks by Iran-backed militias targeting U.S.-led troops in recent months.”The movement of coalition military personnel is part of a long-range plan coordinated with the government of Iraq,” the coalition said in a statement, adding that Camp Taji has historically held up to 2,000 coalition members, most of whom have departed this summer.Remaining coalition troops will depart in the coming days after finalizing the handing over of equipment to Iraqi security forces, it added.This was the eighth transfer of a coalition portion of an Iraqi base back to Iraqi forces, it said.The withdrawal came days after U.S. President Donald Trump redoubled his promise to withdraw the few U.S. troops still in the country. The United States has had about 5,000 troops stationed in the country and coalition allies a further 2,500.Iraq’s parliament had voted this year for the departure of foreign troops from Iraq and U.S. and other coalition troops have been leaving as part of a drawdown.The vote came after a U.S. air strike on Baghdad airport killed Iranian general Qassem Soleimani and Iraqi militia leader Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis.
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US WeChat Users sue Trump Over Order Banning Messaging App
Some U.S.-based users of WeChat are suing President Donald Trump in a bid to block an executive order that they say would effectively bar access in the U.S. to the hugely popular Chinese messaging app.The complaint, filed Friday in San Francisco, is being brought by the nonprofit U.S. WeChat Users Alliance and several people who say they rely on the app for work, worship and staying in touch with relatives in China. The plaintiffs said they are not affiliated with WeChat, nor its parent company, Tencent Holdings.In the lawsuit, they asked a federal court judge to stop Trump’s executive order from being enforced, claiming it would violate its U.S. users’ freedom of speech, free exercise of religion and other constitutional rights.“We think there’s a First Amendment interest in providing continued access to that app and its functionality to the Chinese-American community,” Michael Bien, one of the plaintiffs’ attorneys, said Saturday.Trump on August 6 ordered sweeping but vague bans on transactions with the Chinese owners of WeChat and another popular consumer app, TikTok, saying they are a threat to U.S. national security, foreign policy and the economy.The twin executive orders — one for each app — are expected to take effect September 20, or 45 days from when they were issued. The orders call on Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, who is also named as a defendant in the U.S. WeChat Users Alliance lawsuit, to define the banned dealings by that time.It remains unclear what the orders will mean for the apps’ millions of users in the U.S., but experts have said the orders appear intended to bar WeChat and TikTok from the app stores run by Apple and Google. That would make them more difficult to use in the U.S.“The first thing we’re going to seek is a postponement of the implementation of the penalties and sanctions – a reasonable period of time between explaining what the rules are and punishing people for not complying with them,” Bien said.TikTok, which is owned by Chinese company ByteDance, said Saturday saying it plans to mount a legal challenge against the executive order that President Trump issued against the popular video app.WeChat, which has more than 1 billion users, is less well-known than TikTok to Americans without a connection to China.Mobile research firm Sensor Tower estimates about 19 million U.S. downloads of the app. But it is crucial infrastructure for Chinese students and residents in the U.S. to connect with friends and family in China and for anyone who does business with China.Within China, WeChat is censored and expected to adhere to content restrictions set by authorities. The Citizen Lab internet watchdog group in Toronto have said WeChat monitors files and images shared abroad to aid its censorship in China.Even so, the U.S. WeChat Users Alliance complaint argued that losing access to the app would harm millions of people in the U.S. who rely on it, noting it is the only app with an interface designed for Chinese speakers.“Since the executive order, numerous users, including plaintiffs, have scrambled to seek alternatives without success. They are now afraid that by merely communicating with their families, they may violate the law and face sanctions,” according to the complaint.
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Russian Dissident Being Treated at Berlin Hospital
Russian dissident Alexei Navalny is being treated at Berlin’s renowned Charite Hospital for suspected poisoning, after he was transported from the Siberian city of Omsk to Germany on Saturday.The Russian opposition leader is currently in a coma and breathing through a ventilator.Charite said in a short statement that it had admitted Navalny and was carrying out an “extensive medical diagnosis.” The hospital has not given any details about Navalny’s condition.Jaka Bizilj, founder of the Cinema for Peace that facilitated the evacuation of Navalny to Germany in a chartered medical plane, said his condition was stable.”The good news is that he’s stable, so the whole travel did not affect him,” Bizilj said. “But there is no reason to celebrate, because he is in a very critical condition. So, the real work starts now with the doctors at the Charite,” he said.Family and associates of Navalny believe he was poisoned with a cup of tea at an airport where he was to board a plane to Moscow, and blamed Russian President Vladimir Putin. Russian doctors, however, said tests showed no trace of poison.Initially, Russian doctors refused to permit Navalny’s evacuation, maintaining it was too dangerous to move him, but later acquiesced to demands to allow his medical treatment in Germany.That came after Navalny’s wife, Yulia Navalnaya, issued a public appeal online to Putin to facilitate the move.DiagnosisIn a preliminary diagnosis Friday, Russian doctors in Omsk said a “metabolic disorder” tied to a low blood-sugar level had caused Navalny to suddenly lose consciousness aboard a flight from the Siberian city of Tomsk to his Moscow home early Thursday.Other Russian health officials announced that traces of an industrial chemical had been found on his skin and hair.Still others said that Navalny had been exposed to a dangerous substance that posed such a danger to others that moving him would require caution.Navalny’s associates have openly suggested foul play followed by a government-backed coverup.“What was the factor that influenced that this young and sporty man to this extent that he was nearly dead and had to be put in coma and on a ventilator … is still unclear,” Leonid Volkov, the politician’s chief strategist, said in a press conference in Berlin on Friday.Navalny’s spokesperson, Kira Yarmys, who was traveling with the politician at the time of the incident, insists Navalny was poisoned when he drank some black tea at an airport cafe.“I was with Alexey from the very start of the morning,” she said. “I sat in the seat next to him on the plane, and have no shared symptoms with his poisoning.”The case has attracted international attention.German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Emmanuel Macron have expressed concern over Navalny’s condition.U.S. Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden weighed in, saying Navalny’s “coma after being poisoned” was “unacceptable.”Donald Trump continues to cozy up to Russia while Putin persecutes civil society and journalists. Now, opposition leader Alexei Navalny is in a coma after being poisoned. It’s unacceptable. Unlike Trump, I’ll defend our democratic values and stand up to autocrats like Putin. https://t.co/OLjoGDaG4f— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) August 21, 2020The U.S. Embassy in Moscow indicated it was monitoring the situation.“If true, the suspected poisoning of Russian oppositionist Aleksey #Navalny represents a grave moment for Russia, and the Russian people deserve to see all those involved held to account. Our thoughts are with his family,” said U.S. Embassy spokeswoman Rebecca Ross in a tweet.Kremlin responseBefore Friday’s decision to allow treatment in Germany, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov indicated the government would help facilitate the move and wished Navalny a “speedy recovery.”Peskov said the government would investigate the incident should toxicology reports show Navalny had been poisoned.Navalny has long been a problematic figure for the Kremlin, detailing corruption and excess at the highest levels of the government on his popular YouTube channel.The channel’s mix of investigative journalism and caustic humor has resonated with younger Russians in particular — a group Putin has struggled to court.Navalny has made no secret of his political ambitions.He launched a campaign for president to challenge Putin in 2018 that was undone by a lingering criminal conviction.His supporters — and the European Court of Human Rights — agreed that the charges were levied to keep him out of the race.
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Melania Trump Hosts Official Reopening of White House Rose Garden
U.S. first lady Melania Trump hosted the official reopening of the White House Rose Garden on Saturday. President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence attended the event.“The changes you see tonight are the result of a thoughtful and collaborative process carefully crafted with the help of scholars and experts in architecture, horticulture, design, and historic preservation,” said the first lady, who is scheduled Tuesday to deliver her Republican National Convention speech from the garden.“The Rose Garden layout we have all come to know and treasure was designed during the [former U.S. President John F.] Kennedy administration by Bunny Mellon,” she said. “For 60 years, this space has served as the backdrop for many important events. The garden has also served as a peaceful outdoor escape for many administrations and their guests.”The late Mellon was a famed American horticulturalist and philanthropist.The revamping of the garden includes the planting of more pastel flowers and a limestone walking path. Other changes make the grounds more accessible to people with disabilities.The project was paid for by private donations, but the White House has not revealed the costs.
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NYC Learns to Live in the New Reality
In New York City, locals are changing their daily routines to make them fit into the new reality. VOA’s Nina Vishneva went to Wall Street and popped by a fashion designer’s studio to find out how lifestyles and habits have changed since March. Anna Rice narrates her story.
Camera: Vladimir Badikov, Natalia Latukhina, Michael Eckels
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Belarus Blocks Scores of News Sites Amid Protest, International Outcry
A Minsk-based journalism trade group is calling on the Belarusian Information Ministry to immediately unblock more 50 news media websites in what they’re describing as a virtual blackout of reporting on protests over authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko’s bid to extend his 26 years in power.Analyst Franak Viačorka first reported the shutdowns late Friday, which included sites for the U.S.-funded Radio Liberty, a USAGM-run sister agency of VOA, Polish-funded satellite TV channel Belsat, Minsk-based EuroRadio, Belarusian sports news outlet Tribuna, and many others.⚡️Breaking! The website of @svaboda (@RFERL) was blocked by Belarus’ Ministry of Information along with 73 other pages, including https://t.co/pQ13BknCkQ, https://t.co/f1yIxPZHN6, https://t.co/qYCGvlcrcd and many others. @USAGMgov@RFERLPress@Belsat_TV— Franak Viačorka (@franakviacorka) August 21, 2020The blockade came just hours after state-run publishing house Vysheysha Shkola stopped printing prominent independent newspapers Narodnaya Volya and Komsomolskaya Pravda, citing malfunctioning press equipment. It was the third time Komsomolskaya Pravda’s press run was disrupted since the August 9 presidential election.Protests unprecedented in Belarus for their size and duration broke out after the vote in which election officials say Lukashenko won a sixth term in a landslide. Protesters call the results fraudulent and are demanding his resignation.Immediately after the election, various protest groups said they suddenly faced limited access to the Telegram messaging service they use to coordinate anti-government action. They also described an internet shutdown that they blamed on the authorities.The Belarusian Association of Journalists, whose own website has been blocked domestically since August 9, links the mass blackout of websites, along with rolling internet service outages and the print media disruptions, with what it calls “government attempts to block information about post-election protests in the country and severe violence against their participants.”The Belarusian Embassy in Washington did not respond to VOA’s emails requesting comment.”We consider such actions indirect censorship and obstruction of the legitimate activities of media in Belarus,” the journalists’ association said in an open letter to the Information Ministry.”These actions not only violate the rights of journalists and the media, but also restrict the constitutional right of citizens to receive complete, reliable and timely information,” the letter said.BAJ, it said, “demands that the country’s authorities immediately stop pressure on the press, ensure uninterrupted publication of printed publications, and unblock access to the blocked websites.”International reactionThe group also called on international organizations to support their statement.The International Press Institute and more than a dozen other press watchdogs, including PEN America, the European Federation of Journalists, Reporters Without Borders, and the U.N.-run Internews, recently issued an open letter demanding protection for reporters.The European Federation of Journalists on Friday castigated Belarusian customs officials for denying entry to 17 foreign journalists at Minsk’s airport August 20.”Journalists from Estonia, Poland, Serbia, Germany and Georgia were not allowed to enter,” said the organization’s statement, which cites Belarusian Foreign Affairs Ministry officials who say they refused entry to journalists whose accreditation forms hadn’t yet been fully processed.The latest restrictions come days after at least six on-air presenters resigned from state broadcasting company Belarus One. Some 300 of the national channel’s 2,000 employees also went on strike that day, saying they refused to disseminate state propaganda that plays down the magnitude of street clashes or vilifies protesters.“People feel that if we can’t do honest journalism, then we won’t work,” Kseniya Lutskina, a Belarus One documentarian, told The Guardian.The walkouts are significant since state TV dominates Belarusian broadcasting for news and entertainment programming, and it is a primary source of news for a large majority of Belarusians.In leaving their jobs, members of the media joined growing ranks of police, security officers, and factory workers who are also quitting.Lukashenko on Saturday addressed a rally of several thousand supporters in the city of Grodno, where he threatened to close factories that are on strike as of Monday. Strikes have hit some of the country’s major companies, including vehicle and fertilizer manufacturers, a potential blow to the largely state-controlled economy.Lukashenko alleges that the protests are inspired by Western forces including the United States, and that NATO is deploying forces near Belarus’ western border. The alliance firmly denies that claim.Widespread crackdownPhysical attacks, arbitrary arrests, prolonged detentions, fines and deportations have been widely reported for months. The Belarusian Association of Journalists has documented more than 130 serious violations of journalists’ rights between the beginning of the presidential campaign May 8 and August 11, 48 hours after the election.Several foreign correspondents, such as BBC cameraman Abdujalil Abdurasulov and Associated Press photographer Mstyslav Chernov, have described being briefly detained and beaten.Independent Russian news outlet Novaya Gazeta recently published an article stating that Belarus riot police have been particularly targeting Russian correspondents.”Crowds of journalists with a variety of IDs and passports, from Great Britain to Japan, are wandering around Minsk these days. But only Russians are beaten, deported, intimidated, arrested,” the article said, citing an August 7 incident in which a Russian language film crew of one Russian and two Ukrainian nationals were detained and then deported to Odessa.Other Russian nationals detained while reporting from Minsk since August 9 include Meduza correspondent Maxim Solopov, Daily Storm correspondents Anton Starkov and Dmitriy Lasenko, and Russia Today correspondent Konstantin Pridybaylo.The European Federation of Journalists reported August 12 that both of Belarusian journalist Rasl Kulevich’s arms were broken after he was arrested for covering a street demonstration in Rodno for a local publication.Belarusian journalist Rasl Kulevich was arrested on the evening of 11 August while covering demonstrations in Rodno for https://t.co/GK1gQRrfBk.The police beat him and broke both his forearms.#Belaruspic.twitter.com/9uEWfISKAK— EFJ (@EFJEUROPE) August 16, 2020Johan Bihr of Reporters Without Borders recently told VOA he believes instructions to crack down on reporters appear to be coming from the top.“Over the past few days and weeks, President Lukashenko has repeatedly warned and threatened independent media. He scolded the Belarusian Foreign Ministry for accrediting Radio Liberty,” Bihr told VOA on Aug. 14. “He threatened the journalists of (website) Tut.by and (television channel) Belsat, accusing them of instigating a revolution. In this way, he very openly and clearly empowered the state apparatus to crack down on independent journalists and arrange an information blackout in the country.”Reporters Without Borders, whose World Press Freedom Index ranks Belarus 153rd out of 180 countries, where 1 is the freest, has called on the European Union to sanction Belarus over the crackdown.Some information is from AP, Reuters, and RFE/RL.
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Envoys Optimistic after Meeting with Mali Military Junta
West African envoys led by former Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan said they were optimistic after talks in Mali’s capital city of Bamako with the military junta that forced President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita to resign and disband the government earlier this week.”The interviews are going well,” Jonathan said Saturday night, according to Agence France-Presse.Members of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) delegation also met with the ousted president and the other government and military officials detained by the rebel soldiers.”We have seen President Keita, he is doing very well,” Jonathan said, according to AFP.The ECOWAS envoys met for about 30 minutes with members of the National Committee for the Salvation of the People, including Col. Assimi Goita, the leader of the junta.A spokesperson for the military, Ismael Wague, agreed the talks “are going very well.”The president of the ECOWAS Commission, Jean-Claude Kassi Brou, said the discussions would continue for a second day Sunday.The envoys’ visit comes one day after thousands crowded into Mali’s capital in a raucous show of support for the military junta.Demonstrators in Bamako also denounced ECOWAS for condemning the coup and for closing Mali’s borders to neighbors in the regional bloc’s 14 other member nations.Sorry, but your browser cannot support embedded video of this type, you can
A man holds a banner against the United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Misiion in Mali (MINUSMA) and Barkhane, an anti-insurgent operation, during a protest to support the Malian army in Bamako, Mali, on Aug. 21, 2020.“An act of mutiny in Mali is strongly condemned,” Karns continued. “It is an act that is inconsistent with the legitimate role of the military in free societies and everything that is taught in the U.S. military and its training.”The junta leaders have promised to hold elections within nine months.“This gives an assurance that they’re not here to remain in power,” said Yeah Samake, a leader of the Malian opposition coalition known as the Movement of June 5-Reassembly of Patriotic Forces (M5-RFP).Samake said he was encouraged by their plan for a transition team in which the military would hold six of 24 seats and then would be forming a unity government.“They are working with the people,” Samake said.The opposition leader said he considers the coup “a turning point from corruption, from ill governance, to a more efficient leadership,” but he cautioned the junta leaders to stay true to their pledge to cede control.“The people of Mali are going to remain mobilized and vigilant, making sure that the power belongs to the people – and that power is for the well-being and the welfare of the people of Mali.”A more pessimistic view comes from John Campbell, who served twice as U.S. ambassador to Nigeria and now is a senior fellow for African policy studies with the Council on Foreign Relations.“A way to think about the coup is that it essentially occurred in the political class. Mali has been run for a long time by a political class and the military, and the two interpenetrate,” Campbell told VOA. “So, it was not a coup against those that have been running the country, but rather more or less among those that have been running the country.”Despite the celebratory nature of Friday’s demonstration in Bamako, the coup likely “won’t mean very much in terms of addressing the fundamental problems that Mali faces,” Campbell said, elaborating on a recent blog post.Mali confronts sizable challenges, with half of its 19 million people living in poverty. It also faces deep ethnic divisions and threats from Islamist jihadists in the country’s north.VOA’s Pentagon correspondent, Carla Babb, contributed to this report, which originated with the Bambara service in VOA French to Africa. Other contributors are English to Africa’s Peter Clottey and Adam Phillips, and the Somali service’s Harun Maruf.
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Sudan Ready to Cooperate With ICC Over Darfur, PM Says
Sudan’s prime minister said on Saturday the country was ready to cooperate with the International Criminal Court (ICC) so those accused of war crimes in Darfur appear before the tribunal, a list that includes ousted President Omar al-Bashir.Bashir, who has been in jail in Khartoum since he was toppled after mass protests last year, is wanted by the ICC for alleged war crimes, genocide and crimes against humanity in Darfur in a conflict that killed an estimated 300,000 people.The government reached a deal with rebel groups in February calling for all five Sudanese ICC suspects to appear before the court, but Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok had not previously publicly affirmed Sudan’s position.”I reiterate that the government is fully prepared to cooperate with the ICC to facilitate access to those accused of war crimes and crimes against humanity,” Hamdok said in a televised address on the anniversary of his ascent to office.Close to a dealSudan’s transitional government, a three-year joint civilian-military arrangement led by Hamdok, says it is close to a peace deal with some rebel groups active in Darfur, a vast region roughly the size of France.The government and some of the rebels are expected to initial an agreement on August 28.Hamdok also said during his TV address that Sudan had come a long way toward being removed from the U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism.There are intense communications with the American administration about removing Sudan from the list, and significant progress is expected in the coming weeks, a senior government source told Reuters on Sunday.Washington added Sudan to the list in 1993 over allegations that Bashir’s Islamist government was supporting terrorist groups at the time.The designation makes Sudan technically ineligible for debt relief and financing from the International Monetary Fund and World Bank. The U.S. Congress would need to approve Sudan’s removal from the list.
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US House Passes $25B in Emergency Postal Service Funding
The House of Representatives passed emergency legislation Saturday to provide $25 billion to the U.S. Postal Service as the country prepares for possible record numbers of mail-in votes during the November election amid the coronavirus pandemic.The vote of 257-150 would also roll back operational changes to the Postal Service that have slowed mail deliveries across the country. More than two dozen Republicans voted for the bill, which President Donald Trump said he would veto if it passed the Republican-led Senate.Postmaster General Louis DeJoy has made multiple changes at the Postal Service since assuming office in June. DeJoy, who is a Republican fundraiser who donated to the Trump campaign, said the measures, which include removing high-speed mail sorting machines and public curbside collection boxes and cutting overtime pay for employees, were implemented to reduce costs at the agency, which has faced revenue losses in recent years.DeJoy told senators Friday in a hearing that election mail would be prioritized for delivery, saying it’s his “sacred duty” to ensure such mail is delivered. However, he said that blue collection boxes and sorting equipment that had been removed were “not needed.”Sorry, but your browser cannot support embedded video of this type, you can
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi speaks during a news conference on Capitol Hill in Washington, Aug. 22, 2020.Trump has repeatedly said, without evidence, that the November election could be rigged because of mail-in votes, claiming that Russia and China could forge U.S. paper ballots.
“This is going to be the greatest election disaster in history,” Trump told reporters at the White House last month.
The president also has said he does not want to wait “weeks, months or even years” for the results of the election because of problems he predicts will occur with mailed-in ballots.
“Don’t any attention to what the president is saying because it is all designed to suppress the vote, Pelosi declared. “He’s going to have law enforcement (at voting precincts). That’s in their playbook … It’s in their playbook that they’ll have people intimidated by having ICE agents or other law enforcement to instill fear in people as they show up.”
Representatives for the National Association of Secretaries of State (NASS) and the National Association of State Election Directors (NASED) told VOA in July that if there is any evidence to support Trump’s claims of potential mail-in ballot fraud, the administration has yet to share it with them.
Last week, Trump said he opposes emergency funding for the Postal Service to make voting by mail easier. He told reporters the following day, though, that he would agree to additional funding for the Postal Service if Democrats made concessions as part of a larger coronavirus aid bill. Talks on a new stimulus bill have largely broken down between Republicans and Democrats over sharp policy differences.
Most states already offer some form of mail-in voting in the form of “absentee” ballots, but because of the coronavirus pandemic, some states have moved to expand the use of mail-in ballots for the November election.
According to a New York Times analysis, about three-quarters of Americans will be eligible to vote by mail in the presidential election, leading to an estimated 80 million mail-in votes.
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Half of US COVID Deaths Are People of Color
The Associated Press reported Friday that half the COVID-19 deaths in the United States were people of color – Blacks, Hispanics, Native Americans and Asian Americans.An analysis by The Associated Press and The Marshall Project, a nonprofit news organization covering the criminal justice system, found that while people of color make up just under 40% of the U.S. population, they accounted for approximately 52% of all the “excess deaths” above normal through July. The report defined excess deaths as the number of people above the typical fatality number who died in the United States during the first seven months of 2020, based on figures from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.The U.S. has more coronavirus cases and deaths than any other country, with 5.6 million infections and more than 175,000 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University. Brazil has 3.5 million cases and India is approaching the 3 million mark.There are nearly 23 million global COVID-19 cases and almost 800,000 deaths, Johns Hopkins reported Saturday.The World Health Organization’s emergencies chief Mike Ryan said Friday the scale of the pandemic in Mexico is “under-recognized” and that testing there is limited.He told a Geneva briefing that Mexico was testing about 3 people per 100,000, compared with about 150 tests per 100,000 people in the United States.Mexico had nearly 550,000 cases of the virus early Saturday and more than 59,000 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins.South Korea is imposing a nationwide ban on large gatherings, closing churches, nightclubs and beaches. In addition, fans will not be allowed at professional sports events.A worker disinfects pews at the Yoido Full Gospel Church in Seoul, South Korea, Aug. 21, 2020.Health Minister Park Neung-hoo said Saturday the new nationwide restrictions, which begin Sunday, follow nine days of triple digit increases in coronavirus cases. The Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recorded 332 new cases Saturday. The country has more than 17,000 coronavirus infections and more than 300 deaths.Several European countries have been reporting new surges of COVID-19 cases.“There should be no confusion: things are not going well,” Fernando Simón, Spain’s health emergency chief, said this week. “If we continue to allow transmission to rise, even if most cases are mild, we will end up with many in hospital, many in intensive care and many deaths.” The number of COVID-19 cases admitted to hospitals last week in Spain was double the admission numbers from the previous week.Berlin experienced a COVID-19 outbreak after its schools opened. Hundreds of students and school personnel are now in quarantine.French schoolchildren are set to return to school even after the country recorded 4,700 new cases Thursday and more than 4,500 Friday.In Germany, officials warned Friday against travel to the Belgian capital of Brussels because of its high rate of coronavirus infections.Britain said Friday it plans to start regular, population-wide testing for COVID-19 by the end of the year to help suppress the spread of the virus. The country has the highest death toll in Europe, with more than 41,000 fatalities.The head of the World Health Organization says he hopes the coronavirus pandemic will end in under two years – less time than it took to stop the 1918 Spanish flu.Speaking Friday at his regular briefing in Geneva, WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the key to stopping the virus is for countries around the world to “pool our efforts.” In Brief:Global coronavirus cases near 23 million, deaths are at almost 800,000WHO chief hopes pandemic to end in under two years, less than the 1918 Spanish fluU.S. leads in cases and deaths, with 5.6 million infections, more than 175,000 deathsIndia nears 3 million casesMexico had almost 550,000 cases early Saturday, more than 59,000 deathsWHO official says scale of pandemic in Mexico “under-recognized” and testing limitedSeveral European countries reporting new case surgesBritain, with Europe’s highest death toll, plans population-wide testing by year endSouth Korea imposing ban on large gatherings, closing churches, nightclubs, beaches
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