French ground forces and military helicopters killed a jihadi commander linked with al-Qaida in Mali along with four others, the French military said Friday. The operation Tuesday targeted Bah ag Moussa, military chief for the RVIM Islamic extremist group, who had been on a U.N. sanctions list and was believed responsible for multiple attacks on Malian and international forces in the country, French military spokesman Colonel Frederic Barbry told reporters Friday. Surveillance drones helped French forces in Mali identify Moussa’s truck in the Menaka region of eastern Mali, which was then targeted by the helicopters and 15 French commandos sent to the scene, Barbry said. All five people in the truck were killed after they ignored warning shots and fired on the French forces, he said. FILE – An anti-aircraft gun is mounted on the back of a pickup truck as militants from a Tuareg political and armed movement in the Azawad Region in Mali gather in the desert outside Menaka, March 14, 2020.He described it as an act of “legitimate defense” and said the bodies were handled “in conformity with international humanitarian law.” He wouldn’t comment on whether allied forces including the U.S. contributed intelligence to the operation. A statement from the French defense minister said Moussa oversaw the training of jihadi recruits. It was the latest of multiple French actions in Mali in recent weeks that killed suspected extremists. Moussa was a Tuareg rebel fighter close to jihadi commander Iyad Ag Ghaly when extremists and rebel forces took control of northern Mali in 2012. That prompted a French-led military operation in 2013 to keep Mali from falling apart. Moussa became a prominent jihadi leader in central Mali in recent years, and he was a liaison with extremist groups in his native northern Mali, according to Malian military officials. The Malian army accused him of orchestrating attacks against Malian forces in Diabaly, Nampala and Dioura that killed dozens of troops. France has thousands of troops in a force called Barkhane in West Africa to help fight extremist groups. After Islamic extremist rebels were forced from power in northern Mali in 2013, they regrouped in the desert and now launch frequent attacks on the Malian army and its allies. The French military announced its latest operation on the fifth anniversary of Islamic extremist attacks that killed 130 people in Paris, targeting the Bataclan concert hall, cafes and the national stadium.
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Month: November 2020
Latest US Presidential Race Projections: Trump Wins North Carolina, Biden Wins Arizona
U.S. news outlets on Friday called the Southeastern U.S. state of North Carolina for President Donald Trump, a day after projecting that President-elect Joe Biden would win the Southwestern state of Arizona.The latest calls in the presidential race gave Biden a projected 290 votes in the Electoral College to Trump’s 232 votes.Biden had previously cleared the 270-vote threshold needed to win the White House, paving the way for his inauguration on January 20. Trump has refused to acknowledge defeat in the presidential race and has leveled unproven claims of widespread voter fraud.FILE – Poll workers assist voters on a brisk fall morning at the Efland Ruritan Club polling site in Efland, N.C., Nov. 3, 2020.Edison Research, along with major U.S. news outlets, projected Trump the winner in North Carolina, giving him 15 more electoral votes. North Carolina was one of the last states to report its vote tally because it allowed ballots postmarked by Election Day to be received through November 12. With more than 98% of ballots counted in the state, Trump led by more than 73,000 votes.FILE – Arizona election officials count ballots for the general election inside the Maricopa County Recorder’s Office, Nov. 6, 2020, in Phoenix.On Thursday, major U.S. news outlets projected Biden the winner in the Arizona. With more than 99% of the votes counted in that state, Biden led Trump by about 11,000 votes.The New York Times, CNN, NBC News and The Washington Post were among the news organizations that projected Biden the winner in Arizona, historically a Republican stronghold. Fox News and The Associated Press called Arizona for Biden last week.The only state that has not yet been called by all major media outlets is Georgia, with its 16 electoral votes. The state is conducting a statewide, hand recount of the presidential votes because Biden is leading in that state by only about 14,100 votes.Trump, a Republican, has repeatedly made unfounded claims that he was defeated by widespread election fraud. But a statement released Thursday by the federal Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, established by Trump in 2018, said the November 3 election was the most secure in U.S. history. The agency’s declaration was the most direct rejection to date of Trump’s assertions about the fairness of the election.State election officials also report no serious irregularities, while Trump’s legal challenges have failed in court.While Biden is the projected winner of the presidential election, results are subject to legal challenges and recounts.States are required to meet a December 8 deadline to certify their vote counts and pick electors for the Electoral College, which will officially select the new president on December 14.
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Ethiopia Names New Leader for Restive Tigray Region
The Ethiopian Parliament has appointed a new leader for the restive Tigray region after the region’s president and leaders of the ruling Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) were stripped of their immunity from prosecution, Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed announced Friday.Mulu Nega, 52, was appointed to replace ousted Tigray President Debretsion Gebremichael. Abiy’s government has issued arrest warrants for the removed Tigray officials.For more than a week, the Ethiopian army has clashed with forces of the local government in the troubled region. The violence displaced at least 11,000 civilians who have fled to neighboring Sudan.Earlier this week, Amnesty International reported that hundreds of civilians were stabbed or hacked to death at an incident in Mai-Kadra in southwest Tigray. Tigray forces have denied being behind the alleged massacre.Tigray, the northernmost of Ethiopia’s nine regional states, defiantly held elections in September from which Debretsion emerged the leader, despite the prime minister’s decision to delay the voting, citing the COVID-19 pandemic.Ethiopia’s government took military action against Tigray after the region’s forces attacked a military camp of federal troops November 4, according to the prime minister. The TPLF denied the attack.The regional administration has been displeased by Abiy’s political reforms, which they call a unitary system of government. Debretsion, who served in the federal government and was once deputy prime minister, says the Tigray region is overlooked by the Abiy administration.FILE PHOTO: United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet attends a session of the Human Rights Council at the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland, Feb. 24, 2020.The U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, Michelle Bachelet, said this week that she was disturbed by the killings reported by Amnesty. Her spokesperson, Rupert Colville, said the High Commissioner wanted a full inquiry into the incident.“If confirmed as having been deliberately carried out by a party to the current fighting, these killings of civilians would of course amount to war crimes, and there must be an independent investigation and full accountability for what has happened,” Colville said.He added that Bachelet said the “first priority right now must be to stop the fighting and prevent any further atrocities from taking place.”The High Commissioner through her spokesperson warned that a “protracted internal conflict will inflict devastating damage on both Tigray and Ethiopia as a whole, undoing years of vital development progress,” which could potentially destabilize parts of East Africa.The violence has worsened the ethnic tensions that have existed in the East African nation for the past two years, according to two high-level U.N. officials who said the situation is precarious. Pramila Patten and Karen Smith in a news release said ethnic and religious discrimination has reached alarming levels and constitute a recipe for genocide as well as “a serious threat to internal and regional stability.” They warned that these should “immediately be addressed to avert further escalation of widespread violence.”
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Manila: 20 Missing After Typhoon Vamco Lashes Philippines
Disaster response teams, police and soldiers joined forces Friday in a search for 20 people who have been missing in the Philippines since a typhoon made landfall in the capital city, Manila, earlier this week. Residents of the island of Luzon withstood winds of 150 kph (93 mph) as Typhoon Vamco passed through Wednesday, forcing more than 400,000 people to evacuate or seek higher ground. According to the Associated Press, more than 3.8 million households lost power in the capital, with tens of thousands of homes destroyed by flash flooding and floating debris. Of the 1.6 million Philippines residents affected, early reports indicate that Typhoon Vamco killed at least 42 people. National police report that among the dead were at least 12 villagers who were trapped underneath mud and rockslides in the northern regions of Cagayan and Nueva Vizcaya. Residents affected by Typhoon Vamco gather during a distribution of face masks and relief goods in an evacuation center, in Rodriguez, Rizal province, Philippines, Nov. 13, 2020.As floodwater began to recede, the military said it was still attempting to rescue those trapped in their communities. In some areas, stagnant water reached up to the second and third stories of homes. President Rodrigo Duterte pledged Thursday to provide shelter, relief goods, financial assistance and counseling for affected residents. Typhoon Vamco struck the island of Luzon just a week and a half after the Philippines endured Super Typhoon Goni, the world’s strongest typhoon of 2020. More than 30 people have been reported dead or missing as a result of Goni. Vamco is the fifth storm to impact the Philippines in three weeks. The region is hit by roughly 20 tropical storms each year. Experts estimate that typhoons are becoming stronger, according to a May study by the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, with climate change blamed for the more powerful tropical cyclones. Reuters news agency reported that after Vamco, the state weather forecaster warned that three more typhoons could hit the islands before the end of the year.
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Parler: Social Media Hangout for Conservatives
With Twitter and Facebook blocking and labeling more social media posts, some American conservatives are flocking to alternatives like Parler, which says it won’t censor speech. Matt Dibble reports.
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Anarchy Reigns in Mozambique’s Cabo Delgado as Conflict Escalates
U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet is calling for urgent measures to protect civilians who are at the mercy of marauding armed groups in Mozambique’s northern Cabo Delgado province.According to media reports, dozens of people were beheaded by Islamist militants in northern Mozambique earlier this month. The escalating violence in Cabo Delgado province has sent thousands of people fleeing by land and by sea to escape what is thought to be an increasingly dangerous and chaotic situation. FILE – High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet.Thousands of others reportedly remain trapped in conflict areas, with many forced to hide in the bush for days. Bachelet’s spokesman, Rupert Colville, said Friday that people trapped in areas of conflict, as well as many of those displaced across the province, have barely any means of surviving. He said some areas have been without humanitarian aid for more than six months. “Those who remain have been left deprived of basic necessities and are at risk of being killed, sexually assaulted, abused, kidnapped, or forcibly recruited by armed groups. And, those that flee may die in the process.” The high commissioner is appealing to Mozambican authorities to protect the civilians at risk and to ensure humanitarian agencies can deliver life-saving assistance to them. Spokesman Colville said there has been a string of gruesome attacks in several villages over the past two weeks. He said witnesses report homes and public facilities have been burned and dozens of people killed. “There also have been reports of human rights violations committed by Mozambican security forces in recent years, including extrajudicial killings, ill-treatment, use of force violations, arbitrary detentions, including of journalists, and unlawful restrictions on the freedom of movement,” Colville said. High Commissioner Bachelet said all parties to the conflict must strictly adhere to their obligations under international law and make sure any forces under their control do so as well. She said her office is available to support the government in its efforts to carry out the obligations and to help the people of Mozambique in any way it can.
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Report: Over 130 Secret Service Officers Test Positive for Coronavirus
More than 130 U.S. Secret Service officers have tested positive for the coronavirus or have been in close contact with infected colleagues, according to The Washington Post newspaper.The report, published Friday, was attributed to three people “familiar with agency staffing.”The Secret Service officers, who, among other duties, are tasked with protecting President Donald Trump when he travels and at the White House, were ordered recently to isolate, the report said.FILE – U.S. Secret Service agents gather for coronavirus tests prior to President Donald Trump’s departure for the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, May 27, 2020.The sources, who the Post says spoke anonymously in order to speak more freely, said the infections are believed to be related to campaign rallies Trump held before the Nov. 3 presidential election. The report also cites the sources as saying that about 10% of the agency’s primary security team has been “sidelined.”Trump, members of his immediate family, and an increasing number of White House and campaign officials have tested positive recently for the coronavirus in the wake of campaign events, where many administration officials and other attendees did not wear masks.The White House and the Secret Service did not immediately comment on the report, but White House spokesman Judd Deere told the Post the administration takes “every case seriously” and directed the Post to the Secret Service for answers to questions about the outbreak. An agency spokesperson declined to comment to the Post.The reported outbreak among the officers occurred as the coronavirus crisis in the U.S. continues to worsen. More than 153,000 new infections in the U.S. were reported Thursday, according to Johns Hopkins University, the first time new single-day totals exceeded 150,000.Nearly 10.6 million people in the U.S. have contracted the coronavirus, while the country’s death toll approaches 243,000, according to Johns Hopkins University.
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Europe’s Hospitals Near COVID-19 Capacity
Hospitals in several parts of Europe, from the Midlands of England to Ukraine, are warning their intensive care units are reaching full capacity as a second wave of coronavirus sweeps across the continent. Doctors are once again talking about a viral tsunami hitting them, one that’s likely to be worse than the first wave that hit Europe and the United States earlier this year. With the tempo of new infections quickening, even before the northern hemisphere winter sets in, alarm is rising. Vassilis Voutsas, a Greek doctor who works in the COVID-19 intensive care unit at Thessaloniki’s Papanikolaou Hospital, said Thursday: “My fear is that the number of patients will be so big that we won’t be able to treat them all.” The unit has seen a fivefold rise in patients. “The hospital system is already at its limits,” he added.In ItalyA clamor of warnings is also coming from hospitals in an arc across northern Italy. Midweek, the total number of confirmed coronavirus cases in Italy passed the symbolic one million mark, according to government data. The country is now recording more than 30,000 new infections daily and deaths are rising from COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus. A COVID-19 sign is seen at the Policlinico Tor Vergata hospital where patients suffering from the coronavirus disease are being treated in Rome, Italy, Nov. 13, 2020.This week, Massimo Galli, head of the infectious diseases department at Milan’s Sacco hospital, warned the situation was “largely out of control.” Italy’s national association of internal medicine professionals agrees, saying Italy’s hospitals in the worst-hit north are close to collapse due to the number of COVID-19 patients being admitted. In an open letter published by the Italian news agency ANSA, the association said hospitals are suffering a shortage of staff and lack of beds “in the face of an abnormal influx of patients due to the rapid and dizzying spread of COVID infection.” The association is calling for a total national lockdown, saying there should be no “downplaying the situation,” which they describe as “dramatic.” Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte last week imposed a nationwide overnight curfew, ordered an early closing for bars and restaurants, and announced further restrictions on people traveling between regions where infection rates are high. Several regions, including Lombardy, the epicenter of the pandemic in Italy during the first wave, have been declared “red zones” and are in a virtual lockdown. In an interview with La Stampa newspaper, Conte said he was working “to avoid the closure of the entire national territory” and is waiting to see if the new restrictions do tamp down the rising numbers. “We are constantly monitoring the evolution of the contagion, the reactivity and the capacity of our health system to respond,” he said. In UkraineIn Ukraine, where more than half a million confirmed coronavirus cases have been recorded, the COVID-19 situation is dire in some regions. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and his chief of staff, Andriy Yermak, have been hospitalized after testing positive, although they are suffering only mild symptoms of COVID-19, according to the president’s spokeswoman, Iuliia Mendel. FILE – A medical staffer wearing a protective suit waits at a triage check point that was set to ease the pressure on hospital emergency wards, following the surge of COVID-19 case numbers, at the Monza racetrack, in Monza, Italy, Nov. 11, 2020.”We’re in the midst of what I’d call an operational tsunami,” said Kiran Patel, the chief medical officer. A critical-care consultant, Tom Billyard, told Britain’s Sky News, “We normally struggle through winter, so to add more COVID patients on top of that is a big worry.” On Thursday, British health authorities announced 33,470 people had tested positive for coronavirus in the previous 24 hours — the highest figure recorded since the pandemic began, according to government figures. French Prime Minister Jean Castex has also warned his country’s hospitals are under immense strain, saying there is a hospital admission every 30 seconds. “The pressure on our hospitals has intensified enormously,” he said.
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Cameroon Says Millions of Children Deprived of Birth Registration
Cameroon says more than 2 million children in the country of 25 million do not have required birth certificates. The central African state blames dropping birth registration on the conflicts affecting parts of the country and the COVID-19 pandemic. About 400 schoolchildren and their parents gathered Friday at the Government Bilingual Primary School in Cameroon’s northern town of Maroua, as head teacher Pierre Ngeala spoke about the importance of the document for all citizens.”When learners do not possess this document, at the end of the primary cycle the child cannot continue the education,” he said. “He becomes a dropout, he joins those in the streets, becomes drug addict, gangster and what have you.” Ngeala said 140 of the 400 children in his school do not have birth certificates. He said most come from families who fled Boko Haram attacks on Cameroon’s northern border with Nigeria. FILE – A mother and her child sit with other families at a camp for internally displaced people in Dougi, Cameroon, Oct. 24, 2013.Fils Doumbarbai, the highest government official in charge of civil status registration in the northern border area, said most birth registration centers closed in the past 10 years because of Boko Haram. A 2020 census indicates that close to 400,000 children in schools on Cameroon’s northern border with Nigeria do not have birth certificates, Doumbarbai said, adding that Cameroon law requires the documentation in order to test out of primary school.Etienne Bayoala, a businessman who has been helping mothers and children obtain birth certificates, said leaders should educate communities on the importance of the document.He said if the elite in the community each helped at least two children each year to get their birth certificates, the number of teenagers who drop out of school because they lack the documentation to take any official exam will plummet. Nandjui Aounti, the highest official in charge of birth registration in the English-speaking North-West region, said the separatist conflict there has stopped most parents from registering births. The situation has gotten worse since March, she said, when the first cases of COVID-19 were reported in Cameroon. Many mothers scared of contracting the virus are delivering their babies at home and do not report the births to authorities, Aounti said.”You have newborn babies who were moved from one location to another, so you have a lot of them, that we do not actually have an account as to how many of those children are displaced,” she said. “We do know that some of them are missing, so we are struggling. We are making services available and doing more sensitization, so they know that the birth certificates have to be established for these children.” The U.N. says a birth certificate is a vital official document that establishes a child’s name, age and nationality. Without it, a child may have trouble obtaining an education, health care, and other government services.
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UN Rights Chief Alarmed by Reports of Massacre in Ethiopia’s Tigray Region
U.N. human rights chief Michelle Bachelet warns escalating fighting in Ethiopia’s Tigray region could spiral out of control if allowed to continue much longer.
More than a week of fighting between the Ethiopian army and forces of the Tigray regional government has resulted in civilian casualties and widespread destruction of homes and infrastructure. Reports of mass human rights violations have sent thousands of people fleeing for safety.
More than 14,500 Ethiopians have fled to Sudan and the U.N. refugee agency says more people are on their way.
U.N. high commissioner for human rights Bachelet is expressing alarm at the rapidly deteriorating situation in Tigray. Her spokesman, Rupert Colville, says she is particularly disturbed by an Amnesty International report of alleged mass killings in Mai-Kadra in southwest Tigray.
He said the report has not been verified and the high commissioner is calling for a full inquiry to determine what happened.
“If confirmed as having been deliberately carried out by a party to the current fighting, these killings of civilians would of course amount to war crimes, and there must be an independent investigation and full accountability for what has happened. However, the first priority right now must be to stop the fighting and prevent any further atrocities from taking place,” Colville said.
Amnesty said photographs and videos of the scene indicate hundreds of people were stabbed or hacked to death. It said the victims appear to have been day laborers, who were not involved in military operations.
Colville said the high commissioner has also received reports of increased airstrikes by Ethiopian government forces and of fierce ground fighting between opposing military forces. He said Bachelet also is alarmed by reports of cuts to water and electricity supplies as well as a communications blackout.
He said Bachelet is renewing her appeal for both sides to stop fighting and to start talking.
“She is strongly urging both sides to realize that there will be no winner in such a situation and calls on them to begin a serious dialogue to resolve their differences without delay. The high commissioner warned that a protracted internal conflict will inflict devastating damage on both Tigray and Ethiopia as a whole, undoing years of vital development progress,” he said.
Colville said the high commissioner is fearful of the consequences if Tigray and Ethiopia fail to heed her warning. If fighting continues, he added, she fears the conflict could easily spill across borders, potentially destabilizing parts of East Africa.
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Australia Showcases Diverse Indigenous Languages
A new project is celebrating the linguistic culture of Australia’s Aboriginal communities by working to introduce Australians to everyday words and phrases from hundreds of Indigenous languages.The 50 Words Project is an interactive online language map. Words and phrases from across the continent are brought to life with recordings from Indigenous speakers. It is run by the University of Melbourne’s Research Unit for Indigenous Language and aims to maintain linguistic and cultural heritage. Jill Vaughan from the academic unit says she hopes it will help more Australians understand rich linguistic traditions. “It is, unfortunately, quite a common misconception that there is only one Indigenous Australian language, when, in fact, there are hundreds of languages, each with thousands and thousands of words,” she said. “It is also the case that for some Australians, they assume that Indigenous languages are just a relic of the past, and this isn’t the case at all.” Researchers say the sounds used in Australia’s Indigenous languages are very similar across the country. Neighboring communities, however, can have very different words for the same things. Some Indigenous languages in Australia have faded away since European colonization, while others are spoken by just a handful of people and are considered critically endangered. Until the 1970s, government policies banned and discouraged Aboriginal people from speaking their mother tongues. Indigenous communities consider languages to be living things that connect people to their land, culture and the spirits of their ancestors. Aboriginal history in Australia dates back up to 65,000 years. Indigenous people make up about 3% of the national population of 25 million.
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France Marks 5 Years Since November 2015 Paris Attacks
Five years after the deadly Paris attacks that killed more than 100 people in November 2015, the country paid tribute to the victims Friday. This anniversary is taking place amid a new terror threat as France has been targeted by radical Islamists in recent months.
The horrible scenes and sad memories of the night of November 13, 2015, are still vivid among French people. Five years ago, 130 people were killed and 350 were injured when Islamist jihadists attacked a stadium near Paris, bars, restaurants and the Bataclan concert hall in Paris.
Francois Hollande, French president at the time of the attacks, was among those who paid tribute to the victims and remembered the tragic events.
Hollande acknowledged the memories remain quite vivid even five years after. The time-frame could seem long for a generation but not for a head of state who faced this horrific reality that night, he said. Hollande said the victims must endure painful memories after being hurt or taken hostage during a situation that created traumas for them and for the nation.
Prime Minister Jean Castex and cabinet members attended memorial ceremonies Friday in Paris. Gatherings were scaled down this year due to the coronavirus pandemic.
This fifth anniversary occurs as France was recently hit by three terror attacks – a knife attack outside the former offices of Charlie Hebdo satirical weekly magazine in late September, the decapitation of a teacher a month later, and the stabbing of three people in a church in Nice just days later in late October.
Even if the Islamic state terror group was defeated in Iraq and Syria, the threat has evolved, and lone wolf radical Islamists are now the major threat, according to Laurent Nunez, French national intelligence coordinator.
He says that France is being wrongly accused of Islamophobia, and that there is a major and ongoing propaganda campaign being waged by al-Qaida and the Islamic State that is urging lone individuals, already present on France’s soil, to stage attacks using basic weapons, like what happened in Nice with a knife.
The trial of those accused of involvement in the November 2015 attacks will begin early next year.
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South Korea Sees Biggest Daily Jump in COVID-19 Cases in 70 Days
South Korea has reported its biggest daily jump in COVID-19 cases in 70 days as the government says it will fine people who fail to wear masks in public.
Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA) reported 191 cases added to the country’s caseload Friday, the highest daily increase since September 4. It represented the sixth consecutive day that the number of new cases reached triple figures.
The government announced it will begin imposing fines of up to $90 if people do not wear masks on public transportation, at demonstrations and in medical, religious and care facilities. Operators of facilities and businesses who do not enforce wearing masks will be fined up to $2,700.
The KDCA attributed the spike to sporadic cluster infections from informal gatherings across the nation. Prime Minister Chung Sye-kyun told a meeting of senior health officials that if the trend continues, the government will consider raising COVID-19 restrictions.
South Korea reopened many entertainment venues, bars and restaurants, last month, and allowed sporting events to resume at 30 percent capacity.
More than 120 of the cases reported Friday were from the densely populated Seoul metropolitan area, where officials have struggled to stem transmissions tied to various places, including hospitals, nursing homes, churches, schools, restaurants and offices.
Other cases were spread across cities and towns throughout the country, including Gwangju, Busan, Daegu and Wonju.
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Parler: A New Social Media Hangout for Conservatives to Vent, Plan
When Twitter started blocking President Donald Trump’s postings claiming widespread voter fraud, some cheered. Others started looking for the social media exits.
They found a new option at Parler.
Fed up with what they see as an anti-conservative bias by managers of the major social media platforms, Trump supporters are telling their followers on Twitter and Facebook to “Follow me on Parler.”
From the French word “to speak” or “to talk” but pronounced “PAR-lor,” the social media app is a lot like Twitter, with users posting messages and following topics searchable as hashtags.
Launched in 2018 in Nevada, Parler welcomed newcomers to “a non-biased, free speech social media focused on protecting user’s rights.”
Over the past year, conservative celebrities have flocked to Parler, a trend that has accelerated since the 2020 U.S. election. As Twitter and Facebook tried to tamp down misinformation about the election, more than 4 million accounts were launched on the app within days, the company says.
Among Parler users are Senator Ted Cruz, a Texas Republican, and Fox News host Sean Hannity.
Posts on Parler are called “parlays.” One on Thursday, under the hashtag #StoptheSteal, said “Shocker Pro Marxist Pope Francis congratulates Crooked Joe!”
“To parlay is to have a discussion bridging the differences,” said Amy Peikoff, Parler’s chief policy officer. “Coming to an understanding between two different viewpoints, and this is the sort of discussion that we want to foster on Parler.”
Previous alternatives to Facebook and Twitter have popped up in the U.S. claiming to be true bastions of free speech. Gab, which became a haven for neo-Nazis, was booted from the app stores of Apple and Google because it didn’t take down hate speech.
But the popularity of Parler – and other right-wing sites such as MeWe and Rumble, a video site – comes amid growing pressure on social media firms to do more to monitor their sites, particularly addressing misinformation about voting and the election results.
Twitter, Facebook and to a lesser extent Google, the owner of YouTube, have put labels on tweets, posts and videos that claim election fraud. In some cases, they stopped the content from being shared and spreading.
Much of the conversation on Parler echoes Trump’s unsupported claim that the November 3 election was stolen by Democrats through massive voter fraud. #StoptheSteal is a top hashtag for those who claim without proof that former Vice President Joe Biden, the projected winner of the 2020 presidential race, stole the election.
Last week, Facebook took down a Stop the Steal group that had gained more than 300,000 users in 24 hours. Facebook said it stopped the group because it was trying to incite violence.
“The group was organized around the delegitimization of the election process, and we saw worrying calls for violence from some members of the group,” a Facebook spokesman told The New York Times.
Parler users have also crossed that line at times: An Arkansas police chief used the site to urge violence against Democrats he claimed were preventing Trump’s reelection. When the posts appeared in news stories, his public account was removed and he was forced to resign.
While the Parler algorithm does not promote posts to keep users engaged, the company says it is serious about its commitment to free speech and does not block extremist content.
“The fact that we don’t block out the content from various extremists does not mean that our goal is to further all of those views,” said Parler’s Peikoff. “What we are planning to do is give the widest freedom possible so that people can have a full discussion.”
For years, the leading social media companies have been criticized for their finely tuned algorithms designed to boost users’ time spent on the sites. That has led to some users receiving a stream of increasingly extremist content on their feeds, according to Michael Karanicolas, the Wikimedia fellow at the Yale School of Law.
The rise of Parler, he said, “potentially suggests that if platforms do try and steer people away from these echo chambers and steer people away from what they want, the people will just migrate elsewhere.”
There is one potential customer that Parler has not yet managed to attract: Trump, himself.
While @TeamTrump, Trump’s reelection campaign, is on the site with 2 million followers, the president isn’t on Parler, yet.
With nearly 89 million followers on Twitter, Trump is still tweeting, even as Twitter has been putting warning labels on more of his tweets.
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Zuckerberg Says Bannon Has Not Violated Enough Policies for Suspension
Facebook Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg told an all-staff meeting Thursday that former Trump White House adviser Steve Bannon had not violated enough of the company’s policies to justify his suspension, according to a recording heard by Reuters.
“We have specific rules around how many times you need to violate certain policies before we will deactivate your account completely,” Zuckerberg said. “While the offenses here, I think, came close to crossing that line, they clearly did not cross the line.”
Bannon suggested in a video last week that FBI Director Christopher Wray and government infectious diseases expert Anthony Fauci should be beheaded, saying they had been disloyal to U.S. President Donald Trump, who last week lost his re-election bid.
Facebook removed the video but left up Bannon’s page. The company had not previously answered questions about those actions and did not immediately respond to a Reuters request about Zuckerberg’s comments.
Twitter banned Bannon last week over the same content.
Zuckerberg spoke on the issue at a weekly forum with Facebook employees where he is sometimes asked to defend content and policy decisions, like the question on Thursday from a staff member asking why Bannon had not been banned.
Arrested in August, Bannon has pleaded not guilty to charges of defrauding hundreds of thousands of donors to the $25 million “We Build the Wall” campaign. Bannon has dismissed the charges as politically motivated.
As Trump’s chief White House strategist, Bannon helped articulate Trump’s “America First” policy. Trump fired him in August 2017, ending Bannon’s turbulent tenure.
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Biden Presidency Could Be Pivotal in US-Turkey Relations, Analysts Say
Turkish analysts say Joe Biden’s projected presidential election victory could prove to be a pivotal moment in Turkey’s relations with the United States — one that could see Ankara pivoting back to its traditional Western allies or further deepening ties with Russia and China. While many European leaders were quick to offer congratulations to Biden, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan belatedly issued a statement Wednesday acknowledging Biden’s victory. In it, Erdogan stressed the “strategic” nature of bilateral ties and said they should be further strengthened based on common interests. The Turkish leader also sent a message to President Donald Trump, thanking him. Under Trump, critics say, Erdogan paid little price for confronting fellow NATO members and cozying up to Moscow, with the U.S. president opposing calls in the U.S. Congress for sanctions against Turkey.A Biden presidency, some analysts are predicting, will bring very different things for Erdogan. “The message from Biden will be to Turkey, do behave like an ally,” said International relations teacher Soli Ozel of Istanbul’s Kadir Has University. He told VOA he believes Biden’s victory could be a watershed moment in bilateral relations.”A Biden presidency gives you the opportunity to actually change tracks, not necessarily giving up on your interests but change your style. But if Turkey insists on defying everyone, I don’t think we can get anywhere, and the key to that is the S-400,” Ozel said. The S-400 is an advanced missile system that Turkey bought from Russia despite Washington’s warning that the purchase violated U.S. law and that the missile’s radar compromises NATO defense systems.A defiant Ankara test-fired the system last month, despite a warning from U.S. senators that the move would trigger sanctions. Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu, speaking at a November gathering of Turkish ambassadors, called on Washington to get over its objections to the S-400, declaring the issue was “done.”Biden’s challenge Among the first critical foreign policy decisions Biden could face is whether to sanction Turkey over the S-400. Erdogan’s deepening ties with Russian President Vladimir Putin are raising concerns within NATO.Under the so-called Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act, CAATSA, Biden has a broad range of options when it comes to sanctions – from symbolic to severe financial measures.The U.S. could take action against Turkey’s state-owned Halkbank for violating U.S. sanctions on Iran. Despite a New York court jailing of a senior Halkbank official in 2018 for extensive violations of Iran sanctions, the U.S. Treasury Department has so far held off on penalizing Turkey.In early 2021, Halkbank faces charges again in a New York court for alleged sanction-busting. Analysts say that until now, Ankara has banked on its strategic importance to avoid sanctions. Turkey borders Iran, Iraq, Syria, hosts a U.S. radar base, and allows the U.S. military to operate from its Incirlik air base, one of the region’s largest.Observers warn Turkey could be overplaying its hand. “Plenty of people in the United States believe they can manage things without Turkey,” cautions Ozel, who says Washington’s need for Incirlik “is being questioned more seriously today than before.”Analysts say Ankara’s hardline stance towards Washington is perhaps a negotiating ploy. They say Mr. Erdogan is aware that Biden will likely take a more robust stance towards Moscow and that Turkey can play a critical role in that strategy.”No doubt there is a lot of anger directed at Turkey, at President Erdogan himself,” said Asli Aydintasbas, a senior fellow of the European Council of Foreign Relations. “There will be a tendency also to see if the U.S. can peel Turkey back from its reliance on Russia. And I think Erdogan knows how to play this game; he knows how to play the U.S. against Russia and vice versa, and that will be an interesting dance to watch.”But some warn of far-reaching consequences if that dance should end with U.S. sanctions on Turkey.”Hostile actions against Turkey will eventually align Turkey with the Eurasian and Asia powers like Russia and China,” said retired Admiral Cem Gurdeniz. “This is going to be inevitable because they are threatening the very existence of Turkey.”The legacy of Turkey’s 2016 failed coup by disaffected military officers could also be a complicating factor for Biden. Suspicions in Ankara remain that the Obama administration, which Biden served in, was involved in the attempted military takeover, a charge Washington has denied. But Aydintasbas says Biden’s experience of working with Turkey could serve the relationship well. “The tail end of the Obama administration relations between Turkey and Washington was pretty bad. But Biden himself emerged as an Erdogan whisperer. It was Biden who was dispatched to Turkey after the failed coup attempt in 2016 to repair the relationship. So the one-on-one relationship between the two may not be so bad, ” he said.
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China Congratulates Biden on Election Victory
China on Friday extended its congratulations to U.S. President-elect Joe Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris.Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin made a statement at a regular daily briefing.“We extend congratulations to Mr. Biden and Ms. Harris,” Wenbin said. “We have been following the reaction to the U.S. presidential election of both the United States and the international community,” he said without elaborating on his country’s delay.“We respect the choice of the American people. Meanwhile we understand the results of the U.S. election will be determined according to U.S. laws and procedures,” Wenbin said.Biden is projected to become U.S. president on Jan. 20 based on what is deemed to be an insurmountable lead in the ongoing vote counting from the Nov. 3 election. The results remain subject to court challenges and recounts, and will not be official until certified by the individual states, which must happen no later than Dec. 8.China, along with Russia, did not join other governments last week in congratulating Biden after he was projected Saturday to have secured enough Electoral College votes in the election to win the U.S. presidency.Under a Biden administration political analysts expect few changes in U.S.-China relations, which have recently been tense due to President Donald Trump’s criticism of Beijing’s trade and human rights record and accusations of spying and technology theft.
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What Is the Fate of Trump’s Border Wall?
Joe Biden, projected to become America’s 46th president in January, has vowed to stop the construction of a border wall along the Mexico border, leaving questions about the future of the centerpiece of President Donald Trump’s bid to curb unauthorized immigration at the southern border.Laredo Sector Chief Patrol Agent Matthew Hudak said contracts are in place to start constructing approximately 113 kilometers of wall in the Laredo sector of Texas, which spans more than 270 kilometers of the border between the United States and Mexico.Hudak said a wall would help fight criminal groups that use the border as a way of making money by smuggling people and contraband.“When we put (up) wall systems … it takes away that profitability for these criminal organizations. That’s money that’s not going back into Mexico to supply the weapons, the ammunition that’s being used to victimize our neighbors across the border,” Hudak said.Fate of the border wallBiden said he would not tear down the wall already built by Trump. But during the joint national convention last August of the National Association of Black Journalists and the National Association of Hispanic Journalists, he vowed that “there will not be another foot of wall constructed in my administration.”The U.S. Customs and Border Protection said it is on target to build 724 kilometers of border wall by the end of 2020.“President Trump is still the president (and) will be until January 20, so until then, we can expect construction on the border wall to continue,” said Jessica Bolter, associate policy analyst of the Migration Policy Institute, a Washington, D.C.-based policy think tank.U.S. Customs and Border Protection said the majority of contracts have been awarded and construction is under way for the approximately 1,188 kilometers funded to date.However, Bolter said the Biden administration does have options regarding existing contracts.“His administration may be looking at terminating contracts that are currently in progress, possibly even places where construction is currently in the works,” said Bolter. “The government does have a lot of leeway to do this and could generally be done pretty easily, sometimes having to pay a termination fee out to contractors.”Fate of wall controversiesTrump’s authority to use much of the money to build a border wall is being challenged and awaiting a Supreme Court decision. The legal fight may become a moot point under a Biden administration.“I think this is going to be one of those problems that (is) going to find a solution in the political transition,” said Tony Payan, director of the Center for the United States and Mexico at Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy in Houston.“The Supreme Court’s decision will really not matter,” Payan said.Biden also said, “Withdraw the lawsuits. We’re out. We’re not going to confiscate the land,” speaking about the government lawsuits against landowners who refuse to give up their land for a border wall.Focus on technologyInstead of building more walls, Democrats have long favored using technology as an alternative along the more than 3,000 kilometers that make up the southern border.“I’m going to make sure that we have border protection, but it’s going to be based on making sure that we use high-tech capacity to deal with it,” said Biden.In Laredo, technology such as cameras, radar detection, sensors and drones have helped border patrol agents where very little wall had existed, but Hudak said more tools help agents better succeed at their jobs.“When we can have that technology tell us exactly what we’re dealing with before we get near it, it’s safer for everybody,” Hudak said. “It’s a combination of the physical barrier (and the) patrol road, so our agents will have mobility up and down the entire stretch of border and then also the technology systems that go with that, as well. So, it’s a suite of all of those things coming together. … Then, we add the manpower to it, and we have all three pieces of that triangle working together.”Unintended consequencesOpponents say a border wall harms ecosystems, causing floods and endangering animals and that Biden should do more than stop wall construction.“I think we are underestimating the kind of damage that the wall is going to wreak along the U.S.-Mexico border,” said Payan of Rice University. “And so, even if (Biden) doesn’t intend to destroy any of the wall that has already been built, I think in some places it may have to be brought down. The damage is just too severe on the environment.”Policies beyond the wallBeyond the border wall, many immigrant rights groups hope a Biden administration will undo many of Trump’s executive actions on immigration, which do not need congressional approval. Analysts say one program Biden can easily reinstate is President Barack Obama’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which allowed work permits for undocumented immigrants who entered the U.S. as children.Trump ordered an end to the program in 2017. In June 2020, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in favor of the DACA recipients, but the possibility persists that the administration could still end DACA in the future with proper justification.However, undoing other Trump’s policies may prove to be difficult, including the Migrant Protection Protocols, which require most undocumented immigrants to be returned to Mexico until their immigration court hearing date. Bolter said it will take time and resources to maneuver administrative and bureaucratic procedures to undo many of Trump’s programs.“Even the executive actions that President Trump has taken, even though they technically can be undone by the administration itself, the process of going through and undoing every single regulation is going to be extremely arduous,” said Bolter. “It’s not something that can be done immediately if new regulations have to go through notice and comment period.”A Biden administration will have competing priorities, including the pandemic and humanitarian and security at the border.“It’s just unlikely (the Biden administration will) be able to dedicate the same resources to immigration that Trump has,” said Bolter.
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Coronavirus Pandemic Complicates US Holiday Plans
Dr. Anthony Fauci, the top infectious disease expert in the U.S., will not be getting together with his family for Thanksgiving.At 79, Fauci is at increased risk of contracting COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus. His three adult daughters “were concerned about their, quote, ‘elderly’ dad. I hate to use that word,” he told NBC. They decided on a virtual dinner instead, he said.The COVID-19 pandemic is complicating holiday plans for many families across the country. With more than 240,000 dead from the coronavirus and infections climbing nationwide, according to Johns Hopkins University, every family will have to make a decision about whether to get together, Fauci said.Especially when gatherings include an elderly family member, or someone with health problems such as diabetes, obesity, cancer or heart disease that raise their risk of serious illness, “you want to take a couple of steps back and say, ‘Is it worth it for this year to bring those people together when you don’t know what the [infection] status of everybody … is?'” Fauci told JAMA Network.Breaking the bubbleThe holiday usually is the busiest travel period of the year in the U.S. Some 50 million Americans travel 50 miles or more to share a meal with friends and family, according to automotive and travel group AAA.Traditional Thanksgiving gatherings seem custom-made to spread the coronavirus.Experts have been advising people to limit their interactions to one group of people, called a “bubble.” Less contact with people outside the bubble means less opportunity for infection.Thanksgiving smashes bubbles together, bringing in people from far and wide with different and sometimes unknown exposures to the virus.For example, experts note, students returning home from school may carry the virus and not know it. Younger people are more likely to have asymptomatic infections.The act of traveling carries risks.Crowded buses and trains with poor ventilation offer opportunities for infection. The longer the trip, the higher the risk.Airplane travel is less clear.”We’re hearing variable things about airplane travel,” Fauci said. He noted one report that says air inside a plane circulates quickly, is refreshed often and is cleaned with hospital-grade filters.But he also pointed to a recent report in which 13 people came down with COVID-19 after a mostly empty flight to Ireland.The hazards begin before boarding the plane, train or bus, Duke University School of Medicine infectious diseases professor Cameron Wolfe noted.”When you sit in the waiting wing of the airport, that is a busy place with lots of people around,” he said.Hazardous celebrationGathering family and friends indoors for long periods of time raises the chances for the virus to spread.It’s happening already, Fauci said.”If you look around the country now, many of the infections are in small family-and-friend gatherings such as dinner parties and small social gatherings,” he said.”These innocent, family-and-friends gatherings, six, eight, 10 people come together in someone’s home,” Fauci noted. “You get one person who’s asymptomatic and infected, and then all of a sudden four or five people in that gathering are infected.””To me, that’s the exact scenario that you’re going to see in Thanksgiving,” he said.That is what happened in Canada, which celebrated its Thanksgiving on Oct. 12 and saw cases spike shortly thereafter.”In some areas we are learning that gatherings during the Thanksgiving weekend contributed to the elevated case counts we are seeing today,” Howard Njoo, Canada’s deputy chief public health officer, told reporters on Oct. 27. “Our actions matter.”Lowering risksThe safest way to observe the holiday is with a small group of just your immediate household members, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.Larger groups with people from outside their bubbles can reduce their risk somewhat by holding gatherings outdoors. Failing that, opening windows to improve airflow can help.Shorter get-togethers are better, the CDC says. Avoid crowding. Stay 2 meters from other people.Wear a mask. Health officials have been stressing that masks protect others from virus the wearer may be exhaling without knowing it. Now, the CDC cites growing evidence that a mask also protects the wearer.Getting tested before traveling might be helpful, but experts urge caution.Most rapid tests do not work well for people who are not showing symptoms, they note. Even the best tests can miss an early infection. And people can get infected in the time between when they get the test and when they arrive for Thanksgiving.“You can’t do testing by itself and expect it will get you out of a problem,” Duke’s Wolfe said.
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Australian Scientists Aim to Tame Lightning to Prevent Bushfires
Australian scientists are developing an ambitious plan to try to tame lightning to ease the threat of bushfires. Many of last summer’s devastating blazes were caused by lightning strikes. An international team of researchers in Canberra is testing a laser beam to try to control where the lighting hits.Scientists in Canberra are trying to tame the lightning bolts responsible for many Australian bushfires. The scientists believe the bolts’ path and direction could be controlled by small, portable laser pointers.Lightning is generated when frozen raindrops collide in a storm cloud, creating an electric charge. Researchers have shown that thunderclouds could be “short-circuited” by using a laser to heat tiny particles in the air to trigger a lightning strike.In the laboratory, they have successfully used an energy beam to guide a burst of electricity to a designated target.Professor Andrey Miroshnichenko of the University of New South Wales in Canberra is a co-author of the study.“The reason for our research was to find the condition where we can control and induce lightning where we want it and when we want it,” Miroshnichenko said. “We anticipate that it should be quite effective and low-cost. We need to perform large-scale experiments out there.”Those trials are expected to start soon. The research has been published in the journal Nature Communications. It was a collaboration that involved the University of New South Wales in Canberra, Texas A&M University in Qatar and the University of California in Los Angeles.The largest bushfire ever recorded in Australia was caused by lighting last October. The Gospers Mountain blaze burned for 79 days and scorched more than a million hectares near Sydney’s suburban fringe.
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Why Xi Has Not Congratulated Biden
China has not publicly acknowledged the results of the U.S. presidential election or sent a congratulatory message to President–elect Joe Biden.This is a bit of a surprise for those who felt Chinese President Xi Jinping, who faced stiff opposition from U.S. President Donald Trump, would be relieved at the election results.Analysts are wondering if Beijing is hedging its bets about the outcome until after the lawsuits filed by the Trump administration are resolved, signaling the launch of a new strategy in dealing with the United States.Beijing is also said to have been stung by a recent statement by Biden’s campaign office declaring Chinese action against Muslims in the Xinjiang region as “genocide.”“I think the most plausible reason is that Trump has not yet conceded, and China does not want to irk him at this ‘sensitive’ time,” said Douglas B. Fuller, associate professor at the City University of Hong Kong.China is listeningChina has reliable “ears” for listening to diverse political voices in the United States and U.S.-trained scholars to analyze them, sources said.“The Chinese leadership also believes that it has the upper hand in the bilateral relationship and need not exhibit too much enthusiasm in welcoming the Biden-Harris team until they make some friendly gesture or announce rollback of some of the harsh anti-China measures taken by the Trump administration,” said Mohan Malik, visiting fellow at the Washington-based Near East South Asia Center for Strategic Studies.Democrats are known by Chinese leaders to have strong views on human rights issues and even act on them, and analysts say that is something Beijing may have to contend with in the coming years.FILE – Uighurs and their supporters protest in front of the Permanent Mission of China to the United Nations in New York, March 15, 2018.In a late October statement, Biden campaign spokesperson Andrew Bates said, “The unspeakable oppression that Uighurs and other ethnic minorities have suffered at the hands of China’s authoritarian government is genocide, and Joe Biden stands against it in the strongest terms.”Malik said, “Beijing is certainly apprehensive of the Biden administration taking a more critical stance on the suppression of Xinjiang Muslims than the Trump administration. This is one instrument in his toolkit that President Trump didn’t employ.”At the same time, there are several areas where leaders of the two countries would like to work together.“Xi Jinping would like to end the trade war and is aware that Biden would reopen discussions to overcome the current trade impasse,” according to Lawrence C. Reardon, associate professor in the department of political science at the University of New Hampshire.Climate issuesBeijing is also aware that Biden will want Chinese cooperation when he returns the United States to the Paris Agreement on climate change, something he has pledged to do. China, the world’s second-biggest economy, is also the biggest pollution emitter, although the Xi government has taken a series of stern measures to check carbon emission levels.Given the situation created by the COVID-19 pandemic, there are very few people in the U.S. who will publicly speak up for China. John Thornton, a former co-president of Goldman Sachs who has played a key role in U.S.-China backdoor diplomacy for decades, said he believes Biden and Xi should directly communicate with each other.“They should meet early in the new American administration in person for a personal reconnecting,” Thornton said at a webinar Wednesday hosted by the Center for China and Globalization think tank, based in Beijing.“They should also assign very high-level working teams to create a road map for all serious issues — the sequence of the issues, the responsibility for them and the time frame they should be addressed,” Thornton said.U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer and China’s Vice Premier Liu He have done an impressive job sorting out some of the trade differences, and this work should be taken forward, Thornton said.
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Former Ghanaian President, Who Twice Led Military Coups, Dies at 73
Ghana is remembering former President Jerry Rawlings, an iconic figure who died Thursday in the capital, Accra, at the age of 73.Rawlings twice seized power in military coups, alleging government corruption, on his way to winning two terms as president before leaving office in 2001.Rawlings continued to hold political sway in Ghana while assuming diplomatic duties.Rawlings is credited with ushering in multiparty democracy in Ghana and boosting the country’s economic profile through investments.President Nana Akufo-Addo said in a statement on Rawlings’ death that “A great tree has fallen, and Ghana is poorer for this loss.”Akufo-Addo’s main rival in the Dec. 7 election is the leader of Rawlings’ party, John Mahama, a former president defeated by Akufo-Addo four years ago, along with candidates from smaller parties.
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No Voting System Deleted or Lost Votes in US Election, Security Groups Say
Election security officials have no evidence that ballots were deleted or lost by voting systems in this month’s U.S. election, two security groups said in a statement released Thursday by the lead U.S. cybersecurity agency. “There is no evidence that any voting system deleted or lost votes, changed votes, or was in any way compromised,” the groups said about the November 3 election won by Joe Biden, a Democrat. Republican President Donald Trump has repeatedly made unsubstantiated claims of electoral fraud and has yet to concede. The groups, the Election Infrastructure Government Coordinating Council Executive Committee (GCC) and the Election Infrastructure Sector Coordinating Council (SCC), said the election was the most secure in U.S. history. “While we know there are many unfounded claims and opportunities for misinformation about the process of our elections, we can assure you we have the utmost confidence in the security and integrity of our elections and you should, too,” the groups said in the statement released by the Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA). CISA, led by the top U.S. cybersecurity official, Christopher Krebs, runs a website that debunks misinformation about the election. The security groups said all the states with close results in the race have paper records of each vote, which can be counted if necessary.
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First Witness Account Emerges of Ethiopians Fleeing Conflict
The sound of heavy weapons erupted across the Ethiopian border town. Immediately, Filimon, a police officer, started to run.Shaken and scared, he paused when asked about his wife and two small children, ages 5 and 2.”I don’t know where my family is now,” he said, unsure if they were left behind in the fighting or are somewhere in the growing crowd of thousands of new refugees over the border in Sudan.In an interview with The Associated Press by phone from Sudan on Thursday, the 30-year-old gave one of the first witness accounts from what experts warn is a brewing civil war with devastating humanitarian consequences. The conflict could also draw in neighboring countries.Filimon, who gave only his first name, said those attacking the Tigray regional town of Humera last week came from the direction of nearby Eritrea, though it was impossible to know whether the attackers were Eritrean forces.Tigray regional leaders have accused Eritrea of joining the weeklong conflict in the region at the request of Ethiopia’s federal government, which regards the Tigray government as illegal. Ethiopia has denied the involvement of Eritrean forces.Thousands fleeFilimon’s worries are far more immediate. After a daylong journey on foot with about 30 others who were also fleeing, he has spent two days in Sudan, exposed to the sun and wind in a border town that is quickly becoming overwhelmed.About 11,000 refugees have fled into Sudan, where authorities are preparing for up to 100,000, the United Nations refugee agency said Thursday.Half of the refugees are children.It was too early to collect statements from the refugees about the fighting, the agency said. Fleeing combatants were separated from civilians. Injured people — injured how, it was still unclear — were being treated.Tensions over the deadly conflict in Ethiopia are spreading well beyond its cut-off northern Tigray region, as the federal government said some 150 suspected operatives accused of seeking to “strike fear and terror” throughout the country had been detained. Hours later, police in Addis Ababa said they had arrested 242 people allegedly recruited “to cause terror in the capital.”The government said the suspects “happen to be ethnically diverse,” but concerns remain high among ethnic Tigrayans amid reports of being singled out by authorities.”We don’t go to the office because they might also arrest us,” said one ethnic Tigrayan in the capital. “I’m in hiding, actually.”Ethiopia’s Parliament voted to remove immunity from prosecution for 39 top Tigray region officials, including its president, accusing them of revolting and “attacking the federal army.”Ethiopia’s Nobel Peace Prize-winning Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed is rejecting international pleas for negotiation and de-escalation, saying that cannot occur until the ruling leaders of the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) are removed and arrested and its heavily stocked arsenal is destroyed.In a bloody sign of how volatile Ethiopia’s tensions have become, Amnesty International said it had confirmed that scores of civilians were “hacked to death” in Mai-Kadra in the Tigray region on Monday night. It cited photos and videos of bodies strewn in the streets and witnesses who saw them. Amnesty International said it has not been able to confirm who was responsible.Abiy on Thursday asserted that the western part of the Tigray region had been liberated and accused the TPLF rulers of seeking to destroy Ethiopia. He accused the TPLF forces of abuses. Defense Minister Kenea Yadeta said a transitional administration will be set up in “rescued” areas, the Ethiopian News Agency reported.Acting President Debretsion Gebremichael of the Tigray Region called on the population to mobilize and defend themselves. Tigray TV, aligned with the TPLF, asserted that fighter jets had bombed the Tekeze hydroelectric dam.War months in the makingWhat appeared to be a sudden slide toward civil war has been months in the making. After taking office in 2018, Abiy announced sweeping political reforms that won him the Nobel Peace Prize but marginalized the TPLF, which had dominated Ethiopia’s ruling coalition. The TPLF later left the coalition and in September held a local election in defiance of the federal government.Each side now regards the other as illegal, and each blames the other for starting the fighting.Rallies occurred in multiple cities in support of the federal government’s military offensive. At a blood drive in Addis Ababa, donor Admasu Alamerew said, “I also want to pass my message to those people who are causing conflict and urge them to fear God and make peace.”Communications and transport links remain severed in the Tigray region, making it difficult to verify claims, while the United Nations and others warn of a looming humanitarian disaster as food and fuel run short for millions of people.The conflict risks drawing in Ethiopia’s neighbors, notably Sudan and Eritrea, which are at bitter odds with the TPLF. Experts fear that the Horn of Africa, one of the world’s most strategic regions, could be destabilized, despite Abiy’s past peacemaking efforts.Meanwhile, more than 1,000 citizens of various countries are stuck in the Tigray region, the U.N. has said. Long lines have appeared outside bread shops, and supply-laden trucks are stranded at its borders. Fuel is already being rationed.Over the border in Sudan, thousands of Ethiopian refugees waited, few possessions in hand, as authorities hurried to find a place to host them.”It’s just countryside. There’s nothing there. Everything will have to be provided,” said Charles Franzen, disaster response director for the aid group World Relief, whose largest program is in Sudan. At first, he said, for people who were already in a fragile stage, there will be a “fair amount of human suffering.”
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