Flags across Sudan are flying at half-staff after former prime minister Sadiq al-Mahdi, who was overthrown in the 1989 coup that brought Omar al-Bashir to power, died of COVID-19 on Thursday.Al-Mahdi, who was 85 according to a statement released Thursday by the Umma Party, was airlifted to the United Arab Emirates earlier this month after he and 21 members of his family and his party tested positive for COVID-19 in Khartoum.Al-Mahdi was treated at an Abu Dhabi hospital for more than two weeks before he died.His body is expected to arrive in Khartoum Friday morning and will be laid to rest in al-Mahdi’s cemetery in Omdurman. The Sudanese transitional government has declared three days of mourning.Many Sudanese described al-Mahdi’s death as a great loss for the country.Abdulrrazik Kas, a resident of the Nyala area in South Darfur state, said it would be difficult to discuss Sudan’s history without mentioning al-Mahdi’s contribution towards building a democratic country.“When you look at the Sudanese political history you will see his contributions, despite being a point of criticism for many. He is one of the critical minds in Sudan throughout his legacy in Sudanese politics or in his political party,” Kas told VOA’s South Sudan in Focus.Manal Awad Khawjali, who heads the Sudanese National Women Union, a coalition of women’s groups, called al-Mahdi an icon of human rights, a staunch defender of women’s rights in particular, and a great scholar.“He has a lot of contribution towards defending women’s rights and other concerns. He wrote a lot of books on religion and politics among others. He always thinks about the future,” Khawjali told South Sudan in Focus.Eastern Nile resident Nejmuddeen al-Biseirri, who said he was shocked to hear of al-Mahdi’s death, told South Sudan in Focus he considers the former prime minister “an icon of leadership” and “a great political and religious scholar who always stuck to his values.”Al-Mahdi was born on December 25, 1935 in Omdurman, west of Khartoum. He was Sudan’s last democratically elected prime minister.
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Month: November 2020
Africa Braces for Second Coronavirus Wave
As a second wave of coronavirus approaches, Africa has a plan, says the continent’s top health official. In recent weeks, the continent has started to distribute 2.7 million rapid antigen tests. By mid-2021, health officials hope to vaccinate 60 percent of the continent’s population with one of the several promising new vaccines. Now, says Dr. John Nkengasong, director of the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, it’s up to the continent’s leaders to try to make that happen. “That will also require that we mobilize up to about $10 to $12 billion including the cost of buying the vaccines and the cost of delivering the vaccines,” he told journalists on Thursday by teleconference. “So that is the 60 percent mark that we really want to achieve. And I just really want everyone on this platform and our partners to understand that as a continent that is aspiration and our goal.” Dr. Nkengasong added that experts are working to bring more clinical trials to the continent. But, he stressed, as COVID-19 numbers rise in some countries — notably, South Africa, Kenya and Algeria — the continent’s health facilities appear to be weathering the onslaught. FILE – John Nkengasong, Africa’s Director of the Centers for Disease Control, speaks during an interview with Reuters at the African Union Headquarters in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, March 11, 2020.“We are not seeing hospitals being overwhelmed with COVID patients,” he said. “That is clearly what the situation is. We were very encouraged that during the first wave we didn’t see that kind of overwhelming, which we were very worried and concerned with. “That doesn’t tell us that the second wave will not happen. It only tells us that we have to prepare, and prepare using the three T’s — which is the tests, the tracing and the treatment.” As the continent approaches end-of-year holidays, Nkengasong underscored one piece of advice: “Do not relent in wearing masks,” he said. “One message that is emerging across the visits we are conducting across the continent is that people are not masking enough. And in some settings, absolutely it seems like they are not masking at all. And that is extremely dangerous. “My worry and fear is that the sacrifices and gains that were made since the beginning of this year … those gains that were made in terms of bringing the pandemic down to where we were in October could be completely wiped out if we relent at this point.”
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Biden, Wife Jill Note Grief, Sacrifice in Thanksgiving Day Message
On Thanksgiving Day, President-elect Joe Biden and his wife Dr. Jill Biden wished the country a happy holiday, while noting the grief the coronavirus pandemic has brought for many Americans. “This Thanksgiving, tables throughout our country will have an empty chair,” the Bidens wrote in an op-ed for CNN published Thursday morning. “Still, like you, our family will hold on to our most important tradition: taking a moment to count the many reasons we have to be grateful.”As of Thursday morning, the United States has confirmed over 12,780,000 cases and over 262,000 deaths from COVID-19, according to the Johns Hopkins University coronavirus resource center.Despite warnings from the government-run Centers for Disease Control, millions of Americans have flown around the country to join family for the holiday. Experts expect to see a surge in coronavirus cases, which have already reached record highs in the U.S. this month. On Wednesday, Biden urged Americans to “steel our spines” against the surging pandemic but assured them that “America is not going to lose this war.”Biden added in the pre-Thanksgiving address to the nation, “There’s real hope, so hang on. This will not last forever.”Biden Holiday Message: US Won’t Lose Fight Against Coronavirus President-elect, a day ahead of Thanksgiving holiday, tells Americans, ‘There’s real hope, so hang on. This will not last forever’He said the first vaccines against the coronavirus may be available by the end of December and vowed to “get the entire country immunized as soon as we can.” Biden urged Americans to restrict their holiday festivities, saying that throughout his life, he has been accustomed to large family gatherings on Thanksgiving. But this year, he said, he is spending the holiday with only first lady-to-be Jill Biden, their daughter Ashley and her husband, Howard Krein.Millions of Americans Travel for Thanksgiving Despite COVID-19 WarningsTravelers dismiss warnings despite surge in COVID-19 deathsIn both his Wednesday speech and his op-ed Thursday morning, Biden recalled his own journey with grief, speaking of his first holidays without his son Beau, who died of brain cancer in 2015.Biden won the November 3 election over President Donald Trump, who is continuing his long-shot legal efforts to upend Biden’s victory.
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US Will Appeal Order Barring Expulsions of Migrant Children
The U.S. government on Wednesday appealed a judge’s order barring the expulsions of immigrant children who crossed the border alone, a policy enacted during the coronavirus pandemic to deny the children asylum protections.
Judge Emmet Sullivan issued a preliminary injunction on Nov. 18 sought by advocates for immigrants that barred expulsions of unaccompanied children under public health laws.
The Justice Department filed a notice of appeal Wednesday night to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. It also asked Sullivan to issue a stay of the injunction pending appeal, a request he previously denied.
Since March, border agents have expelled 200,000 immigrant adults and children citing the pandemic and a need to prevent the spread of the virus, even though COVID-19 is spreading broadly through border communities and the country at large.
Sullivan’s order only covered children who cross the border without a parent and not adults or parents and children. At least 8,800 unaccompanied children have been expelled without having a chance to seek asylum protections or speak to a lawyer. Most people have been expelled within hours or days, though the Trump administration detained hundreds of children for weeks in hotels near the U.S.-Mexico border for days or weeks at a time until another judge barred that practice.
President-elect Joe Biden has said he will reverse several of President Donald Trump’s immigration programs when he takes office in January. Biden has not stated whether he will stop expulsions of immigrants.
In its filing Wednesday night, the Justice Department cited the spread of the virus in border communities in Arizona and Texas. It warned that Sullivan’s order “likely will have an irreversible impact on public health” by straining hospital capacity and forcing the government to move “potentially infected” children and teenagers through airports.
The Associated Press reported on Oct. 3 that top officials at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention resisted issuing an emergency declaration allowing immigrant expulsions because it lacked a public health basis, but that Vice President Mike Pence ordered the agency to move forward anyway.
Immigration advocates who sought the injunction say the government has the ability to protect children and border agents simultaneously. They argue the Trump administration is using the pandemic as a pretext to crack down on immigrants.
“There is no basis for allowing this cruel, unprecedented policy to take effect, given the harm that these young children would face if sent back and the readily available ways of safely housing the children,” said Lee Gelernt, a lawyer for the American Civil Liberties Union, in an email.
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British Journalists Say Abuse and Assault Becoming ‘Normalized’
Journalists in Britain say they are facing an increasingly hostile atmosphere, with intimidation, physical assault and online abuse now seen as routine and ‘part of the job’. Henry Ridgwell reports from London.
Camera: Henry Ridgwell
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Greece Rejects Turkey’s Renewed Call for Talks
Greece has rejected new calls by Turkey to start exploratory talks to settle their maritime differences, feeding into a long-running and dangerous energy standoff in the eastern Mediterranean. The snub comes as Greece tries to increase pressure on its European allies to impose sanctions on Turkey during a summit next week. Beyond Europe, Greece is also shoring up international support, including in the Middle East, to press Turkey to back down from what it believes are irrational and unsubstantiated claims in the region.As the voice of Greek diplomacy, Foreign Minister Nikos Dendias is usually subtle and discreet in his remarks.Angered, now, however, by what he calls Turkey’s continued defiance of international rules and regulations, he has lashed out at Ankara, saying its high time for Europe to call it out and take punitive action against its dispatch of a survey ship to scout for gas and oil in regions claimed by Greece.He also believes Turkey’s bid to return to the negotiating table with Athens ahead of next month’s EU leaders summit is just a last-minute ploy.Turkey, Dendias said, missed its chance, when it unilaterally shut the door on talks, instead resending a survey vessel to the eastern Mediterranean to search for gas and oil in contested waters.He warned that the European leaders would not be fooled, as he put it, by Ankara’s about-face and newfound desire to restart the talks.Dendias’ remarks come less than two weeks before EU leaders convene anew to consider sanctions against Turkey. However, to potentially stave off any action by Turkey and appease EU critics, Turkish President Recep Tayyip said this this week he would suspend his country’s contentious energy hunt in the eastern Mediterranean, in addition sending a top aide to Brussels to try and work out a compromise, face-saving deal with EU officials.Greece has been urging the EU to slap sanctions on Turkey since Erdogan ordered the first survey ship to the Eastern Mediterranean during the summer.Tensions have since then flared and a military buildup in the region has followed, as Erdogan has vowed to drill off the coast of a Greek island – a strip of seabed Athens says it alone has the right to exploit but which Ankara insists it has legitimate claims to because islands, as it argues, do not have continental shelves.Leading European nations, including Turkey’s biggest trade partner, Germany, have resisted sanctions against Ankara, especially as Turkey’s economy continues to be in free fall.However, like Greece, some U.S. officials are also growing frustrated with Turkey, as former U.S. Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns said, “Turkey has become in many ways, for the EU and NATO, the largest problem because of its undue aggression in the eastern Mediterranean, because it continues to pick fights with Greece, along what Turkey believes is a contested border.”That leaves Greece extremely vulnerable. In an effort to increase pressure against Turkey, Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis has moved in recent weeks to shore up international support from countries Ankara was once closely aligned with, including the United Arab Emirates.In a lightening visit to Abu Dhabi, Mitsotakis signed a defense and strategic partnership agreement with the crown prince. While details of the pact have not been released, Athens analysts believe the deal drives a further wedge between Turkey and the Emirates , whose relations have deteriorated because of Erdogan’s active support of the Libyan government Abu Dhabi is fighting through the Libyan National Army.In recent months, Greece has also bolstered ties with Israel and grown closer to Egypt in a bid to sideline Turkey in the region.That strategy, some suggest, may backfire, though.With the Turkish economy waning and EU member states remaining divided over punitive economic action against Ankara, analysts in Athens say Erdogan is being further emboldened, warning he may move to escalate tensions in the eastern Mediterranean to deflect the attention of his electorate.
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Former Sudanese Prime Minister Dies Weeks After Testing Positive for Coronavirus
Sudan’s last democratically elected prime minister, Sadiq al-Mahdi, has died at the age of 84.His National UMMA party issued a statement Thursday, revealing al-Madi died from a coronavirus infection three weeks after being hospitalized in the United Arab Emirates.He reportedly tested positive for the coronavirus last month.Mahdi was overthrown during the second of his two terms as prime minister following a 1989 military coup that paved the way for former president Omar al-Bashir to seize power.He held power for three decades before he himself was ousted in a coup last year.Throughout Sudan’s leadership changes, al-Mahdi remained an influential figure.The Umma Party also said in its statement that Mahdi would be buried on Friday morning in the city of Omdurman in Sudan.
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Taiwan Using its Close US Ties to Seek Elusive Economic Deals with a Major Trading Partner
Taiwan is taking its strong relations with the United States to a new level by pursuing economic deals that could make the export-reliant but isolated Asian island more competitive in the world.U.S. and Taiwanese officials Friday signed a memorandum of understanding to expand “economic prosperity” through a series of talks, the de facto U.S. embassy in Taipei, the American Institute in Taiwan, said in a statement on its website. Future dialogue will be aimed at creating new types of cooperation, the statement said.The memo signed in Washington raises hopes that Taiwan and the United States can eventually do more together economically, officials in Taipei say.“In the future, cooperation will grow even closer and broader,” Taiwan’s Foreign Affairs Ministry said.Taiwan’s ultimate prize would be a formal free trade agreement, and Taipei has already charmed the United States this year by easing bans on pork and beef imports, despite pushback from domestic pig growers. Without a trade deal, Taiwan must pay standard import tariffs to the massive U.S. market rather than the lower tariffs granted to export competitors, such as South Korea, that have agreements with Washington.“Signing this memorandum means that there’s a chance to move forward,” said Liang Kuo-yuan, president of the Polaris Research Institute research organization in Taipei.“If you can keep it up, then longer term and then if they can sign a deal, for Taiwan of course there’s a very big advantage,” he said.Taiwan, because of a decades-old political dispute with Beijing, struggles to sign deals with China’s 170-plus diplomatic allies including the United States.’A lot of anxiety’China also frowns on Taiwan’s ambitions to join major world trade agreements. This month the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations inked a Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership trade deal with China, among other states.“The regional treaty between China and the ASEAN, that is what has been creating a lot of attention in Taiwan, because of China being part of the ASEAN and Taiwan won’t be able to have that privilege,” said Kent Chong, managing director of professional services firm PwC Legal in Taipei.“That creates a lot of anxiety,” he said.The United States is Taiwan’s second-biggest trade partner, based on $85.5 billion in total imports and exports last year. Technology products and services, including personal computers, make up roughly one-fifth of the Taiwan gross domestic product.In 1994 Taiwan and the United States agreed to talk regularly toward a trade deal, and they had met 10 times as of 2016 but never under U.S. President Donald Trump. Trump, however, has elevated overall U.S.-Taiwan ties by speeding the pace of arms sales, signing pro-Taiwan legislation, and sending senior-level officials to the island.Taiwan fits Trump’s tough China policy, which is marked by disputes over trade, technology sharing and Beijing’s maritime expansion. China calls self-ruled Taiwan its own and resents the United States for helping it politically or militarily.Although the broad strength in Taiwan-U.S. political ties will help with economic deal-making, trade agreements with the United States normally take years as each side frets over protecting segments of its economy. The 2010 U.S.-South Korea free trade agreement took more than four years to work out. Taiwan should make “psychological preparation” for a long process, Liang said.Only after the two sides announce specific industries for discussion would Taiwan’s numerous smaller companies get excited, said Lin Ta-han, CEO of the Founder-Backer, a Taipei company that helps startups raise money.“Unless there’s a chapter that discusses content related to tech development or startup companies, if this [dialogue] just has no specific nature or if there’s no specific deal, then we wouldn’t get see this news as advantageous or disadvantageous,” Lin said.For now, Taiwan and the United States plan to discuss working together on 5G networks, internet security, the safety of investments, “reliable” supply chains and resilience in manufacturing, the AIT statement said. Taiwan expects talks too on cooperation in infrastructure, including renewable energy, the ministry statement said.To smooth the way for any trade talks, Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen said in August that starting next year her government would lift a ban against U.S. pork containing the feed additive ractopamine and ease restrictions on imports of American beef.
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Why Taiwan Killed a TV News Broadcasting License Despite Legal Freedom of Speech
Taiwan has revoked a television broadcasting license for a cable news channel because the openly pro-China outlet had aired inaccurate reports and ignored warnings to reform, a regulatory body said in an unusual test of the democratic island’s normally free-wheeling media scene.The National Communications Commission’s decision Nov. 18 to revoke the license of Chung Tien Television’s CTi News stands out because Taiwan has some of Asia’s least restricted mass media. CTi News must close on Dec. 11, when its six-year license expires.CTi News broadcasts pro-China material – unpopular with much of the island’s population – as well as criticism of Taiwan’s ruling Democratic Progressive Party. The party takes a guarded view of relations with Beijing, a political rival of Taiwan going back more than 70 years.$400,000 in finesCommissioners cited serial violations of media-related rules and found that CTi News failed to discipline itself after a review two years ago. The 962 public complaints the commission had received about CTi through last year made up nearly a third of all gripes received, commissioners said in a statement Wednesday.The channel has broken rules 25 times since its license renewal in 2014, received formal warnings twice and paid fines 23 times totaling about $400,000, the statement says. CTi News disrupted public order on five occasions, the commission found. In 2014, the commission renewed CTi’s license on the condition that it would set up mechanisms to improve.“Although some of its programs have received approval through awards, the core programming of daily news and political discussion kept violating the rules,” the statement says.Supporters of revoking the license believe the commission went after CTi News mainly for false reporting.CTi News came under fire last year over the accuracy of a report that farmers had discarded pomelo fruit in a reservoir and the broadcaster was fined the equivalent of $35,000. The channel has been accused too of producing distorting reports that irritate the Taiwan government.’Check, check, check’Chung Tien Television should take “responsibility,” said George Hou, a former mass media instructor at I-Shou University in Taiwan.“Every time I teach, I tell the students that if you’re doing this work it’s because you possess a broadcasting tool that everyone is going to see, so you need to do something, which is check, check, check,” Hou said. “If you haven’t done that, then you’re doing fake news.”Journalism advocacy group Reporters Without Borders said in a statement that it “regrets” the license revocation because it affects the CTi News staff. It asked the commission to disclose all evidence that renewing CTi’s license would have endangered the public.At the same time, the commission’s move doesn’t violate press freedom, Reporters Without Borders added.The media should take a government watchdog role but not just put out content that suits in-house agendas, said Cedric Alviani, the group’s East Asia bureau director.“You do not want [government officials] to abuse power, and you want to hold them accountable, so this is what we call press freedom, not the freedom of media owners to publish whatever content suits their interests,” Alviani said.China claims sovereignty over Taiwan and has threatened use of force, if needed, to unify the two sides. Each has been self-ruled since the Chinese civil war of the 1940s when Mao Zedong’s Communists routed Chiang Kai-shek’s Nationalists, who relocated to Taiwan.Most Taiwanese said in government surveys last year they oppose unification with China. Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen also rejects unification.As part of its democracy, Taiwan allows a media scene that has spawned a half-dozen cable news channels along with multiple daily papers and an ever-expanding list of news websites. It cannot legally discipline a media outlet for views expressed on China.Skeptics, particularly people close to today’s opposition Nationalist Party, say commissioners acted under government pressure to kill the 26-year-old network’s license. The Nationalists advocate dialogue with China on Beijing’s precondition that both sides identify as part of the same country.The commission is not impartial, as it should be, said Chao Chien-min, dean of social sciences at Chinese Culture University in Taipei.“Why do we have a way to close it down? Who gives you the power?” Chao asked. “Can the government decide that the content of that news is incorrect?”’It’s an open secret’Chung Tien Television on Nov. 18 called the license revocation “illegal” and cited lack of “due process” as well as “flimsy reasoning.” It announced plans to file for temporary relief of the commission’s ruling and take legal action against the decision.In a separate statement, the broadcaster called the commission’s move “politically motivated.” It acknowledged major network shareholder Tsai Eng-meng’s support for a China-Taiwan dialogue process that would identify both sides as part of China. The shareholder also runs a company that’s in charge of a giant food and beverage firm in China.Sean Lien, vice chairman of the National Policy Foundation, a think tank close to the main opposition party, attributed the decision to politics.”Although the National Communications Commission will never put ‘political censorship’ as their main reason to shut down CTi, it’s an open secret to everyone,” he said.Around Asia, forced closures of media outlets are more common in authoritarian countries such as China and Vietnam. In the Philippines, authorities use legal and extrajudicial means to snuff the media as well as individual reporters.Reporters Without Borders asked that Taiwan’s commission use equal levels of “exigence” when reviewing all future media licenses “no matter the media’s political orientation.”
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Terror Threats Across Africa ‘Not Degraded’
U.S. efforts to stem the threat from terror groups across Africa are struggling as military commanders grapple with the prospect of troop reductions and shifting priorities, according to a new government report on counterterrorism operations. U.S. Africa Command has about 5,100 troops stationed on the continent, most of them in Djibouti. About 650 to 800 troops are operating in Somalia, with an additional 760 deployed to parts of West Africa. But Pentagon officials appear to be concerned that without a continued presence, their ability to push back against groups affiliated with al-Qaida and Islamic State could suffer. FILE – U.S. Marines and sailors prepare to board a KC-130J Marine Super Hercules at Camp Lemonnier, Djibouti, Dec. 24, 2013, in this image released by the U.S. Department of Defense.“The DoD [Department of Defense] said that it needs to remain postured to proactively identify these threats, determine their scope and scale, and respond appropriately,” Pentagon acting Inspector General Sean O’Donnell wrote in the report by the Defense Department inspector general, released Wednesday. Pentagon officials have been contemplating cutting back on the number of troops stationed in Africa for most of the past year, with talk about an inevitable drawdown starting last December. In February, former Defense Secretary Mike Esper announced plans to replace conventional combat troops with specialized military trainers, a move he said would leave “roughly the same number of troops on the continent.” FILE – Islamist fighters loyal to Somalia’s al-Qaida-inspired al-Shabab group perform military drills at a village in Lower Shabelle region, some 25 kilometers outside Mogadishu, Feb. 17, 2011.Even the country’s most advanced, best trained forces, the Danab Brigades, are struggling, due to heavy combat losses and attrition, the report found. And analysts fear that growing regional conflict, like that in Ethiopia, may indicate more trouble is on the way. “The northern Ethiopia crisis has already led to some Ethiopian troops withdrawing from Somalia,” Emily Estelle, a research manager with the American Enterprise Institute’s Critical Threats Project, told VOA. “Al-Shabab has advanced under similar circumstances in the past and will likely do so again.” West Africa The IG report also warned of a deteriorating situation in West Africa, citing an assessment by the Defense Intelligence Agency that the threat from extremist groups has increased exponentially over the past 10 years. Groups including Boko Haram, al-Qaida-linked Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM), IS-West Africa and IS-Greater Sahara “continued to expand geographically, conduct attacks and threaten partner interests,” the report said. FILE – Arms and ammunitions recovered from Boko Haram militants are displayed in Goniri, Yobe State, in Nigeria’s restive northeast, July 3, 2019.Of those groups, military officials said IS-West Africa remains the largest threat, with up to 5,000 fighters, followed by JNIM and Boko Haram, both of which are estimated to have about 2,000 fighters each. The report said had it not been for the efforts of 5,000 French counterterrorism troops deployed to the region, the situation might be even worse in the Sahel and in Mali, in particular. Libya According to military officials, the one area where U.S. counterterrorism efforts appear to be meeting with some success is in North Africa. Intelligence from the region suggests al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) has been reduced to fewer than 500 fighters across part of Libya, Tunisia and Algeria. IS-Libya, meanwhile, is down to fewer than 100 fighters, as its network of foreign fighters appears to be drying up. There are concerns about the growing number of foreign fighters who have made their way to Libya to fight in the ongoing battle between the Government of National Accord (GNA) and the Libyan National Army (LNA). FILE – Members of the Libyan National Army gather in the city of Benghazi, on their way to back up fellow LNA fighters on the frontline west of Sirte, facing forces loyal to the U.N.-recognized Government of National Accord, on June 18, 2020.U.S. Africa Command estimates there were at least 10,000 foreign fighters taking part in the conflict as of the end of September. That figure includes about 2,000 Russian mercenaries, who according to U.S. intelligence officials appear to be funded, at least in part, by the United Arab Emirates; 5,000 fighters sent by Turkey; and a recent influx of about 3,000 from Sudan to help support the LNA. But while the larger conflict and its dependence on foreign fighters appears to be hurting the fortunes of IS and AQIM, AEI’s Estelle cautions the impact may be short-lived. “The proxy warfare is prolonging the conflict and deepening the divide between Libyan factions,” she said. “This dynamic will likely allow [IS] or a similar group to reconstitute eventually, particularly if Libya fragments further.”
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South Africa Mourns People Who Died from Gender-Based Violence and COVID-19
South Africa is observing five days of mourning in remembrance of those who died as result of gender-based violence and the coronavirus. The period of mourning began Wednesday on the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women and 16 Days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence. Mpho Sempe, who lives in Pretoria, said he and other men gather once every month to discuss possible solutions to the problem of gender-based violence, which has been a plague in their country for years. South Africa is also in the grips of another burden, the coronavirus outbreak, which has killed 21,083 South Africans. South African President Cyril Ramaphosa is calling on citizens to wear black armbands or other signs of mourning to signify and respect those who have died. Ramaphosa also ordered national flags to be flown at half-staff at various national key sites and government buildings until November 29.
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In Thanksgiving Address, Biden Urges Americans to Recommit to Fight Against Virus
President-elect Joe Biden delivered a Thanksgiving address Wednesday, saying the country will get through the pandemic and urging Americans to recommit to the fight against the coronavirus. Biden spoke as the United States is facing a steep rise in COVID-19 cases and a surge in food insecurity. White House correspondent Patsy Widakuswara reports.
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Bulgaria: Parliament Rejects Draft New Constitution
The Bulgarian parliament on Wednesday rejected a controversial plan by Prime Minister Boyko Borisov to rewrite the constitution, which he submitted in August in an attempt to defuse the political crisis. This proposal, recently criticized by the Venice Commission, the Council of Europe’s consultative body on constitutional matters, received only 110 votes in favor, while a qualified majority of 160 out of 240 deputies was needed to continue the procedure. The Conservative government had launched such an initiative to try to weaken the protest movement, which vehemently denounces its alleged links with the oligarchy. But this decision, seen as a maneuver to buy time and stay in power until the general elections were held in March 2021, provoked a strong reaction from the demonstrators. Clashes with the police left more than 45 injured in Sofia in early September. The project brought for its detractors no limitation of the power of the Attorney General Ivan Geshev, today untouchable, whose resignation is demanded by the protesters. Deploring “a missed opportunity,” the Venice Commission regretted, in a press release, “that the launch of the constitutional reform was not preceded by an appropriate public debate, that the project was drawn up within the majority Parliament, apparently without any external input, and that the reasons for certain amendments were not well explained.” The demonstrations brought together thousands of people for more than 100 days, before becoming scarce in recent weeks, in particular because of the health situation caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.
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Train Gunman Tells French Court His Target Was Only US Soldiers
The gunman charged over a foiled 2015 train attack told a French court Wednesday that he had targeted only American soldiers, after refusing instructions from an Islamic State ringleader to kill members of the European Commission he was falsely told were in the train car.Ayoub El Khazzani, who had been armed with an arsenal of weapons including a Kalashnikov assault rifle, said the attack on the fast train from Amsterdam to Paris was planned as an act of vengeance for bombings of civilians in Syria, which he saw during a brief stay there.The monthlong trial for attempted terrorist murder opened Nov. 16. El Khazzani risks life in prison if convicted. Three accomplices, who were not on the train, sat beside him in the heavily guarded Paris courtroom.El Khazzani, a Moroccan, wounded a French-American who managed to briefly yank the Kalashnikov from his hands before the three vacationing Americans — who were long-time friends — took him down. Two of the three men were in the military but wearing civilian clothes.The Aug. 21, 2015, attack was allegedly planned by terrorist mastermind Abdelhamid Abaaoud with whom he traveled back to Europe. Abaaoud was killed by French special forces shortly after the Nov. 13 Paris massacre at a music hall and restaurants that left 130 people dead, just months after the foiled train attack.Abaaoud was thought to be the coordinator of the November attacks and was portrayed in court as the man behind the plot to carry out an attack on the train. One passenger, Mark Moogalian, who wrenched the Kalashnikov from the attacker as he emerged from a toilet, was injured in the back. El Khazzani told the court he had only meant to shoot him in the hand.The drama on the train is portrayed by investigators as one of a series of IS-linked attacks in Europe.”He put hate in my heart,” El Khazzani said of Abaaoud.He said Abaaoud told him there were to be members of the European Commission in car 12 and three to five American soldiers.The defendant could not explain how he was expected to recognize them or other targets. There were no known European officials in the first-class car. He said that in any event “I changed my mind” about killing anyone else on his mission. Asked whether he had repented, he said yes.
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US Civil Rights Pioneer Bruce Carver Boynton Dies at 83
Bruce Carver Boynton, a civil rights pioneer from Alabama who inspired the landmark “Freedom RidesC of 1961, died Monday. He was 83.Former Alabama state Sen. Hank Sanders, a friend of Boynton’s, on Tuesday confirmed his passing.Boynton was arrested 60 years ago for entering the white part of a racially segregated bus station in Virginia and launching a chain reaction that ultimately helped to bring about the abolition of Jim Crow laws in the South. Boynton contested his conviction, and his appeal resulted in a U.S. Supreme Court decision that prohibited bus station segregation and helped inspire the “Freedom Rides.”Despite his pivotal role, Boynton was not as well known as other civil rights figures. Yet both his mother and father were early civil rights activists. His mother, Amelia Boynton Robinson, was savagely beaten while demonstrating for voting rights in 1965 and was honored by then-President Barack Obama 50 years later.”He did something that very few people would have the courage to do. He said no,” U.S. District Judge Myron Thompson said of Boynton in 2018. “To me he’s on a par with Rosa Parks,” the Black woman who refused to give up her bus seat to a white man.Boynton described his arrest in a 2018 interview with The Associated Press.Boynton was attending law school at Howard University in Washington, D.C., when he boarded a bus bound for Alabama in 1958. Public facilities including bus stations were separated by race across the South at the time, despite federal laws banning segregation in interstate travel.The bus pulled into a station in Richmond, Virginia, for a break, and Boynton went inside to eat. Seeing that the part of the restaurant meant for blacks had water on the floor and looked “very unsanitary,” Boynton said he sat down in the “clinically clean” white area. He told the waitress he would have a cheeseburger and tea.”She left and came back with the manager. The manager poked his finger in my face and said ‘ … move,’ ” using a racial slur, Boynton recalled in the interview. “And I knew that I would not move, and I refused to, and that was the case.”Convicted of trespassing, Boynton appealed, and his case wound up before the Supreme Court. Thurgood Marshall, then the nation’s leading civil rights attorney and later to become the first Black Supreme Court justice, was his counsel.Boynton contested his conviction, and the Supreme Court ruled in 1960 that federal discrimination prohibitions barring segregation on interstate buses also applied to bus stations and other facilities linked to interstate travel. The next year, dozens of black and white students set out on buses to travel the South and test whether the ruling in the case, Bruce Boynton v. Virginia, was being followed.The “Freedom Riders” were arrested or attacked in Alabama, Mississippi and South Carolina, and a bus was burned. Then-President John F. Kennedy ordered stricter enforcement of federal anti-discrimination laws.”He was a pioneer,” said Sanders. “All of the Freedom Rides sprung from this particular action.”Sanders said Boynton paid a price for what he did, and initially wasn’t able to get a law license in Alabama. He spent most of his career as a civil rights attorney before retirement.Thompson said in 2018 that Boynton’s life “is a teaching lesson for all of us about how we can make a difference.””All he wanted was a cheeseburger, and he changed the course of history.”
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Ethiopian Rights Commission Alleges ‘Atrocious Massacre’ in Tigray
Ethiopia’s government-appointed human rights commission has accused a youth group in the rebellious Tigray region of carrying out “an atrocious massacre” of hundreds of civilians, aided by Tigrayan security forces.The Ethiopian Human Rights Commission on Tuesday issued a preliminary report alleging at least 600 people were killed in the Tigray region town of Mai-Kadra on November 9.From Nov. 14-19, @EthioHRC deployed experts to #Ethiopia’s Maikadra to carry out an investigation.
The probe finds atrocity crimes which may amount to crimes against humanity & war crimes were committed by ‘Samri’ group, aided & abetted by then-local admin, police & militia pic.twitter.com/IqMfmKzA7N
— Ethiopian Human Rights Commission (@EthioHRC) A general view of a ditch in the outskirts of Mai Kadra, Ethiopia, Nov. 21, 2020, filled with more than 20 bodies of victims that were allegedly killed in a massacre on Nov. 9, 2020.“Just before they retreated and left the area, it has now become very clear that they have carefully planned and executed quite an atrocious massacre against the civilians, which targeted people on the basis of ethnic identity,” Daniel Bekele, the chief commissioner, told VOA in a phone interview Tuesday. Bekele called it “an atrocity crime executed in a very terrible way, which may amount to crimes against humanity or even a war crime.”The Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), the Tigray region’s ruling party, did not immediately comment on the commission’s report, though it previously has denied involvement in the Mai-Kadra killings. Interrupted phone and internet connections in Tigray also make it difficult for journalists to independently verify information.Survivors of the Mai-Kadra massacre, recover at the Gondar University Hospital, in the city of Gondar, Ethiopia, Nov. 20, 2020.But Ashenafi said witnesses and survivors also related stories of humanity and heroism.An ethnic Tigrayan woman cited in the report “saved 13 ethnic Amharas. She hid them in her house” and later escorted them to temporary shelter on a large farm, Ashenafi said.Another Tigray woman suffered machete wounds on her hands as she tried to rescue a man who had been set on fire, Ashenafi said.Such efforts “gave us hope, and we believe a light should be shed on them,” the researcher said.In Twitter posts, Tibor Nagy, U.S. assistant secretary of state for African affairs, condemned what he called “the massacre of civilians in Mai-Kadra.” He also called for Ethiopian authorities “to conduct a thorough investigation.”We urge the Ethiopian authorities to conduct a thorough investigation into this massacre and to bring those responsible to justice in accordance with the rule of law.
— Tibor Nagy (@AsstSecStateAF) November 13, 2020(This report originated in VOA’s Africa Division, with Tsion Girma contributing from the Amhara Service.)
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Pandemic Postpones National Math, Reading Tests Until 2022
National reading and math tests long used to track what U.S. students know in those subjects are being postponed from next year to 2022 over concerns about whether testing would be feasible or produce valid results during the coronavirus pandemic, the National Center for Education Statistics announced Wednesday.The biennial National Assessment of Educational Progress evaluations used for the Nation’s Report Card were slated for early next year for hundreds of thousands of the country’s fourth- and eighth-graders. But widespread remote learning and health protocols would have added big complications and costs because the model uses shared equipment and sends outside proctors to conduct the testing in schools.Pushing ahead with testing in 2021 runs the risk of spending tens of millions of dollars and still not getting the data necessary to produce a reliable, comparable picture of state and national student performance, NCES Commissioner James Woodworth said in a statement. By law, they would have to wait another two years for the next chance at testing.Testing in 2022 instead “would be more likely to provide valuable — and valid — data about student achievement in the wake of COVID-19 to support effective policy, research, and resource allocation,” the leaders of the National Assessment Governing Board said in a separate statement supporting the move.The nonpartisan Council of Chief State School Officers also supported the NAEP postponement.Ohio Department of Education spokesperson Mandy Minick called it “entirely understandable” given the extensive disruptions schools are facing.”I think we’re all on the same page about trying to stress health and safety,” she said.However, the decision also delays data that could help show how the pandemic is impacting learning.Woodworth suggested that results from states’ annual tests — generally conducted using schools’ own equipment and staff, and perhaps therefore more feasible than the national tests — could help bridge the gap and provide a state-level look at the impact. But the NAEP postponement might have ripple effects in the debate about whether those state tests even happen in spring 2021.State tests, which are federally mandated and are used more for accountability purposes, were canceled last spring under federal waivers as the pandemic surged. The current presidential administration had indicated states shouldn’t expect to be granted another round of waivers if they request them, but it’s an issue likely to come up again after President-elect Joe Biden’s administration takes office.”If the national assessment can’t be done in ’21, states are legitimately going to say, ‘Well, why are we expected to test in ’21?'” said Chester Finn, a former chair of the National Assessment Governing Board and president emeritus of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute who advocates results-based accountability.If states get to skip the tests again this spring, that could create a multiyear gap in data that helps inform other decisions and identify concerns, and that’s problematic, Finn said.”If you’re not held accountable for your results, or there’s no way to do it because there’s no information about your results, then all sorts of bad things happen to the education system and to the kids in the education system,” he said. “We sort of go back to the pre-accountability days, when, you know, the only thing you knew about a kid’s learning was the teachers’ grades, and the only thing you knew about a school’s performance was what the principal said it was, and nobody had data on gaps between different groups of kids.”
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Ethiopia’s Leaders Rebuff Foreign Appeals for Diplomatic Solution in Tigray
Ethiopia’s prime minister has rejected calls for dialogue to end an internal conflict that has already killed hundreds and displaced more than 40,000 people in the key U.S. ally in East Africa — a stance that has alarmed diplomats from Addis Ababa to Washington about the potential for escalating conflict. On Wednesday, Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed — who last year was granted a Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts in ending a long-simmering conflict between his country and neighboring Eritrea — released a statement addressed not to his actual opponents, the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), but to the international community. “As a sovereign state, Ethiopia has every right to uphold and enforce its own laws within its own territory,” Abiy said of the conflict that started in early November when the TPLF attacked federal forces. “And that is exactly what we are doing.” FILE – Ethiopia’s Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed attends a ceremony in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, Dec. 7, 2019.Also this week, Abiy’s predecessor penned a provocative statement in Foreign Policy magazine, rejecting regional and international calls seeking dialogue. Abiy’s office quickly retweeted large chunks of the article, titled, “Ethiopia’s Government and the TPLF Leadership Are Not Morally Equivalent.” “I truly believe,” former Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn wrote, “that most people recommending this approach” — meaning dialogue and negotiation — “are well-intentioned outsiders who are merely echoing the conventional wisdom of how one should resolve conflicts in Africa.” Diplomats publicly urge dialogue The three-week-old crisis between the federal government and armed officials in the Tigray region has already alarmed diplomats around the world, who have almost unanimously urged the young prime minister to resolve it peacefully. Officials at the State Department — both current officials and those who will represent U.S. policy under President-elect Joe Biden — continue to publicly urge dialogue. “I’m deeply concerned about the risk of violence against civilians, including potential war crimes, in the fighting around Mekelle in Ethiopia,” Jake Sullivan, Biden’s choice for national security adviser, tweeted on Wednesday. Ethiopia’s Human Rights Commission on Tuesday issued a preliminary report alleging at least 600 people had been killed in the Tigray region town of Mai-Kadra on November 9, echoing similar findings by a FILE – U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, right, greets South Africa’s President Cyril Ramaphosa at the United Nations in New York, Sept. 25, 2018.U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Wednesday echoed his support for the AU mediation efforts. “The secretary-general reiterates the full support of the United Nations to the initiative of the chairperson of the African Union, President Cyril Ramaphosa of South Africa, to facilitate peaceful solutions,” said spokesman Farhan Haq. “He urges all parties to seize this opportunity to de-escalate tensions.” Ben Rhodes, the longest-serving member of former President Barack Obama’s foreign policy team, and Sullivan’s co-chair at National Security Action, a political NGO, agreed on the importance of dialogue. “Hard to overstate the danger of continued escalation in Ethiopia,” he said. “The coming weeks will be enormously consequential. Hopefully, Ethiopians internalize this message and de-escalate from the current course — dialogue is an available option.” Their calls have been echoed by the U.S. State Department’s Assistant Secretary for African Affairs Tibor Nagy, who last week said: “At a point where mediation will become useful — i.e., that the two parties indicate an interest in mediation — you can bet that the United States would be there in an instant. … At this point, neither party, from everything we hear, is interested in mediation.” ‘Long and proud history’ But, as Abiy and Hailemariam point out, Ethiopia’s history is a long and complex one, in which power has long been dominated by groups from the Amhara and Tigray regions. Abiy, a member of the majority Oromo group, and the first Oromo to occupy a position of such importance, has tried to redress that imbalance since he took office in 2018. And so Abiy’s statement began, tellingly, with the declaration that “Ethiopia is a country with a long and proud history of statehood.” It is, as Ethiopian officials are wont to point out, the only African nation never to have been colonized, and was a founding member of the AU and of the U.N. FILE – Ethiopia’s Prime Minister Meles Zenawi addresses a news conference in Addis Ababa, Jan. 27, 2012.In both recent and ancient history — from the 1896 battle of Adwa, in which Ethiopian forces soundly defeated Italian forces, thus preventing them from staking a colonial claim, to the forceful sentiments of former Prime Minister Meles Zenawi that Ethiopia was “not the West’s whipping boy” — the East African nation has stood firm and proud against foreign interference. But the internal dynamic is more complicated, says analyst Ahmed Soliman, a researcher from London-based Chatham House. “The divisions within Ethiopia — political and ethnic — have extremely deep roots,” he told VOA. “There are structural issues here that really haven’t been sufficiently addressed, while I recognize there hasn’t been time to sufficiently resolve them so far, given the number of other competing priorities during the last few years.” Meles himself was born in the Tigrayan city of Adwa, and was a member of the 1991 force that swept into the capital and deposed the military junta that ran the country. His government established the ruling Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front, which incorporated key leaders from the TPLF. He served from 1991 until his death in 2012. His long tenure taught TPLF leadership how to market themselves to the international community, Hailemariam argues in his Foreign Policy article. “A TPLF-dominated coalition ruled Ethiopia shrewdly for 27 years,” FILE – Tibor Nagy, U.S. assistant secretary of state for African affairs, speaks at a press conference in Bangui, Central African Republic, Jan. 20, 2020.What the TPLF is thinking remains unclear. A communications blackout and travel restrictions have made it difficult for anyone to verify its claims. Nagy, a former ambassador to Ethiopia who holds an honorary doctorate from the University of Mekelle, which is in Tigray’s capital, postulated: “It seems like they were doing this more to depose the prime minister from power and to reassert themselves into the prominent position that they had atop the Ethiopian political spectrum for the last 27 years,” he said. “So, hopefully, right now I think that their tactic has had the opposite effect from what they were planning.“But again, I want to make it very clear that this is not about Tigray,” Ambassador Nagy added. “There is no equivalency here. This is not two sovereign states fighting against each other. This is a faction of the government running a region in Ethiopia that has decided to undertake hostilities against the central government, and it has not – in my view – had the effect that they thought that they were going to get.” So what now? Soliman says there may be only one way to break the cycle. “There needs to be a coming together and a discussion about the responsibilities of opposing political forces moving forward and a genuine attempt to reach some form of consensus through commitment to inclusive dialogue,” he said. “I don’t see conflict and zero-sum thinking as being the way forward for resolving these internal divisions and for there to be peace in Ethiopia in the region moving forward.” Anita Powell was the Associated Press’ Ethiopia correspondent from 2007 to 2009 and has returned regularly in her work as VOA’s Africa correspondent based in Johannesburg.
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YouTube Suspends US Network for Misinformation
A U.S. network has been suspended from YouTube for a week for a video that the social media platform says violated its coronavirus misinformation policy.As of Tuesday, the conservative One America News Network (OAN) was suspended from uploading videos and livestreams to YouTube for one week. The platform, owned by Google, also suspended OAN from its Partner Program, which lets channels earn money through advertising and subscriptions.The YouTube logoThe suspension was imposed for a video that YouTube determined was in violation of its rules about the pandemic, which include not sharing misinformation about treatments or the virus.“Since early in this pandemic, we’ve worked to prevent the spread of harmful misinformation associated with COVID-19 on YouTube,” Ivy Choi, a YouTube spokesperson, said in a statement shared with VOA. “After careful review, we removed a video from OANN and issued a strike on the channel for violating our COVID-19 misinformation policy, which prohibits content claiming there’s a guaranteed cure.”YouTube did not directly say what the video showed.OAN provided VOA with a link to the video it says led to the YouTube suspension. The video questions whether a vaccine or lockdown measures are necessary and discusses hydroxychloroquine.The anti-malaria drug has proved to be ineffective against the coronavirus in several studies.Biden Plans Sharp Change in Coronavirus Response Pandemic is among president-elect’s top issues for Day One in office YouTube has a three-strikes policy. Users issued with three strikes for violating a policy within 90 days are permanently removed from the platform.Choi said that because of repeated violations of YouTube’s COVID-19 misinformation policy and monetization policies, OAN was suspended “from the YouTube Partner Program and as a result, its monetization on YouTube.”Channels can reapply for the Partner Program but must show they have addressed the issues that led to their removal, YouTube says.In a statement shared with VOA, OAN said that the video flagged by YouTube was not public, but unlisted “for review by internal OAN staff only.”The network said it would abide by policies for video available on YouTube but “OAN will not let YouTube’s arbitrary rules infringe upon its First Amendment editorial rights to inform the public.”COVID authoritiesOAN added, “It is our understanding that YouTube only recognizes two authorities for COVID-19, namely the CDC [the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention] and local county health experts. We believe that the opinions of frontline doctors should also be heard, regardless if their views agree or differ from the CDC.”The conservative cable network OAN was founded in 2013 and has 1.22 million YouTube subscribers.The network has been supportive of President Donald Trump, who has shared and praised its reporting. OAN amplified Trump’s unsupported claims of voter fraud in the U.S. presidential election, Reuters reported. Earlier this year, Trump shared an unsubstantiated report by OAN that a man knocked to the ground by police in Buffalo, New York, was part of antifa, an umbrella term for left-leaning militant groups.Trump also praised OAN in a November 15 tweet about Fox News, saying, “Many great alternatives are forming & exist,” and recommending his followers try the network.This is why @FoxNews daytime and weekend daytime have lost their ratings. They are abysmal having @alfredenewman1 (Mayor Pete of Indiana’s most unsuccessful city, by far!) on more than Republicans. Many great alternatives are forming & exist. Try @OANN & @newsmax, among others! https://t.co/ewHE8GBRNy— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 15, 2020The influence of social media companies on American politics has become a potent issue in Washington in recent years. Politicians often complain that the platforms and their moderation policies are unfair to certain political factions or are worsening political tensions by spreading false and divisive content.Congress questioned the heads of Twitter and Facebook last week about policies, including on content moderation, with Republicans asking about claims that social media platforms flag or remove more posts from conservative voices.The platforms deny bias and say they are enforcing policies on hate speech and disinformation.During the hearing, Senator Richard Blumenthal, a Democrat from Connecticut, said Google has been given a “pass” and was being rewarded for its “timidity” in content moderation.Letter to YouTube CEOAlso on Tuesday, four Democratic senators sent a letter to YouTube’s CEO, Susan Wojcicki, urging the platform to remove content that they said spread misinformation on election results.Since February, YouTube has removed 200,000 videos that it determined contained dangerous or misleading information about the novel coronavirus. The platform says it has expanded its policies on medical information to include possible threats to misinformation about the pandemic and treatments for COVID-19.Some information in this report is from Reuters.
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Trump Pardons Flynn, Taking Direct Aim at Russia Probe
President Donald Trump pardoned former national security adviser Michael Flynn on Wednesday, taking direct aim in the final days of his administration at a Russia investigation that he has long insisted was motivated by political bias. “It is my Great Honor to announce that General Michael T. Flynn has been granted a Full Pardon,” Trump tweeted. “Congratulations to @GenFlynn and his wonderful family, I know you will now have a truly fantastic Thanksgiving!” Flynn is the second Trump associate convicted in the Russia probe to be granted clemency by the president. Trump commuted the sentence of longtime confidant Roger Stone just days before he was to report to prison. It is part of a broader effort to undo the results of an investigation that for years has shadowed his administration and yielded criminal charges against a half dozen associates. The action voids the criminal case against Flynn just as a federal judge was weighing, skeptically, whether to grant a Justice Department request to dismiss the prosecution despite Flynn’s own guilty plea to lying to the FBI about his Russia contacts. The move, coming as Trump winds down his single term, is likely to energize supporters who have taken up the case as a cause celebre and rallied around the retired Army lieutenant general as the victim of what they assert is an unfair prosecution. Trump himself has repeatedly spoken warmly about Flynn, even though special counsel Robert Mueller’s prosecutors once praised him as a model cooperator in their probe into ties between Russia and the 2016 Trump campaign. The pardon is the final step in a case defined by twists and turns over the last year after the Justice Department abruptly move to dismiss the case, insisting that Flynn should have never been interviewed by the FBI in the first place, only to have U.S. District Justice Emmet Sullivan refuse the request and appoint a former judge to argue against the federal government’s position. In the months since, a three-judge panel’s decision ordering Sullivan to dismiss the case was overturned by the full appeals court, which sent the matter back to Sullivan. At a hearing in September, Flynn lawyer Sidney Powell told the judge that she had discussed the Flynn case with Trump but also said she did not want a pardon — presumably because she wanted him to be vindicated in the courts. Powell emerged separately in recent weeks as a public face of the Trump’s efforts to overturn the results of his election loss to President-elect Joe Biden, but the Trump legal team ultimately distanced itself from her after she advanced a series of uncorroborated conspiracy claims. The pardon spares Flynn the possibility of any prison sentence, which Sullivan could potentially have imposed had he ultimately decided to reject the Justice Department’s dismissal request. That request was made in May after a review of the case by a federal prosecutor from St. Louis who had been specially appointed by Attorney General William Barr. Flynn acknowledged lying during the FBI interview by saying he had not discussed with the then-Russian ambassador, Sergey Kislyak, sanctions that had just been imposed on Russia for election interference by the outgoing Obama administration. During that conversation, Flynn urged Kislyak for Russia to be “even-keeled” in response to the punitive measures and assured him “we can have a better conversation” about relations between the two countries after Trump became president. The conversation alarmed the FBI, which at the time was investigating whether the Trump campaign and Russia had coordinated to sway the election’s outcome. In addition, White House officials were stating publicly that Flynn and Kislyak had not discussed sanctions. But last May, the Justice Department abruptly reversed its position in the case. It said the FBI had no basis to interview Flynn about Kislyak, then the Russian ambassador to the United States, and that any statements he may have made were not relevant to the FBI’s broader counterintelligence probe. It cited internal FBI notes showing that agents had planned to close out their investigation into Flynn weeks earlier. Flynn was ousted from his position in February 2017 after news broke that he had indeed discussed sanctions with Kislyak, and that former Obama administration officials had warned the White House that he could be vulnerable to blackmail. Flynn was among the first of the president’s aides to admit guilt in Mueller’s investigation, and he cooperated extensively for months. He provided such extensive cooperation that prosecutors did not recommend any prison time and suggested that they would be fine with probation. But on the morning he was to have been sentenced, after a stern rebuke about his behavior from Sullivan, Flynn asked for the hearing to be cut short so that he could continue cooperating and earn credit toward a more lenient sentence. After that, though, he hired new attorneys — including Powell, a conservative commentator and outspoken critic of Mueller’s investigation — who took a far more confrontational stance to the government. The lawyers accused prosecutors of withholding documents and evidence they said was favorable to the case and repeatedly noted that one of the two agents who interviewed Flynn was fired from the FBI for having sent derogatory text messages about Trump during the 2016 campaign.
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Iran Swaps Jailed British-Australian Academic for 3 Iranians Held Abroad
Iran has released a British-Australian academic who had been detained in Iran in exchange for three Iranians who were held in another country, according to Iranian state TV. Kylie Moore-Gilbert, a University of Melbourne lecturer on Middle Eastern studies when she was detained, was sent to a Tehran prison more than two years ago after receiving a 10-year sentence for espionage. She is among several people from Western countries who were detained in recent years in Iran on espionage charges that rights groups and their families maintain are groundless. State TV has described the detained Iranians as “economic activists,” while a state TV-affiliated website described them as a businessman and two citizens who were detained “on baseless charges.” The Young Journalist Club news website provided little information about the Iranians, but it reported they were held for trying to avoid U.S. sanctions that were imposed on Iran two years ago when the U.S. withdrew from the Iran nuclear agreement. Iran’s Revolutionary Guards have arrested dozens of dual nationals in recent years, primarily on espionage charges. Rights activists contend that Tehran has detained dual nationals to secure concessions from other countries. Iran has denied holding people for political reasons and accused many of the detainees of espionage. The British government did not immediately comment on Moore-Gilbert’s release.
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Nigerian Activists Call for Better Tracking of Sex Offenders
Nigerian activists are calling for better tracking of sex offenders after the number of rapes tripled during the COVID-19 pandemic. But as Ifiok Ettang reports from Jos, Nigeria, the social shame of rape often leads to silencing victims instead of prosecuting offenders.
Camera: Ifiok Ettang Produced by: Jon Spier
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NGOs, Journalists Concerned French Bill Would Restrict Liberties
A controversial security bill that is drawing protests from journalists and rights groups has cleared the lower chamber of France’s National Assembly.The so-called Global Security bill has sparked street protests and drawn angry criticism from media and rights groups that accuse the government of Emmanuel Macron of pushing illiberal measures akin to those of less developed democracies. The law aims to improve regulations for the use of drones and dash cams by security forces. It also creates new rules for private security companies and new prerogatives for local police. But to some human rights activists, parts of the text are concerning. Nicolas Krameyer, Amnesty International’s France program manager, said it is concerning that the bill would enable vast surveillance against citizens, with police officers equipped with dash cams and the use of drones to monitor civilians during protests. FILE – Masked protesters attend a demonstration as French parliament begins to discuss a proposed law that would make it a crime in some circumstances to circulate an image of a police officer’s face, in Nantes, France, Nov. 17, 2020.NGOs, including the press freedom group Reporters Without Borders, expressed concerns about the bill, especially Article 24, which would make it a criminal offense for anyone to disseminate images that — according to the text — might “harm the physical or mental integrity” of police officers. Those found guilty could be punished by a year in prison or a fine of up to $53,000. In a rare rebuke, the European Commission declared earlier this week that news media must be able to work freely. France’s Prime Minister Jean Castex discussed those concerns in a speech to French lawmakers this week. Castex said the intent was not to restrain freedom of the press and freedom of expression, and no one would be prevented from shooting and sharing videos involving policemen. Article 24, Castex said, is meant to protect security forces. French media professionals remain skeptical about the bill, which many of them believe could prevent them from reporting cases of police abuse. Krameyer said that with this law, contrary to what the government says, any journalist and citizen would be in trouble if they report, shoot and share videos involving the police. He said he fears the law opens the door for arbitrary procedures by security forces. The French Senate will vote on the Global Security bill in January. Castex has promised to ask France’s high court to review — and possibly strike down — the bill.
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US Congress Running Out of Time to Address COVID-19 Economic Impact
Millions of Americans are unemployed this holiday season due to the closures brought on by the coronavirus pandemic. Millions more are facing economic uncertainty and concerns about access to testing and health care resources.But as the holiday season begins amid surging numbers of infections, that reality has not broken the monthslong political deadlock on Capitol Hill over addressing the financial impact of the pandemic.According to unemployment numbers released Wednesday, more than 770,000 people filed new claims last week. While that number is not close to the record high reached earlier this year at the beginning of the pandemic, it does mark the second week of rising unemployment numbers.U.S. lawmakers from both parties agree the American people need a new round of aid to address unemployment, food insecurity and access to health care. But this Thanksgiving week, lawmakers are back in their home districts, and food banks in the nation’s capital are facing record demand.Lining up for food“Pre-pandemic, we had 400,000 individuals. It’s now closer to 600,000 food-insecure individuals. So, in eight months, that number has gone up by just about 60%,” said Radha Muthiah, president and CEO of Washington, D.C.-based Capital Area Food Bank.“We see working families and individuals who were able to live and make it paycheck to paycheck before, and they had multiple jobs in their household. But now, when one or two or more of those jobs are no longer available, and they find themselves unemployed on all fronts, they’re navigating an emergency food assistance network that they never had to before,” said Muthiah.A Cars line-up as the Los Angeles Regional Food Bank distributes food outside a church during the outbreak of COVID-19 in Los Angeles, California, Nov. 19, 2020.Programs endingWithout a deal on a new round of aid, two key programs are set to lapse December 26.According to an analysis by The Century Foundation think tank, 7.3 million people will lose their benefits when the Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA) program expires, and 4.6 million will lose their benefits when the Pandemic Emergency Unemployment Compensation (PEUC) program lapses at the end of the year.Student debt relief and a national eviction moratorium are also set to expire at year’s end. The lapse in eviction relief is estimated to impact as many as 30 million people, according to an Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., flanked by Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., left, and Sen. Todd Young, R-Ind., talks to reporters on Capitol Hill in Washington, Nov. 17, 2020.McConnell responded last week, saying, “Senate Republicans have voted multiple times to send hundreds of billions of dollars for schools, small businesses, health care, and laid-off workers. If Speaker Pelosi and Leader Schumer had not made the calculation to block it, that money could have been out the door many weeks ago. Instead, our Democratic colleagues have spent months holding all of that urgent help hostage over unrelated left-wing wish-list items.”When the Senate and House return to Washington following a holiday break on Monday, lawmakers will have just 15 days left in session this year and a packed legislative schedule. They are facing a battle over renaming military bases named for Confederate generals and a December 11 expiration of government funding.Surging coronavirus casesEven with several promising vaccine candidates poised for distribution in the new year, Americans are still facing a grim winter.The United States reached 12.4 million confirmed COVID-19 infections this week and more than 250,000 deaths, according to statistics from the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center. The United States has also been facing daily high numbers of cases in recent days, with the number of infections expected to surge as people travel for the Thanksgiving holiday.Muthiah said the economic impact of the pandemic will be long-lasting.“The need is not likely to disappear in the next three or four months. We’ve seen this need continuing easily for 12 to 24 months,” she said.
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