Italy’s Mount Etna, Europe’s most active volcano, lit up the sky overnight Sunday into the predawn hours Monday with bursts of hot lava, some going as high as 100 meters into the air. Etna is on the Mediterranean island of Sicily. Scientists with Italy’s National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology, report there were two eruptive fissures on the southeastern crater of the mountain. Geologists report the mountain has been active on and off for the past two months. The Reuters news agency reported that ash from the eruption covered parts of nearby small Catanian villages between Pedara and Tremestieri Etneo. On Monday morning, cars, streets and balconies were covered in black ash as workers and locals worked to clear it up. Volcanic ash from Mount Etna, which erupted during the night, covers a village road near Catania, Italy, Dec. 14, 2020 in this still image taken from video.The 3,330-meter-high Mount Etna is the second-most active volcano in the world, after Hawaii’s Kilauea. It can burst into spectacular action several times a year, spewing lava and ash high over Sicily.
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Month: December 2020
Security Video Shows Aboriginal Boys in Australia Threatened, Mistreated in Custody
Security camera footage shows a police officer grabbing, shoving, and verbally abusing a teenage Aboriginal boy in a police station in Alice Springs in Australia’s Northern Territory. The video was recorded in March 2018.The officer’s language is crass and his tone is threatening towards a group of indigenous boys aged between 12 and 16 arrested for stealing a car and leading police on a chase. He is seen apparently twisting one boy’s arm around his back and pushing him into a bench. Two officers were the subject of disciplinary proceedings but authorities in the Northern Territory have said they were not allowed by law to divulge what action was taken, if any. A Royal Commission in 2017 recommended improvements to the way Northern Territory authorities treated young indigenous people, but justice advocates are questioning whether anything has changed.June Oscar is Australia’s Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner. “Disgusted with what I saw, what I heard, I am appalled at the footage and the treatment of young people by the so-called authorities,” Oscar said.The footage was obtained by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation under freedom of information laws. The Northern Territory ombudsman, a public sector watchdog, said the officers’ actions had “substantially exceeded” what was appropriate. The incident took place less than six months after the end of a royal commission investigation into youth justice in the Northern Territory. It was prompted by revelations of mistreatment of young people in the youth detention system. It made a number of recommendations, including mechanisms to keep Aboriginal children out of custody and boost support for their families. Campaigners believe that attitudes within law enforcement have barely changed despite the royal commission’s report. Aboriginal Australians make up 29 per cent of all prisoners in custody, while indigenous people comprise just 3 per cent of the national population. The Northern Territory police has said its officers were expected to achieve high standards of behavior.
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Endangered-Species Decision Expected on Beloved Butterfly
Trump administration officials are expected to say this week whether the monarch butterfly, a colorful and familiar backyard visitor now caught in a global extinction crisis, should receive federal designation as a threatened species. Stepped-up use of farm herbicides, climate change and destruction of milkweed plants on which they depend have caused a massive decline of the orange-and-black butterflies, which long have flitted over meadows, gardens and wetlands across the U.S. The drop-off that started in the mid-1990s has spurred a preservation campaign involving schoolchildren, homeowners and landowners, conservation groups, governments and businesses. Some contend those efforts are enough to save the monarch without federal regulation. But environmental groups say protection under the Endangered Species Act is essential — particularly for populations in the West, where last year fewer than 30,000 remained of the millions that spent winters in California’s coastal groves during the 1980s. This year’s count, though not yet official, is expected to show only about 2,000 there, said Sarina Jepsen, director of the endangered species program at the Xerces Society conservation group. “We may be witnessing the collapse of the of the monarch population in the West,” Jepsen said. Scientists separately estimate up to an 80% monarch decline since the mid-1990s in the eastern U.S., although numbers there have shown a recent uptick. FILE – Monarch butterflies fly between trees at the Sierra Chincua butterfly sanctuary on a mountain in the Mexican state of Michoacan, Mexico, Nov. 29, 2019.The Trump administration has rolled back protections for endangered and threatened species in its push for deregulation, even as the United Nations says 1 million species — one of every eight on Earth — face extinction because of climate change, development and other human causes. Under a court agreement, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service must respond by Tuesday to a 2014 petition from conservation groups on behalf of the monarch. The agency could propose or decline to list the butterfly as threatened, which means likely to become in danger of extinction within the foreseeable future throughout all or much of its range. Or it could find that a such listing is deserved but other species have a higher priority, which might delay action indefinitely. A recommendation to designate the butterfly as threatened would be followed by a yearlong period to take public comment and reach a final decision. Listing it “would guarantee that the monarch would get a comprehensive recovery plan and ongoing funding,” said Tierra Curry, a senior scientist with the Center for Biological Diversity. “The monarch is so threatened that this is the only prudent thing to do.” If the status is granted, federal agencies would have to consult with the Fish and Wildlife Service about potential harm to monarchs from actions proposed for government funding or permitting, such as expanding interstate highways. The service would prescribe other measures in a regulation tailored specifically for the butterfly. Orley “Chip” Taylor, an insect ecologist at the University of Kansas, agreed the butterfly’s long-term prognosis is grim but said he opposes a federal listing for now, fearing it would sour many rural residents on helping the monarch. “There’s a palpable fear of regulation out there,” he said, adding that voluntary measures should be given additional time. Monarchs in southern Canada and the eastern U.S. migrate by the millions to mountainous areas of Mexico each winter, while those west of the continental divide head to coastal California. They congregate so thickly in forests that scientists can estimate their numbers through aerial inspections of trees with an orange hue. Worsening droughts are reducing the number that survive the journey south for winter, Taylor said, while rising temperatures prompt the butterflies to leave their wintering grounds too soon, damaging reproduction. As the forests dry out, wildfire risk worsens. If habitat losses and climate change aren’t slowed, “we aren’t going to have a monarch migration in 30 years,” Taylor said. Environmental groups say 67 million hectares of monarch habitat — an area the size of Texas — have been lost in the past 20 years to development or herbicide applications in cropland. Twenty-five years ago, the 6-year-old son of a chemist named Jim Edward just happened to catch a monarch tagged by Oberhauser’s researchers, when the butterfly wandered into Edward’s yard in Minnesota. Since then, captivated by the butterfly and its complex migration over generations, Edward has raised monarchs to tell and show hundreds of school groups about the unending migrations. “Just the exposure of kids to that, that don’t necessarily get to see” wildlife otherwise, he said. “Their enthusiasm, their joy, their ‘oh, wowness’ — to see that.” Some enthusiasts fear they could no longer harvest eggs and raise monarchs if the species gains federal protections. Curry said her group has recommended that careful, small-scale, noncommercial raising be allowed. Sheila Naylor, a substitute teacher near Sedalia, Mo., says the chance discovery of a milkweed plant in her yard five years ago inspired a quest to grow the monarch’s host plant in every available inch of yard and roadside. She visits the Missouri state fair, schools and elder care homes, pleading the case for preserving monarch and other native butterflies. “I push myself,” Naylor said, “because the butterflies keep me going.”
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Thailand’s Democratic Reform Drive Goes Local with Provincial Elections
In Thailand, a group of ex-lawmakers shut out of national politics by a controversial court order is taking its reform agenda to the provinces by backing like-minded candidates in local elections long dominated by entrenched family networks.Thailand is holding elections to fill its Provincial Administrative Organizations (PAOs) on Dec. 20 for the first time since 2012, having put off local polls after a 2014 coup that brought on five years of military rule.Under the banner of their Progressive Movement, the former lawmakers are campaigning hard for hundreds of candidates with the same broad pro-democracy goals that have been galvanizing the student-led protests roiling Bangkok for the past few months.Thai prominent opposition figure Thanathorn Juangroongruangkit addresses the media as he attends a pro-democracy rally in Bangkok on Sept. 19, 2020.”By competing in the local politics, we have the opportunity to [say] to the people that if we want a democratic Thailand, building a democratic local political base is very important,” the Movement’s co-founder, Thanathorn Juangroongruangkit, told VOA at the end of a busy day of campaigning late last week.Thailand’s Prime Minister Prayut Chan-O-Cha attends a signing ceremony for the agreement to purchase AstraZeneca’s potential COVID-19 vaccine at Government House in Bangkok on Nov. 27, 2020.’The same ideals’National elections for parliament last year nominally returned Thailand to civilian rule. Yet many Thais believe the contest was rigged. Following the election’s inconclusive results, coup leader Prayut Chan-ocha won a parliamentary vote for prime minister thanks to new rules his junta wrote into the constitution and the ballots of a junta-appointed Senate.
The same elections also saw the new Future Forward party, led by Thanathorn, finish a strong third on a progressive platform that struck a chord with younger voters. The party pushed for constitutional amendments what would have rolled back the military’s political privileges and opposed moves to expand the powers of King Maha Vajiralongkorn.
But the party’s time in parliament proved short-lived. Barraged with lawsuits, it was finally brought down in February over a pair of loans the Constitutional Court deemed illegal. The court promptly ordered the party dissolved and its executives barred from public office for the next 10 years. Future Forward called the case a hoax, and its prosecution set in motion the wave of protests now filling Bangkok’s streets.
The protests have taken on a life of their own since coalescing around Future Forward a year ago. A new batch of young activists independent of the former party has taken the reins. Demands for Prayut to step down and stronger checks on the king are now front and center.
But the protesters and the Progressive Movement are still riding the same sweeping reformist current, said Titipol Phakdeewanich, dean of the political science faculty at Ubon Ratchathani University.”They have the same ideology … to make Thailand more liberal and more democratic,” he said. “They also have the same feeling that they want Thailand to change, to be a more liberal country, liberal society.”
They may be tackling that goal at different levels of Thai politics, Thanathorn said, but “we share the same ideals.”
“Local politics in Thailand has been dominated by local political dynasties for too much and for too long,” he said. “If we want to see democracy at the national level, I believe it is crucial we build it from the bottom up.”
To that end, the Progressive Movement is backing candidates for PAO chief in 42 of Thailand’s 76 provinces and about 800 other hopefuls running for the roughly 1,900 PAO council seats also up for grabs.A demonstrator holds signs during a pro-democracy rally demanding changes in the monarchy and government in Bangkok, Thailand, Dec. 10, 2020.’A patronage system’Set up in the 1990s to give local communities more say in government, PAOs decide how to spend a share of Thailand’s tax proceeds in each province, mostly on public services from roads and schools to parks and markets. Combined, they dole out about $2.7 billion a year.
But pundits say many PAOs have been all but captured by politically connected family clans that win election after election by handing out jobs and contracts and other benefits while corralling votes for national parties.
“It’s kind of a patronage system,” and one with national implications, said Punchada Sirivunnabood, an associate professor of politics at Thailand’s Mahidol University.
“If the national politicians want to win the elections, they need to ask for support from the local politicians,” she said, and “everyone knows which family controls which province.”
The Progressive Movement wants to upend that system by injecting more competition into each race with new candidates and by putting policy before patronage.Thanathorn said that patronage system often pours money into projects that don’t deliver. He wants to make PAOs more accountable by opening the books on how much money they spend on what and by finding new ways of giving locals a say in how that money gets spent.
Winning won’t be easy. Punchada said the Progressive Movement may manage to pick up votes in some urban areas, where populations skew younger, but will struggle to convince most rural voters to break ties with deep-rooted incumbents.
Titipol also doubts the Movement can carry over the success its progenitor, Future Forward, saw in last year’s national elections. While most of the other major parties that ran won the majority of their parliamentary seats by winning individual constituencies, Future Forward won most of its seats among those apportioned by the total share of votes parties won nationwide. Titipol said the PAO elections are all first-past-the-post races.
The Progressive Movement will also have to make it to election day.
Thailand’s Election Commission is investigating a complaint that the Movement is in effect a political party even though it is not registered as such and claims to not be one. Election laws bar political parties from openly supporting PAO candidates, though analysts say many are well known to be connected informally.The Movement says it is doing nothing wrong. But if convicted by a court, Thanathorn and other Movement leaders could be fined or jailed and see their candidates disqualified.
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Famous Waldorf Astoria Clock in NYC Gets a New Look
A beloved meeting spot for generations of New Yorkers, the Waldorf Astoria clock has recently undergone a meticulous restoration and is on view at the New York Historical Society. Vladimir Lenski has the story, narrated by Anna Rice.Camera: Max Avloshenko
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US Set to Vaccinate High-Risk Health Care Workers
In the United States, nearly three million doses of the nation’s first COVID-19 vaccine will be delivered this week to states to administer to high-risk health care workers as the nation’s death toll from the disease continues to rise. Michelle Quinn reports.Produced by: Mary Cieslak
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Chinese Dams Under US Scrutiny in Mekong Rivalry
A U.S.-funded project using satellites to track and publish water levels at Chinese dams on the Mekong River was announced Monday, adding to the superpowers’ rivalry in Southeast Asia.The 4,350-km (2,700-mile) waterway, known as the Lancang in China and flowing south through Myanmar, Laos, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam, has become a focus of competition.Beijing has dismissed U.S. research saying Chinese dams have retained water to the detriment of downstream nations, where 60 million people depend on the river for fishing and farming.The Mekong Dam Monitor, partly funded by the State Department, uses data from cloud-piercing satellites to track levels of dams in China and other countries.The information will be available in near real-time starting Tuesday.A separate indicator of “surface wetness” is to show what parts of the region are wetter or drier than usual, a guide to how much natural flows are being affected by the dams.”The monitor provides evidence that China’s 11 mainstream dams are sophisticatedly orchestrated and operated in a way to maximize the production of hydropower for sale to China’s eastern provinces with zero consideration given to downstream impacts,” said Brian Eyler of the Washington-based Stimson Center, a global think tank that operates the virtual water gauges.China has been critical of past research, including a study by Eyes on Earth, part of the Mekong Dam Monitor project, that said water had been held back in 2019 as other countries suffered severe drought.”The United States has been unable to provide good evidence throughout,” the state-backed China Renewable Energy Engineering Institute said in a December 4 report.”The positive benefits of upstream Lancang River hydropower on downstream Mekong neighbors are clear and obvious,” it said, adding that water stored in reservoirs during the flood season helped prevent both downstream floods and droughts.China agreed earlier this year to share water data with the Mekong River Commission, an advisory body to Thailand, Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam that had long sought the information for better planning.China and the United States have rival bodies working with Mekong countries: The Beijing-based Lancang-Mekong Cooperation and the Mekong-U.S. Partnership.The two nations are also at odds in the South China Sea, where Washington challenges Beijing’s claim to most of the waterway, a major conduit for trade that is also rich in energy resources.
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Eswatini PM Dies at 52; Cause Not Specified
The prime minister of the African kingdom of Eswatini died Sunday in a South African hospital, the government announced Sunday without specifying the cause of this death.
Ambrose Dlamini, prime minister of the continent’s last absolute monarchy, was 52 years old. Eswatini was formerly known as Swaziland.”His majesty has asked me to inform the nation of the sad and untimely death” of the prime minister “this afternoon while being treated in a hospital in South Africa,” Deputy Prime Minister Themba Masuku said in a press release.He had been hospitalized in South Africa since December 1, more than two weeks after being diagnosed with COVID-19.He announced November 15 that he had tested positive for the coronavirus that causes the disease, adding that he was asymptomatic and feeling well. He was then preparing to “work from home” until cleared by doctors.But it was decided, “in order to accelerate his recovery,” to transfer him to a South African hospital December 1, the deputy prime minister announced.According to the latest figures released Sunday, before the announcement of this death, Eswatini recorded more than 6,700 cases including 127 deaths from COVID-19, for a population of 1.2 million inhabitants.In October 2018, Mandvulo Ambrose Dlamini, former bank director and then CEO of the Swazi branch of mobile phone giant MTN, succeeded Sibusiso Barnabas Dlamini, who had recently died of illness. The role of the head of government is extremely limited in the Eswatini, where the king, in office since 1986, appoints ministers and controls parliament.In this poor and landlocked country in southern Africa, political parties are not allowed to participate in the polls.
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What’s Worse, Hunger or COVID: Phnom Penh Street Vendors Ask Themselves Daily
The plight during the COVID pandemic of Khim Ha, a 46-year-old Phnom Penh food cart vendor and member of the Khmer Krom ethnic group — which is frequently involved in such small businesses — shows how the pandemic has hit the earnings of the city’s informal workers.
Before the pandemic hit, every day she wheeled her food cart to a busy corner in the Chaktomuk commune, or neighborhood, the capital’s hustling central commercial and political quarter home to banks, companies, and branded fashion stores, to sell fried noodles with vegetables, eggs, and beef, chicken or pork breakfasts.
Over the past 10 months, as Phnom Penh’s businesses and offices have been closed by the coronavirus, her income has been cut by half because the workers she once fed no longer have jobs.
“My sales had been down for months,” she told VOA Khmer Thursday, “It’s been dropping – drop and drop.”Now, a recent outbreak in Phnom Penh and a few of the country’s provinces might be the death knell for her small and struggling business.Cambodia said November 28 it had identified six new cases of COVID-19 but could not contact-trace the source of the infections. In the last two weeks, the number of cases has grown to 40, and the government has ordered people to stay home as much as possible, leaving shopping malls and local markets largely empty.This left Khim Ha facing a choice to either stay home and lose all income or risk infection while continuing to sell fried noodles.“I am also scared deep inside because I can be infected with the virus any time, but I keep protecting myself with masks,” Khim Ha said.She said the risk has not paid off because few people are venturing out, let alone eating street vendor food. To make things worse, she usually claims a spot for her noodle cart on a section of Preah Sihanouk Boulevard, with its well-known shops and now, a COVID-19 cluster of at least seven cases. Each day she sets up, Khim Ha joins other street vendors, ride-hailing tuk-tuk drivers and all the other self-employed or informal workers with little option but to continue working through the current outbreak.There is no clear estimate of the number of informal workers in Cambodia. The International Labor Organization estimates more than 60% of Cambodians contribute to the informal economy. This does not include the workers employed in agriculture, which is about 33% of the country’s overall workforce and largely informal. These workers have little or none of the social protections workers in the formal sector enjoy. Tourism and garment industry workers who lost their jobs during the pandemic have received small monthly payments as factories and hotels have closed in the last nine months.
The only way informal workers can receive state benefits is to qualify as “IDPoor,” a state- and donor-funded program that recently started cash transfers of $30 to $40 a month to more than 600,000 poor Cambodian households, or close to 2.4 million people. Before the pandemic, the only IDPoor benefit was free health care.Soeung Tha sells balloons in front of Phnom Penh’s Lanka Temple, Dec. 7, 2020. (Aun Chhengpor/VOA Khmer)A few steps away from Prime Minister Hun Sen’s city residence near the Independence Monument, balloon vendor Soeung Tha looked bored on Monday, standing near his rusty motorcycle with a few helium-filled balloons attached to it.On a normal day, the 35-year-old caters to tourists and Cambodians visiting the monument or the parks around it. The Phnom Penh resident earned at least $7.50 a day from their balloon purchases. Staring at the near-empty grand intersection, usually bustling with traffic, he said he had only few profitable days over the past two weeks.“In my worst days, I could at least make a sale of up to 30,000 riel [$7.50],” Soeung Tha said. “But this is beyond the worst. Not a single person has bought a single balloon since this morning.”Soeung Tha began selling balloons in 2014 after he returned from Thailand, where he was an undocumented migrant worker. He said balloon sales had not been bad during the first few months of the pandemic, but the recent outbreak fueled by community transmission was hurting his family’s income. The father of three, he pays for his children’s education and household expenses while helping a brother repay his loans.“That’s why I cannot stay at home,” Tha said.An October United Nations Development Program forecast estimated that Cambodia’s post-pandemic poverty rate could rise to 17.6%, putting around 1.34 million people into poverty.Chan Dara, 36, was a hospitality trainer before funding dried up at the vocational training institute that employed him. The institution closed in April, and Chan Dara dipped into his savings to purchase a tuk-tuk so he could be a registered driver with ride-sharing applications Grab and PassApp. He earned a steady living with rides from the popular Aeon Mall in Phnom Penh’s affluent Tonle Bassac commune. However, the mall closed on November 28 for a few days after a woman there showed COVID symptoms.
Chan Dara, who was not at the mall that day because his tuk-tuk was broken, learned of the closure through Facebook.Now the mall is open but there are no customers. Photos posted by Facebook users show the mall is almost deserted. Chan Dara said he will continue to wait outside the mall, hoping to make even $10 a day, or half what he earned before the current outbreak.“I would feel bored and hungry if I stayed at home – it would be a certain financial crisis at home,” he said.Vorn Pov, president of the Independent Democracy of Informal Economy Association, said informal workers and small businesses were in a difficult situation.“If you look at them in a bigger picture, they cannot stay at home at all as they have to spend all day earning whatever they can,” Vorn Pov said. “They will not have food to eat and go hungry if they stay at home.” Vorn Pov criticized the government’s social protection package, which he said is doing little to help informal workers and their families. Informal workers are also not recognized by the labor code, and cannot unionize to push for better protections, which is why Vorn Pov’s group is an association and not a workers’ union.Theng Panhathon, head of the Planning Ministry’s General Department of Planning, which handles the IDPoor program, said the social protections offered by the government reached around 700,000 poor families nationwide.“It does not mean the government does not care about them [informal workers] but we all know about the government’s budgetary situation,” Theng Panhathon said. “At this point, we need to humbly ask for our people’s understanding.”
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Master Spy Writer John Le Carre Dies at 89, His Agent Says
John le Carre, the spy-turned-novelist whose elegant and intricate narratives defined the Cold War espionage thriller and brought acclaim to a genre critics had once ignored, has died. He was 89.Le Carre died Saturday in Cornwall, southwest England, Saturday after a short illness, his literary agency, Curtis Brown, said Sunday. The death was not related to COVID-19.In such classics as “The Spy Who Came in from the Cold,” “Tinker, Tailor, Soldier Spy” and “The Honorable Schoolboy,” Le Carre combined terse but lyrical prose with the kind of complexity expected in literary fiction. His books grappled with betrayal, moral compromise and the psychological toll of a secret life. In the quiet, watchful spymaster George Smiley, he created one of 20th-century fiction’s iconic characters — a decent man at the heart of a web of deceit.For le Carre, the world of espionage was a “metaphor for the human condition.”Born David Cornwell, le Carre worked for Britain’s intelligence service before turning his experience into fiction in works including “Tinker, Tailor, Soldier Spy” and “The Spy Who Came in from the Cold.””I’m not part of the literary bureaucracy if you like that categorizes everybody: Romantic, Thriller, Serious,” le Carre told The Associated Press in 2008. “I just go with what I want to write about and the characters. I don’t announce this to myself as a thriller or an entertainment.”I think all that is pretty silly stuff. It’s easier for booksellers and critics, but I don’t buy that categorization. I mean, what’s ‘A Tale of Two Cities?’ — a thriller?”His other works included “Smiley’s People,” “The Russia House” and, in 2017, the likely Smiley farewell, “A Legacy of Spies.” Many novels were adapted for film and television, notably the 1965 productions of “Smiley’s People’ and “Tinker, Tailor” featuring Alec Guinness as Smiley.Le Carre was drawn to espionage by an upbringing that was superficially conventional but secretly tumultuous.Born David John Moore Cornwell in Poole, southwest England, on Oct. 19, 1931, he appeared to have a standard upper-middle-class education: the private Sherborne School, a year studying German literature at the University of Bern, compulsory military service in Austria — where his tasks involved interrogating Eastern Bloc defectors — and a degree in modern languages at Oxford University.It was an illusion: his father, Ronnie Cornwell, was a con man who was an associate of gangsters and spent time in jail for insurance fraud. His mother left the family when David was 5; he didn’t meet her again until he was 21.It was a childhood of uncertainty and extremes: one minute limousines and champagne, the next eviction from the family’s latest accommodation. It bred insecurity, an acute awareness of the gap between surface and reality — and a familiarity with secrecy that would serve him well in his future profession. “These were very early experiences, actually, of clandestine survival,” le Carre said in 1996. “The whole world was enemy territory.” After university, which was interrupted by his father’s bankruptcy, he taught at the prestigious boarding school Eton before joining the foreign service. Officially a diplomat, he was in fact an operative with the domestic intelligence service MI5 — he’d started as a student at Oxford — and then its overseas counterpart MI6, serving in Germany, then on the Cold War front line, under the cover of second secretary at the British Embassy. His first three novels were written while he was a spy, and his employers required him to publish under a pseudonym. He remained “le Carre” for his entire career. He said he chose the name — square in French — simply because he liked the vaguely mysterious, European sound of it. “Call for the Dead” appeared in 1961 and “A Murder of Quality” in 1962. Then in 1963 came “The Spy Who Came in from the Cold,” a tale of an agent forced to carry out one last, risky operation in divided Berlin. It raised one of the author’s recurring themes — the blurring of moral lines that is part and parcel of espionage, and the difficulty of distinguishing good guys from bad. Le Carre said it was written at one of the darkest points of the Cold War, just after the building of the Berlin Wall, at a time when he and his colleagues feared nuclear war might be imminent. “So I wrote a book in great heat which said, ‘a plague on both your houses,'” le Carre told the BBC in 2000.It was immediately hailed as a classic and allowed him to quit the intelligence service to become a full-time writer. His depictions of life in the clubby, grubby, ethically tarnished world of “The Circus” — the books’ code-name for MI6 — were the antithesis of Ian Fleming’s suave action-hero James Bond and won le Carre a critical respect that eluded Fleming. Smiley appeared in le Carre’s first two novels and in the trilogy of “Tinker, Tailor, Soldier Spy,” “The Honorable Schoolboy,” and “Smiley’s People.” Le Carre said the character was based on John Bingham — an MI5 agent who wrote spy thrillers and encouraged le Carre’s literary career — and the ecclesiastical historian Vivian Green, the chaplain of his school and later his Oxford college, “who became effectively my confessor and godfather.” The more than 20 novels touched on the sordid realities of spycraft but le Carre always maintained there was a kind of nobility in the profession. He said in his day spies had seen themselves “almost as people with a priestly calling to tell the truth.””We didn’t shape it or mold it. We were there, we thought, to speak truth to power.”
“The Perfect Spy,” his most autobiographical book, looks at the formation of a spy in the character of Magnus Pym, a boy whose criminal father and unsettled upbringing bear a strong resemblance to le Carre’s own. His writing continued unabated after the Cold War ended and the front lines of the espionage wars shifted. Le Carre said in 1990 that the fall of the Berlin Wall had come as a relief. “For me, it was absolutely wonderful,” he said. “I was sick of writing about the Cold War. The cheap joke was to say, ‘Poor old le Carre, he’s run out of material; they’ve taken his wall away.’ The spy story has only to pack up its bags and go where the action is.” That turned out to be everywhere. “The Tailor of Panama” was set in Central America. “The Constant Gardener,” which was turned into a film starring Ralph Fiennes and Rachel Weisz, was about the pharmaceutical industry’s machinations in Africa. “A Most Wanted Man,” published in 2008, looked at extraordinary rendition and the war on terror. “Our Kind of Traitor,” released in 2010, took in Russian crime syndicates and the murky machinations of the financial sector. In 1954, le Carre married Alison Sharp, with whom he had three sons before they divorced in 1971. In 1972 he married Valerie Eustace, with whom he had a son, the novelist Nick Harkaway. Although he had a home in London, le Carre spent much of his time near Land’s End, England’s southwestern most tip, in a clifftop house overlooking the sea. He was, he said, a humanist but not an optimist. “Humanity — that’s what we rely on. If only we could see it expressed in our institutional forms, we would have hope then,” he told the AP. “I think the humanity will always be there. I think it will always be defeated.”
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US National Security Officials Investigating Hacker Intrusions
U.S. National Security Council officials met Saturday at the White House to discuss reports that a “sophisticated hacking group,” believed to be working for Russia, has infiltrated the country’s Department of the Treasury and other government agencies and stolen information related to internet and telecommunications policymaking.According to Reuters, three of the people familiar with the investigation said Russia is believed to be behind the attack.Two of the people said the breaches are related to a disclosed hack on FireEye, a U.S. cybersecurity company with government contracts.”The United States government is aware of these reports, and we are taking all necessary steps to identify and remedy any possible issues related to this situation,” National Security Council spokesman John Ullyot said.The Reuters news agency, which first reported the breach, said U.S. intelligence officials are concerned that hackers used similar means to break into other government agencies besides Treasury.Later Sunday, the Commerce Department confirmed one of its agencies was breached. “We have asked the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency and the FBI to investigate, and we cannot comment further at this time,” a statement from the department said.The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, part of the Homeland Security Department, was led until recently by Christopher Krebs, who was fired by President Donald Trump. Krebs has not been replaced. He was dismissed after he said the November national election was “the most secure in American history,” angering Trump who has claimed, without evidence, that voting and vote-count irregularities led to President-elect Joe Biden’s victory over him.Several federal agencies are investigating, and the extent of the intrusion is not known.
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Niger Votes in City, Regional Polls After Jihadist Attack
Niger voted in long-delayed municipal and regional elections Sunday, the day after an attack by the Boko Haram jihadist group claimed at least 27 lives, according to local officials, and two weeks ahead of a landmark presidential election.The vote had been postponed repeatedly because of jihadist attacks in parts of the poor Sahel country, notably in the southeastern Diffa region where Saturday’s assault occurred.Many parts of the west and southeast have suffered attacks since 2015, preventing people from registering to vote, according to the national electoral commission, CENI.A senior local official said Saturday’s attack left 27 dead and was of “unprecedented savagery,” with dozens of assailants laying to waste 60% of the town of Toumour, burning down as many as 1,000 homes and the central market.He blamed the attack on Boko Haram, though officials typically make no distinction between Boko Haram and a splinter group, the Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP), when referring to the jihadists.Diffa’s governor, Issa Lemine, went to Toumour to attend the victims’ burials on Sunday.An official of the Bosso region that includes Toumour said the elections did not go ahead there Sunday.After polling ended, the electoral body CENI said that the voting had gone well overall and that the results would be collated in Niamey after counting.The Diffa region is home to 120,000 refugees from neighboring Nigeria as well as 110,000 people internally displaced within Niger, according to the U.N.Niger also suffers jihadist attacks in the west on its borders with Mali and Burkina Faso.Niger, along with Chad and Cameroon, is struggling with a jihadist campaign that Boko Haram launched in northeastern Nigeria in 2009 and then took into the wider Lake Chad region.More than 36,000 people, most of them in Nigeria, have been killed and about 3 million have fled their homes since Boko Haram launched its insurgency, according to U.N. figures.The four countries have formed a regional military coalition to fight the jihadists, who use the lake’s marshland, dotted with islands, as a refuge. Niger also contributes to the French-led Operation Barkhane, set up in 2014 with some 5,000 French troops, based in Chad.First peaceful power transferSome 7.4 million people were eligible to vote in Niger’s 266 municipalities on Sunday, with the ruling Nigerien Party for Democracy and Socialism (PNDS) the overwhelming favorite.The PNDS’s presidential candidate, Mohamed Bazoum, is the runaway front-runner in the December 27 ballot, which the incumbent, Mahamadou Issoufou, will not contest because his two terms are up.Issoufou, who was elected in 2011 and 2016, has won praise for his decision to step aside for a successor, unlike some counterparts on the African continent who have pushed through constitutional changes in order to extend their presidencies.The election should mark the first peaceful transfer of power in the history of the coup-prone former French colony.Bazoum, 60, a former interior and foreign minister under Issoufou, is among 30 candidates in the race.Last month, Niger’s constitutional court blocked main opposition leader Hama Amadou, 70, from running because of a 2017 conviction for baby-smuggling, a case he claimed was politically motivated.
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Sudan PM Visits Ethiopia for Talks on Restive Tigray Region
Sudanese Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok briefly visited Addis Ababa Sunday for talks on Ethiopia’s restive Tigray region, where fighting has caused tens of thousands of people to flee to neighboring Sudan.
“I look forward to having productive discussions on political, humanitarian and security matters of common concern that serve the future of peace, stability and prosperity for our two sisterly nations and the region,” Hamdok wrote on Twitter early in his visit.Arrived at Addis Ababa today to meet with PM @AbiyAhmedAli. I look forward to having productive discussions on political, humanitarian and security matters of common concern that serve the future of peace, stability and prosperity for our two sisterly nations and the region. pic.twitter.com/7fMTzNhPaQ— Abdalla Hamdok (@SudanPMHamdok) December 13, 2020
Hamdok’s visit was initially scheduled to last for two days, but he returned to Sudan after a few hours. It was not clear why the trip was cut short.
Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed says the violence in Tigray has stopped and that there is no need for Sudan’s offer to broker a cease-fire.
Tigray, the northernmost of Ethiopia’s nine regional states, defiantly held elections in September from which Debretsion Gebremichael emerged the leader, despite Prime Minister Abiy’s decision to postpone the polls, citing the coronavirus 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 Prime Minister Abiy. The Abiy government considers the regional government, led by the Tigray People’s Liberation Front, or TPLF, as illegitimate. The TPLF denied staging the attack.Ethiopian refugees who fled the country’s restive Tigray region queue to receive food aid at the Um-Rakoba camp in Al-Qadarif state, in Sudan, Dec. 11, 2020.The United Nations and a number of Western countries have condemned the violence in Ethiopia. Telecommunications have been cut in the Tigray region, making it difficult for journalists and aid workers to confirm death tolls or accounts of violence.
But refugees in Sudan have recounted tales of offenses against their towns and villages. More than 50,000 people have fled violence in Tigray and headed for Sudan since November.
The Tigray regional government dominated Ethiopia’s ruling coalition for more than 25 years before Abiy took power in 2018.
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Europe Goes into Reverse and Slams on Christmas Breaks
German Chancellor Angela Merkel has ordered a Christmas lockdown amid an alarming rise in coronavirus cases in the country.Under new emergency measures, which will last from December 16 until January 10, all schools and non-essential shops across Germany are to close and bars and restaurants will remain shut.In a bid to deter outside gatherings during the period, the sale of fireworks is banned and so, too, drinking alcohol in public. The only concession for Christmas is that up to 10 people will be allowed to meet indoors — currently a maximum of five people from two different households is allowed to gather in homes.Religious events in churches, synagogues and mosques may take place, if strict hygiene rules are observed, but communal singing is banned.“I would have wished for lighter measures. But due to Christmas shopping, the number of social contacts has risen considerably,” Merkel told reporters in Berlin after a meeting of federal and state leaders. “There is an urgent need to take action,” she added.People stand around a mulled wine to-go stand at a Christmas market at Breitscheidplatz square, amid the COVID-19 pandemic in Berlin, Germany, Dec.10, 2020.Infection rates have hit record levels in Germany in the past few days and the country now has the 12th highest number of cases in the world.More than 20,000 new cases were reported by authorities Sunday, bringing the country’s total to 1,320,716, and 21,787 Germans have died from COVID-19, the illness caused by the coronavirus. The country’s intensive care unit capacity is at a critical level, and doctors say that only five- to 10 percent of intensive care beds are available in some parts of the country.Germany’s Finance Ministry announced it was planning further support for businesses and workers impacted by the lockdown, saying, “Companies, the self-employed and freelancers who are affected by closures from December 16 will receive financial support.”Germany isn’t alone in struggling to suppress transmissions and in some European countries, criticism is mounting of governments for failing to prevent a second pandemic wave. In Italy, Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte, who was praised for his decisiveness in battling the first coronavirus wave earlier this year, is being accused of pursuing an “amateurish” approach this time round.A nurse tends to a patient inside a COVID-19 intensive care unit of the Tor Vergata Polyclinic Hospital in Rome, Italy, Dec. 13, 2020.According to an official tally, Italy is nearing 64,000 deaths from COVID, overtaking Britain, which for weeks has held the lead position in European fatalities. The World Health Organization says Italy is now registering 1,036 deaths per million residents, the second highest after Peru.Conte held back from ordering a second national lockdown as the second wave started in September — despite appeals from some regional governors. In March, he imposed a tough 10-week lockdown, which tamed the first wave.The Italian leader has now ratcheted up restrictions for the Christmas period, but some epidemiologists say the move has been too late. Italian microbiologist Andrea Crisanti said, “Italy’s first wave was bad luck but the second wave unforgivable A sign of poor management and amateurish preparation.”Since September, Italy has recorded more than 28,000 COVID deaths.Matteo Villa, an analyst at the Institute for International Political Studies, Italy’s oldest research institution, specializing in political and international affairs, said the government dithered and failed to prepare the health system in between waves. “If you can act sooner, even a bit lighter in the measures, they work better than acting harshly a bit later or too late,” he said.Conte’s poll ratings are now sliding, and his coalition government is being buffeted by desertions and squabbles over the disbursement of recovery funds from the European Union. Matteo Renzi, a former prime minister, has threatened to collapse the coalition government, which also features the populist Five Star movement as well as the Democratic Party, Italy’s main center-left party, by withholding the backing of his centrist Italia Viva party.Earlier this month, many European governments looked poised to ease coronavirus restrictions for the Christmas period, despite warnings from medical scientists.Gabriele Vinzi, 3, and his brother Samuele Vinzi, 4, react along with their parents as they receive a call via Zoom by a man dressed as Santa Claus, amid theCOVID-19 pandemic, in Rome, Italy, Dec. 8, 2020.They came under mounting public pressure to salvage something of the holiday spirit and they grappled with how far they should go in easing lockdowns or lifting curfews, fearing that having a merry Christmas will likely mean suffering a miserable new year. Now most are heading in the opposite direction with tighter restrictions.Last week, the French prime minister announced he would still lift the country’s lockdown on Tuesday as planned but retain some strict restrictions and impose some new ones for Christmas because of worrying health data. Jean Castex had hoped to lift many more rules but said the virus is not letting him. A new 8 p.m. curfew is being imposed.“We are not yet at the end of the second wave, and we won’t be at the goal we set of 5,000 new cases per day,” he said, adding, “We know that the gatherings over the holidays present a risk.”We need to keep our guard up, stay vigilant,” Castex said.
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Dozens Detained in Belarus as Opposition Stages Scattered Marches
Security forces in Belarus have detained dozens of people as opposition demonstrators staged scattered marches and rallies in Minsk and other cities to pressure strongman leader Alexander Lukashenko to make political concessions. Human rights group Vyasna said that nearly 180 people were detained during the protests on December 13, with most of the arrests reported in Minsk. According to local news outlet Nasha Niva, more than 120 marches took places across the country, with numbers at each rally ranging from dozens to several hundred. Some protesters marched in outlying residential areas of Minsk, waving white-and-red flags, a symbol of the opposition, and chanting “Long live Belarus.” The demonstrations came as opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya was scheduled to appear at events in Germany, as part of her efforts to rally international support for Belarus’s beleaguered opposition. The country has been roiled by unprecedented political opposition since early August when Lukashenko was declared victor of a presidential election that opposition leaders said was flawed. Activists have defied often violent police tactics and organized weeks of demonstrations and rallies. Still, the only hints of concession that Lukashenko has shown are suggestions he has made about drafting a new constitution. In contrast to past weekend demonstration, Minsk authorities did not shutter the subway system on December 13, and no major Internet disruptions were reported. Many of Belarus’s opposition leaders have been arrested or forced to leave the country, including Tsikhanouskaya, who says she won the August election. Tsikhanouskaya, who now lives in exile in neighboring Lithuania, hailed protesters who had gathered “despite repressions, violence and cold. “They resist Lukashenko’s regime because the people of Belarus want to live in a democratic and free country,” she said in a post to Twitter. The United States, the European Union, and several other countries have refused to acknowledge Lukashenko as the winner of the vote. The European Union imposed sanctions on Lukashenko and his allies citing election rigging and a violent police crackdown.
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Parents Pray for Hundreds of Students Kidnapped in Nigeria’s Katsina
Parents converged on a secondary school in Nigeria’s northwestern Katsina state on Sunday, begging authorities to save hundreds of boys abducted by gunmen. The army had exchanged fire with a gang that took the students from the all-boys Government Science school in Kankara, a spokesman for the president said on Saturday night, but parents on Sunday said they had heard little more on the fate of their children.Abubakar Lawal came from Zaria, a city 120 kilometres (75 miles) south of Kanara, after learning that two of his three sons at the school were among the missing. “From yesterday I was here, praying that the almighty Allah should rescue our people,” he said outside the dusty school grounds. One of his missing sons, 17-year-old Buhari, was named after President Muhammadu Buhari, a native of Katsina state. Anas, 16, was also missing. Lawal said the school principal addressed parents, telling them to pray. Murja Mohammed, whose son was taken, begged authorities for help. “If it’s not government that will help us, we have no power to rescue our children,” she told Reuters. The president’s office declined to comment, referring queries to the police. Military and police did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Some boys seen by Reuters said they had escaped from the forest where the gunmen took them, but it was not immediately clear how many remained in captivity or what the group wanted. Attacks by armed gangs, widely referred to as bandits, are common throughout northwestern Nigeria. The groups typically attack civilians, stealing or kidnapping them for ransom. Islamist militants, who attack security and civilian targets, are more common in the northeastern part of the country. There is growing anger with the precarious security situation in Nigeria, Africa’s most populous nation. Late last month, Islamist militants killed scores of farmers in northeastern Borno state, beheading some of them.
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Trump Defiant as US Electors Prepare to Finalize Biden Victory
A day before the U.S. Electoral College meets to formally pick Democrat Joe Biden as America’s next president, Donald Trump continues to deny the results of the November 3 election, buoyed by thousands of supporters who rallied in Washington to back the president’s failed efforts to overturn his defeat at the polls.America’s presidential contests are not complete until constitutionally mandated electors from all 50 states, drawn proportionally to their population and mirroring their representation in Congress, meet to cast their votes. Except in two U.S. states, each state’s electors all vote for the presidential contender who won their state.With all states having certified election results, Biden won 306 electoral votes — 36 more than he needs to become president — compared to Trump’s 232 votes. Absent a court-sanctioned delay, the presidential electors are expected to finalize Biden’s victory Monday.Federal and state courts have rejected dozens of lawsuits by Trump and his allies seeking to overturn or nullify election results in battleground states Biden won by varying margins. Most recently, late Friday the U.S. Supreme Court refused to consider a Texas lawsuit seeking to invalidate results in four states, all but terminating any pathway for Trump to overturn the election outcome through the courts.Supporters of U.S. President Donald Trump wave flags outside the D.C. Mayor’s office building during the “Stop the Steal” rally, in Washington, Dec. 12, 2020.Trump nevertheless remains combative and has signaled he is not giving up.“WE HAVE JUST BEGUN TO FIGHT,” the president tweeted Saturday. An hour earlier, he wrote, “I WON THE ELECTION IN A LANDSLIDE.”Trump took to Twitter as thousands of his most ardent supporters gathered in Washington to march and chant for the president to remain in office. Similar demonstrations occurred in several U.S. states where Trump’s legal team has unsuccessfully challenged Biden victories.Supporters of President Donald Trump who are wearing attire associated with the Proud Boys attend a rally at Freedom Plaza, Dec. 12, 2020, in Washington.Sporadic street clashes broke out between Trump backers and opponents. Four people were taken to the hospital with stab wounds and 23 people were arrested, according to Washington’s municipal police department.
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EU, Britain Make Last Attempt for Post-Brexit Trade Deal
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen had set Sunday as the deadline for reaching an accord. But they agreed there was too much at stake in reaching a deal to end talks. “Despite the exhaustion after almost a year of negotiations and despite the fact that deadlines have been missed over and over, we both think it is responsible at this point in time to go the extra mile,” von der Leyen said. Negotiations continued at the EU headquarters in Brussels. At stake is Britain’s quest for zero-tariff and zero-quota access to the EU’s single market. Stumbling blocks include fishing rights and penalties Britain would face for violating the EU’s fair competition rules. British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab said early Sunday on Sky News TV, “We want to be treated like any other independent self-respecting democracy. If the EU can accept that at a political level, then there’s every reason to be confident but there is still, I think, a long way to go.” FILE – European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen welcomes British Prime Minister Boris Johnson in Brussels, Belgium, Dec. 9, 2020.A British source at the talks said Johnson “will leave no stone unturned in this process, but he is absolutely clear: any agreement must be fair and respect the fundamental position that the UK will be a sovereign nation in three weeks’ time.” A no-deal Brexit would be economically disruptive in Britain, across Europe and beyond.
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Indonesian Police Arrest Militant Leader Associated with al-Qaida
Authorities in Indonesia announced on Saturday the arrest of a top leader of the al-Qaida-linked Jemaah Islamiyah, an extremist group that has carried out deadly attacks in pursuit of an Islamic caliphate in Southeast Asia.A National Police spokesperson, Ahmad Ramadhan, said in a statement that counterterrorism police arrested Aris Sumarsono, also known as Zulkarnaen, late Thursday during a raid at a house in East Lampung district on Sumatra island.Ramadhan said the police officers met no resistance from Zulkarnaen, who is suspected of being behind the 2002 bombing attack on the resort island of Bali that left more than 200 people dead, and an attack in 2003 on Marriott Hotel in Indonesia’s capital, Jakarta, that killed 12 people.Police said they received a tip about Zulkarnaen’s location as they were interrogating several suspected militants arrested last month.The United Nations Security Council had included Zulkarnaen on an al-Qaida sanctions list since May 2005 as the network’s representative in Southeast Asia, and directly associated with former al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden and Afghanistan’s Taliban.A biologist by background, Zulkarnaen was among the first Indonesian militants to go to Afghanistan for military training.
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US Launching Coronavirus Vaccine Distribution
Super-cooled shipments of a newly approved coronavirus vaccine are set to roll out of a Pfizer manufacturing facility in Kalamazoo, Michigan, in tractor-trailers Sunday for rapid air freight distribution to regional hubs across the United States.Inoculations could begin as early as Monday at a time when COVID-19 cases are surging and the United States nears 300,000 deaths from the virus, according to Johns Hopkins University’s Coronavirus Research Center.The chief officer of Operation Warp Speed, the Trump administration’s vaccine development program, Army General Gustave Perna, said at a news conference Saturday that shipping companies will initially deliver vaccine doses to nearly 150 distribution centers, and an additional 450 or so facilities will get the vaccine by Wednesday.The Food and Drug Administration late Friday approved the vaccine, developed by U.S. drug maker Pfizer and German partner BioNTech, for emergency use. The vaccine, which must be kept at minus 70 degrees Celsius, was shown to be 95% effective in preventing COVID-19 in a late-stage trial.Sorry, but your browser cannot support embedded video of this type, you can
download this video to view it offline.Download File360p | 10 MB480p | 14 MB540p | 17 MB720p | 33 MB1080p | 71 MBOriginal | 545 MB Embed” />Copy Download AudioHealth care workers and elderly people in long-term care facilities will be first in line to receive the first round of 2.9 million doses. Two doses per person, spaced three weeks apart, are needed for maximum resistance to the COVID-19 pathogen.BioNTech Chief Executive Ugur Sahin said the vaccine “will help to save lives across the United States and could accelerate a return to normality.” The U.S. federal government is planning to accelerate vaccinations in the weeks ahead, particularly if a vaccine from Moderna Inc. is approved soon.A U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention advisory group met Saturday and recommended the vaccine for widespread use for those 16 and older. It will later address whether groups such as pregnant women and those younger than 16 should be vaccinated.Those two groups were excluded from initial trials until researchers could determine if the vaccine was relatively safe in healthy adults before testing it on more vulnerable groups.The top U.S. infectious disease expert, Dr. Anthony Fauci, said Thursday that regulators and drug makers will begin clinical trials in January, testing the safety of vaccines on pregnant women and young people.The vaccine was first approved in Britain earlier this month, and British residents began receiving vaccinations Tuesday. Canada also approved the vaccine and expects to begin inoculations in the coming days.Bahrain, Mexico and Saudi Arabia have also authorized the use of the Pfizer vaccine.
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Activist Monks Flee Cambodia Fearing Arrest, Defrocking
Last summer, prominent Cambodian activist monk Bor Bet participated in protests triggered by the arrest of labor leader Rong Chhun. Now the monk has fled to Thailand with other Cambodian dissidents, vowing to return home.Like many Cambodian Buddhist monks, Bor Bet has embraced activism, working with a loose coalition of movements bedeviling the increasingly authoritarian government of Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen. Advocates for democracy, labor unions, human rights and the environment, they participate in each other’s demonstrations.When authorities arrested Rong Chhun, a veteran human rights defender, July 31 and charged him with “incitement to cause social unrest,” he was pursuing the case of farmers in Tbong Khmum, a province on the Vietnam border, whose land had been seized as part of the official demarcation of the border, long a contentious issue.The informal alliance of activists, Bor Bet among them, quickly took to the streets of Phnom Penh. The protests supporting Rong Chhun were deemed illegal by the government which arrested and charged at least 12 people with “incitement to commit a felony or cause social unrest,” and “obstructing the authorities.”Local rights groups contended the charges were part of the FILE – Activist monk Sim Sovandy holds a sign reading ‘Free Mr. Rong Chhun’ in front of Phnom Penh Municipal Court in August 2020. (Photo courtesy Sim Sovandy)Bor Bet also knew that But Buntenh, who founded the Independent Monk Network for Social Justice, had fled Cambodia after being harassed by police for his outspoken stance on land dispossession and environmental degradation. But Buntenh now lives in the U.S.With the group invitation, Bor Bet said he sensed a ruse because he knew the Phnom Penh monk council was targeting him for his activism. They “wanted to arrest and defrock me and they knew … I would flee if they only called me,” he told the VOA Khmer Service.Khim Sorn, Phnom Penh’s chief monk, told VOA the invitation to the monks at Broyuvong Pagoda was for a routine meeting and there was no intention of defrocking Bor Bet. Khim Sorn said monks are not allowed to participate in protests and if they wanted to do so, they should leave the monkhood and continue their demonstrations as ordinary citizens.Bor Bet, along with fellow monk Sim Sovandy, retreated to a pagoda in the remote Sorng Rukhavorn Wildlife Sanctuary in the northern province of Oddar Meanchey on the Thai border. A monk since the age of 13, Bor Bet said he left the capital city because he didn’t “want to be arrested and, especially, I don’t want to be defrocked.”Sim Sovandy told VOA that Cambodian authorities had “attempted to imprison me.”“I always join protests when there is any injustice and people are mistreated,” he said. “They were ready to arrest me, so I had to flee now.”Flight to ThailandThe forested area reminded Bor Bet of his childhood surroundings, but he fled as soon as the chief monk learned from his local contacts that authorities were planning to arrest the dissident monks.On Nov. 17, Bor Bet and Sim Sovandy fled to Thailand. They stayed for a week at a temple in Bangkok that had taken in another Cambodian monk. They then moved on to a second Thai temple that offers refuge to Cambodian monks. Bor Bet is now at a temple in Samut Prakan province, south of Bangkok. Sim Sovandy, who became a monk in 1989 and is now 46, took refuge at a pagoda temple in Pathum Thani province in central Thailand.Khieu Sopheak, a spokesperson for Cambodia’s Interior Ministry, said he could not confirm if Bor Bet or Sim Sovandy were wanted by law enforcement officials. He said they would face legal trouble only if they participated in “illegal protests.”“You can ask the Venerable whether he participated in any illegal demonstration,” said Khieu Sopheak using the honorific title for a monk.“The authorities only arrest people who commit something wrong,” he said.Bor Bet, one of five siblings, grew up in the then-lush forests of the Kampong Thom’s Prey Lang Wildlife Sanctuary. The deforestation of Prey Lang contributed to his activism.“I was born and grew up in the forests. Our forests are lost and I feel regret,” he said.Bor Bet, who decided on his own to become a monk, is a 2016 graduate of Preah Sihanouk Raja Buddhist University in Phnom Penh, where he double-majored in Buddhist philosophy and law in 2016. He also earned a master’s degree in public administration in 2019 at Preah Sihamoniraja Buddhist University in Phnom Penh.He said he realized his secular and ecclesiastical studies meant little if he didn’t use what he had learned to help people.“If I just eat and stay in a pagoda without caring about the suppression of people and deforestation, I can’t do it,” said Bor Bet. “I feel the pain.”Today in Thailand, Bor Bet is contemplating his future as his mother worries. A farmer in Kampong Thom province, Ouk Phuon, 57, hasn’t seen him in five months.“He told me not to worry about him but I do although I am a bit relieved since he has fled. I was afraid that he will be mistreated,” she said.Bor Bet wants to return to Cambodia. “I want to get involved in politics,” he said. “Maybe in the next 10 years, I will leave the monkhood and get involved in politics by joining any party which is democratic. I will return.”This story originated in VOA’s Khmer Service.
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Ukraine Seeks World Heritage Status for Chernobyl Zone
A soft snow fell as a clutch of visitors equipped with a Geiger counter wandered through the ghostly Ukrainian town of Pripyat, frozen in time since the world’s worst nuclear accident in 1986.More than three decades after the Chernobyl nuclear disaster forced thousands to evacuate, there is an influx of visitors to the area that has spurred officials to seek official status from UNESCO.”The Chernobyl zone is already a world-famous landmark,” guide Maksym Polivko told AFP during a tour on a recent frosty day.”But today this area has no official status,” the 38-year-old said of the exclusion zone where flourishing wildlife is taking over deserted Soviet-era tower blocks, shops and official buildings.That could change under the government initiative to have the area included on the UNESCO heritage list alongside landmarks like India’s Taj Mahal or Stonehenge in England.Officials hope recognition from the U.N.’s culture agency will boost the site as a tourist attraction and in turn bolster efforts to preserve aging buildings nearby.The explosion in the fourth reactor at the nuclear power plant in April 1986 left swathes of Ukraine and neighboring Belarus badly contaminated and led to the creation of the exclusion zone roughly the size of Luxembourg.Ukrainian authorities say it may not be safe for humans to live in the exclusion zone for another 24,000 years. Meanwhile, it has become a haven for wildlife with elk and deer roaming nearby forests.Dozens of villages and towns populated by hundreds of thousands of people were abandoned after the disaster, yet more than 100 elderly people live in the area despite the radiation threat.In Pripyat, a ghost town not far from the Chernobyl plant, rooms in eerie residential blocks are piled with belongings of former residents.’The time has come’Polivko said he hoped the upgraded status would encourage officials to act more responsibly to preserve the crumbling Soviet-era infrastructure surrounding the plant.”All these objects here require some repair,” he said.It was a sentiment echoed by Ukrainian Culture Minister Oleksandr Tkachenko, who described the recent influx of tourists from home and abroad as evidence of Chernobyl’s importance “not only to Ukrainians, but of all mankind.”A record number of 124,000 tourists visited last year, including 100,000 foreigners following the release of the hugely popular Chernobyl television series in 2019.Tkachenko said obtaining UNESCO status could promote the exclusion zone as “a place of memory” that would warn against a repeat nuclear disaster.”The area may and should be open to visitors, but it should be more than just an adventure destination for explorers,” Tkachenko told AFP.The government is set to propose specific objects in the zone as a heritage site before March, but a final decision could come as late as 2023.After the explosion in 1986, the three other reactors at Chernobyl continued to generate electricity until the station finally closed in 2000. Ukraine will mark the 20th anniversary of the closure Tuesday.Tkachenko said the effort to secure UNESCO status was a new priority after work on a giant protective dome over the fourth reactor was completed in 2016.With the site now safe for 100 years, he said he hoped world heritage status would boost visitor numbers to 1 million a year.It’s a figure that would require an overhaul of the local infrastructure and overwhelm a lone souvenir kiosk on the site selling trinkets such as mugs and clothing adorned with nuclear fallout signs.”Before, everyone was busy with the cover,” Tkachenko said of the timing of the heritage initiative.”The time has come to do this.”
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US Approves Emergency Use of Vaccine
The U.S. has approved emergency use of the Pfizer–BioNTech coronavirus vaccine, paving the way for Americans to start getting vaccinated within days. But public skepticism about the safety of the vaccine remains, with polls showing many adults say they won’t get the shot or are unsure about getting it. White House Correspondent Patsy Widakuswara has the latest.
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American Legion, Pelosi Join Calls for VA Chief’s Ouster
The nation’s largest veterans organization and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Saturday joined the growing calls for the ouster of President Donald Trump’s Veterans Affairs chief, under fire after a government audit found he acted unprofessionally, if not unethically, in the handling of a congressional aide’s allegation of sexual assault at a VA hospital.”It is unfair to expect accountability from the nearly 400,000 VA employees and not demand the same from its top executive. It is clear that Secretary Robert Wilkie failed to meet the standard that the veteran who came forward with the complaint deserved,” the American Legion’s national commander, James W. “Bill” Oxford, said in a statement. He urged Wilkie and several other top VA officials cited in the report to resign because of their “violation of trust” of the agency’s commitment to not “tolerate harassment of any kind.”Pelosi, D-Calif., said Wilkie “has lost the trust and confidence to serve, and he must immediately resign.” She said Wilkie “has not only been derelict in his duty to combat sexual harassment but has been complicit in the continuation of a VA culture that tolerates this epidemic.”On Saturday, the VA said Wilkie, who has denied wrongdoing, doesn’t intend to resign.”He will continue to lead the department,” said spokesperson Christina Noel.The demands for Wilkie’s resignation came a day after numerous veterans groups expressed similar outrage and sought Wilkie’s dismissal in the final weeks of the Trump administration. Those organizations include Veterans of Foreign Wars, Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, Disabled American Veterans, AMVETS, Paralyzed Veterans of America and the Modern Military Association of America, and they said they had lost confidence that Wilkie could effectively lead the department, which is responsible for the care of 9 million veterans.Concerns about leadershipAn investigation by the Veterans Affairs’ inspector general on Thursday concluded that Wilkie repeatedly sought to discredit Andrea Goldstein, a senior policy adviser to Democratic Rep. Mark Takano, chairman of the House Veterans’ Affairs Committee, after she alleged in September 2019 that a man at the VA medical center in Washington had physically assaulted her.The inspector general found that Wilkie’s disparaging comments about Goldstein, a Navy veteran, as a repeat complainer as well as the overall tone he set influenced his staff to spread negative information about her while ignoring known problems of harassment at the facility.Wilkie and other senior officials had declined to fully cooperate with the investigation by VA Inspector General Michael Missal. For that reason, Missal said he could not conclude whether Wilkie had violated government policies or laws, allegedly by personally digging into the woman’s past. Wilkie has denied that he improperly investigated Goldstein.”We’ve had our concerns about Wilkie’s leadership throughout the pandemic and this IG report really cements the fact that the VA is not being led with integrity,” said Jeremy Butler, chief executive of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America. “That calls for an immediate change.”The report on Thursday drew widespread concern from lawmakers from both parties about VA’s leadership, with Takano the first to call for Wilkie’s resignation. Concerned Veterans for America, a conservative group who supported Wilkie when he became VA secretary in 2018, chided Wilkie and his team, stressing that “VA leaders should always put the veteran and the integrity of the institution ahead of themselves.”AMVETS national commander Jan Brown said she found it unacceptable that VA would dismiss known problems facing women who receive care at its facilities.”Women veterans already hesitate to use VA services for a number of reasons and we need a secretary who will make our community feel welcomed,” she said. “We strongly disapprove of any VA official that took part in the scheme to wreck the credibility of a victim.”The case of Goldstein, who agreed to be publicly identified, was ultimately closed by the inspector general’s office and Justice Department earlier this year because of a lack of enough evidence to bring charges.Wilkie is Trump’s second VA secretary after David Shulkin was fired in 2018. A former Pentagon undersecretary, he presided over the nation’s largest hospital system that has seen continuing improvement and veterans’ satisfaction since a 2014 scandal involving lengthy waiting times for medical appointments.President-elect Joe Biden has pledged to rebuild trust in the VA when he takes office on Jan. 20. He has selected Denis McDonough, who served as President Barack Obama’s White House chief of staff, to be VA secretary.
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