In a U.S.-brokered deal, Israel and Morocco have agreed to recognize each other.This follows three other Arab countries — Bahrain, Sudan and the United Arab Emirates — recently establishing ties with the Jewish state, which several times since its modern founding in the late 1940s has found itself at war with its Muslim-majority neighbors. U.S. President Donald Trump on Thursday announced the deal between Morocco and Israel on Twitter, hailing it as a historic and massive breakthrough for peace in the Middle East and a continuation of his regional diplomacy known as the Abraham Accords.Another HISTORIC breakthrough today! Our two GREAT friends Israel and the Kingdom of Morocco have agreed to full diplomatic relations – a massive breakthrough for peace in the Middle East!— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) FILE – Morocco’s King Mohammed VI.Moroccan King Mohammed, speaking to Trump on Thursday by phone, confirmed the plans for direct flights for Israeli tourists to and from Morocco.As part of the agreement, the United States agreed to recognize Moroccan sovereignty over the entire Western Sahara, a former Spanish territory where international negotiators have failed to resolve a long-running dispute.Morocco’s royal court said Washington would open a consulate in the Western Sahara as part of the agreement.Morocco has claimed the territory as its “southern provinces” in opposition to the Polisario Front, based in Southern Algeria, which has been fighting for independence for Western Sahara.”This will not change an inch of the reality of the conflict and the right of the people of Western Sahara to self-determination,” said the Polisario’s Europe representative, Oubi Bchraya, who vowed the movement would continue its struggle.A surpriseThursday’s announcement from Washington about Western Sahara caught diplomats by surprise.U.N. spokesman Stephen Dujarric told reporters the world body learned of the news in Trump’s tweet at the same time everyone else heard of it. Regarding the sovereignty issue, he said the U.N. secretary-general’s position remained unchanged: It needs to be resolved in accordance with Security Council resolutions.Asked about his message to those in Western Sahara, the U.N. spokesman replied that it was “to avoid any action that could make the tense situation worse.”Jared Kushner, Trump’s senior adviser and son-in-law, did not directly answer a question from VOA about whether diplomats for the United Nations and other entities were consulted about U.S. recognition of Moroccan sovereignty over the territory.“It’s recognizing the inevitability of what is going to occur, but it also can possibly break the logjam, to help advance the issues in the Western Sahara,” Kushner said during a Thursday conference call with White House reporters. He added the United States wanted the “Polisario people to have a better opportunity to live a better life” and Trump “felt like this conflict was holding them back as opposed to bring it forward.”FILE – Jared Kushner, senior adviser to President Donald Trump, speaks to VOA’s “Plugged In With Greta Van Susteren” at the Old Executive Office Building in Washington, Aug. 18, 2020.Trump administration officials predicted more countries would normalize ties with Israel.”The fruits of these efforts have been become very apparent,” Kushner told reporters on the conference call. “But we also believe that there is a lot more fruits to come in the short, medium and long term.”Kushner specifically mentioned Saudi Arabia as one country that will inevitably establish relations with Israel.That may not occur until Trump leaves office on January 20. He lost his re-election bid last month to former Vice President Joe Biden.“Over four years, he hasn’t started wars. He’s ended wars,” Kushner said of Trump. “He showed strength. I mean, he’s struck when needed. He’s enforced his red lines. He’s liked, he’s respected, and he’s feared, which is critical in the Middle East and in those areas toward making progress.”VOA U.N. Correspondent Margaret Besheer contributed to this report from New York.
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Month: December 2020
US Kills 8 al-Shabab Fighters in 2 Airstrikes Amid Troop Reduction in Somalia
The U.S. military killed eight al-Shabab fighters and wounded two others in airstrikes Thursday in Somalia, Lt. Cmdr. Christina Gibson, U.S. Africa Command spokeswoman, told VOA.“We will continue to apply pressure to the al-Shabab network. They continue to undermine Somali security, and need to be contained and degraded,” Africa Command (AFRICOM) head Gen. Stephen Townsend added in a statement announcing the strikes.The AFRICOM statement said two strikes in the vicinity of Jilib targeted terrorists “who were known to play important roles in producing explosives for al-Shabab, to include vehicle-borne improvised explosive devices.”The al-Qaida-affiliated terror group conducts dozens of car bombings across Somalia each year, including against citizens, government and American targets. US Troops to Withdraw From Somalia Amid Ongoing Terror ThreatSenior US military spokesman says terror threat remains but ‘is contained’According to AFRICOM, al-Shabab has conducted about 45 vehicle-borne bombings in the capital of Mogadishu alone since 2018, collectively resulting in the death of more than 400 people.The Command assessed that no civilians were injured or killed in the strikes.The strikes come just days after President Donald Trump ordered the Pentagon to remove the majority of the 700 U.S. military troops stationed in Somalia.A Pentagon statement issued late last week said these troops would be leaving “by early 2021.” Officials have said most of those troops will be repositioned in Kenya and Djibouti to continue the fight against al-Shabab.“Al-Shabab remains a dangerous franchise of al-Qaida,” said Townsend in the announcement Thursday. “This mission illustrates our continuing commitment to eradicating this threat and supporting our Somali partners in the region. We’re repositioning, but we will maintain the ability to strike this enemy.”
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Biden to Campaign for Georgia Democratic Senate Candidates
U.S. President-elect Joe Biden will campaign next Tuesday in the southern state of Georgia for two Democratic Senate candidates involved in crucial runoff elections next month that will determine whether Democrats or Republicans control the Senate during the first two years of Biden’s presidency.Biden said Thursday he will appear with the candidates — investigative documentary filmmaker Jon Ossoff and clergyman Raphael Warnock — in Atlanta, the state capital and Georgia’s largest city.The two Democrats face incumbent Republican lawmakers in the January 5 elections — Ossoff against Sen. David Perdue and Warnock facing Sen. Kelly Loeffler.Polls in the state show both elections are closely contested.Trump Rallies Georgia Voters in US Senate RunoffVoters in the state can begin casting their ballots Dec. 14 in two races that will determine which party will control the upper house of CongressPresident Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence have already campaigned in the state on behalf of Perdue and Loeffler. Pence is making another trip to the state for a Thursday night rally.Republicans currently hold a 50-48 advantage over Democrats in the U.S. Senate that takes office in early January. They need to win at least one of the two Georgia contests to take outright control, which would give the party a majority on all Senate committees and the right to set the chamber’s agenda.Democrats need to win both seats for a 50-50 split, which would give Vice President-elect Kamala Harris the tie-breaking vote in favor of the Democrats and a majority after Biden and Harris are inaugurated on January 20.Georgia has long been a Republican stronghold, but Democrats have made strong gains in voter registration to turn the state into a political battleground.After the state’s 5 million votes in last month’s presidential contest were counted three times, Biden defeated Trump by more than 11,000 votes. Biden was the first Democratic presidential candidate to carry the state since 1992.
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Malawi President Announces Strict Measures Against Perpetrators of Gender-Based Violence
Malawi’s President Lazarus Chakwera has announced plans for stiffer penalties against those who commit gender-based violence, after a jump in cases during the pandemic. In a national address for Human Rights Day on December 10, Chakwera said Malawi would also require the teaching of human rights in schools.
President Chakwera said figures from the National Statistics Office on gender-based violence are worrying.“Three years ago, the National Statistics Office reported that one in three Malawian women and girls between the age of 15 and 49 experiences physical or sexual violence. To make matters worse, cases of these crimes have since been going up. And in the last three months of this year alone, the rate has been 35 percent higher than the same period last year,” he said.Chakwera said the trend shows that under the restrictions on movement put in place to fight COVID-19, gender-based crimes have been widespread. He announced plans for stiffer penalties against those who commit gender-based violence.“Ministries of Justice and Gender and my administration will prepare amendment to relevant pieces of legislation including the Criminal Procedure and Evidence code to fast track the disposal of such cases, to exert stiffer mandatory penalties against culprits and to establish a sex offenders register,” he announced.Chakwera also said Malawi would require the teaching of human rights in schools. For the past two months, rights campaigners have been holding a series of protests against continued cases of rape and sexual abuse of girls and women.During protests in November, Women Doctors Association in Malawi and other rights activists gave President Chakwera 90 days to present measures to help end the sexual abuse. New cases of rape and sexual abuse against women and girls are reported in Malawi nearly every week. On Thursday local media reported that police in the southern Mangochi district have arrested a 33-year-old man for raping three sisters aged between 12 and 14. One of them is now pregnant.Maggie Kathewera-Banda, executive director for Women’s Manifesto Movement, says a big problem is that current laws are not enforced.“I think we are not addressing the real issues, because if you look at rape what is the maximum sentence? They are saying you can even go up to death sentence. Because for me, I think in Malawi it’s more about implementation of our laws rather than the laws themselves,” she said. “Over the years we tried to come up with gender laws but you find that they have not been implemented.” Immaculate Maluza, president for Women Lawyers Association in Malawi, says attitudes toward gender-based violence must change.“And also deal with toxic traits in our culture that promote violence against women to reflect the period that were in now,” she told VOA.Maluza says steps should be taken to criminalize harmful cultural practices that tolerate violence against women.
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Conflict and COVID Trigger Upsurge in Mali Child Trafficking
A U.N. refugee agency report issued earlier this month finds thousands of children in Mali are being exploited and abused by criminal or armed groups, tribal chiefs and state authorities for profit and personal gain.The report presents a horrific picture of unscrupulous people feeding off the misery of the most vulnerable members of society to enrich themselves. The U.N. refugee agency reports conflict, COVID-19 and worsening socio-economic conditions have led to an upsurge in child-trafficking in Mali. It says armed groups are forcibly recruiting children to fight their wars. UNHCR spokeswoman, Shabia Mantoo, tells VOA that armed groups are trafficking children to work in gold mines and using the profits from their labor to fuel the arms trade and perpetuate their violent exploits.“Humanitarian assessments have found children working across mines in a country where they are exposed to some of the worst forms of abuses, whether that is physical, sexual, psychological abuse of child labor, economic exploitation,” Mantoo said. “And we are also seeing girls being married off early. Reports are really worrying of the risks of children being married off early to help their families because people just cannot cope.” Conflict Keeps Northern Mali Children from SchoolEducation ministry, aid agencies scramble to meet needs in region controlled by al-Qaida linked Islamist militantsThe report says many children are unable to go to school because of conflict and the coronavirus pandemic. This makes them particularly vulnerable and pushes many to work in informal gold mines. It says an estimated 6,000 children, mostly boys, are working in eight mine sites in the country. Mantoo says it is not possible to get a comprehensive figure on the number of children who are being trafficked, forced into sexual or domestic servitude, married off and otherwise exploited.“We know from documented figures in the first half of this year, there were 230 cases of child recruitment,” Mantoo said. “And, when you compare that to the whole of last year, there were 215 cases. So, in a six-month period we are seeing basically what we are seeing last year, so that is a really troubling indicator. It does not show the extent of the problem, but it shows of the cases that are being documented, they are certainly increasing. The UNHCR says refugees, asylum seekers and migrants, as well as Malians, are victims of traffickers. Despite the conflict and COVID-19, the agency notes Mali continues to be a critical transit country for people attempting to reach northern Africa and Europe. It says people on the move are particularly vulnerable to unscrupulous traffickers and smugglers.
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Fire in Barcelona Suburb Leaves at Least 2 Dead, 17 injured
Spanish officials say at least two people are dead and 17 others injured after a fire broke out in an abandoned warehouse believed to be occupied by squatters just north of Barcelona.Firefighters and emergency services officials in the city of Badalona say the fire broke out late Wednesday in the warehouse in an industrial area. It was brought under control early Thursday, but firefighters were trying to stabilize the three-story structure before conducting a thorough search, for fear it would collapse.Emergency responders say they could account for about 60 people who had been in the building at the time but say many more fled on their own. It was believed more than 100 squatters occupied the building and were asleep when the fire started. The cause is not known, but one of the survivors told a Spanish newspaper he believed a candle was responsible.Badalona Mayor Xavier Garcia Albiol told reporters at the scene the building had been known to be occupied by squatters for years. Local and regional media reports say many of the squatters were undocumented immigrants from Africa.Badalona is a large, coastal Barcelona suburb of about 220,000, the fourth-largest city in Spain’s Catalonia region.
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British Conservatives Eye Stately Homes, Universities as Culture Wars Rage
Britain’s Conservatives say the left and liberals dominate the arts, museums, broadcasting and the universities, turning them into political echo chambers. They mean to reverse that, fearing they are being outflanked in a broader cultural war roiling the country, one that has only been inflamed by rancorous divisions over Brexit and the rise of the Black Lives Matter movement.The latest furious skirmish has focused on an unlikely target — the country’s National Trust for Places of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty. The storied charity manages around 300 stately homes and castles as well as other places of historic interest acquired over the years from impoverished aristocratic families.Among them Chartwell in Kent, the country home of Winston Churchill for four decades, Cliveden, the home to a Prince of Wales, two dukes, an Earl, and finally the Astor family, and the water-meadow along the River Thames at Runnymede, west of London, the site of the signing in 1215 of the Magna Carta, which an assembly of rebellious English barons forced on King John.FILE – “Cliveden” the thames side Mansion of Lord and Lady Astor at Taplow, Bucks, England on July 22, 1938.Castle Ward in Northern Ireland, another National Trust property, was one of the backdrops for the filming of the blockbuster TV series Game of Thrones.And until recently the National Trust, founded in the late nineteenth century and funded by the government and from the subscriptions of members, was synonymous with genteel afternoon teas, strolls in ornate gardens in period settings and quiet family days-out, all far from the cut-and-thrust of political controversy.Troubled historyBut that changed when in September the National Trust published a weighty report detailing the historical links of 93 properties with the slave trade and British imperial rule.The inclusion of Churchill’s home Chartwell drew the ire especially of the country’s culture minister Oliver Dowden and other ruling Conservatives.FILE – The Churchill family turns out in force to welcome former President Harry S. Truman and first lady Bess Truman to Chartwell, the former British Prime Minister’s English countryside estate,June 24, 1956.Churchill’s role as minister for the colonies in the 1920s, his participation in the partition of Ireland as well as his decision as wartime prime minister to limit aid to Bengal during a disastrous 1943 famine were all cited in the report. None of that quieted the outcry from Conservatives, nor their anger that the home of the Victorian-era author Rudyard Kipling was listed because “the British Empire was a central theme and context of his literary output.”“Churchill is one of Britain’s greatest heroes,” Dowden complained. “He rallied the free world to defeat fascism. It will surprise and disappoint people that the National Trust appears to be making him a subject of criticism and controversy,” he added.Other Conservatives criticized the conflation of slavery with colonialism, saying it revealed the political motivations of the National Trust and was an effort to defame and diminish towering historical figures and great families and to rewrite British history.In its report exploring how the previous owners of the properties profited from slavery and were involved in colonial expansion, or oversaw British imperial rule across a swathe of the globe, the National Trust noted: “These histories are sometimes very painful and difficult to consider. They make us question our assumptions about the past, and yet they can also deepen and enrich our understanding.”PoliticsThe charity’s executives insist they are not taking partisan political sides and that the information about how foreign conquest and slavery profits enriched plantation-owning families and imperial overlords, allowing them to build stately homes and lavishly furnish them, can be utilized for education purposes.They want visitors to the properties to get a fuller, more accurate history, not a sanitized version, they say.Historian Peter Mitchell, a research fellow at Britain’s Sussex University, agrees. He has praised the trust for trying to contextualize, explain and for asking uncomfortable questions. Writing in the Guardian newspaper, he said: “The treatment the National Trust has received for daring to understand its mission as to help us understand history, rather than supply us with fantasy, is a warning to all historians.”But Conservative critics say the National Trust should focus on the upkeep of the buildings and land it manages. The battle has raged on for months now.This week, Common Sense, a group of more than 60 Conservative lawmakers, revealed it is seeking a meeting with Britain’s charity commissioner, to discuss the charitable status of organizations which they claim have “denigrated British history and heritage,” including the National Trust. The group argues charities are being hijacked by “elitist bourgeois liberals colored by cultural Marxist dogma, colloquially known as the ‘woke agenda.’”The request for a meeting follows a recent warning by the commissioner, Tina Stowell, a Conservative peer, that those “tempted to use charities as another front on which to wage broader political struggles should be careful.”On campusConservative cultural warriors are also targeting Britain’s public universities, which they see as bastions of the left and they criticized a recent report by the universities’ representative body, UK’s universities, calling for an end to “curricula that are based on Eurocentric, typically white voices.” They have fulminated, too, against the so-called no-platforming of controversial speakers, generally Conservatives, at some universities, who find themselves barred from speaking because of their views.Britain’s Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Oliver Dowden outside Downing Street in London, Britain, Nov. 4, 2020.In the past few weeks the culture minister, Oliver Dowden, has warned a London museum it might lose state funding, if it removes a statue of a merchant and slave trader from its grounds. And the Department for Education has instructed schools not to teach pupils about “extreme political stances” such as the “desire to overthrow capitalism,” and to refrain from teaching “victim narratives that are harmful to British society.”Some Conservative commentators have called for even more forward-leaning action. Daily Telegraph columnist Tim Stanley has urged the ruling Conservatives to “march through the cultural institutions,” saying it should use the “purse strings” to change the cultural political balance.But some Conservative lawmakers worry that cultural warfare can be carried too far and that it carries electoral risks, limiting its utility as a political strategy. Polling data suggests older Britons do worry about the country turning more multicultural and remain fearful of a dilution of what they see as British identity. But younger votes don’t.Prime Minister Boris Johnson himself has been cautious. In his speech to a virtual conference of Conservative party members in October, he devoted little time to the culture wars, limiting his remarks to a short passage criticizing those who “want to pull statues down, to rewrite the history of our country … to make it look more politically correct.” A full-scale, no-holds-barred culture war would undermine the image of a “global Britain,” which Johnson has been promoting.Easier this year, he considered appointing two highly Conservative journalists, Charles Moore, a biographer of Margaret Thatcher, and Paul Dacre, the former editor of the Daily Mail tabloid, to chair respectively the BBC and the country’s broadcasting regulator, only to back down.
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China Limits Travel by Some US Officials to Hong Kong
China’s Foreign Ministry said Thursday it is restricting travel by some U.S. officials to Hong Kong after the U.S. placed financial sanctions and a travel ban on 14 Chinese officials.
Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying said at a Beijing news conference that
U.S. diplomatic passport holders visiting Hong Kong and neighboring Macao will temporarily have their visa-free entry privileges revoked.
Hua also said China will impose “reciprocal sanctions” on some U.S. officials, including lawmakers and personnel at non-governmental groups, in response to their “vile” behavior in Hong Kong.
Hua did not disclose the names of those China has targeted or say when the sanctions would begin.
The U.S. imposed sanctions against the Chinese officials Monday in response to their role in the passage earlier this year of a national security law for Hong Kong and China’s disqualification last month of opposition lawmakers who were elected in Hong Kong.
Adoption of the security law led to a harsh crackdown on free speech and opposition political activity in Hong Kong.
Hua said China’s latest actions were taken “given that the U.S. side is using the Hong Kong issue to seriously interfere in China’s internal affairs and undermine China’s core interests.”
The United States did not immediately respond to China’s travel restrictions against U.S. officials.
China had long warned it would retaliate against the U.S. sanctions and other moves viewed as antagonistic.
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Pandemic Undermines Human Rights Worldwide, UN Says
The head of the United Nations is urging the world to put human rights “front and center” in the coronavirus recovery efforts in order to achieve a better future for its citizens. In a televised address issued Thursday on the annual observance of International Human Rights Day, Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said the COVID-19 pandemic has had a “disproportionate impact on vulnerable groups” including frontline workers, the elderly, disabled, women and girls, and minorities.The virus “has thrived because poverty, inequality, discrimination, the destruction of our natural environment and other human rights failures, have created enormous fragilities in our societies,” Guterres said, while simultaneously providing leaders with a pretext to impose “heavy-handed security responses and repressive measures that curtail civic space and media freedom.” Human rights activists stage a protest over human rights violations in Egypt during a two-day official visit of Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi in Paris, France, Dec. 8, 2020.In a speech delivered Wednesday in Geneva, U.N. human rights commissioner Michelle Bachelet said the failure of many countries to take the virus seriously and to act quickly enough to prevent its spread has undermined a range of human rights issues around the world, including economic, civil and political rights.“Politicizing a pandemic in this way is beyond irresponsible – it is utterly reprehensible,” Bachelet said. “Scientific evidence and processes have been discounted, and conspiracy theories and disinformation have been sown and allowed – or encouraged – to thrive.” The ex-Chilean president said these actions have allowed discrimination, systemic racism and marginalization of the most vulnerable people in the world to flourish, especially in “countries in conflict” such as Yemen, which has suffered from “a perfect storm of five years of conflict and violations, disease, blockades, and shortage of humanitarian funding.”Although the world is on the cusp of at least one safe and effective COVID-19 vaccine, Bachelet said it will not prevent or cure the socio-economic ravages caused by the pandemic. She said the only thing that can accomplish that is the “vaccine of human rights,” whose core ingredients are embedded in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which was adopted by the U.N. General Assembly on December 10, 1948. Globally, the pandemic has infected at least 68 million people and killed more than 1.5 million, according to Johns Hopkins University.
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‘Under The Rug:’ Sexual Misconduct Shakes FBI’s Senior Ranks
An assistant FBI director retired after he was accused of drunkenly groping a female subordinate in a stairwell. Another senior FBI official left after he was found to have sexually harassed eight employees. Yet another high-ranking FBI agent retired after he was accused of blackmailing a young employee into sexual encounters.
An Associated Press investigation has identified at least six sexual misconduct allegations involving senior FBI officials over the past five years, including two new claims brought this week by women who say they were sexually assaulted by ranking agents.
Each of the accused FBI officials appears to have avoided discipline, the AP found, and several were quietly transferred or retired, keeping their full pensions and benefits even when probes substantiated the sexual misconduct claims against them.
Beyond that, federal law enforcement officials are afforded anonymity even after the disciplinary process runs its course, allowing them to land on their feet in the private sector or even remain in law enforcement.
“They’re sweeping it under the rug,” said a former FBI analyst who alleges in a new federal lawsuit that a supervisory special agent licked her face and groped her at a colleague’s farewell party in 2017. She ended up leaving the FBI and has been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder.
“As the premier law enforcement organization that the FBI holds itself out to be, it’s very disheartening when they allow people they know are criminals to retire and pursue careers in law enforcement-related fields,” said the woman, who asked to be identified in this story only by her first name, Becky.
The AP’s count does not include the growing number of high-level FBI supervisors who have failed to report romantic relationships with subordinates in recent years — a pattern that has alarmed investigators with the Office of Inspector General and raised questions about bureau policy.
The recurring sexual misconduct has drawn the attention of Congress and advocacy groups, which have called for whistleblower protections for rank-and-file FBI employees and for an outside entity to review the bureau’s disciplinary cases.
“They need a #MeToo moment,” said U.S. Rep. Jackie Speier, a California Democrat who has been critical of the treatment of women in the male-dominated FBI.
“It’s repugnant, and it underscores the fact that the FBI and many of our institutions are still good ol’-boy networks,” Speier said. “It doesn’t surprise me that, in terms of sexual assault and sexual harassment, they are still in the Dark Ages.”
In a statement, the FBI said it “maintains a zero-tolerance policy toward sexual harassment” and that claims against supervisors have resulted in them being removed from their positions while cases are investigated and adjudicated.
It added that severe cases can result in criminal charges and that the FBI’s internal disciplinary process assesses, among other factors, “the credibility of the allegations, the severity of the conduct, and the rank and position of the individuals involved.”
The AP review of court records, Office of Inspector General reports and interviews with federal law enforcement officials identified at least six allegations against senior officials, including an assistant director and special agents in charge of entire field offices, that ranged from unwanted touching and sexual advances to coercion.
None appears to have been disciplined, but another sexual misconduct allegation identified in the AP review of a rank-and-file agent resulted in him losing his security clearance.
The FBI, with more than 35,000 employees, keeps a notoriously tight lid on such allegations. The last time the Office of Inspector General did an extensive probe of sexual misconduct within the FBI, it tallied 343 “offenses” from fiscal years 2009 to 2012, including three instances of “videotaping undressed women without consent.”
The latest claims come months after a 17th woman joined a federal lawsuit alleging systemic sexual harassment at the FBI’s training academy in Quantico, Virginia. That class-action case claims male FBI instructors made “sexually charged” comments about women needing to “take their birth control to control their moods,” inviting women trainees over to their homes and openly disparaging them.
In one of the new lawsuits filed Wednesday, a former FBI employee identified only as “Jane Doe” alleged a special agent in charge in 2016 retired without discipline and opened a law firm even after he “imprisoned, tortured, harassed, blackmailed, stalked and manipulated” her into having several “non-consensual sexual encounters,” including one in which he forced himself on her in a car. The AP is withholding the name and location of the accused special agent to protect the woman’s identity.
“It is the policy and practice of the FBI and its OIG to allow senior executives accused of sexual assault to quietly retire with full benefits without prosecution,” the woman’s attorney, David J. Shaffer, alleges in the lawsuit.
One such case involved Roger C. Stanton, who before his abrupt retirement served as assistant director of the Insider Threat Office, a division at Washington headquarters tasked with rooting out leakers and safeguarding national security information.
According to an Inspector General’s report concluded this year and obtained by AP through a public records request, Stanton was accused of drunkenly driving a female subordinate home following an after-work happy hour. The woman told investigators that once inside a stairwell of her apartment building, Stanton wrapped his arm around her waist and “moved his hand down onto her bottom” before she was able to get away and hustle up the stairs.
After Stanton left, he called the woman 15 times on her FBI phone and sent her what investigators described as “garbled text” complaining that he could not find his vehicle. The heavily redacted report does not say when the incident happened.
Stanton disputed the woman’s account and told investigators he “did not intend to do anything” and only placed his arm around her because of the “narrowness” of the stairs. But Stanton acknowledged he was “very embarrassed by this event” and “assistant directors should not be putting themselves in these situations.”
Stanton retired in late 2018 after the investigation determined he sexually harassed the woman and sought an improper relationship. He did not respond to requests for comment from AP.
Earlier this year, the Inspector General found that the special agent in charge of the Albany, New York, office, James N. Hendricks, sexually harassed eight subordinates at the FBI.
Hendricks also was not named in the OIG report despite its findings. He was first identified in September by the Albany Times Union. One current and one former colleague of Hendricks confirmed his role in the case to AP.
Hendricks now writes a law enforcement blog in which he touts his FBI accolades but makes no mention of the misconduct allegations. He did not respond to requests for comment.
Becky, the former analyst, told AP she once believed FBI’s “organizational values and mission aligned with how I was raised.” But she was disabused of that notion after reporting to management that Charles Dick, a supervisory special agent at the FBI Training Academy at the time, sexually assaulted her at a farewell party.
Becky told AP her assailant had threatened her at least two times before. “Once while we were waiting for the director he said, ‘I’m going to touch your ass. You know it’s going to happen.'”
“His boorish behavior was well known,” she added. “He was getting away with everything.”
In a federal lawsuit filed Wednesday, Becky accused the former agent of wrapping his arm around her chest while posing for a photograph and “reaching under her and simulating” penetration of her “with his fingers through her jeans.”
Dick denied the charges and was acquitted in state court in Virginia by a judge who ruled it “wholly incredible” that Becky would “stand there and take it and not say anything,” according to a transcript of the proceeding. Dick retired from the FBI months before the Inspector General followed up on Becky’s internal complaint, Becky alleged in her lawsuit, adding she faced retaliation for coming forward.
“It’s much easier to suffer in isolation than it is to go public,” she told AP. “But if I don’t report it, I’m complicit in the cultural and institutionalized cover-up of this sort of behavior.”
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Australian Lawmakers Condemn Destruction of Sacred Aboriginal Sites
An Australian parliamentary inquiry into the destruction of 46,000-year-old Indigenous caves in Australia by Rio Tinto has sharply criticized the actions of one of the world’s biggest mining companies.Never Again is the title of the parliamentary Joint Standing Committee on Northern Australia report into the blasting of the Juukan Gorge caves in Western Australia’s Pilbara region by mining giant Rio Tinto this year. The rock shelters were sacred to local Indigenous communities.Senator Pat Dodson called it one of the worst avoidable disasters “that has ever happened in our country.”The report said the decision to destroy the ancient shelters, against the wishes of the Aboriginal owners, and despite knowing the archaeological value of the site, was “inexcusable.” They were detonated in the search for high-grade iron ore.Indigenous groups told the inquiry it was a “shocking act of corporate vandalism to our very sacred site.”The committee report makes seven main recommendations, including that Rio Tinto fully rebuild the area and pay compensation. The company is urged to abandon all mining projects in the region.Deanna Kemp, the director of the Center for Social Responsibility in Mining at the University of Queensland, said the report shows that Indigenous culture needs greater protection.“This inquiry has really lifted the lid on all of the complexities, the flaws in the system and the failure to protect important heritage,” she said. “But it has also really shown us the reticence of companies to disclose and share information as well. So, what they included in their submissions was quite general and then what was unearthed during testimony and questions on notice we have got a lot more specific detail on many different aspects of this tragedy.”Rio Tinto has previously apologized for the destruction of the caves. The scandal forced three executives to leave the company. Its demolition of the Juukan Gorge caves was technically legal under Western Australian legislation, which is now being reviewed. The inquiry said the laws were “woefully out of date and poorly administered.”The final Parliamentary report is expected next year, which is expected to contain more details about the various recommendations, although its findings will not be legally binding.
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EU Trade Talks Face ‘Moment of Finality’ on Weekend, UK Says
Britain’s foreign minister said Thursday that negotiations on a trade deal with the European Union will reach a “moment of finality” this weekend, with both sides assessing chances of an agreement as slim.Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab said the Sunday deadline set by Britain and the EU for a decision was final, though he added, “You can never say never entirely.”European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson held a three-hour dinner meeting Wednesday in hope of unblocking stalled talks but came away saying the gaps between them were large.“We understand each other’s positions. They remain far apart,” von der Leyen said.They told their negotiators to keep talking but set Sunday as decision day.Without a deal, the bloc and Britain face a tumultuous no-deal split at the end of the month, threatening hundreds of thousands of jobs and billions in losses.Britain left the EU on Jan. 31 but remains in its economic structures until the end of the year. That means a serious economic rupture on Jan. 1 that could be chaotic if there is no trade agreement. A no-deal split would bring tariffs and other barriers that would hurt both sides, although most economists think the British economy would take a greater hit because the U.K. does almost half of its trade with the bloc.Months of trade talks have failed to bridge the gaps on three issues: fishing rights, fair-competition rules and the governance of future disputes.While both sides want a deal, they have fundamentally different views of what it entails. The EU fears Britain will slash social and environmental standards and pump state money into U.K. industries, becoming a low-regulation economic rival on the bloc’s doorstep — hence the demand for strict “level playing field” guarantees in exchange for access to its markets.The U.K. government sees Brexit as about sovereignty and “taking back control” of the country’s laws, borders and waters. It claims the EU is trying to bind Britain to the bloc’s rules indefinitely.
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NASA Introduces New Crop of Lunar Astronauts
NASA on Wednesday formally introduced 18 astronauts who will take part in the U.S. space agency’s new manned lunar program.Nine men and nine women are the first group of astronauts assigned to the Artemis program, half of whom have already flown into space. Two of the Artemis astronauts, Victor Glover and Kate Rubins, are currently serving on the International Space Station as part of the first full-fledged crew to fly aboard the privately owned SpaceX Crew Dragon.The Artemis astronauts also include Christina Koch and Jessica Meir, who conducted the world’s first all-female spacewalk last year at the ISS.Vice President Mike Pence, who led the introduction ceremony at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, hailed the Artemis astronauts as “the future of American space exploration – and that future is bright.”The first Artemis mission, tentatively scheduled for next year, will be an unmanned test flight of NASA’s powerful new Space Launch System and its deep space Orion capsule, which is designed to transport humans to the Moon and Mars. If NASA achieves its goal of landing the first Artemis crew on the moon in 2024, it will be the first manned lunar mission since the end of the legendary Apollo program in 1972.
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US Nearing Approval of First COVID-19 Vaccine
After more than 15.3 million total infections, the United States is on the verge of obtaining a safe and effective COVID-19 vaccine.A special panel of the Food and Drug Administration will meet Thursday morning to consider whether to grant emergency use authorization to the new vaccine developed by U.S.-based pharmaceutical giant Pfizer and Germany’s BioNTech.If the Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee recommends the emergency authorization as expected, the FDA will likely give its final consent as early as Friday or Saturday. The federal government will immediately ship 6.4 million doses of the vaccine across the United States, with front-line health care workers receiving top priority for the first inoculations.The U.S. military will also prioritize its health care workers for its initial allocation of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine, which will be just under 44,000 doses. A Pentagon spokesperson told reporters Wednesday that the military will start inoculations “within a day or two” after the FDA approves the emergency use authorization. The vaccinations will be voluntary at first, but could become mandatory once the vaccine is fully licensed.Thursday’s meeting is being held a day after the United States recorded more than 3,000 COVID-19 deaths in a single day for the first time in the nearly yearlong pandemic.The Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine has jumped to the front of the line in the global effort to develop a vaccine against the novel coronavirus that causes COVID-19. Britain became the first Western nation to begin mass inoculations of the drug on Tuesday, just days after the government’s medical regulatory agency approved the drug.
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Why California Businesses Say No to Lockdown Amidst COVID Surge
California, the most populated state in the United States, is undergoing a surge in COVID-19 cases, prompting the governor to issue a regional stay-at-home order. Some businesses are fighting back, saying the lockdown is unfair, as VOA’s Elizabeth Lee reports from Los Angeles.
Camera: Roy Kim, Elizabeth Lee and Michelle Quinn
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Kim Kardashian Asks Trump for Clemency Ahead of US Man’s Execution
Kim Kardashian on Wednesday called on U.S. President Donald Trump to commute the death sentence of a U.S. man scheduled to be executed Thursday for his participation in a double murder when he was 18 years old.The reality television star, who is studying to be a lawyer in California, has used her influence to try to sway criminal justice matters before.”I’m calling on @realDonaldTrump to grant Brandon (Bernard) a commutation and allow him to live out his sentence in prison,” Kardashian tweeted.Kardashian has previously pushed for the release of incarcerated people whose guilt is sometimes in doubt, though this time she does not dispute Bernard’s involvement in the 1999 murder of two pastors.”While Brandon did participate in this crime, his role was minor compared to that of the other teens involved, two of whom are home from prison now,” Kardashian said, adding that “at just a few months past 18 his brain was still developing.”In 1999, Bernard and several other teenagers kidnapped Todd and Stacey Bagley to force them withdraw cash, before eventually shooting and burning them in their car.Some of Bernard’s fellow attackers were under 17 and avoided the death penalty.Because the assault took place on a military base, the shooter, then-19-year-old Christopher Vialva, and Bernard, who lit the car on fire, were both sentenced to death by a federal court in 2000.Vialva was executed by lethal injection in September in Terre Haute, Indiana.As the execution approached, tens of thousands of people — including jurors who sentenced him and a former prosecutor who was in charge of the case — have called on the president to commute Bernard’s sentence, citing his good behavior in prison and his youth at the time of the crime.”Brandon Bernard, a 40-year-old father is going to be executed tomorrow by our federal government. Having gotten to know Brandon, I am heartbroken about this execution,” Kardashian tweeted.His lawyers have unsuccessfully requested a review of the original trial, claiming they have new documents that prove Bernard’s participation was not central to the murders.Unless there is a last-minute reversal, Bernard will become the eighth person executed by the U.S. government since the resumption of the death penalty in federal cases in July following a 17-year pause.While the coronavirus pandemic has prompted states to suspend nearly all scheduled executions, the Trump administration has at least four other executions planned before the defeated president leaves the White House on Jan. 20.
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Who Killed Those People?’ Ethiopian Children Ask, Fleeing Brutal Conflict
Refugees fleeing the fighting in Ethiopia say they don’t know the fate of their families left behind as they arrive at remote camps in Sudan. VOA’s Heather Murdock has this report from the Um Rakouba camp in eastern Sudan.
Camera: Mohaned Bilal, Heather Murdock
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Teen Arrested in Australia Is Expected to Face Terror-related Charges
Australian police arrested on Wednesday an 18-year-old man who had allegedly expressed interest in committing a mass-casualty attack, motivated by right-wing ideology.Police said they expected to file charges against the unidentified man from Albury, a small town 553 km (344 miles) southwest of Sydney.”The male we’ve arrested has an extremely right-wing ideology and is focused on neo-Nazi, white supremacist and anti-Semitic material,” Scott Lee, Australian Federal Police assistant commissioner, told reporters in Sydney.”A couple of days ago, what we observed was an escalation in the tone which went to a support of a mass casualty event, and potentially his involvement in that event,” Lee said.Australia, a staunch U.S. ally, has been on heightened alert against the threat of homegrown radicals after several “lone wolf” attacks in recent years.A white supremacist gunman from Australia killed 51 Muslim worshippers in New Zealand last year.Australian intelligence agencies have regularly warned of an increased threat by right-wing-aligned individuals since then.
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US Visa Restrictions on China to Pose Test for Biden
As tensions between Beijing and Washington have worsened over the past year, U.S. officials have tightened visa restrictions, kicking out hundreds of Chinese researchers accused of hiding military ties and branding some Chinese technology companies security threats.While China calls the moves part of a “deep-rooted Cold War mentality,” U.S. supporters of the moves see them as a course correction in response to Chinese President Xi Jinping’s abuse of U.S. policies encouraging trade and academic ties.The latest measure came last week, when the State Department tightened travel visa restrictions on Chinese Communist Party (CCP) members, allowing only one-month single-entry visas where 10-year multiple-entry visas were previously allowed. U.S. officials said the measure was needed to “protect our nation from the CCP’s malign influence,” while the Chinese Foreign Ministry called it “an escalation of political suppression by some extreme anti-China forces in the U.S.”FILE – IBM employee Yang Bo shakes hands with then-U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry after being the first Chinese citizen to be issued a 10-year visa, at the U.S. Embassy in Beijing, Nov. 12, 2014.Just a few years ago, the U.S. eased restrictions on Chinese travel to the U.S., seeking in part to capitalize on a growing tourism sector fueled by China’s expanding middle class. In 2014, Chinese travelers — CCP members or not — became eligible for multiple-entry visas valid for 10 years, with stays of six months allowed for each entry. China reciprocated, but with exceptions.“Frankly, Chinese scholars were easily able to obtain a 10-year tourist visa and use those to come to the United States, but Americans like me, scholars who work at think tanks, could only get single-entry visas and go to China for a week at most,” said Bonnie Glaser, director of the China Power Project at the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies.CCP criticism a factorProfessor Perry Link of the University of California-Riverside, told VOA that “the CCP has blocked some Americans because the Americans have criticized the CCP, while the U.S. government has never blocked people because they criticize a political party.”Link was permanently blacklisted by Beijing in 1996 for translating into English a compilation of secret Chinese government documents concerning the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests.China critic and Fox News contributor Gordon Chang agreed that reciprocity was never even-keeled.“The most important thing is that the United States is demanding reciprocity from China because Chinese citizens, whether they’re Communist Party members or not, travel to the U.S. with many fewer restrictions than Americans do in China,” said Chang, who in 2001 authored “The Coming Collapse of China.”FILE – People remove bags from inside the Chinese Consulate to load into a van in Houston, July 23, 2020.The Trump administration has clamped down in 2020, classifying more than a dozen Chinese media outlets as foreign missions, ordering the closure of the Chinese Consulate in Houston, arresting Chinese researchers who concealed their affiliation with the Chinese Liberation Army, and restricting student visas for Chinese citizens studying in certain tech sectors with potential national security applications.Uighurs, Hong Kong lawIn addition, Washington has already imposed travel bans and sanctions on officials connected to the crackdown on Uighurs in Xinjiang, as well as on Chinese and Hong Kong officials it accuses of restricting political rights in the semiautonomous island through the new National Security Law for Hong Kong.The United States in October imposed a broad immigration ban on CCP members, blocking them from becoming U.S. citizens or lawful permanent residents.Chang argues for a complete ban on CCP members. “The Communist Party has made it clear that they seek the destruction of the United States, so I don’t see why we should be allowing their members in the U.S,” he told VOA.Glaser doubted the policy is going to have much impact. She said that apart from being put in place by an outgoing administration — she expects a policy review by the incoming Biden administration — severely restricting people-to-people exchanges isn’t in the interest of either nation.Then-U.S. Vice President Joe Biden speaks as he meets visa applicants at the U.S. Embassy Consular Section in Beijing, Dec. 4, 2013.“I doubt that this particular policy will be reviewed in isolation,” she said. “Rather, I think there will be discussions between the United States and China about visa restrictions on journalists, visa restrictions on Chinese Communist Party members, and how we go about creating more reciprocity.”Link agreed that the CCP will come back to negotiate but stressed that “the Biden people would need to be involved in the negotiation and would need to be as firm as the Trump people are.”The incoming administration has signaled that President-elect Joe Biden plans to reverse many of President Donald Trump’s tightened immigration and visa policies, although it remains unclear whether that will include loosening visa restrictions for Chinese citizens.This story originated in VOA’s Mandarin Service.
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Hunter Biden Facing Federal Investigation Over ‘Tax Affairs’
President-elect Joe Biden’s son Hunter said Wednesday that his “tax affairs” are under federal investigation, putting a renewed spotlight on the questions about his financial dealings that dogged his father’s campaign. In a statement released by the president-elect’s transition office, the younger Biden said he learned about the investigation Tuesday. He did not disclose details of the matter. “I take this matter very seriously, but I am confident that a professional and objective review of these matters will demonstrate that I handled my affairs legally and appropriately, including with the benefit of professional tax advisers,” he said in a statement. Hunter Biden has long been a target of President Donald Trump and his allies, who have accused him of profiting off his political connections. Trump and his supporters also raised unsubstantiated charges of corruption related to Hunter Biden’s work in Ukraine at the time his father was vice president and leading the Obama administration’s dealings with the Eastern European nation. The disclosure of the federal investigation led by the U.S. attorney’s office in Delaware comes at an awkward moment for the incoming president, who is assembling his Cabinet. His pick for attorney general could have oversight of the investigation into the new president’s son if it is still ongoing when Biden is sworn in on January 20. The transition team said in a statement: “President-elect Biden is deeply proud of his son, who has fought through difficult challenges, including the vicious personal attacks of recent months, only to emerge stronger.” Hunter Biden’s attorneys did not immediately return phone messages seeking comment.
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US Senate Moves to Block UAE Arms Sales
The U.S. Senate will vote on resolutions of disapproval Wednesday condemning the Trump administration’s planned sale of more than $23 billion in military equipment to the United Arab Emirates.
The bipartisan group of senators who introduced the resolutions allege the administration did not go through the proper congressional review process for a sale of that magnitude, leaving unanswered questions about the purpose and security of the transfer.
“On this sale in particular, the consultative process was really important, because this sale is as big and as hairy and as complicated as you get,” Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy said on the Senate floor Wednesday. “We are for the first time selling F-35s and MQ-9 Reaper drones into the heart of the Middle East. Never done before.”
Human rights group Amnesty International has criticized the U.S. sale of drones and other weapons to the UAE, saying they will be used in the conflict in Yemen.
“The United States must resolutely refrain from supplying weapons that could be used in the conflict and not transfer weaponry to the UAE, or risk complicity in likely war crimes in Yemen,” Amnesty said in a November statement.
According to the State Department, the sales to the UAE total $23.37 billion, including more than $10 billion in sales for 50 F-35 Lighting aircraft, almost $3 billion in sales for unmanned aerial systems and a $10 billion package of air-to-air and air-to-ground munitions.
The UAE and Israel signed the Abraham Peace Accords earlier this year, opening the way for a normalization of relations between the two countries.
In a statement announcing the sales last month, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said the accord “offers a once-in-a-generation opportunity to positively transform the region’s strategic landscape. Our adversaries, especially those in Iran, know this and will stop at nothing to disrupt this shared success. The proposed sale will make the UAE even more capable and interoperable with U.S. partners in a manner fully consistent with America’s longstanding commitment to ensuring Israel’s Qualitative Military Edge.”
But U.S. lawmakers say that while it is important to support the security of the UAE, the speed of the sale leaves too many unanswered questions.
“We are clear-eyed about the threat Iran continues to pose to U.S. national security interests. But we have yet to understand exactly what military threat the F-35 or armed drones will be addressing vis-a-vis Iran,” Sen. Bob Menendez, the leading Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said Wednesday.
The resolutions were introduced by Menendez and Murphy along with Republican Sen. Rand Paul. A similar resolution has been introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives.
The vote in the Senate Wednesday is not expected to garner enough support to avoid a presidential veto. Under U.S. law, the window for blocking the sales ends on December 10.
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‘A New Beginning’: Relief, Hope as Britain Begins Mass Coronavirus Vaccinations
British health officials are warning that people with a “significant history” of allergic reactions should not receive the new coronavirus vaccine that was rolled out in a mass vaccination program Tuesday, pending investigation of two adverse reactions. Britain is the first western country to begin the mass vaccinations, as Henry Ridgwell reports from London.
Camera: Henry Ridgwell Produced by: Henry Hernandez
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UN Official: Sudan Needs World’s Support in Transition to Democracy
A U.N. official says Sudan is at a critical juncture as it transitions to a democracy and needs the support of the international community to overcome its myriad economic challenges.Rosemary DiCarlo, U.N. undersecretary-general for political and peacebuilding affairs on Sudan and South Sudan, addressed the Security Council on Tuesday in New York via teleconference.“[Sudan] can move forward decisively in its transition, but that progress can still be derailed by the many challenges it faces. It is incumbent on all of us to support Sudan in its efforts to achieve democratic governance, economic prosperity and an inclusive society for all Sudanese,” DiCarlo told the council.December 19 will mark the second anniversary of the start of Sudan’s nationwide protests that led to the military’s ouster of President Omar al-Bashir in April 2019.The country is being run by a joint military-civilian Sovereign Council. But Sudan is still experiencing political division and economic issues, according to DiCarlo.“Demonstrations continue to occur intermittently across the country because of the economic crisis, demand for government reform and rejection of the amendment of the constitutional document; some have been accompanied by loss of life and injuries,” said DiCarlo.The COVID-19 pandemic has further aggravated the need for international assistance, along with severe flooding, intercommunal violence and prolonged displacement, according to DiCarlo.Strain from Tigray clashesShe said the ongoing clashes in Ethiopia’s Tigray region, which have prompted tens of thousands of Ethiopian refugees to stream into eastern Sudan, also have strained Sudan’s economy and its response capacity.Despite an October peace agreement signed between Sudan’s transitional government and a rebel coalition, Sudan’s economic crisis, exacerbated by the pandemic, threatens to undermine its transition.“The dire economic situation continues to cast a dark and long shadow over all these efforts. COVID-19 restrictions, including the five-month shutdown to prevent its spread, resulted in a severe decline in economic activity,” said DiCarlo.Sudan’s inflation rate stood at 229 percent in October, she said.“It is critical that the international community continues supporting Sudan’s economic recovery through funding of the basic income cash transfer program, known as the family support program, intended to mitigate the social impact of the transitional government’s economic reform agenda,” DiCarlo told the Security Council.The Trump administration has taken steps toward removing Sudan from the U.S. list of states that sponsor terrorism, and DiCarlo said she hoped that would happen soon, adding it would be “a change that will facilitate the country’s access to critical international financial assistance.”Sudan is expecting American lawmakers to pass bipartisan legislation to approve the change as soon as possible, according to multiple sources.Sudan was placed on the list in 1993 after hosting Osama bin Laden and other wanted militants.
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Ghanaian Voters Re-Elect President Nana Akufo-Addo
Official results from Ghana’s election Monday show incumbent President Nana Akufo-Addo has won a second term.After a two-day wait, Ghana’s Electoral Commission on Wednesday evening said the incumbent, President Nana Akufo-Addo, retained the presidency, beating his opponent, former president John Mahama.The commission said Akufo-Addo won 6.7 million votes — 51.6 percent of the total — while Mahama garnered 6.2 million votes, or 47.4 percent.Sounds of jubilation could be heard throughout Accra as the results were announced.The chair of the electoral commission, Jean Mensa, hailed the smooth and peaceful nature of the election.“I indicate that this is a historic election, because, for the first time in the history of our country, the election day went by without major incidents and occurrences, Mensa said.”The election also had a high turnout.“At the end of a transparent fair, orderly and timely and peaceful presidential election, the total number of valid votes cast was 13,434,574, representing 79% of the total registered voters,” Mensa added.The election results came a day later than expected, sparking some protests by the opposition National Democratic Party in the capital on Wednesday.Ahead of the election, Mahama and Akufo-Addo signed a peace pact committing to non-violence regardless of the outcome of the vote.However, the Ghana Police Service has recorded a total of 61 electoral and post-electoral incidents nationwide, six which involved gunshots, resulting in the death of five people across the nation. Nineteen others have been injured.In its report from more than 4,000 observers, the Coalition of Domestic Election Observers found the elections were generally conducted according to Ghana’s electoral laws and procedures. The coalition said there were some “isolated” challenges, but said they “did not undermine the process’s overall credibility.”
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