Britain launched an emergency program of door-to-door testing in several areas Tuesday following the discovery of hundreds of cases of the coronavirus variant, first identified in South Africa, which scientists say could be more resistant to vaccines. Mobile testing units were deployed to several regions, including parts of central and suburban London, while firefighter units and volunteers helped to deliver home testing kits and administer door-to-door testing. Local authorities aimed to conduct 80,000 coronavirus tests. By Tuesday morning, 105 cases of the mutation first seen in South Africa were identified in eight districts across Britain. Eleven of those cases did not have any direct link to international travel, suggesting the variant is being transmitted within the community. Volunteers hand out the COVID-19 home test kit to a resident, in Goldsworth and St. Johns, amid the outbreak of coronavirus disease in Woking, Britain, Feb. 2, 2021.Meanwhile, health authorities announced they are also investigating separate cases of the virus with what they described as worrying new genetic changes. The variants, identified in the cities of Bristol and Liverpool, have the same mutation as the South African variant, called E484K. British Health Secretary Matt Hancock urged people living in the affected areas to adhere to lockdown rules and stay home. “Our mission must be to stop its spread altogether and break those chains of transmission. … It is imperative that people must stay at home and only leave home where it is absolutely essential,” Hancock told members of parliament Tuesday. People queue at a testing center amid the outbreak of the coronavirus disease, in Southport, Britain, Feb. 2, 2021.Britain is still battling a separate coronavirus mutation, first identified in Kent in southern England in September, which has contributed to a deadly second wave of the pandemic. An estimated 107,000 people have died in Britain within 28 days of testing positive for the virus since the pandemic began. Scientists say the variants appear to be more transmissible. Early indications from trials suggest they may also be more resistant to vaccines. “There has been a couple of observations, one from Novavax and one from Johnson & Johnson, which suggest that their vaccine trials were less successful in South Africa than they were in the United Kingdom and the United States,” Simon Clarke, a microbiologist at Britain’s University of Reading, told VOA. “(The mutation) renders antibodies less able to bind to the spike protein of the virus and stop the spike protein acting as a key to gain entrance to our cells.” That could affect people’s immunity to the coronavirus, both for individuals who have had the infection and those who have been vaccinated. An advertisement board is seen, amid the outbreak of coronavirus disease in Woking, Britain, Feb. 2, 2021.”Even if we roll out a vaccine across the population, getting complete 100 percent coverage will be nigh on impossible,” Clarke said. “And the virus will be put under a selective pressure to accommodate and to favor mutations like this, which render it less susceptible to vaccines, or the actions of vaccines.” Britain also announced Tuesday it had given a first vaccine dose to more than 10 million people, by far the highest in Europe. It is not yet clear, however, if the vaccines are as effective against the new variants and may need to be modified. Health Secretary Hancock said such work was under way. “We’re working with pharmaceutical companies and with the scientists to understand both whether such modifications are needed, where they are needed and how they can be brought to use on the front line as quickly as safely possible.” Scientists say the emergence of new variants around the world underlines the urgent need to roll out global vaccination programs and suppress transmission, as even fully vaccinated populations could be at risk as the virus continues to mutate.
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Month: February 2021
Iran Releases South Korean-Flagged Tanker Crew
Iran has released 19 crew members and the captain of a South Korean tanker that was seized in the Persian Gulf last month, Iranian state TV announced Tuesday.The South Korean-flagged MT Hankuk Chemi, whose crew included sailors from Indonesia, Myanmar, South Korea and Vietnam, has been in custody at the port city of Bandar Abbas, near the Strait of Hormuz, since January 5.Foreign Ministry spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh said a legal investigation into the tanker would continue, although some see the apprehension as a move by Tehran to gain leverage over Seoul. The decision came after the two governments held talks over billions in frozen Iranian assets.Last month, South Korean Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs Choi Jong Kun visited Iran to discuss the crew’s release, as well as some $7 billion in Iranian assets from oil sales frozen in South Korea due to U.S. sanctions.In this photo released by the Iranian Foreign Ministry, South Korean Vice Foreign Minister Choi Jong Kun, center left, speaks with Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, center right, during their meeting in Tehran, Jan. 11, 2021.A South Korean statement said the country learned of Iran’s plans to release the crew during a phone call Tuesday between Choi and his Iranian counterpart Seyyed Abbas Araghchi.“The two vice foreign ministers said their governments took an important, first step toward restoring confidence between South Korea and Iran,” the statement said. “They agreed to restore their countries’ traditional, friendly ties of supporting each other when they face difficulties by resolving the issue of the frozen fund.”This is not the first instance of a ship apprehension by Iran. Last year, the country similarly apprehended a British-flagged oil tanker near Gibraltar, which it held for months.
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Homeowners on Zimbabwe Wetlands Out of Luck After Floods
Edeline Gweshe, 62, scoops water into a bucket and pours it outside her home. Most of her goods are now on top of bricks in her house since water is seeping in and is now above her toes.“I am not happy staying in this place from the first. But I don’t [have] money to go anywhere,” Gweshe said. “They said there is no other place. This is the only vacant [place] we have got. So, I did not have other options.”Edeline Gweshe has lived in her now-flooded home for 10 years. (Columbus Mavhunga/VOA)Gweshe said she bought this piece of land on which to build her home 10 years ago from a person she calls a “land baron.” That’s the term for criminals who hoodwink desperate home seekers, falsely claiming they own a piece of land and selling it to the unsuspecting.The land Gweshe purchased is wetland that often becomes flooded. Now, she is one of hundreds of people in Chitungwiza, 40 kilometers southeast of Harare, whose homes are under water.The floods prompted United Nations aid agencies to move in to avert a possible outbreak of water-borne diseases. The usual water sources, open wells, are flooded and likely contaminated.Christopher Ngwerume, an Emergency Specialist at UNICEF Zimbabwe, says evacuation of those affected by floods is the best option. (SKYPE)Christopher Ngwerume is an emergency specialist from UNICEF Zimbabwe.“Government will be looking more into medium- to long term for these affected populations,” Ngwerume said. “But from our side as the humanitarian actors, we are more concerned about identification of potential evacuation centers and ensuring that those evacuation centers have adequate materials and supplies to be able to support them during time of evacuation.” After images of flooding houses in Chitungwiza filled social media, officials from President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s government visited the area.July Moyo, Zimbabwe’s minister of local government, visiting some of the wetlands in Chitungwiza, Zimbabwe, on Jan. 30, 2021. (Columbus Mavhunga/VOA)Among them was July Moyo, the minister of local government. He blamed the affected homeowners for illegally building on wetlands and not following the law.“If it appears it is a wetland, we have to get clearance … from the ministry of environment to make sure that we are not building in wetlands,” Moyo said. “So, this is totally unusual. It’s not our planning model. That’s why we know that there are corrective measures that have to be taken.”Destroying “illegal structures” may be among them, the government minister said.For Edeline Gweshe and others left with uninhabitable homes, it’s still not clear where they will go.Sorry, but your browser cannot support embedded video of this type, you can
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Northern Ireland Suspends Inspections at Ports After Threats of Violence
Northern Ireland temporarily suspended some inspections at two ports late Monday after threats of violence and increased tensions have been reported in the area. Graffiti was discovered in Belfast describing port staff as “targets.” Staff have also reported suspicious behavior such as people writing down license plate numbers. Police say they are increasing patrols near ports of entry. A police vehicle patrols after threats were made to port workers implementing post-Brexit trade checks in Northern Ireland, at the Port of Larne in County Antrim, Feb. 2, 2021.A spokesman for the European Commission announced Tuesday they had withdrawn European Union staff from the Northern Ireland ports as a safety precaution and condemned the violence. Many pro-British unionists fiercely oppose the new trade barriers introduced between Northern Ireland and the rest of Britain as part of the Northern Ireland protocol, a stand-alone deal for the region after Britain left the EU. The protocol was designed to maintain the principles of the 1998 Good Friday Agreement and Northern Ireland’s open border with Ireland by keeping the region in the British customs territory but also aligned with the EU’s single market for goods. The British-run region remains deeply divided along sectarian lines, even after the 1998 peace deal, with Catholic nationalists aspiring to unification with Ireland and Protestant unionists wanting to remain part of Britain.
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US Declares Ouster of Myanmar Government a Military Coup
The U.S. State Department has officially declared the military takeover in Myanmar a coup. “After a careful review of the facts and circumstances, we have assessed that Aung San Suu Kyi, the leader of Burma’s ruling party, and Win Myint, the duly elected head of the government, were deposed in a military coup on February 1,” a State Department official said Tuesday. The comments came a day after the military seized control of the country while detaining senior politicians. The unnamed U.S. State Department official said on background the assessment of a coup “triggers certain restrictions on foreign assistance to the government” and that the U.S. “will take action against those responsible.” Myanmar citizens hold up a picture of leader Aung San Suu Kyi after the military seized power in a coup in Myanmar, outside United Nations venue in Bangkok, Thailand, Feb. 2, 2021.The U.S. will continue programs that help the country’s citizens, including humanitarian assistance and democracy support initiatives, the official said. The Myanmar military said its seizure, set to last one year, was necessary because the government had not acted on claims of voter fraud in November elections that were overwhelmingly won by the NLD. A new session of parliament had been due to begin Monday. Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell said in a statement that he spoke by phone Monday with U.S. President Joe Biden and applauded his response to the military takeover. “The new administration deserves credit for approaching this situation in a way that’s bipartisan and coordinated with Congress,” McConnell said. “The world is watching. I hope and expect the United States will quickly make the obvious legal determination that this is a military coup, and impose significant costs on the military for its attack on democracy.” Myanmar’s National League for Democracy called earlier Tuesday for the release of Aung San Suu Kyi, President Win Myint and other party leaders. People walk at a market after the army seized power in a coup in Yangon, Myanmar, Feb. 2, 2021.U.S. officials have “not been able” to speak with NLD members, the State Department official said, and added that “most of the senior officials are under house arrest.” Streets in Myanmar were quiet Tuesday, with phone and internet services running again and banks reopened. Global reactionInternational expressions of concern about the military’s action were widespread, with multiple governments urging the military to respect the democratic process and release the detained officials. Biden threatened to impose sanctions. “The United States will stand up for democracy wherever it is under attack,” Biden said in a statement.The United Nations Security Council is scheduled to hold an emergency meeting Tuesday to discuss the situation in Myanmar. Britain’s ambassador to the U.N. Barbara Woodward, who this month holds the council’s rotating presidency, said the Security Council will examine “a range of measures” to uphold the November election and secure the release of Aung San Suu Kyi and the other detainees. Growing tensionsMonday’s developments followed months of tensions linked to the November elections. Myanmar’s military said there had been voter fraud, an allegation rejected by the country’s election commission. On Saturday, the Tatmadaw, the official name of Myanmar’s military, released a statement arguing that voter fraud had taken place and the international community “should not be endorsing the next steps of the political process on a ‘business as usual’ basis.” A person steps on a picture of Myanmar’s army chief Min Aung Hlaing with his face crossed out after the military seized power in a coup in Myanmar, outside United Nations venue in Bangkok, Thailand, Feb. 2, 2021.”The Tatmadaw is the one pressing for adherence to democratic norms,” the statement read. “It is not the outcome itself of the election that the Tatmadaw is objecting to. … Rather, the Tatmadaw finds the process of the 2020 election unacceptable, with over 10.5 million cases of potential fraud, such as nonexistent votes.” Myanmar, also known as Burma, has long struggled between civilian and military rule but until the coup had been enjoying a hopeful transition to democracy. A British colony until 1948, Myanmar was ruled by dictators backed by the military from 1962 to 2010. An uprising in 1988 pushed for an election in 1990, which the NLD party won in a landslide, but the elected members of parliament were imprisoned, and the dictatorship continued. Aung San Suu Kyi, the daughter of Myanmar’s independence hero, General Aung San, who was assassinated in 1947, emerged as a leader in the pro-democracy rallies and in the NLD. She was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991 while under house arrest. In 2010, Senior General Than Shwe announced the country would be handed over to civilian leaders, who included retired generals. They freed political prisoners, including the lawmakers from the National League for Democracy, and Aung San Suu Kyi, who was elected in a 2012 by-election and later became the state counsellor of Myanmar. But Aung San Suu Kyi, 75, while popular among Myanmar’s Buddhist majority, has seen her international reputation decline over her government’s treatment of the country’s mostly Muslim Rohingya minority. In 2017, an Army crackdown against the Rohingya, sparked by deadly attacks on police stations in Rakhine state, led hundreds of thousands of Rohingya to flee to neighboring Bangladesh. The International Criminal Court is investigating the country for crimes against humanity. VOA’s Nike Ching contributed to this report.
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Biden to Sign Executive Orders Reversing Trump Immigration Policies
U.S. President Joe Biden is signing executive orders Tuesday to start to dismantle former President Donald Trump’s restrictive immigration policies, including an attempt to reunite families that had been separated at the U.S.-Mexican border.In the first hours of his presidency two weeks ago, Biden acted to halt construction of Trump’s $16 billion wall along the border and sent a far-reaching immigration bill to Congress, where lawmakers have long been stalemated between liberals looking to ease the path to U.S. citizenship and conservatives seeking to stem unauthorized immigration.Biden’s immediate focus is on the 3,100-kilometer southern border with Mexico, where Trump tried to keep thousands of migrants from Mexico, Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala from entering the U.S. Trump led repair and expansion of a border wall and imposed tough detention and deportation policies for those who made it across the desolate border terrain and into the United States.One of the orders Biden is signing would establish a task force designed to reunite more than 600 migrant children with their parents after federal authorities had split them up at the border in 2017 and 2018. Officials say first lady Jill Biden is expected to play an active role in the effort.FILE – Detained migrant children from Central America line up to enter a tent at the Homestead Temporary Shelter for Unaccompanied Children in Homestead, Florida, Feb. 19, 2019.”The Biden administration is committed to remedying this awful harm the Trump administration inflicted on families,” a senior Biden official said, calling the policy a “moral failure” and “national shame.”“President Biden’s strategy is centered on the basic premise that our country is safe and stronger and more prosperous with a safe, orderly and humane immigration system that welcomes immigrants, keeps families together and allows people — both newly arrived immigrants and people who have lived here for generations — to more fully contribute to our country,” the senior official told reporters.The official said that Trump “was so focused on the wall that he did nothing to address the root cause of why people are coming to our southern border. It was a limited, wasteful and naive strategy, and it failed.”By contrast, backers of the previous administration’s border initiatives said Biden’s orders will lead to chaos and lawlessness.“By resuming the pre-pandemic pace of visas, abandoning common-sense asylum policies, and increasing the burden on our strained social safety net, these orders will advance a dangerous open-borders policy, take away jobs from Americans struggling to find employment, and kneecap America’s economic recovery from lockdowns,” Jessica Anderson, director of the political advocacy arm of Washington-based Heritage Foundation, said in a statement.Biden plans to offer new aid to Central American countries to combat corruption and reinstate a program for certain at-risk children to live in the U.S.
The president also is directing the U.S. Homeland Security agency to review a Trump policy that requires non-Mexican migrants to stay in Mexico until their immigration court date in the U.S. but not immediately dismantle the program.FILE – Asylum seekers in Tijuana, Mexico, listen to names being called from a waiting list to allow them an opportunity to make their case, at a border crossing in San Diego, California, Sept. 26, 2019.The policy has left 60,000 asylum seekers waiting in dangerous border towns. Biden has already stopped new enrollments in the program but not disclosed how he intends to deal with those still waiting in Mexico.The president also plans to restore a program from the last Democratic administration under President Barack Obama allowing children under the age of 18 to apply to legally reunite with their parents already living in the United States.“The situation at the border will not transform overnight,” the senior Biden official said. “This is in large part due to the damage done over the last four years, but we are committed to addressing it in full.”More than 70,000 migrants have been detained or arrested at the border in each of the past four months, according to the U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency.Biden’s directives will also call for restoring the U.S. asylum system, which Trump had overhauled, making it exceedingly difficult for migrants to be granted asylum in the U.S.However, Biden’s immigration changes could face various court challenges. In his first week in office, he already sustained one legal setback when a federal judge temporarily blocked his 100-day pause in deportations while the case proceeds.
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Former US Envoy Calls for Nuanced Diplomacy
American diplomacy often requires a delicate process of balancing competing needs and objectives, says a former U.S. ambassador to Nigeria who has cited that nation’s fight against the Boko Haram extremist group as an example. John Campbell, author of FILE – Mourners attend the funeral of 43 farm workers in Zabarmari, about 20km from Maiduguri, Nigeria, Nov. 29, 2020, after they were killed by Boko Haram fighters in rice fields near the village of Koshobe.Offering an example, he said the United States is working with the Nigerian government to counter the rise and expansion of Boko Haram, an Islamist group based in that nation’s northeast which is blamed for killing tens of thousands of people and displacing more than 2 million. Boko Haram was designated a terrorist organization by the United States in 2013. But, he explained, Washington is constrained by public attitudes in Nigeria and needs to keep those attitudes in mind as it decides how to interact with its state institutions. “I’m extremely nervous when either Nigerians or Americans advocate a closer ‘security relationship’ because [then] we’re talking about a relationship with the army, the police, the state security services,” he said. The problem, Campbell added, is that “most Nigerians have very little confidence in, and very often a great deal of hostility towards” those institutions. He maintained that until the security forces gain the trust and confidence of the Nigerian people, it serves the U.S. interest to not get too deeply involved. FILE – Nigerian police officers patrol in the streets of Abuja during clashes with members of the Shi’ite Islamic Movement of Nigeria, July 22, 2019.Campbell pointed out that the national police force in Nigeria was first established by British colonial rulers “to keep the population under control” and that, to this day, its essential function remains to protect government’s interests against any opposition. Judd Devermont, director of the Africa Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), agreed there is “public distrust and growing anger over abuses and corruption” in Nigeria and said the United States “should approach Nigeria’s security sector with open eyes.” The objective should be more constructive, not necessarily closer, ties, he added in in a written response to questions from VOA. Devermont, who served as the national intelligence officer for Africa from 2015 to 2018, said he does not see a “moral hazard” in U.S. engagement with the security sector in Nigeria “as long as we are candid about the security sector’s failings and align ourselves with the Nigerian public’s demands for reform.” James Barnett, a research fellow at the Hudson Institute who specializes in Africa and parts of the Middle East, agrees with Campbell that it is important to engage with Nigeria on institution and nation building, saying in a written interview that “little efforts can pay off over time.” Campbell suggested in an interview with VOA that a better way for the United States to help Nigeria might be to help the country to strengthen its judicial branch.
FILE – A Lady Justice statue stands outside the Court of Appeal in Abuja, Nigeria, Sept. 11, 2019.“Nigeria’s court system still operates with pen and pencil,” he told VOA. “We could provide them with computers” to help expedite the processing of cases and in so doing, bolster rule of law which is essential to democratic institution-building. Despite the challenges facing Nigeria, Campbell said he sees the trajectory of “democratic federalism” in the country as moving in a positive direction. He noted that substantial democratic “forms” are in place, including regular elections, a civilian-led government and a multi-state federal structure. “In time, form encourages the development of substance,” he said. Campbell pointed out that Nigeria not only has one-fifth the population of the African continent, it also has been a leading voice on behalf of Africa in international forums such as the United Nations, the World Trade Organization, and the African Union. FILE – Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari signs an agreement during African Union summit in Niamey, July 7, 2019.The United States has had diplomatic relations with Nigeria since 1960, the year it became independent from Britain. The country suffered a series of military coups over the next four decades, with millions in casualties. A civilian president came to power in 1999 and an opposition candidate won a presidential election in 2015, marking a milestone in Nigerian history.
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Myanmar Junta Seen Cozying Up to China if West Gets Tough
TAIPEI, TAIWAN — The military government that seized power in Myanmar will get along well with its authoritarian neighbor China in the long term, despite historical misgivings, and grow closer if international sanctions isolate the Southeast Asian state from Western powers, observers say.
Myanmar’s military took control of the country Monday and declared a year-long state of emergency. Civilian de facto head of state Aung San Suu Kyi, a Nobel laureate, was detained in the power shift, prompting condemnation from Western governments.
China might fumble at first to work with the new Myanmar leader, Min Aung Hlaing, because the military resents China’s involvement in a now suspended hydropower dam, cross-border shipments of Myanmar’s natural gas and other influence over the economy in the past 20 years, said Thitinan Pongsudhirak, a political science professor at Bangkok’s Chulalongkorn University.
The professor said the two sides will eventually move forward because, unlike leaders in the West, China’s communist government feels no domestic pressure to condemn another authoritarian state.
“China is an all-weather friend, and you can see that when countries take an authoritarian turn, like Myanmar just did this week,” he said. “It’s to China’s advantage because China does not have the democratic trappings and conditions on domestic governance, so it can be any kind of regime and it’s fine with China.”In Beijing, Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said Monday his government was still trying to understand the “situation” in Myanmar. China is Myanmar’s “friendly neighbor,” Wang said as quoted on the ministry website, and “we hope all parties in Myanmar can settle disputes and maintain social and political stability by using the constitution and the laws.”
The military takeover stemmed from November’s parliamentary elections. The then-ruling National League for Democracy won in a landslide over the military-backed Union Solidarity and Development Party. The military, which ran Myanmar for nearly 50 years before the first democratic government emerged after 2011 under Aung San Suu Kyi, raised accusations of voter fraud.
China and Myanmar fundamentally got along before the recent events, though Myanmar was pursuing stronger ties with Japan and the West at the same time to offset Chinese influence.
On Monday, U.S. President Joe Biden vowed to take “appropriate action” and review possible sanctions against Myanmar. Australia, Britain, the European Union, India, Japan and Singapore have aired their own concerns this week about the stability of the Southeast Asian country.
Only Western governments feel “sentimental longings for democratization” in Myanmar, said Oh Ei Sun, Southeast Asia-specialized senior fellow with the Singapore Institute of International Affairs.
If the West imposes severe sanctions, then “maybe the Myanmar military will have no choice but to turn to China,” Thitinan said. Diplomatic isolation and the thirst for foreign investment to stimulate the impoverished country’s economy would drive Myanmar toward China, analysts say.
China became Myanmar’s biggest trading partner in 2011, replacing Thailand, with imports and exports worth $5.3 billion that year. China mainly ships raw materials and equipment for investment projects, while Myanmar sends minerals to China. A 2,200-kilometer land border facilitates their trade.“Now after this coup we need to see how the junta handles ties with the United States,” said Huang Kwei-bo, vice dean of the international affairs college at National Chengchi University in Taipei. “That’s to say that if the United States adds pressure on Myanmar, then the junta will definitely think of a way to approach Beijing and tighten relations.”
Even without sanctions, today’s political, trade and investment ties will probably keep their current course, analysts believe. Myanmar needs economic development aid to relieve poverty. China counts Myanmar as one in a network of countries around Eurasia where it’s building infrastructure to open trade routes.
“China will remain Myanmar’s most important economic partner because it has the longest land border (and) it’s got the biggest investment,” said Alistair Cook, a senior fellow with the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies.
When China’s foreign minister Wang Yi recently visited General Min Aung Hlaing, now military leader, he indicated that China would “continue to back Myanmar in safeguarding its sovereignty, national dignity and legitimate rights and interests” on a “development path suited to its own national conditions.”
But the Myanmar junta’s relations with China will fray if festering border problems get worse under any military crackdown.
For example, both sides are grappling with a slew of new casinos that are located in Myanmar but heavily used by Chinese nationals from just across the border and known for spawning crime. China is building a border fence to curb the problem.
An end to fragile cease-fires between Myanmar’s government forces and armed ethnic groups living near China could further “influence China’s relationship” with the new junta if people start streaming across the borders, Cook said.
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Russia’s Sputnik Vaccine Safe, Effective Against COVID-19, Study Finds
Russian scientists say the country’s Sputnik-V vaccine appears safe and effective against COVID-19, according to early results of an advanced study published in a British medical journal.
Researchers say that, based on their trial, which involved about 20,000 people in Russia last fall, the vaccine is about 91 percent effective in preventing people from developing COVID-19. The study was published online on February 2 in the journal, The Lancet.
Scientists not linked to the research acknowledged that the speed at which the Russia vaccine was made and rolled out was criticized for “unseemly haste, corner cutting and an absence of transparency.”
“But the outcome reported here is clear,” British scientists Ian Jones and Polly Roy wrote in an accompanying commentary. “Another vaccine can now join the fight to reduce the incidence of COVID-19.”
The Sputnik-V vaccine was approved by the Russian government with much fanfare on August 11. At the time, the vaccine had only been tested in several dozens of people.
Some early results were published in September, but participants had only been followed for about 42 days and there was no comparison group.
The data release comes as Europe scrambles to secure enough shots for its 450 million citizens due to production cuts by AstraZeneca and Pfizer while the U.S. roll-out has been hampered by the need to store shots in ultracold freezers and uneven planning across states.
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Armed Group in DR Congo Blamed for Spike in Deaths, Rights Violations
A U.N. report finds an alarming surge in human rights violations and civilian deaths in the Democratic Republic of Congo’s Ituri and North Kivu provinces. It blames the surge on increased attacks by an armed group, the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF).
The ADF originated as a Ugandan rebel group in the 1990s but has been active mainly in eastern Congo in recent years.
The new report accuses ADF members of deliberately targeting civilian populations, of sexual abuse and of abducting hundreds of civilians to perform forced labor.
The U.N. Joint Human Rights Office in the DRC says last year the group killed at least 849 civilians in Irumu and Mambasa territory in Ituri province as well as in Beni in North Kivu.
U.N. human rights monitors report the ADF also kidnapped 534 civilians, of whom 457 are still missing.
U.N. human rights spokeswoman Marta Hurtado says violence has continued into this year. In one attack on January 13, she says unknown armed men killed at least 14 people, including two pregnant women.
“Given the widespread and systematic nature of the attack directed against the civilian population, some of the documented human right abuses may amount to crimes against humanity. The violence takes place in a context of impunity, where few human rights abuses and violations of international humanitarian law are duly investigated and prosecuted,” Hurtado said.
The report also accuses government security and defense forces of human rights violations committed while fighting members of the ADF. Hurtado said the report documents numerous atrocities by DRC security forces.
“According to the report, from July to December 2020, 25 civilians were killed, 18 women and 10 children were sexually abused, and 45 arbitrarily arrested by the security forces. From January to June, 22 civilians were killed, nine women and 12 children were sexually abused, and 81 were arbitrarily arrested at the hands of security forces,” Hurtado said.
The U.N. office is calling on the DRC authorities to keep their security forces in line and make sure they act in accordance with international humanitarian law. It also urges the government to investigate crimes, bring the perpetrators to justice and provide humanitarian aid for survivors, including those displaced by the violence.
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Russian Dissident Navalny Faces Possible Multi-Year Prison Sentence
Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny appeared in a Moscow court Tuesday to face parole violation charges that could land him up to three-and-a-half years in prison.A sentence for the prominent critic of President Vladimir Putin could trigger more protests, following two weekends of rallies in several Russian cities demanding his release.Blinken Slams Putin for Crackdown on Navalny Supporters US secretary of state also had strong words for Iran and China Navalny was arrested immediately upon arrival in Moscow on Jan. 17 for alleged parole violations after returning from Germany, where he spent five months recovering from a nerve agent poisoning in Russia.Navalny has accused Putin of ordering Russia’s security services to poison him, a charge the Kremlin has repeatedly denied.Several European laboratories have confirmed that Navalny, 44, was poisoned with Novichok, a nerve agent developed by the former Soviet Union.A Russian court recently ruled Navalny must remain in jail, rejecting his appeal against his arrest. The United States and other Western countries have strongly condemned Navalny’s arrest and demanded his unconditional release.Russia’s Federal Penitentiary Service says Navalny violated the probation terms of his suspended sentence from a 2014 money laundering conviction, which he denounced as politically motivated. The service asked the Simonovsky District Court in Moscow to convert his three-and-a-half-year suspended sentence into one that must be served in prison. Navalny’s attorneys have argued that he was rehabilitating in Germany and, therefore, was unable to fully comply with his probation terms. His defense also maintained that due process was repeatedly violated during his arrest.As he sat in a glass cage in the courtroom during Tuesday’s hearing, Navalny said, “I came back to Moscow after I completed the course of treatment.” He added, “What else could I have done?”Navalny’s jailing has sparked very large protests across Russia over the past two weekends, with tens of thousands of people demanding his release and chanting anti-Putin slogans. Police arrested more than 5,700 people during Sunday’s rallies, including more than 1,900 in Moscow, the biggest number in the country since the Soviet era. Most demonstrators were released after being given court summonses and are subject to fines or jail terms of up to 15 days. Several protesters face criminal charges over alleged violence against police.
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Environmentalists Fear Permanent Damage from US-Mexico Border Wall
President Joe Biden has ordered a pause on the construction of the US-Mexico border wall that was a key part of President Trump’s agenda. As Megan Janetsky reports from the San Bernardino National Wildlife Refuge in southern Arizona, environmentalists say a flurry of construction during Trump’s final days in office created a cascade of environmental problems. Camera: Megan Janetsky
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More Burkina Faso Children are Working as Miners
In Burkina Faso, many children who were forced to leave school following threats by Islamic militants are working in the country’s informal gold mines, where they are at risk of accidents. Henry Wilkins reports from one of Burkina Faso’s largest informal goldmines.
Camera: Henry Wilkins
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Aung Sang Suu Kyi’s Party Urges Military to Release President, NLD Officials
Myanmar’s National League for Democracy called Tuesday for the release of de facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi, President Win Myint and other party leaders. The statement posted on Facebook comes a day after the military seized control of the country while detaining senior politicians. Streets were quiet Tuesday, with phone and internet services running again and banks reopened. The military said its seizure, set to last one year, was necessary because the government had not acted on claims of voter fraud in November elections that were overwhelmingly won by the NLD. A new session of parliament had been due to begin Monday. International expressions of concern about the military’s action were widespread, with multiple governments urging the military to respect the democratic process and release the detained officials. U.S. President Joe Biden threatened to impose sanctions. “The United States will stand up for democracy wherever it is under attack,” Biden said in a statement.”Biden Vows ‘Appropriate Action’ After Myanmar Military TakeoverThe US is one of many governments around the world, as well as the United Nations, to express serious concern over the recent developments in the Southeast Asian nation UN to hold emergency meeting
The United Nations Security Council is scheduled to hold an emergency meeting Tuesday to discuss the situation in Myanmar. Britain’s Ambassador to the U.N. Barbara Woodward, who this month holds the council’s rotating presidency, said the Security Council will examine “a range of measures” to uphold the November election and secure the release of Aung San Suu Kyi and the other detainees. U.N. human rights chief Michelle Bachelet said in a statement there are “deep fears of a violent crackdown on dissenting voices” in Myanmar and called on the military to avoid using unnecessary force. “I urge the international community to stand in solidarity with the people of Myanmar at this time, and for all states with influence to take steps to prevent the crumbling of the fragile democratic and human rights gains made by Myanmar during its transition from military rule,” Bachelet said. Myanmar’s military stand guard at a checkpoint manned with an armored vehicles blocking a road leading to the parliament building, Feb. 2, 2021, in Naypyitaw, Myanmar.Before the coup
Monday’s developments followed months of tensions linked to the November elections. Myanmar’s military said there had been voter fraud, an allegation rejected by the country’s election commission.On Saturday, the Tatmadaw, the official name of Myanmar’s military, released a statement arguing that voter fraud had taken place and the international community “should not be endorsing the next steps of the political process on a ‘business as usual’ basis.” “The Tatmadaw is the one pressing for adherence to democratic norms,” the statement read. “It is not the outcome itself of the election that the Tatmadaw is objecting to. …Rather, the Tatmadaw finds the process of the 2020 election unacceptable, with over 10.5 million cases of potential fraud, such as nonexistent votes.” The arrest of leaders in Myanmar, also known as Burma, is just the latest event in a country that has struggled between civilian and military rule and raises concerns that the nation’s transition to a democracy has stalled. Myanmar history
A British colony until 1948, Myanmar was ruled by dictators backed by the military from 1962 to 2010. An uprising in 1988 pushed for an election in 1990, which the NLD party won in a landslide, but the elected members of parliament were imprisoned, and the dictatorship continued. Aung San Suu Kyi, the daughter of Myanmar’s independence hero, General Aung San, who was assassinated in 1947, emerged as a leader in the pro-democracy rallies and in the NLD. She was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991 while under house arrest. In 2010, Senior General Than Shwe announced the country would be handed over to civilian leaders, who included retired generals. They freed political prisoners, including the lawmakers from the National League for Democracy, and Aung San Suu Kyi, who was elected in a 2012 by-election and later became the state counsellor of Myanmar. But Aung San Suu Kyi, 75, while popular among Myanmar’s Buddhist majority, has seen her international reputation decline over her government’s treatment of the country’s mostly Muslim Rohingya minority. In 2017, an Army crackdown against the Rohingya, sparked by deadly attacks on police stations in Rakhine state, led hundreds of thousands of Rohingya to flee to neighboring Bangladesh. The International Criminal Court is investigating the country for crimes against humanity.
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Who Will Represent Trump at His Impeachment Trial ?
Former President Donald Trump hired two new lawyers Sunday (Jan. 31) ahead of his February 9 impeachment trial in the Senate after five members of his legal team quit over the weekend.
Trump hired David Schoen of Alabama and Bruce Castor of Pennsylvania to defend him from the charge of incitement of insurrection regarding the January 6 pro-Trump mob that stormed the U.S. Capitol.
They replaced Butch Bowers and Deborah Barbier, Trump’s former leading lawyers. The two prominent South Carolina attorneys left after they and the former president failed to reach agreement on the best impeachment strategy, according to media reports.
Trump wanted to argue there was mass election fraud, but his legal team wanted to focus on the constitutionality of the process, CNN reported.
Who are the lawyers on Trump’s legal team?
Schoen: The 67-year-old attended Boston College Law School and then began his legal career in the Deep South. Schoen was allegedly preparing to represent financier Jeffrey Epstein, a convicted sex offender who faced charges of sex trafficking, at the time of his death in jail.
Castor: He is a former Republican district attorney in Pennsylvania who made headlines after refusing to prosecute comedian Bill Cosby in a sex crime case. Cosby was later prosecuted by a different district attorney. Castor, 59, who reportedly considered running for Pennsylvania governor in 2014, holds a law degree from Washington and Lee University.
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Tokyo Olympics Chief Says Games Will Go On Despite Coronavirus
The head of the Tokyo Olympics expressed confidence Tuesday the event will go forward this year despite the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. Tokyo 2020 President Yoshiro Mori said discussions should be about how and not whether the Olympics will happen. “We will hold the Olympics, regardless of how the coronavirus [situation] looks,” Mori said. The Summer Games were originally scheduled to begin in July 2020, but organizers postponed the event for one year. The new start date is July 23. FILE – A man wearing a protective mask to help curb the spread of the coronavirus walks near a banner of the Tokyo 2020 Olympics at an underpass in Tokyo, Jan. 19, 2021.Adding to doubts about whether it would be possible to stage the games are recent lockdowns initiated in a number of countries. Large parts of Japan are currently under a state of emergency because of the virus. Malaysia is among those extending lockdowns to try to stop the spread of COVID-19. Defense Minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob said Tuesday the restrictions would be extended until February 18. “The Health Ministry has confirmed that daily cases in all states are still showing a rising trend… the sporadic spread in the community is also high,” Ismail Sabri said in a televised address. In Britain, fears of the spread of coronavirus variant first identified in South Africa have prompted a mass door-to-door testing campaign. Volunteers hand out the COVID-19 home test kits to residents, in Goldsworth and St Johns, amid the outbreak of COVID-19 in Woking, Britain, Feb. 2, 2021.The effort involves eight areas of the country where people will be tested whether they have symptoms or not. In all, about 80,000 people were to be tested. Britain has been one of the hardest-hit countries during the pandemic, with more than 3.8 million confirmed cases and 106,000 deaths. ‘A detective story’A team of World Health Organization scientists investigating the source of the coronavirus, that first emerged in China’s Hubei province in late 2019, visited a provincial disease control center Monday that was key in the early management of the outbreak. FILE – Members of the World Health Organization (WHO) team, investigating the origins of the Covid-19 coronavirus, visit the closed Huanan Seafood wholesale market in Wuhan, China’s central Hubei province, Jan. 31, 2021.China did not release any details about the team’s visit to the Hubei Provincial Center for Disease Control. Team member Peter Daszak, however, told reporters it had been a “really good meeting, really important.” Since the WHO team’s arrival last month, the scientists have also visited the Huanan Seafood Market that was linked to a cluster of COVID-19 cases and at least one of the hospitals in Wuhan that treated some of the first patients. COVID-19 is the disease caused by the coronavirus. The scientists want to know where the virus originated, in what animal and how it made its way into humans — something that could take years to figure out. “We continue to ask the questions, we continue to push for more data. … It’s a detective story,” Mike Ryan, top emergency WHO official, told a Geneva news conference Monday. Maria Van Kerkhove, an American epidemiologist and technical lead on COVID-19 at WHO, said at the news conference that the team is focusing on “the early cases” and “are having very good discussions around that” with their Chinese counterparts. The outbreak in China led to the worldwide COVID-19 pandemic. The Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center said Monday there are more than 103 million global COVID-19 infections and more than 2.2 million people have died. Cases have fallen worldwide for three consecutive weeks. WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus called the decline “encouraging news” but warned, “We have been here before.” Speaking Monday at the news conference, Tedros said, “Over the past year, there have been moments in almost all countries when cases declined and governments opened up too quickly, and individuals let down their guard, only for the virus to come roaring back.”
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Central America Expects ‘No Pressure’ From Biden Admin Immigration Policy
Washington’s immigration policy will focus on regional migration and its root causes, as well as the annulment of policies inherited from the Trump administration, according to White House officials. President Joe Biden will make the announcement next week, Press Secretary Jen Psaki said during a daily briefing this week. Representatives of the governments of Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala envision more U.S. attention toward the region during the Biden administration and plan to support a common development agenda based on “mutual respect.” President Biden told his Mexican counterpart, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, that Washington will address the containment of the irregular flow of migrants to Mexico and the United States, in part, through promoting economic development in Central America.FILE – In this Dec. 18, 2020 file photo, Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador gives his daily, morning news conference at the presidential palace, Palacio Nacional, in Mexico City.Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández told VOA that approach represents an “opportunity to retake” what the Obama administration was working on. Guatemalan Foreign Minister Pedro Brolo told VOA that both countries have a “common agenda” beyond economic opportunities, including fighting increased organized crime and drug trafficking, and he plans to bring those issues to the table in future meetings. Cooperation and mutual respect Ariel Ruíz Soto, an analyst at the Migration Policy Institute in Washington, said U.S. investment in the region is not enough. The Northern Triangle countries need to show they are committed to solve the root causes of the immigration, including poverty and corruption, Ruiz Soto said. Bipartisan support in the U.S. Congress is also necessary to enact immigration reform, he added. “The relationship has to change its tone. It is necessary to reopen the dialogue with Central America in order to once again have cooperation, not pressure,” Ruíz Soto told VOA. Biden promised during his presidential campaign to allocate $4 billion to the Central American region and attack the issues that cause migration, including “endemic corruption,” poverty and economic insecurity.FILE – Demonstrators with the New York Immigration Coalition rally asking President Joe Biden to prioritize immigration reform, Nov. 9, 2020, in New York.Brolo indicated the three countries that make up the Northern Triangle will be more “attractive for foreign investment” to repair economies hard hit by the COVID-19 pandemic and last year’s natural disasters, including back-to-back hurricanes Eta and Iota. “Our people would tend to migrate less, since they would have jobs,” he explained. A closed-door policy at the border The changes that the White House plans to implement do not represent an open border policy, said Brendan O’Brien, the United States charge d’affaires in El Salvador. “Migrants who cross the border irregularly will be returned, in accordance with legal procedures that guarantee their safety,” O’Brien said in a joint statement with the foreign minister of El Salvador. Both Brolo of Guatemala and the Honduran ambassador to the United States, Luis Fernando Suazo, said their governments are focused on discouraging the caravans to the north. “We are not going to allow irregular, disorderly and unsafe traffic,” Brolo said, while Suazo indicated his government is investigating the organization of caravans that “are not spontaneous.” The administration of former President Donald Trump put in place a zero-tolerance policy that was rescinded Tuesday by the Justice Department. Several human rights organizations and President Biden denounced the separation of hundreds of children from their parents as part of Trump’s policy. The new president’s actions include the creation of a task force to reunify the families of at least 600 children who were separated from their parents at the U.S-Mexico border. For Ruíz Soto, the challenge for the current White House will be to engage in a strategy that “sends a message to the region that the caravans and future migratory flows will not be able to enter the United States” and at the same time, establish a new approach to deal with immigration policies in the country. Congress is key The diplomats who spoke with VOA said the intention of starting the legislative process in the United States to achieve immigration reform is good news, but they agree that it is a process that will take time. Public policy analyst Ruíz Soto said the Biden administration must set realistic expectations and specific goals for his ideas to gain bipartisan support in Congress. He said the legislative option is the only way to provide a lasting United States response to the root causes of immigration and will accomplish a comprehensive reform. President Biden faced his first setback on his immigration plans this week when a Texas judge blocked his deportation “pause,” a key component of his immigration priorities. Former President Trump faced similar obstacles when several judges blocked several of his restrictive immigration policies. “The best solution is the legislative option, in order to avoid going to court, because it causes confusion and can send the wrong message to the region about who can or cannot enter the country,” Ruiz Soto said.
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Pakistan’s Top Court Orders Alleged Daniel Pearl Killer Moved from Prison
Pakistan’s Supreme Court ordered the release from prison on Tuesday of Ahmad Omar Saeed Sheikh, a ringleader in the kidnapping and murder of U.S. journalist Daniel Pearl by al Qaeda and Pakistani Islamist militants in 2002. Pakistan’s government had appealed to the court on Friday to review its decision to free the British-born Islamist and three others convicted in the case, a day after their acquittal by a panel of three judges. The United States also expressed concern over Sheikh’s acquittal, and top U.S. diplomat Antony Blinken repeated a call for accountability in his first phone call with Pakistan’s foreign minister on Friday. The review panel, headed by Justice Omar Ata Bandyal, stood by the decision to acquit, and recommended that Sheikh should be moved to a “rest house” before being fully released.Rauf A. Sheikh, defense lawyer of British-born Pakistani Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh, talks to media following Daniel Pearl case hearing in the Supreme Court, in Islamabad, Pakistan, Feb. 2, 2021.”He should be moved to a comfortable residential environment something like a rest house where he can live a normal life,” the judge said. As the government makes the arrangements in next two days, Sheikh will be kept in a comfortable environment in the jail with a permission to see his family, the court said. “It is not a complete freedom. It is a step toward freedom,” the prisoner’s father, Saeed Sheikh, told Reuters Television. The terms of Sheikh’s release will become clearer once a written order is made public. On assignment for the Wall Street Journal in the months after al Qaeda 9/11 attacks on the United States, Pearl was kidnapped in Karachi and later beheaded. Al Qaeda’s number three leader Khalid Sheikh Mohammed confessed to killing Pearl, and Sheikh, a former student at the London School of Economics, had played key role in luring the journalist into a trap. Captured in Pakistan in 2003, Mohammed is being held at the U.S. detention centre at Guantanamo Bay, on the island of Cuba, where he is a awaiting trial on multiple counts, and could face the death penalty.
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Political Instability in Myanmar Could Impact US Trade
Trade experts and analysts warned Monday that trade between the United States and Myanmar could significantly decrease in the wake of the country’s military state of emergency.Since 2013, the U.S. and Myanmar have regularly engaged in trade under an agreement that ended years of sanctions from the United States.The two countries traded roughly $1.3 billion in goods in 2020 – up from $1.2 billion in 2019, according to data from the U.S. Census Bureau. The industry most likely to be impacted is footwear, Reuters reported. According to Panjiva, the supply chain research unit of S&P Global Market Intelligence, apparel and footwear accounted for roughly 41% of U.S. imports from Myanmar.Apparel makers LL Bean, H&M and Adidas are among the American companies that rely on trade with Myanmar.According to reports from the World Bank, Foreign Direct Investment in Myanmar rose dramatically in the 2019-2020 fiscal year, mostly from Singapore and Hong Kong.But the future of such investment may be less certain amid the country’s political instability.The United States said on Monday it would review the trade agreement between the two countries as Washington ponders sanctions against Myanmar after the country’s military detained political leaders and declared the commander-in-chief leader.
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South Africa to Begin Testing COVID-19 Vaccines Before Launching Program
South African President Cyril Ramaphosa said medical regulators will begin testing the integrity of the country’s first batch of AstraZeneca vaccine against COVID-19 before vaccinating front line healthcare workers. He made the comment during a national address late Monday, hours after he and other dignitaries accepted 1.2 million doses of vaccine that arrived at Johannesburg’s O.R. Tambo International Airport Monday afternoon. President Ramaphosa said after healthcare workers get their shots the country aims to vaccinate essential workers, people over 60 years of age, people with co-morbidities and those living in places such as nursing homes. The remainder of the adult population will get their shots in the third phase of the vaccination program. South Africa is the African nation hardest hit by the novel coronavirus, with more than 1.4 million confirmed cases since the virus turned up in the country in March. The nation’s second wave of the virus fueled by a new variant that surfaced in late December appears to be subsiding. The head of South Africa’s coronavirus task force, Dr. Salim Abdool Karim, said the current vaccines are expected to work on the new variant, called 501.V2, Ramaphosa said in addition to Monday’s shipment the country is due to receive another 500,000 doses from the Serum Institute of India next month. South Africa has also secured millions of doses of vaccine from Johnson & Johnson, Pfizer and the global COVAX facility, which is a worldwide collaboration to speed up the development, production and access to COVID-19 treatments and vaccines. The president said South Africa will also receive an allocation of vaccine doses through the African Union, which has been negotiating with manufacturers to secure vaccines for the entire continent on a pooled basis. South Africa will now become the fifth African nation to roll out vaccinations, after Morocco, Egypt, the Seychelles and Guinea.
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South Sudan Female Lawyers Claim Widespread Discrimination
Female lawyers in South Sudan are speaking out to say they face discrimination on a daily basis, and a female judge says the same holds true for judges as well as for many other women with professional careers in the country.Judge Martha Jobe Jeremiah told South Sudan in Focus that society perpetuates the belief that women are the weaker sex, which impacts professional working women.“The society setup really affects us in a sense that is not only affecting the female advocates or the female lawyers in general but also affecting women in different professions. As much as women at home are now the head of household, some are the ones taking care of their children in absence of their husbands, yet society still looks at them as a weak element or weak person in society,” Jeremiah said.While some South Sudanese hold on to patriarchal thinking, not all do. Jeremiah said that unless there is a change in that mindset, women will continue to face discrimination.There are about 40 female judges across the country, Jeremiah said, adding that most face the same challenges as female lawyers, because some defendants do not want their case heard by a female judge.Josephine Michael, a lawyer and advocate for her female colleagues, said most South Sudanese still believe male lawyers are better at handling, and winning, court cases than their female counterparts.“There are fewer female lawyers in the market than males while there are female law graduates, but citizens always prefer the person who takes charge of their case to be a man, believing that a female does not have strength of advocacy, but a male does, so they always go to men thinking a male lawyer can solve their problem faster and better than a woman,” Michael told South Sudan in Focus.She said female lawyers and advocates need financial support to help them establish female-headed law firms across the country.On the way toward achieving that goal, she encourages her colleagues not to get discouraged even though they face a slew of logistical problems.“Female lawyers do not have offices or law firms; you find all law offices in Juba are for male lawyers. The number of female lawyers in this country is approximately 400 lawyers and those who have offices can be counted by the number of fingers,” Michael told VOA.“We are five in our office, and I am the only female lawyer. Unfortunately, my desk was at the doorway and anyone entering the office thinks I’m a secretary, because they presume the work of secretary is the job of women and so a female cannot be a lawyer,” Michael said.Suhila Deng, chairperson of the South Sudan Female Lawyers Association, said much more must be done to promote women in all professional fields in the country.Years ago, Deng said a group of women lawyers established the female lawyers association to help provide legal aid to the most vulnerable and to also encourage one another in their careers.“In the year 2012, we managed to establish a female lawyers association to look into the issues of female lawyers in the country. By then there were only four offices of women advocates in the markets and the rest are males’ offices. Lack of money or resources is among the things I explained,” Deng told South Sudan in Focus.
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Central America Expects ‘No Pressure’ From Biden Administration Immigration Policy
Washington’s immigration policy will focus on regional migration and its root causes, as well as the annulment of policies inherited from the Trump administration, according to White House officials. President Joe Biden will make the announcement next week, Press Secretary Jen Psaki said during a daily briefing this week. Representatives of the governments of Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala envision more U.S. attention toward the region during the Biden administration and plan to support a common development agenda based on “mutual respect.” President Biden told his Mexican counterpart, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, that Washington will address the containment of the irregular flow of migrants to Mexico and the United States, in part, through promoting economic development in Central America.FILE – In this Dec. 18, 2020 file photo, Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador gives his daily, morning news conference at the presidential palace, Palacio Nacional, in Mexico City.Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández told VOA that approach represents an “opportunity to retake” what the Obama administration was working on. Guatemalan Foreign Minister Pedro Brolo told VOA that both countries have a “common agenda” beyond economic opportunities, including fighting increased organized crime and drug trafficking, and he plans to bring those issues to the table in future meetings. Cooperation and mutual respect Ariel Ruíz Soto, an analyst at the Migration Policy Institute in Washington, said U.S. investment in the region is not enough. The Northern Triangle countries need to show they are committed to solve the root causes of the immigration, including poverty and corruption, Ruiz Soto said. Bipartisan support in the U.S. Congress is also necessary to enact immigration reform, he added. “The relationship has to change its tone. It is necessary to reopen the dialogue with Central America in order to once again have cooperation, not pressure,” Ruíz Soto told VOA. Biden promised during his presidential campaign to allocate $4 billion to the Central American region and attack the issues that cause migration, including “endemic corruption,” poverty and economic insecurity.FILE – Demonstrators with the New York Immigration Coalition rally asking President Joe Biden to prioritize immigration reform, Nov. 9, 2020, in New York.Brolo indicated the three countries that make up the Northern Triangle will be more “attractive for foreign investment” to repair economies hard hit by the COVID-19 pandemic and last year’s natural disasters, including back-to-back hurricanes Eta and Iota. “Our people would tend to migrate less, since they would have jobs,” he explained. A closed-door policy at the border The changes that the White House plans to implement do not represent an open border policy, said Brendan O’Brien, the United States charge d’affaires in El Salvador. “Migrants who cross the border irregularly will be returned, in accordance with legal procedures that guarantee their safety,” O’Brien said in a joint statement with the foreign minister of El Salvador. Both Brolo of Guatemala and the Honduran ambassador to the United States, Luis Fernando Suazo, said their governments are focused on discouraging the caravans to the north. “We are not going to allow irregular, disorderly and unsafe traffic,” Brolo said, while Suazo indicated his government is investigating the organization of caravans that “are not spontaneous.” The administration of former President Donald Trump put in place a zero-tolerance policy that was rescinded Tuesday by the Justice Department. Several human rights organizations and President Biden denounced the separation of hundreds of children from their parents as part of Trump’s policy. The new president’s actions include the creation of a task force to reunify the families of at least 600 children who were separated from their parents at the U.S-Mexico border. For Ruíz Soto, the challenge for the current White House will be to engage in a strategy that “sends a message to the region that the caravans and future migratory flows will not be able to enter the United States” and at the same time, establish a new approach to deal with immigration policies in the country. Congress is key The diplomats who spoke with VOA said the intention of starting the legislative process in the United States to achieve immigration reform is good news, but they agree that it is a process that will take time. Public policy analyst Ruíz Soto said the Biden administration must set realistic expectations and specific goals for his ideas to gain bipartisan support in Congress. He said the legislative option is the only way to provide a lasting United States response to the root causes of immigration and will accomplish a comprehensive reform. President Biden faced his first setback on his immigration plans this week when a Texas judge blocked his deportation “pause,” a key component of his immigration priorities. Former President Trump faced similar obstacles when several judges blocked several of his restrictive immigration policies. “The best solution is the legislative option, in order to avoid going to court, because it causes confusion and can send the wrong message to the region about who can or cannot enter the country,” Ruiz Soto said.
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Republicans Hold ‘Useful’ Meeting with Biden on New Virus Relief Aid
A group of Republican senators held a “frank and very useful” meeting Monday with President Joe Biden about a new round of coronavirus economic relief as congressional Democrats took steps to push ahead on a relief bill with or without Republican support. Senator Susan Collins, a Republican from Maine, told reporters following the Monday night meeting with Biden, “It was a very good exchange of views.” However, she said the two sides did not reach an agreement on a bipartisan package. Collins along with nine other Republican senators met with Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris at the White House in a two-hour meeting that went longer than expected. She said talks between the two sides would continue and said the senators were appreciative that Biden spent so much time with them in his first official meeting in the Oval Office. Biden and the lawmakers are far apart on how much should be spent on a relief deal, with the Democratic president proposing a $1.9 trillion package and the Republican lawmakers calling for a $618 billion deal. On the same day as Biden met with the Republican senators, House and Senate Democrats announced they would move ahead to approve Biden’s package with a process that does not depend on Republican support for passage.President Joe Biden meets with Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, to discuss a coronavirus relief package, in the Oval Office of the White House, Feb. 1, 2021, in Washington.“The cost of inaction is high and growing, and the time for decisive action is now,” said Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi in a statement. Schumer told lawmakers on the Senate floor Monday, “The risk of doing too little is far greater than the risk of doing too much.” On Sunday, Schumer complained that the Republicans are not starting near Biden’s spending proposal. “We cannot do the mistake of 2009 (during the Great Recession) where they whittled down the program so that the amount of relief was so small that the recession lasted four or five years,” Schumer told the New York Daily News.President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris meets with Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, and others to discuss a coronavirus relief package, in the Oval Office of the White House, Feb. 1, 2021, in Washington.Republican lawmakers argue that a bipartisan deal could help Biden with his efforts to unify the country and would be a better approach than trying to get his proposal approved solely with the votes of congressional Democrats. Ahead of the White House meeting Monday, White House press secretary Jen Psaki told reporters that while the president is willing to negotiate, “Clearly, he thinks the package size needs to be closer to what he proposed than smaller.” Biden said on Twitter Monday, “Hardworking Americans need help, and they need it now. That’s why I’m calling on Congress to immediately pass my American Rescue Plan that will deliver direct relief, extend unemployment insurance, help folks put food on the table and keep a roof over their heads, and more.” Both Biden and the Republicans are calling for $160 billion for testing, vaccines and personal protective equipment on top of hundreds of billions that were approved last year as the virus swept into the United States. But the president and the lawmakers diverge on other aid proposals. Biden wants to increase $300 weekly unemployment insurance payments from the federal government to $400 and extend them through September, while the Republicans want to keep the payments at the current $300 and only through July. Biden has proposed sending most Americans, all but the biggest wage earners, $1,400 checks on top of the $600 checks that were approved by former President Donald Trump in late December. The Republicans are supporting $1,000 checks for lower-income Americans. The Republican senators, led by Collins, told Biden in a letter Sunday that they “recognize your calls for unity and want to work in good faith with your administration to meet the health, economic, and societal challenges of the COVID crisis.” Brian Deese, the director of Biden’s National Economic Council, told CNN on Sunday that the president’s proposal is “calibrated to the economic crisis that we face,” but that Biden would look at the Republican proposal. Deese said Biden is “uncompromising when it comes to the speed we need to act at to address this crisis,” including a reeling economy, a sluggish rollout of coronavirus vaccinations across the country and a steadily increasing U.S. coronavirus death toll. It now stands at more than 441,000, according to Johns Hopkins University. Biden has said Democrats will push through their version of the relief package on a party line vote in Congress if they need to rather than engage in protracted negotiations. Deese declined to say what overall amount Biden would be willing to agree to. But he said the president was willing to target the cash stipends so that money does not go to bigger wage earners. “We want to get cash into the pockets of people who need it the most,” Deese said. “The immediate focus,” he said, “is putting a floor under the economic crisis.” Senator Rob Portman of Ohio, one of the 10 Republicans calling for a compromise with Biden, said, “Let’s focus on those who are struggling.” He said it was “not in the interest of the Democratic Party to ram through” its version of the relief bill. “If you can’t find bipartisanship on COVID-19, I don’t know where you can,” Portman said. COVID-19 is the illness caused by the coronavirus.
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Western Leaders Condemn Myanmar Military Takeover
Myanmar’s military seized power Monday, declaring a yearlong state of emergency and detaining leader Aung San Suu Kyi among others, drawing immediate condemnation from Western leaders. VOA U.N. correspondent Margaret Besheer reports.
Produced by: Jesse Oni
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