Russia on Friday barred eight officials from European Union countries from entering the country in retaliation for sanctions imposed on Russian citizens by the EU.Russia’s foreign ministry said those banned included Vera Jourova, vice president for values and transparency at the executive European Commission, David Sassoli, the president of the European parliament, and Jacques Maire, a member of the French delegation at the Council of Europe’s Parliamentary Assembly.”The European Union continues to pursue its policy of illegitimate, unilateral restrictive measures against Russian citizens and organizations,” the ministry said in a statement.It accused the EU of “openly and deliberately” undermining the independence of Russia’s domestic and foreign policy.Sassoli, Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and European Council chief Charles Michel said in a joint statement they condemned Russia’s “unacceptable” action in “the strongest possible terms” and said it showed Moscow had chosen a path of confrontation with the bloc.”The EU reserves the right to take appropriate measures in response to the Russian authorities’ decision,” they saidSassoli said in a tweet that no sanctions or intimidation would stop the parliament or him defending human rights, freedom and democracy.”Threats will not silence us. As Tolstoy wrote, there is no greatness where there is no truth,” his tweet read.Russia banned three officials from the Baltic states: Ivars Abolins, chairman of Latvia’s National Electronic Media Council, Maris Baltins, director of the Latvian State Language Center, and Ilmar Tomusk, head of Estonia’s Language Inspectorate.It also banned Jorg Raupach, Berlin’s public prosecutor, and Asa Scott of the Swedish Defence Research Agency.Scott was among officials who said Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny had been poisoned in Russia with a Soviet-era nerve agent.Navalny recovered from the poisoning in Germany and was detained upon his return to Russia in January, and sentenced in February to 2-1/2 years in prison for parole violations on an earlier embezzlement conviction that he says was politically motivated.The EU imposed sanctions in March on two Russians accused of persecuting gay and lesbian people in the southern Russian region of Chechnya. The EU also imposed sanctions on four senior Russian officials close to President Vladimir Putin in March.
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Month: April 2021
With Eyes on China, Philippines, US Mull Saving Deal Manila Once Scrapped
Comments by Philippine officials indicate that, with a growing Chinese maritime threat, Manila now hopes the Visiting Forces Agreement with the United States – which the Philippines once moved to terminate – survives, experts told VOA Thursday.
Philippine Foreign Affairs Secretary Teodoro Locsin Jr. last year announced the country had suspended the announced termination of the agreement. The 1999 pact provides for arms sales, intelligence exchanges and discussions on military cooperation. It allows U.S. troops access to Philippine soil for military exercises aimed at regional security and local humanitarian work. Those measures shore up a 1951 Mutual Defense Treaty.
Locsin said in a tweet earlier this month that negotiations over the pact were nearly finished, Philippine media reported last week. The talks began in February and coincided with China’s mooring of 220 fishing boats at a reef that Beijing and Manila dispute. Media reports quote Locsin saying the talks should be done within the coming week.
On April 10, U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin spoke with Philippine counterpart Delfin Lorenzana, and they “affirmed the value” of the agreement, the U.S. Defense Department says on its website.
Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte, a skeptic of the United States who announced the deal’s termination in February 2020, said on national TV just over two months ago he wanted to hear public opinion on the topic. Many lawmakers have already opposed the pact’s termination — which has been suspended twice.FILE – This satellite image provided by Maxar Technologies shows Chinese vessels at the Whitsun reef, in a disputed part of the South China Sea, March 23, 2021.Saving the deal
Philippine officials have not said negotiations would save the agreement, but specialists say they believe comments from Manila show officials hope it holds up.
“There’s an emerging consensus within the key agencies, and I think something that we can see in terms of public opinion as well,” said Herman Kraft, a political science professor at University of the Philippines at Diliman, pointing to comments by defense and foreign ministry officials.
The Philippine government now wants the agreement updated to spell out explicitly that the United States would intervene to help defend outlying islands where Chinese vessels are most likely to appear, an academic close to Philippine defense officials said.
The United States had governed the Philippines for more than five decades before allowing its independence after World War II. For Washington today, the Philippines represents one in a chain of Western Pacific allies that can work together to check Chinese maritime expansion. Former U.S. defense secretary Mark Esper had called the deal cancellation a “move in the wrong direction for the longstanding relationship we’ve had with the Philippines” in part because of the Asian archipelago’s location.
“Rather than maintain strategic ambiguity — this was the practice in the past — [Philippine officials] prefer some strategic clarity,” said Eduardo Araral, associate professor at the National University of Singapore’s public policy school.Sino-Philippine maritime dispute
China and the Philippines dispute sovereignty over tracts of the South China Sea.
Their dispute eased in 2016 after Manila won a world arbitral court ruling against Beijing and Duterte pursued a new friendship with China. However, Philippine officials grew alarmed when about 100 Chinese boats showed up in 2019 near a Philippine-held islet in the sea and again when the fleet of 220 stopped at Whitsun Reef last month.
Ongoing “tension with China” gives the Philippine government a new incentive to keep the Visiting Forces Agreement, said Aaron Rabena, research fellow at the Asia-Pacific Pathways to Progress Foundation in Metro Manila.
China, which maintains Asia’s strongest armed forces, cites historic documents to support its claim to about 90% of the disputed sea. Four other governments call all or part of the same sea their own. China has alarmed many over the past decade by landfilling islets for military installations.
Smaller claimants welcome a U.S. role in the dispute, and the United States — China’s superpower rival — doubled the number of warship passages through the sea in 2019 compared to 2018.
Delicate decision
A decision in Manila to uphold the agreement would upset China, which could in turn increase its boat count in the disputed sea, Kraft said. It could go as far as banning Philippine fishing operations, he said. The sea is valued for fisheries as well as undersea fuel reserves.
However, Duterte risks being seen as weak at home if he reinstates the U.S. pact after thundering against it in February 2020, experts say. Duterte, a long-time anti-U.S. firebrand, ordered an end to the deal after the U.S. government canceled a visa for a Philippine senator and former police chief who was instrumental in a deadly anti-drug campaign that generated outrage abroad.
Duterte might end up letting his foreign affairs and defense secretaries handle the whole Visiting Forces Agreement process, Kraft said. The Philippines could technically keep suspending its cancelation of the deal every six months until deciding what to do, Araral said.
The government could extend the review process into mid-2022, when Duterte must step down due to term limits, Rabena said.
“He doesn’t have to say yes to it,” Rabena said. “What he does sometimes is that he just allows his cabinet members to do their thing.”
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US Political Power Shifts West and South With Population
Shifts in the U.S. population over the past 10 years are causing an important reshuffling of the number of members of Congress some states will have. VOA’s Steve Redisch explains the political impact of the process called congressional reapportionment.
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US Drawdown from Afghanistan Now Underway
After 20 years, the final U.S. drawdown of troops from Afghanistan has begun, marking a watershed moment for both countries. VOA’s Senior Diplomatic Correspondent Cindy Saine has the story.
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Russia Releases Video of Black Sea Military Drills
Russia’s defense ministry released video Friday of its warships firing rockets during military drills in the Black Sea, the Reuters news agency reported Friday.
The drills were conducted earlier this week amid rising tensions between Russia and the west over Russia’s military buildup near the border it shares with Ukraine.
Russia said the troop buildup was part of drills it planned in response to what it said was NATO’s threatening behavior. Last week, Russia ordered a pullback of some troops from the border area.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken is scheduled to meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy during a May 5-6 visit to Ukraine “to reaffirm unwavering U.S. support for Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity in the face of Russia’s ongoing aggression,” Blinken’s spokesman, Ned Price, said in a statement.
Blinken Heads to Ukraine After Russia Sends 150K Troops to Border Trip aims to ‘reaffirm unwavering US support for country’s sovereignty and territorial integrity in face of Russia’s ongoing aggression,’ State Department saysRussia began naval combat drills Tuesday as the U.S. Coast Guard cutter Hamilton was entering the Black Sea to work with NATO and other allies in the area.
Russia’s Black Sea fleet said its Moskva cruiser would participate in live-fire exercises with other Russian ships and military helicopters, according to Russia’s Interfax news agency.
The drill took place as fighting in eastern Ukraine between Ukrainian forces and Russian-backed troops escalated sharply since January, despite a cease-fire that took effect last July.
The conflict began when Russia annexed Crimea from Ukraine in 2014, since killing some 14,000 people, according to Ukraine’s government.
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COVID, Military Coup Pushing Half of Myanmar Into Poverty, UN Reports
The political fallout from the military coup in Myanmar and the coronavirus pandemic threaten to push half of the country’s population into poverty by next year, the United Nations warned Friday. The U.N. Development Program said in a report that up to 25 million people could be forced into poverty by early 2022 as businesses remain closed during clashes between the junta and anti-government protesters. “COVID-19 and the ongoing political crisis are compounding shocks which are pushing the most vulnerable back and more deeply into poverty,” U.N. Assistant Secretary-General Kanni Wignaraja told Reuters. In an interview with Associated Press, Wignaraja said, “The hardest hit will be poor urban populations and the worst affected will be female heads of households.” FILE – A trishaw rider waits for customers along an empty road in Yangon, Myanmar, April 9, 2021.The report said 83% of all households in Myanmar reported their incomes were nearly cut in half because of the socio-economic impact of the pandemic. It also reported the pandemic’s impact has resulted in an 11% increase in the number of people living below the poverty line, a rate it said could increase another 12% by early next year. Protests against the military coup have continued daily despite the threat of violence from authorities. A flash mob protest took place Friday in the country’s largest city of Yangon, with chanting banner-carrying demonstrators taking to the streets in heavy rain. Myanmar’s military government seized power on February 1. In a campaign to quell the protests, the government has killed at least 759 anti-coup protestors and bystanders since the takeover, according to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, which tracks casualties and arrests. When the military removed Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy government, it detained Suu Kyi and President Win Myint and imposed martial law across Myanmar. Suu Kyi led Myanmar since its first open democratic election in 2015, but Myanmar’s military contested last November’s election results, claiming widespread electoral fraud, largely without evidence.
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As Chinese Maritime Threat Looms, Philippines, US Discuss Saving Deal Manila Once Scrapped
Comments by Philippine officials indicate that, with a growing Chinese maritime threat, Manila now hopes the Visiting Forces Agreement with the United States – which the Philippines once moved to terminate – survives, experts told VOA Thursday.
Philippine Foreign Affairs Secretary Teodoro Locsin Jr. last year announced the country had suspended the announced termination of the agreement. The 1999 pact provides for arms sales, intelligence exchanges and discussions on military cooperation. It allows U.S. troops access to Philippine soil for military exercises aimed at regional security and local humanitarian work. Those measures shore up a 1951 Mutual Defense Treaty.
Locsin said in a tweet earlier this month that negotiations over the pact were nearly finished, Philippine media reported last week. The talks began in February and coincided with China’s mooring of 220 fishing boats at a reef that Beijing and Manila dispute. Media reports quote Locsin saying the talks should be done within the coming week.
On April 10, U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin spoke with Philippine counterpart Delfin Lorenzana, and they “affirmed the value” of the agreement, the U.S. Defense Department says on its website.
Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte, a skeptic of the United States who announced the deal’s termination in February 2020, said on national TV just over two months ago he wanted to hear public opinion on the topic. Many lawmakers have already opposed the pact’s termination — which has been suspended twice.FILE – This satellite image provided by Maxar Technologies shows Chinese vessels at the Whitsun reef, in a disputed part of the South China Sea, March 23, 2021.Saving the deal
Philippine officials have not said negotiations would save the agreement, but specialists say they believe comments from Manila show officials hope it holds up.
“There’s an emerging consensus within the key agencies, and I think something that we can see in terms of public opinion as well,” said Herman Kraft, a political science professor at University of the Philippines at Diliman, pointing to comments by defense and foreign ministry officials.
The Philippine government now wants the agreement updated to spell out explicitly that the United States would intervene to help defend outlying islands where Chinese vessels are most likely to appear, an academic close to Philippine defense officials said.
The United States had governed the Philippines for more than five decades before allowing its independence after World War II. For Washington today, the Philippines represents one in a chain of Western Pacific allies that can work together to check Chinese maritime expansion. Former U.S. defense secretary Mark Esper had called the deal cancellation a “move in the wrong direction for the longstanding relationship we’ve had with the Philippines” in part because of the Asian archipelago’s location.
“Rather than maintain strategic ambiguity — this was the practice in the past — [Philippine officials] prefer some strategic clarity,” said Eduardo Araral, associate professor at the National University of Singapore’s public policy school.Sino-Philippine maritime dispute
China and the Philippines dispute sovereignty over tracts of the South China Sea.
Their dispute eased in 2016 after Manila won a world arbitral court ruling against Beijing and Duterte pursued a new friendship with China. However, Philippine officials grew alarmed when about 100 Chinese boats showed up in 2019 near a Philippine-held islet in the sea and again when the fleet of 220 stopped at Whitsun Reef last month.
Ongoing “tension with China” gives the Philippine government a new incentive to keep the Visiting Forces Agreement, said Aaron Rabena, research fellow at the Asia-Pacific Pathways to Progress Foundation in Metro Manila.
China, which maintains Asia’s strongest armed forces, cites historic documents to support its claim to about 90% of the disputed sea. Four other governments call all or part of the same sea their own. China has alarmed many over the past decade by landfilling islets for military installations.
Smaller claimants welcome a U.S. role in the dispute, and the United States — China’s superpower rival — doubled the number of warship passages through the sea in 2019 compared to 2018.
Delicate decision
A decision in Manila to uphold the agreement would upset China, which could in turn increase its boat count in the disputed sea, Kraft said. It could go as far as banning Philippine fishing operations, he said. The sea is valued for fisheries as well as undersea fuel reserves.
However, Duterte risks being seen as weak at home if he reinstates the U.S. pact after thundering against it in February 2020, experts say. Duterte, a long-time anti-U.S. firebrand, ordered an end to the deal after the U.S. government canceled a visa for a Philippine senator and former police chief who was instrumental in a deadly anti-drug campaign that generated outrage abroad.
Duterte might end up letting his foreign affairs and defense secretaries handle the whole Visiting Forces Agreement process, Kraft said. The Philippines could technically keep suspending its cancelation of the deal every six months until deciding what to do, Araral said.
The government could extend the review process into mid-2022, when Duterte must step down due to term limits, Rabena said.
“He doesn’t have to say yes to it,” Rabena said. “What he does sometimes is that he just allows his cabinet members to do their thing.”
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Kenya Camps With More Than 400,000 Refugees to Be Closed Next Year
Kenya wants two refugee camps, which host hundreds of thousands of refugees from war-torn countries, to be closed by June 30 next year, the government said Thursday.
The announcement followed a meeting between Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta and U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi about the status of the two refugee camps where 433,765 refugees and asylum-seekers live. Most of the people at the two camps are from Somalia and South Sudan.
“A joint team comprising officials from the Kenyan government and the [U.N. Refugee] agency will therefore be formed to finalize and implement a road map on the next steps towards a humane management of refugees in both camps,” a joint statement said.
Earlier this month, UNHCR presented Kenya with what it said were “sustainable rights-based measures” for finding solutions for the refugees’ long-standing displacement.
This followed a two-week ultimatum given by Kenya’s interior minister for the agency to come up with a road map to close the decades-old camps.
The push by Kenya’s government to shut down the camps sooner has been blocked after the High Court issued the temporary order, which will run for 30 days, after former presidential aspirant Peter Gichira filed a legal challenge seeking to block closure of the two camps.
UNHCR’s “sustainable and rights-based measures” to find solution for displacement of the refugees include voluntary return for refugees in safety and dignity, departures to third countries under various arrangements, and alternative stay options in Kenya for certain refugees from East African Community, or EAC, countries.
“We are serious about completing the repatriation program which we started in 2016, in full view of our international obligations and our domestic responsibility. We therefore reiterate our earlier position to close both Dadaab and Kakuma camps by June 30, 2022,” Interior Minister Fred Matiang’i said, according to the statement.
“I believe that the government and people of Kenya will continue to show their generous hospitality toward refugees as they have done for nearly three decades, while we carry on discussions on a strategy to find the most durable, appropriate and rights-based solutions for refugees and asylum-seekers residing in the refugee camps in Dadaab and Kakuma,” Grandi said.
Refugees from East African countries will be given the option of being issued a work permit for free so that they can integrate into Kenyan communities or return to their country of origin, Matiang’i said.
Kenya has said the Dadaab refugee camp near the Somalia border is a source of insecurity. Some officials have argued that it has been used as a recruiting ground for the jihadi rebels of al-Shabab and a base for launching violent attacks inside Kenya, but officials haven’t provided conclusive proof.
A Kenyan court in 2017 blocked the closure of Dadaab camp, saying it wasn’t safe for refugees to return to Somalia.
Kenya has been saying for years that it would like to close Daadab, near Kenya’s eastern border with Somalia, and which hosts nearly 200,000 mostly Somali refugees.
The Kenyan government’s latest demand is seen as retaliation against Somalia for insisting on pursuing a case at the International Court of Justice over a disputed maritime border between the two countries. Kenya wants the case settled out of court.
Kakuma camp in Kenya’s northeast has nearly 200,000 refugees, mostly South Sudanese nationals escaping civil war.
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US First Lady Marks Arbor Day With White House Tree Planting
U.S. first lady Jill Biden observed Arbor Day — a national day dedicated to trees — by helping to plant a tree on the north lawn of the White House on Friday. With press gathered, the first lady walked to a tree which already had been placed in a hole in the White House lawn, took a shovel from a U.S. National Park Service member and deposited several scoops of dirt into the hole surrounding the new tree. Dressed more for indoor activities, in a skirt and blazer, Biden quipped, “Who doesn’t plant trees in high heels?” The new tree is reported to be a Linden, replacing one removed last month after it began to rot. Arbor Day originated in the state of Nebraska in 1872 as a day meant to promote the planting of trees, particularly among schoolchildren. It was reported that an estimated one million trees were planted on that day. Since then, Arbor Day became informally observed nationwide. President Richard Nixon established Arbor Day as a national holiday in 1972.
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UN: 30,000 People Have Fled Recent Attacks in Northern Mozambique
U.N. agencies say the number of people who have fled last month’s armed attacks in northern Mozambique’s coastal town of Palma has now risen to nearly 30,500.Most of those who have fled Palma have gone to Pemba, the capital of northern Mozambique’s Cabo Delgado province. The U.N. refugee agency said dozens of people reportedly have been killed by Islamist militants who began their assault on the oil and gas rich town on March 24.Thousands flee PalmaU.N. refugee spokesman Babar Balloch said thousands of people fled Palma in a panic by foot, by road and by sea. He said they have been arriving in Pemba with no belongings, often in ill health or with injuries and severely malnourished.He said desperate people are still on the run.“They are fleeing still Palma area as far as still last night,” Balloch said. “My colleagues in Pemba were telling me that there were three boats that arrived with civilians. At least 100 people on board, and as we were talking, a majority of them are women and children.”Balloch said many more people are believed to be trapped inside Palma, unable to leave. France’s energy giant Total recently suspended a multi-billion-dollar gas project in northern Mozambique because of the jihadist assault.Violence stops aid workersBalloch said government forces are on the ground inside Palma, but he does not know how much of the area they have secured. He said UNHCR aid workers are unable to work there because of the dangers.He said the ongoing armed conflict in Cabo Delgado has resulted in grave human rights abuses. He said critical services are disrupted and that is seriously affecting civilians. Children, who account for half of the displaced population, are at particular risk.Balloch said many children get separated from their families during their flight to Pemba.“Hundreds of children have arrived traumatized and exhausted after being separated from their families,” Balloch said. “Many others have come with their mothers … UNHCR is working with UNICEF and our other partners and referring vulnerable displaced children to appropriate services or for family reunification, mental health, and psychological support, as well as material assistance.”Cabo Delgado’s four-year-long conflict has killed or injured tens of thousands of people and forcibly displaced more than 700,000.
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Despite Glitch, NASA Thrilled With Performance of Mars Helicopter
Scientists with the U.S. space agency NASA Friday said the tiny helicopter they sent to Mars has exceeded their expectations, despite a glitch that forced its fourth flight to be rescheduled.
During a virtual news briefing on the Mars mission, scientists and engineers with NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory said the Ingenuity helicopter’s first three flights showed them enough capability that they are expanding the operation of the aircraft by 30 days, doubling its originally planned mission time.
NASA had originally described the Ingenuity project as a technology demonstration designed to test flight capability in the thin Martian atmosphere. Project Manager Mi Mi Aung, said it performed so well that it is transitioning from a demonstration to operation phase, in which the craft will be used to show how its unique capabilities can be applied.
Aung told reporters “It’s like Ingenuity is graduating.”NASA’s Ingenuity helicopter unlocked its rotor blades, allowing them to spin freely, on April 7, 2021, the 47th Martian day, or sol, of the mission. (Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU)The craft had been scheduled to complete its fourth flight Thursday, but a software glitch prevented it from transitioning to flight mode. If it goes off as planned later Friday, the NASA team hopes to fly it 133 meters from its starting point — more than twice as far as its last flight — taking color pictures of the terrain below before returning to where it started.
Aung said the pictures will be used to put together three-dimensional images of the Martian landscape, from which staff will select a new landing site for the helicopter, which she said will take at least a week. The landing site will be the destination for Ingenuity’s fifth flight.
NASA officials said that the Perseverance rover has, so far, acted in support of the helicopter, transferring data from the craft and taking pictures of its flights. The researchers say communication between the two vehicles is also working better than expected and they now believe they can be as much as a kilometer apart and still maintain strong contact.
The Ingenuity team says the helicopter is providing NASA with data for how future missions will be designed, how those missions will utilize aircraft to explore to determine where rovers should go and explore areas where they cannot.
The 1.8-kilogram aircraft arrived on the planet packed away on NASA’s Perseverance rover when it landed on Mars in February. Aside from solar batteries and a transmitter, Ingenuity carries no scientific instruments.
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Turkish Government Under Fire Over COVID-19 Alcohol Ban
The Turkish government’s decision to ban alcohol sales as part of a nearly three-week lockdown to contain COVID-19 is causing a political storm, with opponents accusing the Islamic-rooted government of using the pandemic to pursue a religious agenda. The alcohol ban is part of a national lockdown that took effect Thursday and will end on May 17. The ban is stoking tensions and suspicion over the Islamist roots of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who critics accuse of seeking to undermine the 90-year-old secular state, said columnist Mehves Evin of the Duvar news portal. “Erdogan’s regime, it’s like trying all the little ways to change the way, he thinks it’s the right way for people to live. Meaning, for example, the way they are building up the Imam Hatip religious schools. The way they are encouraging more and more students to go to those schools, actually is social engineering. So with the alcohol ban, it is actually also the same thing,” Evin said. A customer shops for alcoholic beverages at a supermarket ahead of a nationwide lockdown to curb the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic, in Istanbul, April 29, 2021.The government denies such accusations. But with the ban coinciding with the Islamic fasting month of Ramadan, such denials have done little to quell the controversy. The head of Turkey’s trader’s association, Bendeki Palandoken, called for the ban’s reversal, asking if is it possible to demand an alcohol ban in a developed and democratic country of law, which is integrated with Europe, and has many foreign customers, as well. The ban is also being challenged in Turkey’s high courts. But the government is vigorously defending the controls, noting that other countries, like South Africa, imposed similar restrictions. Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu said Thursday there would be no exemptions and no backing down. The alcohol shops will endure this sacrifice, as everyone else will, he added. But numerous shops are starting to challenge the ban by selling alcohol, with many people posting pictures of their purchases on social media. “Don’t touch my alcohol” is among this week’s Turkish Twitter top trending hashtags.
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Journalists Killed in Burkina Faso Amid Ongoing Insecurity
The killings this week in Burkina Faso of two Spanish journalists, along with an Irish conservationist, has underscored the risks journalists face in Africa’s Sahel region. Press freedom supporters say threats to reporters have been growing in the Sahel, along with Islamist insurgencies in the region.The bodies of Spanish journalists David Beriain and Roberto Fraile arrived in Spain on Friday. They were working with Irish conservationist Rory Young on a documentary about poaching in Eastern Burkina Faso this week when they were ambushed, abducted and killed. A Burkinabé soldier accompanying the group on Monday remains missing. The Associated Press reported an al-Qaida-linked jihadist group claimed responsibility for the attack. The killings underscored the increasing risks of reporting in parts of Burkina Faso and its Sahel region neighbors, Mali and Niger. The U.N.’s refugee agency says armed violence in the Sahel has displaced nearly three million people since 2018. Jean Louis Ouango is a freelance journalist based in Burkina Faso’s Eastern Region capital, Fada N’Gourma, just an hour’s drive from Pama Reserve, where the Europeans were attacked.Speaking via a messaging application, Ouango said the country’s growing violence has limited the ability of journalists to move between the five provinces in the Eastern Region and do their work. In the last four years, he said, it became less and less safe for journalists to venture out to those areas. Mahamoudou Savadogo, an independent security consultant in Burkina Faso and a Sahel extremism researcher for a Senegal-based think tank, said the road the Europeans were driving on when attacked has been controlled by armed terrorists since 2019. It is suicide to take that road, Savadogo said from Ouagadougou via a messaging application, adding that the risk of being targeted is especially high if you’re escorted by the armed forces or other security. It’s not clear how much of a risk the Irish conservationist and Spanish journalists knew they were taking. The New York City-based Committee to Protect Journalists’ (CPJ) this week called for authorities to investigate the killings. Speaking from New York via a messaging application, CPJ Africa Program Director Angela Quintal noted worsening security for reporting in the Sahel. “The situation for journalists, generally, is not good,” she said. “I mean, one of the top investigative journalists in Burkina Faso is now facing criminal defamation, and he’s being sued by the ruling party. … So, all of this, including the fact that journalists who are trying to cover the insurgency, what’s happening in Burkina Faso and in the Sahel generally, are really putting themselves in grave danger.” The Association of Journalists of Burkina echoed the call for an investigation. But bringing terrorists to justice in the Sahel is unlikely, as CPJ research shows that, globally, in about 80% of cases where journalists are killed, the killers walk free.
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Looming Madagascar Famine Sparks Nutrition Emergency
Famine is looming in southern Madagascar and emergency food aid is needed for hundreds of thousands of people to head off a humanitarian disaster on the African island nation, the U.N. World Food Program warned.Five consecutive years of drought, exacerbated by unexpected sandstorms, have depleted people’s food stocks, forcing them to resort to desperate measures to survive. The WFP senior director of operations in Madagascar, Amer Daoudi, said at least 1.35 million people are suffering from acute hunger, many of whom are living off locusts, raw cactus fruits or wild leaves. He said malnutrition is soaring to alarming levels, putting the lives of many children under age five at risk. While on a diplomatic and governmental tour of the region, he said he saw horrific images of starving, malnourished and stunted children. FILE – Children shelter from the sun in Ankilimarovahatsy, Madagascar, a village in the far south of the island where most children are acutely malnourished, Nov. 9, 2020.”And not only the children,” Daoudi added. “Mothers, parents, and the population in the villages we visited. The situation is extremely, extremely worrisome, scary. They are on the periphery of famine.” The WFP official said most of Madagascar’s southern districts are in a nutrition emergency as acute malnutrition has almost doubled over the last four months. He said people are dying but it is difficult to get an accurate count. “If a child dies, they bury, there is no reporting, there is no official type of reporting to take these numbers,” he said. “Same thing with grownups. We are already witnessing whole villages shutting down and moving to the nearest urban centers.” That movement, Daoudi said, is putting pressure on an already fragile food security situation in the cities. He said WFP is short of money and limited in what it can do to address the hunger crisis. Because of the cash crunch, he said his agency has been forced to cut food rations by half for up to 750,000 people who are living on a knife’s edge. WFP is asking for $75 million immediately to cover the needs of hundreds of thousands of starving people over the next few months.
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Blinken Heads to Ukraine After Russia Sends 150K Troops to Border
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken is heading to Ukraine next week as Washington coordinates closely with Kyiv over Russia’s recent military buildup along Ukraine border.
Blinken will travel to Ukraine on May 5-6, “where he will meet with President Zelensky, Foreign Minister Kuleba, other officials, and representatives of Ukrainian civil society to reaffirm unwavering U.S. support for Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity in the face of Russia’s ongoing aggression,” State Department spokesman Ned Price said in a statement Friday.
The United States is keeping a close watch on Russia’s movement after Moscow announced last Thursday that it would begin withdrawing its troops from the border of Ukraine.
Pentagon Press Secretary John Kirby said this week it is too soon to tell and are taking at face value Russia’s claims they are pulling everybody back, while noting “some departure of some [Russia] forces away from Ukraine.”US Keeping Wary Eye on Russian Troops Near UkrainePentagon says too soon to know if the threat from Moscow’s largest military buildup since it seized Crimea in 2014 is truly over Senior American and European Union officials had said roughly 150,000 Russian troops massed along the border of Ukraine and in Crimea, more troops in the area than seven years ago when Russia invaded and seized Crimea in 2014.
The U.S. has reaffirmed its support for Ukraine’s sovereignty, independence, and territorial integrities, urging the Russian Government to immediately cease all aggressive activity in and around Ukraine.
Blinken’s trip to Ukraine would be his first as the U.S. secretary of state. In Kyiv, he “will also encourage continued progress on Ukraine’s institutional reform agenda, particularly anti-corruption action, which is key to securing Ukraine’s democratic institutions, economic prosperity, and Euro-Atlantic future,” said Price in the Friday statement.
Prior to traveling to Ukraine, the chief U.S. diplomat will attend a G-7 foreign ministers meeting in London from May 3-5, which is the first in-person such gathering in two years since the start of the coronavirus pandemic.
“The United States will discuss how we can work with other countries to address the key geopolitical issues we face as we build back better from this pandemic,” said the State Department spokesman. “Tackling the COVID-19 and climate crises will feature prominently on the agenda, as will advancing economic growth, human rights, food security, gender equality, and women’s and girls’ empowerment.”
While in Britain, Blinken will also meet with Prime Minister Boris Johnson and Foreign Secretary Raab “to discuss shared U.S.-U.K. priorities.”
In addition to G-7 countries, officials from Australia, India, South Africa, South Korea, and Brunei, in its capacity as Chair of ASEAN, will join the G-7 Foreign and Development Ministers’ meeting as guests. Price said, “these meetings will lay the groundwork for the 46th Leaders’ Summit in Cornwall in June.”VOA’s Jeff Seldin contributed to this report.
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Blinken Heads to Ukraine Amid Russia’s Recent Military Buildup Along Border
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken is heading to Ukraine next week as Washington coordinates closely with Kyiv over Russia’s recent military buildup along Ukraine border.
Blinken will travel to Ukraine on May 5-6, “where he will meet with President Zelensky, Foreign Minister Kuleba, other officials, and representatives of Ukrainian civil society to reaffirm unwavering U.S. support for Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity in the face of Russia’s ongoing aggression,” State Department spokesman Ned Price said in a statement Friday.
The United States is keeping a close watch on Russia’s movement after Moscow announced last Thursday that it would begin withdrawing its troops from the border of Ukraine.
Pentagon Press Secretary John Kirby said this week it is too soon to tell and are taking at face value Russia’s claims they are pulling everybody back, while noting “some departure of some [Russia] forces away from Ukraine.”US Keeping Wary Eye on Russian Troops Near UkrainePentagon says too soon to know if the threat from Moscow’s largest military buildup since it seized Crimea in 2014 is truly over Senior American and European Union officials had said roughly 150,000 Russian troops massed along the border of Ukraine and in Crimea, more troops in the area than seven years ago when Russia invaded and seized Crimea in 2014.
The U.S. has reaffirmed its support for Ukraine’s sovereignty, independence, and territorial integrities, urging the Russian Government to immediately cease all aggressive activity in and around Ukraine.
Blinken’s trip to Ukraine would be his first as the U.S. secretary of state. In Kyiv, he “will also encourage continued progress on Ukraine’s institutional reform agenda, particularly anti-corruption action, which is key to securing Ukraine’s democratic institutions, economic prosperity, and Euro-Atlantic future,” said Price in the Friday statement.
Prior to traveling to Ukraine, the chief U.S. diplomat will attend a G-7 foreign ministers meeting in London from May 3-5, which is the first in-person such gathering in two years since the start of the coronavirus pandemic.
“The United States will discuss how we can work with other countries to address the key geopolitical issues we face as we build back better from this pandemic,” said the State Department spokesman. “Tackling the COVID-19 and climate crises will feature prominently on the agenda, as will advancing economic growth, human rights, food security, gender equality, and women’s and girls’ empowerment.”
While in Britain, Blinken will also meet with Prime Minister Boris Johnson and Foreign Secretary Raab “to discuss shared U.S.-U.K. priorities.”
In addition to G-7 countries, officials from Australia, India, South Africa, South Korea, and Brunei, in its capacity as Chair of ASEAN, will join the G-7 Foreign and Development Ministers’ meeting as guests. Price said, “these meetings will lay the groundwork for the 46th Leaders’ Summit in Cornwall in June.”VOA’s Jeff Seldin contributed to this report.
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Disneyland Opening Highlights California’s COVID Turnaround
Four months ago, America’s most populous state was struggling to combat a surge in coronavirus hospitalizations that packed patients into outdoor tents and killed hundreds of people each day.
On Friday, Disneyland, California’s world-famous theme park, will reopen to visitors after an unprecedented 13-month closure in what tourism officials hope is a sign of the state’s rebound from the pandemic. For now, the park is allowing only in-state visitors and operating at limited capacity.
“It has such a symbolic nature to really quantifying that we’re finally rolling out of COVID,” said Caroline Beteta, president and CEO of the state tourism agency Visit California.
The news comes as California boasts the country’s lowest rate of confirmed coronavirus infections and more than half of the population eligible for vaccination has received at least one dose of the shots. It’s a dramatic turnaround from December, when hospitals across the state were running out of ICU beds and treating patients at overflow locations.
Now, children are returning to school, shops and restaurants are expanding business, and Gov. Gavin Newsom set June 15 as a target date to further reopen the economy, albeit with some health-related restrictions.
Theme parks were among the last businesses allowed to reopen in California, and Universal Studios and others have already thrown open the gates. That’s a contrast to states with fewer restrictions such as Florida, where Disney World’s Magic Kingdom resort has been up and running, though at lower-than-usual capacity, since last July.
Another major U.S. amusement park, Ohio’s Cedar Point, opened last summer and will do so again for the upcoming season — only this time, it won’t require masks on rides or outdoors where crowds can be avoided.
While California continues to “strongly discourage” anyone from visiting the state as tourists, the travel industry is banking on pent-up demand from its own 40 million residents for a comeback. An advertising campaign encourages Californians to travel within the state, mirroring a pitch made after the terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
“We’re back to that playbook,” Beteta said. “It was very successful for us then, and we’re hoping it will be for us now.”
Disneyland is a major economic engine in California, drawing nearly 19 million in attendance the year before the coronavirus struck, according to the Themed Entertainment Association. It and other such attractions were shuttered in March 2020 as Newsom imposed the nation’s first statewide shutdown order.
The park and neighboring Disney California Adventure will reopen with a capacity that is currently capped at 25% under state health rules. Reservations are required, hugs and handshakes with Mickey and other characters are off limits, and the famous parades and fireworks shows have been shelved to limit crowding.
California currently allows state residents and fully vaccinated out-of-state visitors to attend theme parks. The state could open its economy more fully on June 15 provided vaccine supply is sufficient and hospitalizations remain stable and low.
But in a state with so many people shut in for so long, even in-state tourism could be a huge boost. Plus, Disney’s California parks have long had a loyal local fan base while its Florida locations rely more heavily on international tourists, said Carissa Baker, assistant professor of theme park and attraction management at University of Central Florida’s Rosen College of Hospitality Management.
“When they reopen, they’re probably going to be pretty instantly at whatever the allowable capacity is just because there’s so many locals who go to the California parks,” Baker said.
Zach Bolger, 35, is among them. Before the closure, he took the half-hour drive down from Los Angeles County two or three times a week with his girlfriend, whom he met trading collectible pins at Disneyland.
“Just walking down Main Street and looking at the bricks on Main Street and looking at the stores or up at Walt’s window with the candle in it, all those things bring us a lot of happiness,” said Bolger, who has opening tickets for the park. “We’re definitely looking forward to the rides, but if Disneyland opened up and said, ‘All rides are closed, you can only walk around,’ we still would have bought tickets.”
The reopening is also good news for theme park employees eager to get back to work and owners of hotels and shops in the surrounding city of Anaheim, which is running a $109 million deficit due to pandemic-related closures, said Mike Lyster, a city spokesman.
Visit Anaheim President Jay Burress said the city’s convention center saw more than 300 cancellations since the pandemic and so far has rebooked about a quarter. Some events might not be due to return to the West Coast for years or could get moved to states with fewer restrictions, Burress said, but added he believes the reopening of Disneyland and other attractions is promising.
“We’re not out of the woods, but at least we’re seeing some light for future,” he said.
Disneyland is expected to reopen popular rides such as Space Mountain and Dumbo the Flying Elephant. But there will be changes to the park, with masks required and no live theater performances scheduled. This is how Disney started out at its Florida theme park and gradually phased back in entertainment, Baker said.
Earlier this week, Disneyland lit up its hallmark Sleeping Beauty castle and released a video tribute to employees. “There’s a great big beautiful tomorrow ahead for all of us,” said Ken Potrock, president of Disneyland Resort.
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Germany to Return Looted Benin Bronzes to Nigeria
German officials say they have reached an agreement with Nigeria to return some of the famed Benin Bronzes that were looted from Nigeria in the 19th century.About 500 of the plundered artifacts are on display in several German museums.The handoff is expected to take place next year under an agreement reached between Germany and Nigeria on Thursday.The return of the artifacts is “a turning point in our approach to colonial history,” German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas said.In 1897, British soldiers snatched thousands of exquisitely decorated bronze and brass plaques and sculptures created by guilds in the Kingdom of Benin in what is now Nigeria. The objects have become known as the Benin Bronzes and are on display in museums around the world.The British Museum has more than 900 of the objects. Germany’s agreement with Nigeria pertains only to the artifacts that are in Germany.
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Biden to Help Amtrak Mark 50 Years on the Rails
President Joe Biden, once a regular Amtrak rider, is set on Friday to help the nation’s passenger rail system celebrate 50 years of service.As a U.S. senator, Biden was a fixture on Amtrak trains between his home in Wilmington, Delaware, and Washington, D.C., when the Senate was in session. He continued riding Amtrak as vice president. He has sometimes been referred to as “Amtrak Joe.”But with a presidential train trip unlikely because of security concerns, Biden instead will fly to Philadelphia for Amtrak’s celebration at its busy 30th Street Station. He is to be introduced by a conductor who worked the route when Biden was a regular passenger, while the next generation of Amtrak’s high-speed Acela train, scheduled to enter service next year, will be on display.“He knew just about everybody that worked in the station and the conductors and other people and Amtrak folks who were on the train for those many, many years that he rode the rail,” Amtrak CEO Bill Flynn said of the president.“He regularly engaged with them and knew quite a bit about them, and I think that’s why he was anxious or willing to be part of our 50th anniversary,” Flynn said.Biden’s appearance in Philadelphia, his third visit to Pennsylvania while in office, comes as he marks his first 100 days as president. It also follows his speech to Congress on Wednesday, when he outlined his $2.3 trillion jobs and infrastructure plan and previewed some $1.8 trillion in proposed spending on education, childcare and other family needs.The Amtrak party will be Biden’s latest stop in a post-speech tour to sell the infrastructure, jobs and families plans. He campaigned in Atlanta on Thursday and plans a stop in Yorktown, Virginia, on Monday.Joe Biden, then a US Democratic presidential candidate, speaks to supporters after arriving on an Amtrak train for a campaign stop in Alliance, Ohio, Sept. 30, 2020.The infrastructure proposal would devote $621 billion to improving roads, bridges, public transit and other transportation infrastructure. Of that, $80 billion would go toward tackling Amtrak’s repair backlog, improving service along the Northeast Corridor and expanding service across the U.S.Amtrak said after Biden announced the plan that the corporation would upgrade and expand service, including by adding 30 new routes and adding trains on 20 existing routes across the U.S. by 2035. New service would begin in portions of northeast Pennsylvania including Scranton, where Biden was born, as well as Nashville, Tennessee; Columbus, Ohio; Phoenix; Las Vegas; Houston; Dallas; and Austin, Texas, if approved by Congress.But while the $80 billion represents a significant investment, the money would not go far in terms of funding high-speed rail. Amtrak has estimated that it has a $31 billion repair backlog for its trains in the Northeast Corridor alone, and transportation analysts say adding new lines in that region could easily use up the funds that remain.A Senate Republican counteroffer to Biden’s plan, totaling $568 billion, would devote a much slimmer $20 billion to U.S. rail service.Amtrak was formed after President Richard Nixon signed the Rail Passenger Service Act in 1970.Biden’s lifelong association with Amtrak began soon after rail service began in May 1971.His first wife and baby daughter were killed in a car accident in Delaware, weeks after he was elected to the Senate. His young sons, Beau and Hunter, were seriously injured.Biden considered not taking his Senate seat but ultimately took office. He then decided to return home every night from Washington to be with his sons — and Amtrak was the vehicle. He made the round trip every day the Senate was in session, for the 36 years he held the seat, through his remarriage to current wife, Jill, and the birth of their daughter, Ashley.He also rode the train when he was President Barack Obama’s vice president. After he and Obama were elected, they rode an Amtrak train together into Washington for the inauguration.Biden also rode Amtrak at points during the 2020 campaign. He had wanted to recreate the 2009 train ride for his own inauguration in January, but those plans were shelved after the insurrection at the Capitol by supporters of President Donald Trump.When he returned to Delaware after the Obama administration ended, Biden estimated to CNN that he had taken more than 8,200 round trips and had traveled more than 3.2 million kilometers on Amtrak.Amtrak renamed its Wilmington, Delaware, train station after Biden in 2011.
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Alarm Grows in Africa as it Watches India’s COVID-19 Crisis
Africa is “watching with total disbelief” as India struggles with a devastating resurgence in COVID-19 cases, the continent’s top public health official said Thursday, as African officials worry about delays in vaccine deliveries caused by India’s crisis.The African continent, with roughly the same population as India and fragile health systems, “must be very, very prepared” since a similar scenario could happen here, John Nkengasong, director of the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, told reporters.An Indian man sleeps next to a sign urging people to stay at home as a precaution against coronavirus in the premises of a hospital in Hyderabad, India, April 29, 2021.”What is happening in India cannot be ignored by our continent,” he said, and urged African countries to avoid mass gatherings including political rallies. “We do not have enough health care workers, we do not have enough oxygen,” he warned.Africa’s vaccine supply heavily relies on India, whose Serum Institute is the source of the AstraZeneca vaccines distributed by the global COVAX project to get doses to low- and middle-income countries. India’s export ban on vaccines “has severely impacted the predictability of the rollout of vaccination programs and will continue to do so for the coming weeks and perhaps months,” Nkengasong said.”We are living in a world that is extremely uncertain now,” he added.Just 17 million vaccine doses have been administered across the African continent for a population of some 1.3 billion, according to the Africa CDC.The situation in India is “very sad to observe,” the World Health Organization’s Africa chief told reporters in a separate briefing. “We are very concerned about the delays that are coming in the availability of vaccines,” Matshidiso Moeti added.Her WHO colleague, Phionah Atuhebwe, called the delay “quite devastating for everybody” and said most African nations that received their first vaccine doses via COVAX will reach a “gap” in supply while waiting for second doses as early as May or June.”We call upon countries that have extra doses to do their part,” Atuhebwe said, adding that the WHO is reviewing the Chinese-made Sinopharm and Sinovac vaccines this week.One unexpected COVID-19 vaccine donor is Congo, which Nkengasong said wants to give back some 1.3 million doses so they can be distributed to other African nations since it hasn’t been able to do it at home.There is “a lot of vaccine hesitancy” in the vast country, Nkengasong said. He didn’t immediately know how many people have received the doses there.A Muslim man walks past COVID-19 guidelines at the gate of Lekki Central mosque, in Lagos, Nigeria, April 16, 2021.There is a five-week timeline to get the doses administered elsewhere, he said, and Congo is working with COVAX to hand them over. He expressed hope that the doses can reach other people quickly during what he called “an extremely critical time.”Nkengasong didn’t know of other African countries saying they’re unable to use their doses but he urged them not to wait until the last moment to hand them back. Other countries in Europe, North America and Asia “can have their luxury” of vaccine options, he said, but “we do not have choices.”Moeti with the WHO commended Congo for its decision, calling it “extremely wise of the government to make this estimation” in a country with gaps in its health care system.She also warned that African countries must step up key public health measures to help avoid India’s scenario occurring here. The rate of testing for the coronavirus has dropped in “quite a few countries,” she said, and mentioned seeing data from one African nation in which the proportion of people not wearing face masks has risen to almost 80%.Only 43 million tests for the virus have been conducted across the African continent since the pandemic began, the Africa CDC chief said, with a 26% drop in new tests conducted in the past week.Nkengasong warned against travel bans, however, after Kenya this week announced it will suspend all passenger flights to and from India for two weeks starting midnight Saturday, while cargo flights continue.”It’s really unfortunate we are reacting in a very ad hoc manner in respect to flight movements,” he said, emphasizing the strength of authentic negative PCR tests. “It’s not people who are a threat, it’s the virus.”
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Activist Says He Flew 500K Leaflets Across Koreas’ Border
A South Korean activist said Friday he launched 500,000 propaganda leaflets by balloon into North Korea this week in defiance of a contentious new law that criminalizes such actions.If confirmed, Park Sang-hak’s action would be the first known violation of the law that punishes anti-Pyongyang leafleting with up to three years in prison or a fine of $27,040. The law that took effect in March has invited criticism South Korea is sacrificing freedom of expression to improve ties with rival North Korea, which has repeatedly protested the leafleting.Police stations in frontline Gyeonggi and Gangwon provinces said they couldn’t immediately confirm if Park sent balloons from their areas, which Park has used in the past and said he used in two launches this week. Cha Duck Chul, a deputy spokesperson at Seoul’s Unification Ministry, said the government would handle the case in line with the objective of the law, though police and military authorities were still working to confirm Park’s statements.Park said his organization floated 10 giant balloons carrying the leaflets, reading materials critical of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s government, and 5,000 $1 bills over two launches from frontline areas this week. He would not disclose the exact locations in the two border provinces he used, citing worries police would stop future attempts.”Though (authorities) can handcuff and put me to a prison cell, they cannot stop (my leafleting) with whatever threats or violence as long as the North Korean people waits for the letters of freedom, truth and hopes,” said Park, a North Korean defector known for years of leafleting campaigns.Park called the anti-leafleting legislation “the worst law” that “sides with cruel human rights abuser Kim Jong Un and covers the eyes and ears of the North Korean people that have become the modern-day slaves of the Kim dynasty.”Video released by Park showed him releasing a balloon with leaflets toward a dark sky and showed him standing in the woods with a sign that partly reads, “The world condemns Kim Jong Un who is crazy for nuclear and rocket provocations.”The anti-leafleting legislation was passed in December by Parliament, where lawmakers supporting President Moon Jae-in’s engagement policy on North Korea hold a three-fifths supermajority. It went into effect in March.It’s the first South Korean law that formally bans civilians from floating anti-North Korea leaflets across border. South Korea has previously banned such activities only during sensitive times in inter-Korean relations and normally allowed activists to exercise their freedom of speech despite repeated protests from North Korea.Kim’s powerful sister, Kim Yo Jong, last year furiously demanded South Korea ban the leafleting and called North Korean defectors involved in it “human scum” and “mongrel dogs.”Despite the law, ties between the Koreas remain strained amid a standstill in broader nuclear diplomacy between Pyongyang and Washington. North Korea has made a series of derisive statements against Seoul, including Kim Yo Jong calling Moon “a parrot raised by America” after he criticized the North’s recent missile launches.
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Chadian Rebels Claim They Have Shot Down Military Helicopter
Rebels seeking to overthrow Chad’s new transitional government claimed Thursday to have shot down a military helicopter, while the junta in power warned political opponents not to renew protests after violent demonstrations earlier in the week left at least six people dead.The Chadian government has said that the rebels blamed for killing President Idriss Deby Itno last week have retreated across the border to neighboring Niger. However, in a statement released Thursday, the rebel group claimed it controls the Chadian town of Nokou, located more than 300 kilometers north of the capital.It was not immediately possible to independently verify the claims made by the armed group known as the National Front for Change and Concord in Chad. Its fighters have threatened to attack the capital, N’Djamena, in a bid to overthrow the new government now led by Mahamat Idriss Deby, son of the slain president.Chad’s political opposition also has decried the formation of a transitional military government led by the 37-year-old Deby, saying that a civilian interim government should have been headed by the president of the National Assembly instead.Protesters took to the streets in several neighborhoods of the capital on Tuesday, a week after the president’s shocking killing was announced. Demonstrators blocked roads and set tires ablaze, prompting a swift crackdown from security forces. The government said Wednesday that six people had been killed in the unrest including a retired police officer, while opposition activists placed the toll at nine dead.Despite the threats made by rebels to take N’Djamena, the militants appeared to be still far from the capital on Thursday. The statement released by the rebels’ spokesman, Kingabe Ogouzeimi de Tapol, criticized the Chadian military for launching a series of aerial bombardments, saying it “lacks the courage to fight on the ground.””Any aircraft flying over our positions will be treated as hostile to the Chadian people and will be shot down without warning,” said the rebel statement in which it claimed it shot down the helicopter. The statement also accused the military of employing Sudanese mercenaries.There was no immediate reaction from the military, which has deployed heavily armed and turbaned soldiers on the streets of the capital in recent days in a display of force alongside police.Military spokesperson Gen. Azem Bermandoa Agouna has said that the rebel’s leader is wanted for war crimes in neighboring Libya, and he has accused the rebels of making dangerous alliances with Islamic extremist armed groups active in eastern Niger.Late Wednesday the general called on political opposition leaders to redirect their supporters in the aftermath of Tuesday’s violent clashes.”This so-called peaceful demonstration paradoxically resulted in the deliberate destruction of 15 national police vehicles and two (gas) stations belonging to the Total company,” the statement said. “In addition, there were intentional assaults on law enforcement officers while on duty.”Calm prevailed Thursday in the city of 1 million people, where billboards bearing the slain president’s image still line many boulevards. However, an opposition coalition group known as FONAC said it would keep up its resistance to the new government led by Deby’s son.”FONAC calls on all Chadians throughout the country to mobilize to say no to the coup d’état, to injustice, and to making Chad a monarchy,” it said.
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US Agency Reports ‘Insider Attacks’ on Afghan Forces Increased by 82%
A new quarterly U.S. report has documented a staggering 82% increase in “insider attacks” on Afghan government security forces in the first quarter of 2021, resulting in 115 personnel killed and 39 wounded.The Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) reported Thursday to the U.S. Congress that overall Afghan National Defense and Security Forces (ANDSF) casualties also were substantially higher than during the same period last year.SIGAR is not allowed to include full ANDSF casualty data because U.S. forces in Afghanistan keep it classified at the request of the Afghan government.The report noted that ANDSF suffered a total of 31 insider attacks from Jan. 1 through April 1, and the number of casualties they caused were more than double compared to the same period in 2020.Taliban insurgents posing as Afghan police or military personnel are behind most of these insider attacks.SIGAR submitted its quarterly report as 2,500 or so U.S. troops are preparing to begin pulling out of Afghanistan beginning Saturday. The military drawdown is to end by Sept. 11 and intends to conclude America’s longest war.Nearly 17,000 U.S. Defense Department contractor personnel supporting the agency’s Afghan operations also will move out of the country along with the American troops. This includes 6,147 U.S. citizens, 6,399 third-country nationals, and 4,286 Afghan nationals, according to SIGAR.The agency noted it is unclear who, if anyone, will replace contractor personnel or perform their work after their withdrawal.“Without continued contractor support, none of the Afghan Air Force’s (AFF) airframes can be sustained as combat effective for more than a few months, depending on the stock of equipment parts in-country, the maintenance capability on each airframe, and when contractor support is withdrawn,” SIGAR said, citing U.S. military assessments.The quarterly report explained that DOD contractors provide for and maintain ANDSF ground vehicles and train local technicians. Although the ANDSF has “dramatically improved its share of the work, it is still falling well below benchmarks for its share of the maintenance work orders they — rather than contractors — are supposed to perform.”The withdrawal of American and NATO forces stems from a year-old agreement Washington negotiated with the Taliban, raising expectations at the time it also would encourage the insurgents and the Afghan government to agree on a power-sharing political deal to end the war.But talks between the Afghan adversaries, which started last September, have failed to produce the desired outcome; rather, they have remained largely deadlocked, raising fears the conflict could intensify and cause more bloodshed once all foreign troops depart.American military commanders have in recent statements admitted Afghan security forces “will certainly collapse” in the face of increased Taliban assaults if the U.S. is to stop all assistance.The Afghan war, which started with the October 2001 U.S.-led international military invasion of the country, is said to have killed an estimated 241,000 people to date.This includes at least 71,344 civilians; 2,442 American service members; 78,314 Afghan military and police; and 84,191 insurgents, said a private U.S. study released earlier this month.
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Florida Legislature Passes Bill Limiting Ballot Access
Florida’s Legislature on Thursday passed a bill that makes it harder to access drop boxes and mail-in ballots, the latest Republican-led state to push for what activists say is voter suppression.Republicans cite former President Donald Trump’s claims that President Joe Biden stole the November election as reasons for the sweeping measures. Judges discredited such claims, made without evidence, in more than 60 lawsuits that failed to overturn the election result.Democrats say the Republican measures are designed to lessen the impact of Black voters, whose heavy turnout helped propel Biden to victory and delivered Democrats two U.S. Senate victories in Georgia in January. Georgia passed major new voting restrictions in March.The bill in neighboring Florida, also a political battleground, includes stricter requirements about drop box staffing and requires voters to apply more frequently for mail-in ballots.The bill also stipulates a widening of the “no-solicitation” area around polling places and expands the definition of solicitations to include “the giving, or attempting to give, any item to a voter by certain persons.” Rights groups warn that will dissuade activists from handing out water and food to voters standing in long lines in the often-sweltering state.Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis is expected to sign the bill into law.Marc Elias, a Democratic lawyer who is representing a coalition of civil rights groups suing Georgia over its voting restrictions, tweeted that the Florida business community should have stood up against the bill.”These voter suppression laws are targeted at Black, Brown and young voters,” Elias tweeted. “Bill now heads to Governor’s desk. Watch this space for more news once it is signed.”A record 158 million people voted in the November elections, in part thanks to new rules that made voting easier during COVID-19 pandemic. New York University’s nonpartisan Brennan Center for Justice found 29 states and the District of Columbia passed laws and changed procedures to expand voting access during the health crisis.
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