Agreement could be reached within weeks on a path for Washington and Tehran to resume compliance with the 2015 Iran nuclear deal if Iran made the political decision to do so, a senior U.S. State Department official said Thursday, adding that gaps still remain.
“Is it possible that we’ll see a mutual return to compliance in the next few weeks, or an understanding of a mutual compliance? It’s possible yes,” the official told reporters on condition of anonymity during a telephone briefing.
“Is it likely? Only time will tell, because as I said, this is ultimately a matter of a political decision that needs to be made in Iran,” the official added.
U.S. officials return to Vienna this week for a fourth round of indirect talks with Iran on how to resume compliance with the deal, which former President Donald Trump abandoned in 2018, prompting Iran to begin violating its terms about a year later.
The crux of the agreement was that Iran committed to take steps to rein in its nuclear program to make it harder to obtain the fissile material for a nuclear weapon in return for relief from U.S., EU and U.N. sanctions.
Tehran denies having nuclear weapons ambitions. The U.S. official said it might be possible to revive a nuclear deal before Iran’s June 18 elections, but again, put the onus on Iran to make such a political decision and to avoid asking Washington to do more than what is envisaged in the agreement while Tehran would seek to do less.
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Month: May 2021
Ugandan Victims of Former Rebel Leader React to His 25-Year Jail Sentence
Ugandan victims of former Lord’s Resistance Army Commander Dominic Ongwen are not happy about the 25-year prison sentence given to him by the International Criminal Court. One victim has called the sentence a joke.In handing down the sentence Thursday, ICC judges said they had to consider the fact that Ongwen had been abducted and recruited into the rebel group at age 9.The judges noted that while the former LRA commander had committed many crimes, Ongwen, too, lost family, had his education interrupted and saw his hopes for a bright future end the day he was abducted.In February, Ongwen was found guilty of 61 charges for attacking civilian populations and committing atrocities, including murder, torture, enslavement and gender-based crimes such as forced marriages, rape, forced pregnancies and sexual slavery of young girls.The charges and sentencing Thursday were for his role in the attacks on four internally displaced people’s camps in northern Uganda between July 2002 and December 2005.Sentence is ‘not justice’Victor Ochen, founder of the African Youth Initiative Network, a nongovernmental organization that brings together young victims of the LRA, spent 21 years in internally displaced people’s camps in the Acholi region. He argued that the sentence was not sufficient punishment for the former LRA commander.“It is not justice, because justice would mean true restoration,” he said. “But of course, it’s a critical step towards accountability, which is an important pillar in pursuing justice. Twenty-five years is enough to keep him away, so that by the time he comes out, most of the direct victims could have died. So to me, I find it a bit problematic. It is simply a joke.”James Okello from Odek village in Gulu District said he lost two relatives and property during the LRA war. He said he thought Ongwen deserved life in prison.”This thing, it’s not fair,” he said. “If you kill one person from our Uganda here, they can put you [in prison] for 40 years. But Ongwen killed very many people. How can he get 25 years only?” ICC Sentences Former Lord’s Resistance Army Commander to 25 Years in JailInternational Criminal Court in The Hague gives child soldier-turned rebel commander Dominic Ongwen more than prosecution recommended but rejects life sentence sought by victims’ lawyersOver 130,000 people are reported to have been killed during the LRA’s decadeslong war against the Ugandan government. The whereabouts of another 30,000 people are unknown.ICC judges indicated that during Ongwen’s jail term, the court could again consider reducing the 25-year sentence.
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Florida Governor Signs Voting Restriction Bill into Law
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has signed into law a voter restriction bill, making it the latest election battleground state in the south to adopt Republican-backed restrictions since the November presidential election.
DeSantis and his fellow Republicans in the state legislature said the law was necessary to prevent voter fraud, despite the lack of voting irregularities last November.
The new law restricts when ballot drop boxes can be used during an early voting period, who can retrieve ballots, and the number of ballots that can be collected.
Voters requesting absentee ballots now face new identification requirements, and those making changes to their registration information are now required to provide an identification number, possibly from a driver’s license or some other type of acceptable identification.
The law also requires voters to submit new applications for absentee ballots in each general election cycle, instead of once every two cycles as required under the old law.
In addition, the law grants partisan election observers more authority to raise objections, and it requires people assisting voters to remain about 45 meters from polling stations, an increase from about a 30 meters radius.
The bill was approved by both houses of the Republican-controlled Florida Legislature. Democrats, voting rights groups and state elections officials said there was no need for the new restrictions.
Despite claims of voter fraud by state Republican politicians, they previously said they were unaware of such problems in Florida. Election supervisors throughout the state did not request any of the changes and cautioned that some of the new requirements may be expensive to implement and difficult to manage.
The NAACP, Common Cause and other rights groups said they would file a lawsuit in federal court arguing the new law would disproportionately affect disabled voters and those in predominantly Black and Latino communities.
The Democratic Party urged voters to cast ballots early by mail in last year’s November presidential election due to concerns over the coronavirus pandemic.
Florida Democrats cast 680,000 more mail-in ballots than Republicans, the first time in years they outvoted Republicans by mail.
Lawmakers in Republican-controlled states such as Georgia, Arizona and Texas have sought to explain a series of proposed voting restrictions by citing former president Donald Trump’s unfounded claims that his election loss to Democrat Joe Biden was stolen from him.
Judges have discredited such claims in more than 60 lawsuits across the U.S. that failed to overturn election results.
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Johnson, Merkel Urge Economic Powers to Pledge Toward Climate Change
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and German Chancellor Angela Merkel urged the world’s economic powers Thursday not to shy away from serious investments in combating climate change.
Merkel hosted the 2021 Petersburg Climate Dialogue, an online conference designed to drive international action on global warming and encourage nations and their leaders to focus on the U.N. Climate Change Conference later this year in Glasgow, Scotland.
In her comments, Merkel said she realized the COVID-19 pandemic has “torn insane budget holes” for the world’s industrialized countries. But she said they should not compensate for that by spending less on development aid and climate protection.
Johnson echoed that theme, saying the world’s wealthiest nations must meet their commitments to a $100 billion fund meant to help developing nations deal with climate change. He said it is up to wealthy countries to take action, as it is the developing world that feels the worst effects from the warming climate.
Johnson said he will use the meeting with the leading industrial nations hosted by Britain next month to promote the U.N.-backed climate goals.
All G-7 countries have now set targets for reducing their greenhouse gas emissions to net-zero emissions — taking out as much carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases as are put in — by 2050 at the latest.
Scientists say faster cuts are needed to prevent warming that leads to increased drought, rising sea levels and other potentially disastrous effects.
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UN Gives $65 Million in Aid to Ethiopia, Tigray
The United Nations is disbursing $65 million for humanitarian needs in Ethiopia, $40 million of which will go to the aid operation in the northern Tigray region.“Ethiopian lives and livelihoods are being destroyed by drought, and children are suffering from malnutrition,” U.N. humanitarian chief Mark Lowcock said in a statement. Thursday while announcing the release of the funds. “And six months into the conflict in Tigray, civilians continue to bear the brunt. Women and girls are being targeted with horrific sexual violence, and millions are struggling to access essential services and food, especially in some rural areas that are completely cut off.” He said the humanitarian response needs to be scaled up now. More than 16 million people need assistance across Ethiopia, including an estimated 4.5 million in the Tigray region.US Continues Non-Humanitarian ‘Assistance Pause’ to Pressure Ethiopia to End Tigray ConflictUS hoping to use diplomatic tools to bring peace to troubled region Tigray has been the center of hostilities since November, when fighting broke out between the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) and the government of Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed. Tens of thousands of Tigray residents have fled to Sudan to escape the fighting. The U.N. is allocating $40 million to emergency needs in Tigray, including shelter and clean water. It will also fund programs to prevent and respond to sexual and gender-based violence, as mass rapes have been widely reported in the conflict.Women and girls have described being brutalized, most often by men in uniform from both the Ethiopian and Eritrean militaries, as well as other irregular armed groups and militias. Pramila Patten, the U.N. special representative on sexual violence in conflict, said recently that it could be many months before the full scale and magnitude of the atrocities committed against women and girls is known.The U.N. says the remaining $25 million will fund humanitarian operations in the rest of Ethiopia, including in response to drought in the Somali and Oromia regions.Despite the additional funds, the U.N. warns that the current humanitarian response across Ethiopia, including in Tigray, is not sufficient. Both additional funding and safer and unhindered access are needed to meet the growing needs.
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Cameroon Poultry Farmers Urge Europe to Ease Trade Restrictions
Cameroon’s poultry farmers and sellers are calling on authorities at home and in Europe to loosen trade restrictions put in place over the coronavirus pandemic and avian influenza, which have more than doubled the price of chicken.Scores of chicken sellers in Cameroon’s capital held a one-hour sit-in Monday at the Mvog-Ada chicken market to protest the continued restrictions, which have pushed all but about 25 sellers — out of 300 last year — out of business.One of those remaining chicken sellers is 33-year-old single mother Patricia Lamou, who says providing food and education for her four children is proving difficult. Lamou says her business started to nosedive in March 2020 when Cameroon reported its first cases of COVID-19. She says her supplier blamed COVID-19-related travel restrictions by Cameroon and Europe for making regular supplies of chicks and hatching eggs impossible. A man works on a poultry farm in Yaounde, May, 6, 2021. (Moki Edwin Kindzeka/VOA)François Djonou, president of Cameroon’s Interprofessional Association of Poultry Farmers, says European countries and Cameroon reduced commercial flights to stop the spread of the coronavirus. The poultry shortage was further aggravated in November 2020, when the European Commission reported that multiple European countries had outbreaks of highly pathogenic avian influenza, also known as bird flu. The viral infection can cause disease or death in birds and people. As a precaution, Cameroon banned the import of chicks and hatching eggs from Europe. However, the avian influenza outbreak has since eased.Cameroon’s chicken sellers are pleading with authorities on both sides to drop the trade restrictions, as they are creating a scarcity of chicken and driving up prices in the region. Since January 2021, the retail cost of 1.5 kilograms of chicken has jumped from $5 to $12 in Cameroon, and up to $15 in neighboring Equatorial Guinea and Gabon, which import from Cameroon. The poultry farmers group says the situation has forced more than a third of Central Africa’s 45,000 large- and small-scale chicken farmers and sellers out of business. The group says regional production cannot keep up with demand. Central African states provide less than 20 million of the 150 million chickens needed in Cameroon, the Central African Republic, Equatorial Guinea and Gabon, according to the group. A teenager selling poultry waits for customers, in Bertoua, Cameroon, April, 6, 2021. (Moki Edwin Kindzeka/VOA)Meanwhile, Cameroon Livestock Ministry official Denise Abanda says they are negotiating to import eggs and chicks from Brazil. “The importation of chicks and eggs from Brazil can be justified by the fact that the national poultry sector, which imports chicks and eggs from Europe, has difficulties to supply the local market with day-old chicks,” Abanda said. “So, the decision of the ministry is to find another partner from Brazil to supply the local market.” Abanda says Brazil can provide the quantity of eggs and chicks that Cameroon needs. Brazil is the world’s largest exporter of poultry and the third-largest producer of chicken meat, after the United States and China.
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Netflix Series Signals Racial Breakthrough in Italian TV
The Netflix series “Zero,” which premiered globally last month, is the first Italian TV production to feature a predominantly Black cast, a bright spot in an otherwise bleak Italian television landscape where the persistent use of racist language and imagery is sparking new protests.
Even as “Zero” creates a breakthrough in Italian TV history, on private networks, comedy teams are asserting their right to use racial slurs and make slanty-eye gestures as satire. The main state broadcaster RAI is under fire for attempting to censor an Italian rapper’s remarks highlighting homophobia in a right-wing political party. And under outside pressure, RAI is advising against — but not outright banning — the use of blackface in variety skits.
With cultural tensions heightened, the protagonists of “Zero” hope the series — which focuses on second-generation Black Italians and is based on a novel by the son of Angolan immigrants — will help accelerate public acceptance that Italy has become a multicultural nation.
“I always say that Italy is a country tied to traditions, more than racist,” said Antonio Dikele Distefano, who co-wrote the series and whose six novels, including the one on which “Zero” was based, focus on the lives of the children of immigrants to Italy.
“I am convinced that through these things — writing novels, the possibility of making a series — things can change,” he said.
“Zero” is a radical departure because it provides role models for young Black Italians who have not seen themselves reflected in the culture, and because it creates a window to changes in Italian society that swaths of the majority population have not acknowledged.
Activists fighting racism in Italian television underline the fact that it was developed by Netflix, based in the United States and with a commitment to spend $100 million to improve diversity, and not by Italian public or private television.
“As a Black Italian, I never saw myself represented in Italian television. Or rather, I saw examples of how Black women were hyper-sexualized,” said Sara Lemlem, an activist and journalist who is part of a group of second-generation Italians protesting racist tropes on Italian TV. “There was never a Black woman in a role of an everyday woman: a Black student, a Black nurse, a Black teacher. I never saw myself represented in the country in which I was born and raised.”
“Zero,” which premiered on April 21, landed immediately among the top 10 shows streaming on Netflix in Italy.
Perhaps even more telling of its impact: The lead actor, Giuseppe Dave Seke, was mobbed not even a week later by Italian schoolchildren clamoring for autographs as he gave an interview in the Milan neighborhood where the series is set. Seke, a 25-year-old who grew up in Padova to parents from Congo, is not a household name in Italy. “Zero” was his first foray into acting.
“If you ask these children who is in front of them, they will never tell you: the first Black Italian actor. They will tell you, ‘a superhero,’ or they will tell you, ‘Dave’,” Dikele Distefano said, watching the scene in awe.
In the series, Zero is the nickname of a Black Italian pizza bike deliveryman who discovers he has a superpower that allows him to become invisible. He uses it to help his friends in a mixed-race Milan neighborhood.
It’s a direct play on the notion of invisibility that was behind the Black Lives Matter protests that erupted in Italian squares last summer following George Floyd’s murder in the United States. Black Italians rallied for changes in the country’s citizenship law and to be recognized as part of a society where they too often feel marginalized.
“When a young person doesn’t feel seen, he feels a bit invisible,” Seke said. “Hopefully this series can help those people who felt like me or like Antonio. … There can be many people who have not found someone similar to themselves, and live still with this distress.”
The protest movement has shifted from targeting Italian fashion, where racist gaffes have highlighted the lack of Black creative workers, to Italian television, where a movement dubbing itself CambieRAI held protests last month demanding that Italian state and private TV stop using racist language and blackface in skits.
CambieRAI plays upon the name of Italian state TV, RAI, and the Italian language command “you will change.” The movement, bringing together second-generation Italians from a range of associations, also wants RAI — which is funded by mandatory annual fees on anyone owning a TV in Italy — to set up an advisory council on diversity and inclusion.
Last week RAI last responded to an earlier request by other, longer-established groups asking that it stop broadcasting shows using blackface, citing skits where performers darkened their skin to impersonate singers like Beyonce or Ghali, an Italian rapper of Tunisian descent.
“We said we were sorry, and we made a formal commitment to inform all of our editors to ask that they don’t use blackface anymore,” Giovanni Parapini, RAI’s director for social causes, told The Associated Press. He said that was as far as they could go due to editorial freedom.
The associations said they viewed the commitment as positive, even if it fell short of a sought-for ban, since RAI at least recognized that the use of blackface was a problem.
Parapini, however, said the public network did not accept the criticism of the CambieRAI group “because that would mean that RAI in all these years did nothing for integration.”
He noted that the network had never been called out by regulators and listed programming that included minorities, from a Gambia-born sportscaster known as Idris in the 1990s to plans for a televised festival in July featuring second-generation Italians.
Dikele Distefano said for him the goal is not to banish racist language, calling it “a lost battle.” He sees his art as an agent for change.
He is working on a film now where he aims to have a 70% second-generation Italian cast and crew. “Zero” has already helped create positions in the industry for a Black hairstylist, a Black screenwriter and a director of Arab and Italian origin, he noted.
“The battle is to live in a place where we all have the same opportunity, where there are more writers who are Black, Asian, South American, where there is the possibility to tell the stories from the point of view of those who live it,” he said.
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US Jobless Benefit Claims Fell Sharply Last Week
New claims for jobless benefits in the United States fell sharply last week, the Labor Department reported Thursday, as the world’s biggest economy continues to recover from the coronavirus pandemic.A total of 498,000 out-of-work employees filed for unemployment compensation, down 92,000 from the revised figure of the week before, the agency said. The figure was the lowest total since mid-March 2020, when the pandemic first swept into the country, although still more than twice the pre-coronavirus weekly average of 218,000 in 2019.More than 40% of U.S. adults have now been vaccinated against the coronavirus, boosting the economic recovery, although the pace of inoculations has dropped in recent days.Even so, more Americans are re-engaging in public, going out to eat, traveling and spending on consumer goods they had stopped buying during the worst of the pandemic, spending partly fueled by government assistance sent to all but the biggest wage earners.Employers added 916,000 jobs in March, with the government releasing the April figure on Friday. Some economists are predicting the country’s jobless rate ticked down from the 6% figure in March. Even as many employers are looking for more workers, the country’s central bank remains wary about the recovery.A week ago, the Federal Reserve held its benchmark interest rate near zero and said it plans to continue supporting the economic recovery, even as it acknowledged that the U.S. economy is improving. “Amid progress on vaccinations and strong policy support, indicators of economic activity and employment have strengthened,” the Fed said after a two-day policy meeting. Fed Chairman Jerome Powell told reporters that the recovery has advanced “more quickly than generally expected,” while adding it “remains uneven and far from complete.” Even as health experts continue to urge caution about the coronavirus, some state governors are revoking orders for people to wear face masks and allowing businesses to fully reopen, or setting dates in coming weeks when they say businesses can ramp up. Still, crowds at most sporting events remain curtailed, at-home work is commonplace and the number of full school reopenings with in-class instruction is spotty throughout the country.The employment picture in the U.S. has been boosted as money from President Joe Biden’s $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief package filters through the economy. The measure could add to hiring and consumer spending, as millions of Americans, all but the highest wage earners, are now receiving $1,400 stimulus checks from the government or have already been sent the extra cash. Biden has proposed an additional $4 trillion in government spending on infrastructure repairs and assistance for children and families, but the fate of the proposals in a politically divided Congress is uncertain. The number of vaccinations against the coronavirus has now also dropped to about 2 million a day, as some people remain skeptical about getting a shot, which could limit the country’s economic recovery. All adults in the U.S. are eligible to get a shot if they want one.More than 107 million American adults are fully inoculated with one of the three available vaccines.
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Pfizer, BioNTech to Donate Coronavirus Vaccine to Olympians
Pfizer and BioNTech will donate their COVID-19 vaccine to athletes training for the upcoming Tokyo Olympics, the International Olympic Committee said Thursday. Doses are expected to be delivered later this month, which would be in time for the athletes to be fully immunized for the games, starting July 23. “We are inviting the athletes and participating delegations of the upcoming Olympic and Paralympic Games to lead by example and accept the vaccine where and when possible,” IOC President Thomas Bach said in a statement. Last month, the IOC announced a similar deal to distribute Chinese-made coronavirus vaccines to Chinese athletes prior to both the Tokyo Summer Games and the Beijing Winter Games. Most countries have yet to approve Chinese vaccines for emergency use. How the Tokyo Games will be held is still in question as Japan is reportedly considering extending its coronavirus state of emergency, Reuters reported.
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EU Chief Ready to Discuss Vaccine Ownership
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said Thursday the European Union (EU) is willing to discuss a proposal to waive intellectual property rights for COVID-19 vaccines, one day after U.S. President Joe Biden’s administration indicated it would support it.
In a virtual speech, the head of the EU executive branch said the EU is “ready to discuss any proposals that addresses the crisis in an effective and pragmatic manner.”
In a statement Wednesday, United States Trade Representative Katherine Tai announced the decision, saying “The administration believes strongly in intellectual property protections, but in service of ending this pandemic, supports the waiver of those protections for COVID-19 vaccines.”
Waiving vaccine patents was among Biden’s campaign promises, and he had been under pressure to follow through.
In her speech, Von der Leyen said the pandemic was a global health crisis “and the extraordinary circumstances of the COVID-19 pandemic call for extraordinary measures.”
The European Union, Britain, Switzerland and some other European countries — many of them home to large pharmaceutical companies — have opposed the waiver. They argue it would undermine incentives for companies that have produced vaccines in record time to do so in a future pandemic.
South Africa and India made the initial vaccine waiver proposal at the World Trade Organization in October, gathering support from many developing countries that say it is a vital step to make vaccines more widely available.
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Hong Kong Pro-Democracy Activist Sentenced to 10 More Months in Prison
Prominent Hong Kong pro-democracy activist Joshua Wong has been sentenced to 10 additional months in prison for taking part in an unauthorized assembly last year to commemorate the 1989 crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrators in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square.
The 24-year-old Wong is already serving a 13-and-a-half-month sentence for organizing an unauthorized protest in 2019. He was sentenced Thursday along with fellow activists Lester Shum, Jannelle Leung and Tiffany Yeun, who received sentences of between four and six months.
Wong was also among 47 activists charged under Hong Kong’s sweeping national security law for taking part in unofficial primary elections last July to pick candidates to run in legislative elections. They were then postponed due to the coronavirus pandemic.
China has banned any public observance of the June 4, 1989 crackdown, when Chinese military tanks and troops raided Tiananmen Square to break up weeks of student-led protests. But Hong Kong traditionally held large vigils to mark the event under its Basic Law, which granted the city certain freedoms not allowed on the mainland, including the right to assembly.
Last year’s event was banned for the first time, with police citing the pandemic and security fears following huge and often violent pro-democracy protests that engulfed the financial hub in the last half of 2019.
Hong Kong authorities have increasingly clamped down on the city’s pro-democracy forces since Beijing imposed the new national security law last June in response to the 2019 demonstrations.
Under the law, anyone in Hong Kong believed to be carrying out terrorism, separatism, subversion of state power or collusion with foreign forces could be tried and face life in prison if convicted.
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Blinken Urges Russia to ‘Cease Reckless and Aggressive Actions’ Toward Ukraine
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Thursday that while Russia has withdrawn some forces from the Ukrainian border region, “significant forces” and equipment remain there and the United States wants Russia to “cease reckless and aggressive actions.”
Speaking alongside Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy in Kyiv, Blinken said Russia still “has the capacity on fairly short notice to take aggressive action if it so chooses.”
“I admire the restraint Ukraine has shown in the face of those provocative actions,” Blinken said.
Late last month, senior U.S. and European Union officials said roughly 150,000 Russian troops had massed along the border of Ukraine and in the Crimea region, more than at any time since 2014 when Russia annexed Crimea.
Russia said the forces were taking part in military exercises and as of late April were returning to their bases.U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, right, and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy pose for a picture during their meeting in Kyiv, Ukraine May 6, 2021.Zelenskiy said Thursday there remains a threat in the border region, and that Ukraine does not want any surprises.
Blinken said the United States is looking at further security assistance to Ukraine, and that Russia’s actions were the subject of extensive discussions at recent NATO and G-7 meetings.
He also said Thursday’s talks included the Minsk agreements to end the conflict in eastern Ukraine, where Russia has been supporting pro-Russian separatists in the Donbas region. Blinken said the United States will keep looking for ways to advance diplomatic efforts to resolve the conflict, and that “Russia continues to be the recalcitrant party.”
During the meeting, Zelenskiy and Blinken also discussed efforts to institute democratic reforms and battle corruption in Ukraine.
Blinken said both Russian challenges to Ukraine’s sovereignty and corrupt actors within Ukraine involve the same fundamental issues, which is seeking to “take away from the Ukrainian people what is rightfully theirs.”
And he said that while there are still significant challenges in battling corruption, “there has been real progress as well.”
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Myanmar Shadow Government Forms Militia to Oppose Military Junta
The shadow government of ousted former lawmakers in Myanmar has formed an armed militia aimed at opposing the military junta that seized control of the country in a coup on February 1 and killed more than 760 people who protested against the army takeover, organizers said Wednesday.
The National Unity Government said the creation of the People’s Defense Force was exercising the authority given to it with the landslide victory of Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy in November elections.
The three-week-old NUG said the force is necessary to prevent killings and other violent acts against the people by the junta, which calls itself the State Administration Council.
“Today, May 5, we formed the People’s Defense Force. Preparations for this army were made a long time ago. A lot of time has gone into training,” said Khin Ma Ma Myo, the NUG’s deputy minister of defense.
“Training is more important than manpower and weapons. A defense acquisition department has been established under the Ministry of Defense,” he told RFA’s Myanmar Service.
The NUG statement called the PDF a precursor to a “Federal Union Army” which would team up the majority ethnic Burman militia with Myanmar’s many armed ethnic rebel groups to fight the well-trained Myanmar military.
The ethnic groups have been supporting anti-coup dissidents by providing shelter and training, but many powerful ethnic armies have sat out the conflict so far, and some remain distrustful of the NUG, which is made up of representatives of the government they were fighting before the coup.
The Karen National Union, which represents the Karen ethnic minority, whose state in eastern Myanmar has been under attack by junta warplanes, voiced support for the new militia, and is discussing “fighting a common enemy,” according the group’s top foreign affairs official, Padoe Saw Tawnee.
“I think there will be a lot to discuss, such as the formation of units,” he told RFA.
Hla Kyaw Zaw, a Myanmar-based political and military analyst, told RFA the important lesson from the opposition against the coup, called the “Spring Revolution,” is the need for an armed uprising.
“People have learned two valuable lessons from all this. They have learned that they have to fight back with weapons … and that all ethnic groups must unify to fight this military dictatorship,” said Hla Kyaw Zaw.
‘David and Goliath’
The NUG is also attempting to gain recognition from the international community.
At a U.S. House Foreign Relations Committee hearing Tuesday, Myanmar’s representative to the United Nations, Kyaw Moe Tun, who was appointed prior to the coup, called on the U.S. and other countries to offer support to the NUG.
“The international community’s recognition and engagement with the NUG is a critical step to take, and it could pave the way to end the violence, to save the lives of innocent civilians and protect them from the military’s brutal and inhumane acts, to restore democracy in Myanmar, and provide humanitarian assistance to the people in need,” he said.
Despite the NUG’s optimism, the defense force’s goal of taking on the Myanmar military is unrealistic, said Thein Tun Oo, a former army officer and executive director of the pro-military think tank the Thayninga Institute for Strategic Studies.
“They have issued many statements and most of their officials are just working on paperwork for the rival government,” he said.
But in a sign that support for the junta among some ethnic groups is eroding, the Arakan National Party, which represents the Rakhine people in the country’s westernmost state, announced it had halted its cooperation with the junta, which had given a Rakhine leader a seat on the SAC.
The military regime had not met demands for the repeal of the terrorist designation of its affiliate, the Arakan Army, and the release of arrested on terror charges during a two-year-long war, the ANP’s leader said.
“We have made requests and proposals in the interests of our state, but they were all ignored. … We are not happy with the current situation and there is no point of going on like this if we want to see some positive development,” ANP Chairman Thar Tun Hla told RFA.
Anthony Davis, a Bangkok-based security analyst who writes for IHS-Janes security and defense publications, told RFA last month that a fight between an alliance of ethnic armed organizations and the Myanmar military, known as the Tatmadaw in Burmese, would be a “David and Goliath contest”
“If you look at all the ethnic armed organizations in Myanmar, you’re looking maybe at around 75,000 to 78,000 armed troops. Now, on the Tatmadaw side, the army is in total probably around 350,000, so it’s significantly larger,” he said, speaking before the formation of the NUG in mid-April.
He added, however, that a loose combination of ethnic armies “in their own areas conducting operations against the Tatmadaw at the same time … would be a very, very significant problem for the Tatmadaw despite their firepower and despite their numbers.”
Local militias kill troops
Recent days have seen local militias kill junta troops in Chin state, near the border with India, and the downing of a military helicopter in northern Kachin state, as well as a series of attacks in other parts of Myanmar in which outgunned civilians have taken up crude arms and killed more than two dozen security forces.
In the Chin state capital Hakha, the Chin Defense Force said an army soldier was killed in a shootout in front of the Innwa Bank Tuesday night, the latest of nine soldier deaths since May 2.
In a township outside Mandalay, the country’s second-largest city, about 20 people armed with machetes and knives attacked a police post guarding a Chinese oil pipeline at dawn on Wednesday, killing three police guards.
“I heard gunshots around 5 a.m. What we learned is that five policemen were on duty at the police post and two escaped. Three died,” a local resident who requested anonymity told RFA. “The military later came to our village and were checking people’s movements and searched houses.”
An unknown attacker threw a hand grenade into the house of the administrator of a village near Tamu in the northwestern Sagaing region, killing his mother, daughter and granddaughter,” a local resident told RFA.
“The administrator was asking people to hand over their arms and was checking houses. This started an exchange of fire between the Tamu Defense Force and the military. During the commotion the house was bombed,” said the resident of Tamu, a city near the border with India where locals had killed 14 soldiers in a series of attacks in late March and early April.
In Myanmar’s largest city, Yangon, bombs went off in front of the junta-aligned Moe Gaung Hospital and some ward administrators were attacked and killed, witnesses said.
The bombing followed another bombing Tuesday night of a building that had formerly been the Armed Forces Records Office building and was just opened as a hospital by junta leader Gen. Min Aung Hlaing last weekend. There were no reported injuries in the earlier blast.
RFA attempted to contact military spokesperson Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun for comment on Wednesday’s violence but he could not be reached.
According to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners in Myanmar, security forces have killed more than 769 people across the country since the coup. Nearly 3,700 people have been arrested, while nearly 1,460 are at large but facing arrest warrants.
Human Rights Watch and over 200 other nongovernmental organizations from around the world on Wednesday called on the United Nations Security Council to impose an arms embargo on Myanmar.
“No government should sell a single bullet to the junta under these circumstances,” the groups said.
“Imposing a global arms embargo on Myanmar is the minimum necessary step the Security Council should take in response to the military’s escalating violence.”
Report by RFA’s Myanmar Service. Translated by Khin Maung Nyane. English version edited by Eugene Whong.
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China’s Africa Outreach Poses Growing Threat, US General Warns
The top U.S general for Africa is warning that a growing threat from China may come not just from the waters of the Pacific but from the Atlantic as well.
U.S. Gen. Stephen Townsend, in an interview with The Associated Press, said Beijing is looking to establish a large navy port capable of hosting submarines or aircraft carriers on Africa’s western coast. Townsend said China has approached countries stretching from Mauritania to south of Namibia, intent on establishing a naval facility. If realized, that prospect would enable China to base warships in its expanding Navy in the Atlantic as well as Pacific oceans.
“They’re looking for a place where they can rearm and repair warships. That becomes militarily useful in conflict,” said Townsend, who heads U.S. Africa Command. “They’re a long way toward establishing that in Djibouti. Now they’re casting their gaze to the Atlantic coast and wanting to get such a base there.”
Townsend’s warnings come as the Pentagon shifts its focus from the counterterrorism wars of the last two decades to the Indo-Pacific region and threats from great power adversaries like China and Russia. The Biden administration views China’s rapidly expanding economic influence and military might as America’s primary long-term security challenge.
U.S. military commanders around the globe, including several who may lose troops and resources to bolster growth in the Pacific, caution that China’s growing assertiveness isn’t simply happening in Asia. And they argue that Beijing is aggressively asserting economic influence over countries in Africa, South America and the Middle East, and is pursuing bases and footholds there.
“The Chinese are outmaneuvering the U.S. in select countries in Africa,” said Townsend. “Port projects, economic endeavors, infrastructure and their agreements and contracts will lead to greater access in the future. They are hedging their bets and making big bets on Africa.”
China’s first overseas naval base was built years ago in Djibouti in the Horn of Africa and it is steadily increasing its capacity. Townsend said as many as 2,000 military personnel are at the base, including hundreds of Marines who handle security there.
“They have arms and munitions for sure. They have armored combat vehicles. We think they will soon be basing helicopters there to potentially include attack helicopters,” said Townsend.
For some time, many have thought that China was working to establish a Navy base in Tanzania, a country on Africa’s eastern coast, that has had a strong, longstanding military relationship with Beijing. But Townsend said it appears there’s been no decision on that yet.
He said that while China has been trying hard to get a base in Tanzania, it’s not the location he’s most concern about.
“It’s on the Indian Ocean side,” he said. “I want it to be in Tanzania instead of on the Atlantic coast. The Atlantic coast concerns me greatly,” he said, pointing to the relatively shorter distance from Africa’s west coast to the U.S. In nautical miles, a base on Africa’s northern Atlantic coast could be substantially closer to the U.S. than military facilities in China are to America’s western coast.
More specifically, other U.S. officials say the Chinese have been eyeing locations for a port in the Gulf of Guinea.
The Defense Department’s 2020 report on China’s military power, said China has likely considered adding military facilities to support its naval, air and ground forces in Angola, among other locations. And it noted that the large amount of oil and liquefied natural gas imported from Africa and the Middle East, make those regions a high priority for China over the next 15 years.
Henry Tugendhat, a senior policy analyst with the United States Institute of Peace, said China has a lot of economic interests on Africa’s west coast, including fishing and oil. China also has helped finance and build a large commercial port in Cameroon.
He said that any effort by Beijing to get a naval port on the Atlantic coast would be an expansion of China’s military presence. But the desire for ocean access, he said, may be primarily for economic gain, rather than military capabilities.
Townsend and other regional military commanders laid out their concerns about China during recent congressional hearings. He, along with Adm. Craig Faller, head of U.S. Southern Command, and Gen. Frank McKenzie, head of U.S. Central Command, are battling to retain their military forces, aircraft and surveillance assets as the Pentagon continues to review the shift to great power competition.
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin is conducting a global posture review to determine if America’s military might is positioned where it needs to be, and in the right numbers, around the world to best maintain global dominance. That review is expected to be finished in late summer.
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Nigerian Military Backs Buhari as Calls for His Resignation Mount
Military spokesperson Onyema Nwachukwu said the military will uphold the country’s democracy and warned against plots to overthrow the government. But criticisms of Buhari’s administration by civil societies, political and religious groups have grown in recent weeks due to escalating insecurity. Raphael Adebayo, founder of the Free Nigeria Movement, a civil society group, says the government can no longer handle the situation. “The insecurity in the country has affected every other sector of the country. Our economy is in shambles, education is a tartas [disaster], there’s no hope whatsoever, the poor is getting poorer and the presidency has run out of solutions,” he said. President Buhari, a former military general, was elected in 2015 and vowed to subdue jihadist group Boko Haram in Nigeria’s northeast, which has killed over 36,000 people and displaced more than two million. But six years later, things are getting worse. Boko Haram is expanding its enclaves in the northwest of the country, while banditry, kidnappings and communal clashes are on the rise. Ariyo Dare is the founder of Centre for Civil Liberty and Development, another group demanding the president’s resignation. “It is our candid view that the president should resign. He is currently incapable of leading this country. His mental capacity has failed him, so also his frail health has failed him,” he said. President Buhari was reelected for a second term in 2019. Dare says the president is not likely to willfully resign but predicts security issues will be a major topic in the next polls two years from now. “It is important that whoever is going to succeed general Buhari in 2023 will be such a leader who has shown competence and will be able to galvanize the entire country to be on the same page in terms of fostering our unity,” he said.Last week, lawmakers urged the president to declare a state of emergency over the country’s security. On Tuesday, Buhari met with his top security chiefs to fashion a way forward.
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Refugee and Migrant Deaths Growing in Central Mediterranean
U.N. agencies are reporting a sharp rise in deaths across the Central Mediterranean among refugees and migrants fleeing conflict, persecution and economic hardship in their home countries.
So far this year, say U.N. agencies, at least 500 people have lost their lives at sea trying to reach Europe via the dangerous Central Mediterranean route. This is compared to 150 sea fatalities in the same period last year. An estimated 130 people died in a shipwreck off the Libyan coast last month. A report by the International Organization for Migration blamed their deaths on the failure of maritime rescue vessels to respond to their calls of distress. A spokeswoman for the U.N. refugee agency, Carlotta Sami, says fortunately the distress calls of some 1,500 others who recently made this perilous journey were heeded. She says more than 1,000 disembarked in the port of Trapani in Sicily on May 1 following rescue by the Italian Coast Guard. She says she was present to watch more than 450 other refugees and migrants rescued by the NGO vessel Sea Watch come ashore on Tuesday. Most of the arrivals, she says, departed from Libya onboard flimsy, unseaworthy vessels and made repeated distress calls. “We have noticed a high presence of minors, many of whom are unaccompanied,” she said. “The majority of arrivals originate from Mali and the Sahel/West Africa area, Eritrea and North Africa. Many of the people making the sea crossing come from refugee producing countries.” Sami says many are fleeing from war and conflict, like in the Africa’s Sahel region. Many others are fleeing persecution and being trafficked and sold like commodities. She says the latest disembarkations in Italy bring the number of sea arrivals this year to more than 10,400. This, she notes is more than a 170 percent increase compared to the same period in 2020. She says the UNHCR, and partners are working with the government of Italy at disembarkation points to help identify the needs of new arrivals and to support the reception system for asylum seekers. “We gather in the past few days several testimonies also from minors that are speaking of imprisonment and brutalities with no respect for human rights in Libya, while also survivors are suffering mental health issues,” she said. The UNHCR is urging the international community to strengthen protections for migrants and refugees trying to cross the Mediterranean and to provide safe alternatives to these dangerous journeys. The agency is calling on states to expand legal pathways such as humanitarian corridors, evacuations, resettlement, and family reunification.
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Blinken Visits Ukraine Amid Tensions with Russia
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken is in Ukraine for meetings Thursday with President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal and Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba. “This will be an important opportunity to discuss continued Russian aggression and to underscore the need for maintaining both the pace of and focus on reforms with our Ukrainian partners,” Blinken tweeted after arriving in Kyiv. Late last month, senior U.S. and European Union officials said roughly 150,000 Russian troops massed along the border of Ukraine and in Crimea. Blinken is expected to restate that the United States will not recognize Russia’s 2014 annexation of the Crimean Peninsula, and to call for its return to Ukraine. He will also call on Russia to uphold its commitments under the Minsk agreements to end the conflict in eastern Ukraine. Since 2014, Russia has been supporting pro-Russian separatists in the eastern region of Donbas. The State Department said Blinken will also encourage institutional reforms in Ukraine, which the State Department called “key to securing Ukraine’s democratic institutions, economic prosperity, and Euro-Atlantic future.” Blinken will likely underscore the importance of U.S. economic support for Ukraine. “Since 2014, the United States has provided Ukraine more than $4.6 billion in total assistance, including security and non-security assistance,” according to the State Department.
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With Trump Decision, Facebook Pushed to Make Better Rules for World Leaders
The recent decision about Facebook and former President Donald Trump sends a signal to world leaders everywhere that to use social media, they have to play by a set of rules that are still forming. Tina Trinh has more.Produced by: Matt Dibble
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Zimbabwe Opposition Accuses Government of Trying to Undermine Judiciary
Critics are accusing Zimbabwe’s ruling party of seeking to undermine the judiciary after lawmakers late Tuesday approved constitutional amendments so the president can hand pick top judges. The amendments, which await President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s signature to become law, allow him to choose judges for the Constitutional, Supreme and High Courts without the approval of legislators. Long-time ruler Robert Mugabe had similar powers for years until they were stripped away in the constitution that was passed in 2013. Dewa Mavhinga, head of Human Rights Watch in southern Africa, urged rights organizations in Zimbabwe to challenge the law in court or hold protests.Dewa Mavhinga, head of Human Rights Watch in southern Africa on May 5, 2021 urged rights organizations in Zimbabwe to challenge the law in court or hold protests.“It is a law that should not be allowed to see the light of day because it undermines the rule of law in Zimbabwe. (It) is an authoritarian law that undermines the principle of separation of powers because it puts excessive powers in the office of the president and strips and weakens the judiciary in the sense that it gives the president power to appoint senior judges without going to public interviews,” Mavhinga said. The amendments would also allow a sitting president to extend the age of retirement of the chief justice by five years. Zimbabwe’s sitting chief justice, Luke Malaba, turns 70 this month and was due to retire. The amendments bill also extends – by 10 years – the quota of 60 women in the 350-person parliament. The quota was supposed to end with the current term in 2023. Another change would give the president the right to appoint his two vice presidents, instead of the vice presidents being elected. Justice Minister Ziyambi Ziyambi – who is from the ruling ZANU-PF party – told reporters that he was happy about the constitutional amendments.Zimbabwe Justice Minister Ziyambi Ziyambi – who is from the ruling ZANU-PF party – told reporters in Harare on May 4, 2021, that he was happy about the constitutional amendments.(VOA/Columbus Mavhunga)“What happened is very historic. What this means is we are now going to remove the contentious running mate clause that was badly drafted. So, it’s a very joyous occasion; it allows government and even political parties to start planning for the 2023 elections knowing fully well that the women’s quota is there. Our empowerment agenda is on course,” Ziyambi said.Opposition leader Douglas Mwonzora was one of the chief drafters of the 2013 constitution. But some of members of his Movement for Democratic Change party voted in favor of the amendments which passed Tuesday. “The majority of the women in the Senate did vote for the bill. Obviously, it is clear that they were voting for the women’s quota and the youths’ quota. It is not a typical bill in which a leader or leaders of a party would whip people. Because that basically means whipping people against their gender. But we remain fortified that the running mate clause must be reinstated. We also think that the clause relating to the judges has to be dealt with,” Mwonzora said.Zimbabwe opposition leader Douglas Mwonzora addressing journalists in Harare on May 4, 2021 (VOA/Columbus Mavhunga)Critics say Mnangagwa took advantage of lockdown regulations, which forbid protests, and introduced the constitutional amendments, which have been condemned on social media by main opposition party the Movement for Democratic Change Alliance and its leader, Nelson Chamisa.
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Rome Jury Convicts 2 US Youths in Slaying of Police Officer
A jury in Rome on Wednesday convicted two American friends in the 2019 slaying of a police officer in a tragic unraveling of a small-time drug deal gone bad, sentencing them to life in prison. The jury deliberated more than 12 hours before delivering the verdicts against Finnegan Lee Elder, 21, and Gabriel Natale-Hjorth, 20, handing them Italy’s stiffest sentence. Elder and Natale-Hjorth were indicted on charges of homicide, attempted extortion, assault, resisting a public official and carrying an attack-style knife without just cause. They were found guilty of all counts. The slain officer’s widow, who held a photo of her dead husband while waiting for the verdict, sobbed and hugged his brother, Paolo. The defendants were led immediately out of the courtroom after the verdicts had been read. As Elder was being walked out, his father, Ethan Elder, called out, “Finnegan, I love you.” Prosecutors alleged that Elder stabbed Vice Brigadier Mario Cerciello Rega 11 times with a knife that he brought with him on his trip to Europe from California and that Natale-Hjorth helped him hide the knife in their hotel room. The July 26, 2019, killing of the officer from the storied Carabinieri paramilitary police corps shocked Italy. Cerciello Rega, 35, was mourned as a national hero. His widow, brother and partner were in the courtroom as the jury went into deliberations. The two Californians were allowed out of steel-barred defendant cages inside the courtroom to sit with their lawyers before the case went to the jury, which consisted of the presiding judge, Marina Finiti, a second judge and six civilian jurors. “I’m stressed,” Elder said to one of his lawyers. Just before the brief court appearance, Elder took a crucifix he wears on a chain around his neck and kissed it. He also turned to his co-defendant, Natale-Hjorth, and held out the crucifix toward him through a glass partition, motioning heavenward. Elder was joined in the courtroom by his parents. He and his father crossed their fingers toward each other for good luck after the jury went to deliberate. Natale-Hjorth was greeted by his Italian uncle, who lives in Italy.Gabriel Natale-Hjorth, center, is escorted by police officers during the trial for the slaying of an Italian plainclothes police officer, in Rome, May 5, 2021.Cerciello Rega had recently returned from a honeymoon when he was assigned, along with a plainclothes police partner, officer Andrea Varriale, to follow up on a reported extortion attempt. Prosecution’s case Prosecutors contend the young Americans concocted a plot involving a stolen bag and cellphone after their failed attempt to buy cocaine with 80 euros ($96) in Rome’s Trastevere nightlife district. Natale-Hjorth and Elder testified they had paid for the cocaine but didn’t receive it. Both defendants contended they acted in self-defense. During the trial, which began on Feb. 26, 2020, the Americans told the court they thought that Cerciello Rega and Varriale were thugs or mobsters out to assault them on a dark deserted street. The officers wore casual summer clothes and not uniforms, and the defendants insisted the officers never showed police badges. Under Italian law, an accomplice in an alleged murder can also be charged with murder, even without materially doing the slaying. Prosecutor Maria Sabina Calabretta has demanded life imprisonment for both defendants. Varriale, who suffered a back injury in a scuffle with Natale-Hjorth while his partner was grappling with Elder, testified that the officers did identify themselves as Carabinieri. At the time of the slaying, Elder was 19 and traveling through Europe without his family, while Natale-Hjorth, then 18, was spending the summer vacation with his Italian grandparents, who live near Rome. Former schoolmates from the San Francisco Bay area, the two had met up in Rome for what was supposed to be couple of days of sightseeing and nights out. Prosecutors alleged that Elder thrust a 7-inch (18-centimeter) military-style attack knife repeatedly into Cerciello Rega, who bled profusely, like a “fountain,” Varriale had testified, and died shortly after in hospital. Elder told the court that during the scuffle, the heavyset Cerciello Rega was on top of him on the ground, and Elder feared that he was being strangled. Elder said he pulled out the knife and stabbed him to avoid being killed, and when the officer didn’t immediately let him go, he stabbed again. After the stabbing, the Americans ran to their hotel room, where, according to Natale-Hjorth, Elder cleaned the knife and then asked him to hide it. Natale-Hjorth testified that he hid the knife behind a ceiling panel in their room, where police discovered it hours later. The drug deal The defendants had told the court that several hours before the stabbing, they attempted to buy cocaine in the Trastevere district. With the intervention of a go-between, they paid a dealer, but instead of cocaine, they received an aspirinlike tablet. Before Natale-Hjorth could confront the dealer, a separate Carabinieri patrol in the neighborhood intervened, and all scattered. The Americans snatched the go-between’s knapsack in reprisal and used a cellphone inside to set up a meeting with the goal of exchanging the bag and the phone for the cash they had lost in the bad drug deal. Meanwhile, Cerciello Rega, wearing a T-shirt and long shorts, and Varriale, in a polo shirt and jeans, headed out to follow up on what was described as a small-scale extortion attempt. They didn’t carry their service pistols. From practically its start, the trial largely boiled down to the word of Varriale against that of the young American visitors. The victim’s widow, Rosa Maria Esilio, would sit in the front row, often clutching a photo of her husband. Photos of the newlyweds, with Cerciello Rega in his dress uniform after their wedding, were widely displayed in Italian media after the slaying. As the trial neared its end, one of Elder’s defense lawyers, Renato Borzone, argued in court that deep-set psychiatric problems, including a constant fear of being attacked, figured in the fatal stabbing. Borzone told the court his client saw a world filled with enemies due to psychiatric problems and that something “short-circuited” when Elder was confronted by the officer.
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US Airstrikes Target Taliban as Fighting Intensifies
The United States is making good on its pledge to support Afghanistan’s security forces with military force even as U.S. and coalition troops continue to leave the country. A U.S. official confirmed to VOA late Wednesday that U.S. forces were actively carrying out airstrikes against Taliban fighters in southern Afghanistan’s Helmand province, where fierce fighting has raged for days. The official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, declined to share additional details, citing the need for operational security. The Pentagon also declined to offer specifics, though a spokesman said that “there’s still quite a bit of robust capability” at the disposal of U.S. commanders on the ground. “To the degree we can, as we transition out, we’re going to continue to try to support Afghan national security forces in the field,” Pentagon press secretary John Kirby told reporters. An Afghan policeman searches a man at a road checkpoint during fighting between Afghan security forces and Taliban fighters, on the outskirts of Lashkar Gah, the capital of Helmand province, May 5, 2021.The U.S. airstrikes come as Afghan security forces have come under intense pressure from the Taliban, especially around Lashkar Gah in Helmand province, where aid groups have reported a significant increase in fighting in just the past few days. One group, Doctors Without Borders, said on social media that civilians fleeing the fighting describe bullets pouring into their homes, forcing them to flee, sometimes without shoes or clothing. #Afghanistan: Fighting around Lashkar Gah city, #Helmand province, increased significantly on 3 May.”Our medical teams treated 53 war-wounded patients on 3 & 4 May,” Sarah Leahy, MSF project coordinator at Boost Provincial Hospital. pic.twitter.com/OI6aUDL90e— MSF Afghanistan (@MSF_Afghanistan) May 5, 2021Speaking to Agence France-Presse, one local government official said Wednesday that the U.S. airstrikes were key to stopping the Taliban advance. “The bombing was intense,” the official, Atiqullah, said. “I have never seen such bombardment in several years.” Afghan government forces also faced setbacks elsewhere. Officials said Wednesday that Taliban fighters captured a district in Baghlan province in the northern part of the country and killed a police chief in Paktika province in the southeast. Taliban Link Progress in Afghan Peace Talks to Delisting of Top Leaders The stance comes amid intensified insurgent battlefield attacks, since the United States and NATO began pulling their last remaining troops from the country on May 1 Still, U.S. defense officials expressed confidence in the ability of Afghan security forces to withstand the Taliban offensive. “The Afghan security forces are more capable than they have been in recent years,” Kirby told reporters. “They have been in the lead for quite some time.” Afghan military officials have been equally insistent that they are up to the task. “Currently, ANSDF [Afghan National Security and Defense Forces] 100% independently plan, command and control, and conduct the military operations,” Ministry of Defense deputy spokesman Fawad Aman told VOA’s Afghan Service on Wednesday. “There is no support and physical presence of foreign troops in the battlefields,” Aman added. There have been long-running concerns, however, about how long Afghan forces will be able to fend off any sort of sustained Taliban offensive without U.S. support. “This will be a big test for the Afghan security forces,” retired U.S. Army Lieutenant General Douglas Lute told VOA’s Afghan Service. “The Afghan security forces have relied heavily on air support — Western air support, U.S. air support … and it’s this air support that has held the Taliban at bay,” he said. “Are the Afghans able to provide their own air support? And if they cannot, or if they’re pressed, will the U.S. come to their assistance?” While Afghan officials have been eager to tout the effectiveness of their air force, some U.S. officials have warned it may be short-lived. Terrorists will not be safe anywhere!Afghan Air Forces airstrikes on terrorist positions and strongholds. pic.twitter.com/oj7mi3ZgS5— Fawad Aman (@FawadAman2) May 5, 2021The Afghan Air Force, these officials warn, remains dependent on thousands of U.S. and international contractors for maintenance — contractors set to leave with the remaining U.S. and coalition forces by early September. “Without continued contractor support, none of the Afghan Air Force’s airframes can be sustained as combat effective for more than a few months,” the U.S. Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction warned in a report issued last week. ‘Insider Attacks’ on Afghan Forces Increased by 82%, US Agency Reports Taliban insurgents posing as Afghan police or military personnel are mostly behind insider attacksU.S. defense officials say talks to ensure continued technical and logistical support are under way but caution that the issue has not yet been resolved. There are also concerns about how Afghan security forces will adapt as the drawdown progresses and there are no longer any U.S. drones or warplanes in Afghanistan to conduct surveillance or carry out strikes in support of Afghan forces on the ground. U.S. officials admit that bringing in such resources from “over the horizon” will take longer and will generally be “extremely difficult.” Leaving Afghanistan Will Make Counterterrorism ‘Extremely Difficult’, Top General Says The commander of US forces in the Middle East and South Asia admits that without troops on the ground, making sure al-Qaida, Islamic State do not regenerate will likely be problematicFor now, the U.S. has six B-52 bombers on standby at Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar and the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower aircraft carrier strike group in the Arabian Gulf. But their main task, for now, is providing protection for the withdrawal of U.S. and coalition forces. Talks with countries in the region to base warplanes and other military assets closer to Afghanistan have so far made little progress, officials said. Ayaz Gul, VOA Afghan Service’s Najibullah Ahmadyar and Shaista Lami contributed to this report.
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South Carolina House Adds Firing Squad to Execution Methods
The South Carolina House voted Wednesday to add a firing squad to the state’s execution methods amid a lack of lethal-injection drugs — a measure meant to jump-start executions in a state that once had one of the busiest death chambers in the nation.The bill, approved 66-43, will require condemned inmates to choose either being shot or electrocuted if lethal injection drugs aren’t available. The state is one of only nine to still use the electric chair and will become only the fourth to allow a firing squad.South Carolina last executed a death row inmate 10 years ago Thursday.The Senate already approved the bill in March, 32-11. The House only made minor technical changes to that version, meaning that after a routine final vote in the House and a signoff by the Senate, it will go to Republican Governor Henry McMaster, who has said he will sign it.There are several prisoners in line to be executed. Corrections officials said three of South Carolina’s 37 death row inmates are out of appeals. But lawsuits against the new death penalty rules are also likely.”Three living, breathing human beings with a heartbeat that this bill is aimed at killing,” said Democratic Representative Justin Bamberg, rhythmically thumping the microphone in front of him. “If you push the green button at the end of the day and vote to pass this bill out of this body, you may as well be throwing the switch yourself.”Chair use began in 1912South Carolina first began using the electric chair in 1912 after taking over the death penalty from individual counties, which usually hanged prisoners. The other three states that allow a firing squad are Mississippi, Oklahoma and Utah, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.Three inmates, all in Utah, have been killed by firing squad since the U.S. reinstated the death penalty in 1977. Nineteen inmates have died in the electric chair this century.Currently, South Carolina inmates can choose between the electric chair and lethal injection, but the state’s supply of drugs for injection has expired and it can’t buy more. The bill retains lethal injection as the primary method of execution if the state has the drugs but requires prison officials to use the electric chair or firing squad if it doesn’t.”Those families of victims to these capital crimes are unable to get any closure because we are caught in this limbo stage where every potential appeal has been exhausted and the legally imposed sentences cannot be carried out,” said Republican Representative Weston Newton.The combination of the lack of drugs and prosecutors’ decisions to seek guilty pleas with guaranteed life sentences over death penalty trials have cut the state’s death row population from 60 to 37 inmates since the last execution was carried out in 2011. From 2000 to 2010, the state averaged just under two executions a year.Some natural deaths, some resentencingThe reduction also has come from natural deaths, plus prisoners winning appeals and being resentenced to life without parole. Prosecutors have sent just three new inmates to death row in the past decade.Democrats in the House offered several amendments, including not applying the new execution rules to current death row inmates; livestreaming executions on the internet; outlawing the death penalty outright; and requiring lawmakers to watch executions. All failed.Opponents of the bill brought up George Stinney, the youngest person executed in the U.S. in the 20th century. He was 14 when he was sent to South Carolina’s electric chair after a one-day trial in 1944 for killing two white girls. A judge threw out the Black teen’s conviction in 2014.Other opponents noted that fellow Southern state Virginia outlawed the death penalty earlier this year. They also pointed out that the three executions carried out so far this year in the United States are the fewest since 2008, when the U.S. Supreme Court was reviewing lethal injection.Newton said the bill wasn’t the place to debate the morality of executions.”This bill doesn’t deal with the merits or the propriety of whether we should have a death penalty in South Carolina,” Newton said.
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Blinken Set to Arrive in Ukraine Amid Tensions With Russia
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken is set to arrive in Kyiv, Ukraine, where on Thursday he’s scheduled to meet with President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal and Minister of Foreign Affairs Dmytro Kuleba.
According to a State Department news release, Blinken will “underscore unwavering U.S. support for Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity in the face of Russia’s ongoing aggression.”
“The United States is deeply concerned about Russia’s ongoing aggressive actions and rhetoric targeting Ukraine, including the increased Russian troop presence in occupied Crimea and around Ukraine’s borders,” the news release said.
It added that the U.S. “continues to monitor the situation closely.”
Late last month, senior American and European Union officials said roughly 150,000 Russian troops massed along the border of Ukraine and in Crimea.
Blinken is expected to restate that the U.S will not recognize Russia’s 2014 annexation of Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula. He was expected to call for its return to Ukraine.
He will also call on Russia to uphold its commitments under the Minsk agreements to end the conflict in eastern Ukraine. Since 2014, Russia has been supporting pro-Russian separatists in the eastern region of Donbas.
The State Department said Blinken will also encourage institutional reforms in Ukraine, which the State Department called “key to securing Ukraine’s democratic institutions, economic prosperity, and Euro-Atlantic future.”
Blinken will likely underscore the importance of American economic support for Ukraine.
“Since 2014, the United States has provided Ukraine more than $4.6 billion in total assistance, including security and non-security assistance,” according to the State Department.
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Civil Society Groups Urge UN Arms Embargo on Myanmar
More than 200 civil society and human rights groups from around the world have called on the U.N. Security Council to impose an arms embargo against Myanmar, in hopes of preventing the military from carrying out more murders and atrocities.“The U.N. Security Council’s failure to even discuss an arms embargo against the junta is an appalling abdication of its responsibilities toward the people of Myanmar,” Louis Charbonneau, U.N. director at Human Rights Watch, told reporters Wednesday in a call with some of the groups that signed the letter. “The council’s occasional statements of concern in the face of the military’s violent repression of largely peaceful protesters [are] the diplomatic equivalent of shrugging their shoulders and walking away.”The council has issued four statements of concern since the military launched a coup on February 1, ousting the civilian-led government and detaining several of its members in a dispute over who won the November elections. On April 24, regional bloc ASEAN convened a summit on the situation, issuing a five-point communique.More than 760 civilians killedBut the generals in Myanmar have ignored both bodies and continue to use violence to try to suppress the protests, as well as attacks, including airstrikes, on armed ethnic groups. Rights monitors say more than 760 civilians have been killed, including 51 children, and more than 4,600 others have been arrested in the ensuing crackdown.“The Burmese military has proven that they are immune to the condemnations, and therefore only tangible actions in this situation are going to help,” said Myra Dahgaypaw, managing director of the U.S. Campaign for Burma. Myanmar is also known as Burma.This handout from Kachinwaves taken May 5, 2021, shows people attending the funeral of Wai Phyo, also known as Thiha Thu. He was shot dead during a crackdown by security forces on demonstrations against the military coup, in Hpakant, Myanmar.Britain holds the portfolio for Myanmar on the 15-nation council but has hesitated to circulate a draft resolution among members, fearing a Chinese and Russian veto, diplomats and advocates say. Instead, they have tried to keep the council united behind the statements, which require consensus, but have not improved the situation.“The longer this goes on, where the council is obviously unwilling to adopt a resolution or to even debate a resolution for fear of veto, sends a signal of impunity,” said Lawrence Moss, senior U.N. advocate at Amnesty International. “At this point, the Myanmar military must know there has been no resolution, because the U.K. is unwilling to table one.”FILE – Protesters hold homemade pipe air guns during a protest against the military coup in Yangon, Myanmar, April 3, 2021.At a congressional hearing on Tuesday, Myanmar’s ambassador to the United Nations, who represents the civilian government, reiterated his call for an immediate global arms embargo, as well as other measures against the military.“We are all living under fear,” Ambassador Kyaw Moe Tun told U.S. lawmakers.U.N. Special Rapporteur for Myanmar Tom Andrews has been calling for an arms embargo since the start of the crisis, and U.N. Special Envoy Christine Schraner Burgener has urged targeted sanctions.China has a lot at stake in Myanmar. It shares an 1,800-kilometer border with the country and has investments there. Stability is in Beijing’s interest, but it has hesitated to rein in the generals, calling for more diplomacy despite its growing concerns.FILE – Anti-coup protesters run to avoid military forces during a demonstration in Yangon, Myanmar, March 31, 2021.“And then with further escalation of the tension, there will be more confrontation,” China U.N. Ambassador Zhang Jun told reporters this week of what an escalation could mean. “And with more confrontation, there will be more violence. And with more violence, there will be more casualties. And then we may go further down the wrong direction. It may also mean a chaotic situation in Myanmar — even a civil war.”Military hardware suppliersAmnesty International’s Moss said a number of countries provide military hardware and training to Myanmar, including China, which supplies combat aircraft, surveillance drones and armored vehicles. Russia provides combat aircraft and attack helicopters. Ukraine has supplied armored vehicles and is involved in the joint production of them in Myanmar. Turkey has sold shotguns and cartridges to the military, while India has supplied armored vehicles, troop carriers and even a submarine.“The arms embargo will not solve all the problems that Burma has,” said Dahgaypaw of the U.S. Campaign for Burma. “But I also know it will significantly increase the safety of the people on the ground, including the ethnic and religious minorities.”
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