They are called Adam or Nastashia, they are Europeans and live in the United Kingdom where they have been placed in homes or foster families, victims of chaotic journeys. Some of these children are now at risk of becoming undocumented as a result of Brexit.”This means that they will not have the right to live in the United Kingdom,” warns Marianne Lagrue, an official of the association Coram Children’s Legal Center which helps them. “They will not be able to access free health care, work, receive benefits, rent housing, learn to drive and have a bank account,” she told AFP.At 18, they also risk deportation from a country where they have often resided for a long time. Because since the United Kingdom definitively left the orbit of the European Union on January 1, it is no longer possible to settle there freely or to continue to reside there without special procedures, as was the case. before. While migration rules have been tightened for new arrivals from the EU, those who were already on British soil on December 31, 2020 can retain their rights provided they register, by June 30 at the latest, via the ” settlement scheme.”The program is considered a “success” by the government, with some 5 million temporary or permanent residence permits granted – far more than the number of EU nationals previously estimated at over 3 million. But it also has its drop-outs. “It’s simple if you have a job, if you are doing well with digital technologies (the requests being made mainly online, Editor’s note) and if you have all your documents,” notes Azmina Siddique, from the association The Children’s Society, interviewed by AFP. It is much more complex for children in care or young adults who have been placed: some find it difficult to prove their identity, provide the required residence documents or obtain the necessary support for their procedures, which are the responsibility of their legal guardian or the authorities. The Coram association cites the example of Adam, a 4-year-old Romanian boy born in London and separated from his mother. He cannot obtain a passport from his embassy – his father, whose consent is required, is unknown – and social workers are struggling to prove his place of residence before his placement. There is also Nastashia (assumed name), 17, broken with her family. Born in the UK, she does not have a passport and has encountered great difficulties in registering. “Many do not even realize that they are not British,” says Azmina Siddique. The impact can be “very traumatic” and “hold them back in life.”Difficult to know their exact number, the nationalities of the children placed not being collected in the United Kingdom, where the identity card does not exist. According to the Interior Ministry, 3,660 vulnerable young people (up to 25 years old) have been identified as eligible for residency status, 67% of whom had submitted an application at the end of April. A figure largely underestimated according to associations which evoke up to 9,000 of them. The ministry assured to work “closely” with these and the local authorities with in particular a support of 22 million pounds (25.6 million euros). He also promised to accept late requests if there are “reasonable grounds.”This is insufficient, regrets Azmina Siddique: from July 1, children who have missed the deadline will be “without protection” until a request for regularization has been submitted and then accepted. An interval which can extend over years, she emphasizes, and which exposes them to the hostile environment policy towards immigrants deployed by the executive. “These children could become the next Windrush generation,” she warns, referring to the scandal over the treatment of thousands of Caribbean immigrants who legally arrived in the UK between 1948 and 1971, but denied rights for lack of necessary documentation. The3Million, an association defending European citizens in the UK, urges the government to provide physical proof of residence status, which the government does not consider necessary.More broadly, according to the U.K. think tank in a Changing Europe, up to hundreds of thousands of people could find themselves without status, including the elderly, the homeless, victims of domestic violence or children wrongly considered by their parents as being covered by theirs. “If the government is not able to regularize the children for which it is responsible, what about children in vulnerable families (…) or vulnerable adults?” Asks Marianne Lagrue.
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Month: June 2021
North Korea Warns of ‘Grave’ Coronavirus Incident
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un says a “grave incident” has threatened his country’s coronavirus prevention efforts — a rare admission by Pyongyang, which claims to be free of COVID-19.During a Politburo meeting of the ruling Workers’ Party, Kim chastised senior officials for unspecified carelessness related to the coronavirus pandemic, the state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said Wednesday.The officials “have caused a grave incident that poses a huge crisis to the safety of the nation and its people,” KCNA said. The report provided no details about the “grave incident” or how it posed a threat. FILE – A station employee checks the temperature of a passenger to help prevent the spread of COVID-19, in Pyongyang, in this undated picture released from North Korea’s official Korean Central News Agency on Aug. 29, 2020. (KCNA via KNS / AFP)North Korea continues to insist it has found zero cases of COVID-19, a nearly impossible claim that is widely disputed by global health experts. It is not clear whether Wednesday’s admission of failure reflects any wider change in North Korea’s approach to the virus or if it was a pretext for other domestic plans. The KCNA report said that several senior officials were replaced during the Politburo meeting, though it did not say if the moves were related to the coronavirus incident. “The regime may … be using the incident as a way to engage in a small purge, getting rid of unwanted elements and underscoring Kim’s rule by fear,” said Mason Richey, a professor at South Korea’s Hankuk University of Foreign Studies. “The public statement also provides a built-in excuse for future economic downturns.” Since January 2020, North Korea has closed its borders, restricted domestic travel and even cut off nearly all trade with its economic lifeline, China. FILE – A health worker sprays disinfectant as part of preventative efforts against COVID-19, at the Okryu restaurant in Pyongyang, Oct. 21, 2020.Kim has repeatedly warned of a “prolonged” lockdown amid what he says is a worsening global pandemic. State media have warned vaccines produced overseas are no “panacea.”COVAX, the global vaccine-sharing program, had expected to send nearly 2 million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine to North Korea by the first half of this year. But that has been delayed in part because of ongoing negotiations between COVAX and Pyongyang. An outbreak in North Korea could be extremely dangerous because many parts of the country are impoverished and lack an adequate health care system.In a report last week, the World Health Organization said North Korea claimed it had conducted over 31,000 COVID-19 tests, all of which came back negative.Last July, North Korea seemed to briefly admit that COVID-19 might have entered its borders. State media blamed a North Korean “runaway” who had fled for South Korea but returned to the North. North Korea said the man was “suspected to have been infected with the vicious virus” but later said his COVID-19 test results were “uncertain.”
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Terrorism Spreading ‘Unabated’ Across Africa, Warns US Commander
The United States and its Western allies are being forced to confront a grim reality in Africa where years of work to blunt the spread of terrorism, whether inspired by al-Qaida, the Islamic State or local groups, has fallen short, and could soon be eclipsed by the need to focus on adversaries like China and Russia.”Despite all of our best efforts this terrorism continues to spread,” the commander of U.S. forces in Africa, General Stephen Townsend, told a virtual defense forum Tuesday.“The spread of terrorism has continued relatively unabated,” Townsend added, noting the fate of future efforts could depend on the U.S. Defense Department’s ongoing force posture review, which will determine whether his command will get more troops or resources or be asked to find ways to do more with less.FILE – In this Feb. 8, 2017 file photo, U.S. Army Lt. Gen. Stephen Townsend takes a tour of an area north of Baghdad, Iraq. (U.S. Africa Command photo)This is not the first time Townsend has called attention to Washington’s struggles to prevent the expansion of terrorist groups and ideologies across Africa.The U.S. general sounded the alarm last year, telling lawmakers, “Western and international and African efforts there are not getting the job done … ISIS and al-Qaida are on the march.” Around the same time, U.S. Africa Command began changing its language when talking about terror groups in Africa, speaking of “containing” rather than “degrading” them.This past November, the Pentagon’s inspector general was equally blunt in its final report on U.S. counterterrorism operations in Africa, warning that key terror groups, like the al-Qaida-linked al-Shabab in Somalia and various affiliates of the Islamic State terror group, also known as ISIS or IS, were maintaining their strength if not growing. However, Townsend’s latest assessment comes just a day after the 83-member Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS announced its intent to form an Africa task force to push back against the terror group’s expansion on the continent. It also comes as U.S. military leaders wait for the results of a force posture review, initiated by the administration of President Joe Biden, to determine how Washington can best allocate troops and resources as it focuses more on the dangers posed by the growing great power competition with China and Russia.Earlier this month, U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin told lawmakers he would not predict when the review would be complete, but he assured them that the focus “will be to make sure that whether it’s in Somalia or some other place in the world, that terrorists don’t have the ability to threaten our homeland.”Ongoing US force posture review-“I won’t predict when we’ll complete that work” per @SecDef Austin”The focus will be to make sure that whether its in #Somalia or some other place in the world that terrorists don’t have the ability to threaten our homeland” he adds— Jeff Seldin (@jseldin) June 17, 2021SomaliaSomalia-based al-Shabab, which boasts as many as 10,000 fighters, has been a particular concern.Al-Shabab is “the world’s largest, best financed, most kinetically active arm of al-Qaida,” Townsend warned Tuesday, noting that, left alone, the group could eventually pose a risk not just to the region but to the United States itself.”We see threats there to African stability. We see threats in #Somalia to regional stability. We even see potential threats there to the US homeland” per @USAfricaCommand’s Gen Townsend re #alShabaab— Jeff Seldin (@jseldin) June 29, 2021 And he warned efforts to contain the terror group were not helped by former President Donald Trump’s decision to pull all U.S. troops from the country this past December.”There’s really no denying our fairly sudden repositioning out of Somalia earlier this year has introduced new layers of risk and complexity,” he said.”The best way to engage with partners is side-by-side and face-to-face,” Townsend said. “We have limited opportunities to do that when we fly in and fly out to do training and advising.”Concerns have only grown, with senior Somali military officials telling VOA additional U.S. restrictions on airstrikes in Somalia — there has not been a single U.S. airstrike since January 20 — have only further emboldened al-Shabab, an assessment supported by intelligence from United Nation member states.US footprintIt remains to be seen how much that will change after the U.S. completes its force posture review, with top officials repeatedly stressing the need to confront China as the biggest “pacing challenge” while also emphasizing the existential threat posed by Russia’s military.“We’ve given our recommendations to our civilian leaders and we’re waiting on them to make their judgments,” Townsend said.Washington’s European allies, however, are hoping the U.S. at least finds a way to continue support for the Somali government.”We are welcomed there and invited by the Somalian government,” Vice Admiral Hervé Bléjean, director-general of the European Union Military Staff, said Tuesday, speaking at the same virtual forum as Africa Command’s Townsend.“The war is far from over and they need some help,” Bléjean said. “You can really feel the atmosphere of the insecurity there.”Central African RepublicBléjean and other European officials also see a need for the U.S. to stay involved beyond Somalia, especially in response to Russia, which has sent mercenaries from the Kremlin-linked Wagner Group to Libya and the Central African Republic.”I was in Central African Republic last week. I saw Wagner … they are everywhere,” he said. “They bring nothing to the country except immediate security answers, maybe, at the price of committing a lot of … violations of human rights and atrocities.”#Russia’s #Wagner mercenaries are “dragging Central African forces with them in those wrong behaviors” per @DGEUMS— Jeff Seldin (@jseldin) June 29, 2021 “[The Russians] are very happy that they are destabilizing [the situation],” Bléjean added.The way forwardOther officials and experts worry that whether due to Russian mercenaries, climate change or terrorism, the threat from Africa is only poised to grow, and that it will be worse without help from Washington.“We’re finding an enormous arc of instability,” said Portuguese Minister of National Defense João Gomes Cravinho. “As the U.S. shifts its focus to the Indo-Pacific, it is very important that through engagement with the European Union, the U.S. should remain a relevant partner.”Former African security officials, like Samira Gaid, who served as a senior adviser to former Somali Prime Minister Hassan Ali Khaire, also see a need for the U.S. to stay.“The support provided by the U.S. is tangible … towards defeating the insurgency,” she said, expressing hope Washington might take on “more of a leadership role in the security sector among [Somalia’s] partners.”Critics of the U.S. approach to counterterrorism in Africa, though, caution that terrorism and instability will just spread if Washington continues to engage in the same way it has for the past several years.“The U.S. is losing the war,” said Jennifer Cafarella, research director at the Washington-based Institute for the Study of War.“We have marshaled a considerable effort over the last two decades against various [terror] elements,” she said, noting there have been short-term victories. “But all of this activity has not actually prevented these groups from adapting and evolving.”Harun Maruf contributed to this report.
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Hong Kong Democracy Activist Still Pushing for Change
For decades, Hong Kong was the only city in China where residents were allowed to publicly mark the anniversary of the bloody June 4, 1989, crackdown on pro-democracy protesters in Tiananmen Square. Each year, one group, the Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements of China, organized several memorials for June 4, including the annual candlelight vigil at Victoria Park, which drew tens of thousands of people. This year, the vigil was banned for a second time, after Beijing passed a sweeping national security law for the island last June. That did not stop Chow Hang Tung, the alliance’s vice chairwoman and a key person in Hong Kong’s pro-democracy movement, from going to Victoria Park to commemorate June 4 on her own, despite the risks.She insisted her action was meant to preserve the dignity of the victims under China’s authoritarian rule. She was detained for more than 30 hours for violating the national security law before being released on bail.Hong Kong Police Thwart Tiananmen Square Vigil as Activist Arrested Event usually attracts thousands of people in memory of the Chinese government’s crackdown in Beijing in 1989 The former Cambridge researcher, now a lawyer actively defending people charged with national security law violations and other political crimes, spoke with VOA on the eve of the first anniversary of the law to discuss the mission of her organization and her hope for the port city. This interview has been edited for length and clarity. QUESTION: How did you get into activism? ANSWER: I was born and raised in Hong Kong. For college, I studied geophysics at the University of Cambridge. There, I met some social activists on campus, and that made me realize my true passion lies in human rights. In 2010, I gave up my original plan to join a doctoral program in Britain and returned to the University of Hong Kong to pursue a law degree. In 2015, I started working for the Hong Kong Alliance. Since then, I’ve been going back and forth between mainland China and Hong Kong, participating in labor rights movements. Q: Your organization focuses on working to improve the situation in mainland China. Some local groups say there’s absolutely no need to engage people from the mainland. What’s your response? A: I don’t think Hong Kong’s social movements should only focus on the Hong Kong government, because Beijing is the one that makes the ultimate decision. You have to understand how the Beijing government thinks and how it controls its own people in order to better cope with its tactics of repression. Therefore, I think it is very important to understand China’s society, politics, and how the people in China deal with their own government. There are not many organizations in Hong Kong that can do this, but the Hong Kong Alliance is one of them. The effort will allow Hong Kongers to better prepare when facing political repression from the Chinese Communist Party. Q: I understand that since the enactment of the national security law, these two Hong Kong factions are working better together. A: The localist camp is motivated by the things that have been happening around them, but it does not mean that you cannot be friends with people like me, who are concerned about issues in mainland China. After the implementation of the Hong Kong national security law, we see that more people from the localist camp and people like us who focus on China issues have formed closer bonds. In the past, everyone (in the localist camp) tended to think simplistically — that since China is our enemy, PRC (People’s Republic of China) citizens (mainlanders) are our enemies. In fact, it should be the PRC government who is your enemy. As for the Chinese people, you should try hard to convince them to become your allies. Q: Let’s talk about the high-profile case of the 12 Hong Kong youths who were intercepted by the Chinese Coast Guard at sea back in 2020. While mainland human rights lawyers tried their best to meet with the detainees, social activists in Hong Kong organized events for their families to speak to the media. Did that cooperation bring any change?A: This case has indeed changed the minds of many Hong Kong people. For them, it is the first time they see how the resistance movements in the two regions can actually support and complete each other. For example, when there is a movement in China, people in Hong Kong can show their support by petitioning to the Liaison Office of the Central People’s Government in Hong Kong. And when there is a movement in Hong Kong, people in mainland China may also show support in return by holding up placards. Through this case, we see that mainland China is not the enemy. We see many people in the mainland standing with Hong Kong. Q: June 30th marks the one-year anniversary of the passing of the national security law in Hong Kong. Since last June, we’ve seen the arrest of pro-democracy activists and the disqualification of opposition candidates from local elections, we’ve seen the closure of Apply Daily and the first trial without the presence of a jury. To you, what’s the main concern of this law? With Hong Kong’s Apple Daily Closed, Media Question Security Law’s ReachClosure of pro-democracy paper accused of violating national security law could impact Hong Kong’s media scene, press experts sayA: The national security law is a clear violation of the judiciary’s independence. It gives the executive branch the power to appoint judges. The public gets the impression that they would choose pro-Beijing judges for cases related to the national security law. The public is not going to believe that the court is independent. The government also puts all kinds of pressures on the judges. How can there be judicial independence with such influence and pressure from the executive branch? Therefore, I believe judiciary independence of Hong Kong is indeed under great threat. Q: Your organization has been through many obstacles under the national security law. What’s your vision for the future? A: The Hong Kong Alliance is a sacred organization. … We have five operational goals: Release the dissidents, rehabilitate the 1989 pro-democracy movement, demand accountability of the June 4th massacre, end one-party dictatorship, and, finally, build a democratic China. Since the passing of the national security law, things are indeed harder, but we will keep going regardless of how the laws are manipulated or how the court is working against us. I believe that we should not dissolve or disarm ourselves just because of the political pressure. Personally, even if I go to jail, my position of calling for the end of one-party dictatorship remains.
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World Awaits Clarity on Tigray Cease-fire
A day after the Ethiopian federal government abruptly suspended nearly eight months of military operations against rebels in its Tigray region, communications with the country’s northern region remained sketchy at best, and humanitarians were hopeful the truce would hold so aid could reach the hundreds of thousands of people struggling in famine-like conditions. “The consequences and impact of the immediate cease-fire remain unclear,” U.N. spokesperson Stephane Dujarric told reporters Tuesday. He said the organization’s aid operations have been constrained in recent days because of the fighting but would resume pending a security and access assessment. “We are looking at supply routes into Tigray in consultation with our security colleagues and logistic experts,” Dujarric said, adding that land routes and the airport in Tigray’s capital, Mekelle, are closed. FILE – Children, who fled the violence in Ethiopia’s Tigray region, wait in line for breakfast organized by a self-volunteer, in Mekelle, the capital of Tigray region, June 23, 2021.The International Committee of the Red Cross has also temporarily limited its movements outside Mekelle and is monitoring developments closely. “The situation in the region is very volatile, but Mekelle looks quiet now,” ICRC regional spokesperson Alyona Synenko said from Nairobi, where she has been in contact with ICRC staff on the ground. “Shops are open, we see people in the street. Communication networks are down, internet is not working.” The United Nations says some 350,000 Tigrayans are coping with famine-like conditions because of the fighting. On Tuesday, USAID official Sarah Charles put the number closer to 1 million in testimony to the U.S. Congress. “Of the 6 million people that live in Tigray, we estimate that 3.5 million to 4.5 million are in need of urgent humanitarian food assistance,” she said. “Of these, 700,000 to 900,000 people are already experiencing catastrophic conditions.” Without scaled up aid deliveries, she said, “we will likely see widespread famine in Ethiopia this year.” Humanitarian pause On Monday, the federal government of Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed unexpectedly announced it was pausing military activities against the Tigray People’s Liberation Front to “help ensure better humanitarian access and strengthen the effort to rehabilitate and rebuild the Tigray region,” which it was bombing as recently as one week ago. Aly Verjee, a London-based researcher for the U.S. Institute of Peace who specializes in East Africa, said that there are two theories as to why Abiy chose this moment to declare a cease-fire, and that the truth probably lies somewhere in the middle. FILE – Staff members put files on shelves at the Ayder referral hospital in Mekelle, June 24, 2021.”One is that the ferocity of the [Tigrayan] forces’ actions has prompted the federal government to resort to a cease-fire,” said Verjee. “The second is that the federal government had been planning this, recognizing the humanitarian situation is deteriorating and something needed to be done.” Abiy has been under intense Western pressure to end the fighting. The U.S. restricted economic and security assistance to Ethiopia because of the fighting and imposed visa restrictions on some Ethiopian officials. The European Union has also warned that it is “ready to activate all its foreign policy tools.” What lies ahead? A senior State Department official warned Tuesday that the country is at an inflection point, and what the parties do now will determine its future. “If the government’s announcement of a cessation of hostilities does not result in improvements, and the situation continues to worsen, Ethiopia and Eritrea should anticipate further actions,” Acting Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Robert Godec told a congressional hearing on the situation. “We will not stand by in the face of horrors in Tigray.” Eritrean troops have been fighting the Tigrayan rebels on the side of the Ethiopian military. It is not yet clear whether they have also pulled back or departed. FILE – Workers carry sacks of wheat for food distribution to people who fled the violence in Ethiopia’s Tigray region, organized by the local NGO Relief Society of Tigray, in Mekelle, the capital of Tigray region, June 22, 2021.But the halt in the federal government’s offensive does not mean the danger has passed for Ethiopia or the Horn of Africa region. Cameron Hudson, senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Africa Center, said there are concerns that the country could still break apart along ethnic lines, much as Yugoslavia did in the early 1990s. “The idea that the Tigrayans are now fully in control of their territory suggests that they are very unlikely to seek a new kind of political union with Ethiopia and will in fact do their best to exert greater autonomy over the region,” Hudson said. He noted simmering ethnic tensions in several other parts of the country, which has a population of 113 million. “What lesson will they draw from the Tigrayans possibly beating back the government’s military, and then exerting greater autonomy for themselves in their region?” Hudson asked. VOA’s Kate Pound Dawson and Jesusemen Oni contributed to this report.
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UN States Agree to $6 Billion Peacekeeping Budget, Averting Shutdown
United Nations member states agreed on Tuesday to a budget of some $6 billion for the world body’s 12 peacekeeping missions for the next year, diplomats said, narrowly averting a possible shutdown of the operations. The 193-member U.N. General Assembly budget committee agreed to the peacekeeping budget for the year through June 30, 2022. It will be formally adopted by the General Assembly on Wednesday. Top U.N. officials said on Monday that U.N. peacekeeping missions — most of which are in Africa and the Middle East — had been advised to start putting contingency plans in place in case a new budget was not adopted by June 30. Some diplomats said changes to negotiating procedures, issues with logistics and tough talk pitting China against Western countries had threatened to delay an agreement. “Our chronic inability to respect deadlines puts the entire peacekeeping architecture in unprecedented jeopardy,” European Union diplomat Thibault Camelli told the budget committee on Tuesday. “Going forward, and for the future negotiations, we owe it … to the women and men in the field who carry out the peacekeeping mandates to finish our work in a timely fashion.” Catherine Pollard, the U.N. head of management strategy, policy and compliance, told reporters on Monday that if the June 30 deadline was missed then Secretary-General Antonio Guterres could only spend money to safeguard U.N. assets and ensure the protection of the staff and the peacekeepers. The United States is largest assessed contributor to the peacekeeping budget, responsible for about 28%, followed by China with 15.2% and Japan with 8.5%.
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Supreme Court Says No Right to Hearing for Some Immigrants
The Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that the government can indefinitely detain certain immigrants who say they will face persecution or torture if they are deported to their native countries. Over the dissent of three liberal justices, the court held 6-3 that the immigrants are not entitled to a hearing about whether they should be released while the government evaluates their claims. Justice Samuel Alito wrote for the court that “those aliens are not entitled to a bond hearing.” The case involves people who had been previously deported and, when detained after re-entering the United States illegally, claimed that they would be persecuted or tortured if sent back. One man is a citizen of El Salvador who said he was immediately threatened by a gang after being deported from the U.S. An immigration officer determined that the immigrants had a “reasonable fear” for their safety if returned to their countries, setting in motion an evaluation process that can take months or years. The issue for the court was whether the government could hold the immigrants without having an immigration judge weigh in. The immigrants and the Trump administration, which briefed and argued the case before President Joe Biden’s inauguration in January, pointed to different provisions of immigration law to make their respective cases. Alito, in his opinion for the court, wrote that the administration’s argument that the relevant provision does not provide for a bond hearing was more persuasive. In dissent, Justice Stephen Breyer saw it differently. “But why would Congress want to deny a bond hearing to individuals who reasonably fear persecution or torture, and who, as a result, face proceedings that may last for many months or years…? I can find no satisfactory answer to this question,” Breyer wrote. The federal appeals court in Richmond, Virginia, had ruled in the immigrants’ favor, but other appellate courts had sided with the government. Tuesday’s decision sets a nationwide rule, but one that affects what lawyers for the immigrants called a relatively small subset of noncitizens.
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Florida Building Collapse Search & Rescue Operations Enter 6th Day
Search-and-rescue operations entered day six Tuesday in the rubble of the partially collapsed apartment building in Surfside, Florida.
“We have people waiting and waiting and waiting for news,” Miami-Dade Mayor Daniella Levine Cava told reporters, according to the Associated Press. “We have them coping with the news that they might not have their loved ones come out alive and still hope against hope that they will. They’re learning that some of their loved ones will come out as body parts. This is the kind of information that is just excruciating for everyone.”
So far, 11 people are confirmed to have died, with another 150 still reported as missing in what authorities are still calling a search-and-rescue operation despite no one being found alive since just hours after the 12-floor, 156-unit tower collapsed last Thursday.
The White House announced Tuesday that President Joe Biden and first lady Jill Biden will visit the scene Thursday.
Rescue teams reportedly were working around the clock, slowly picking through the rubble and twisted metal using dog teams, cranes and infrared scanners.
Asked why the process is going so slowly, Miami-Dade Fire Rescue Assistant Ray Jadallah said searching the wreckage is not simply a matter of moving large slabs of material but of going through pulverized concrete. He said much of the search is conducted by hand, and every time material is moved, other material falls into its place.
Jadallah said the process is also dangerous, saying a search and rescue worker Sunday tumbled 7 meters into an opening in the rubble. The crews have now been on the scene for more than 100 consecutive hours.
The mayor said the pace of the search process is the main question she gets from families of the missing. She said family members and loved ones have been brought to the scene to observe the process. Workers continued to use rescue dogs and sonar to find possible survivors who were living in the south building of the Champlain Towers condominium complex.
Published reports have indicated that there had been warnings regarding the structural integrity of the building long before the collapse. Local, state and federal officials at the news briefing all promised a thorough investigation into the cause of the building’s structural failure.
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Thailand Migrant Workers Sign Contracts They Don’t Understand, Undercutting Efforts to Stop Abuses
Migrant workers from Cambodia and Myanmar are being asked to sign contracts they cannot read in order to work in Thailand’s fishing fleet, a new study has found, undercutting efforts to expunge abuses from a sector worth billions of dollars to the Southeast Asian country.Thailand is one of the world’s largest fish and seafood producers, boasting global brands that include John West and Chicken of the Sea.
Authorities have been scrambling for several years to clean up an industry riddled with abuses, though, after grim revelations of human trafficking of Thais and migrant workers, forced work, defaults on payments, beatings and even murders on fishing boats.
All of this contributed to the U.S State Department dropping Thailand onto the worst possible ranking — Tier 3 — of its annual Trafficking in Persons (TIP) report in 2015, as well as threats by the European Union to suspend seafood imports for alleged illegal and overfishing.
However, Thai government efforts to register all workers with contracts, identity cards and e-payments to ensure salaries are paid rather than deferred — alongside wider prosecution of human traffickers — have helped the kingdom move into Tier 2.
Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-O-Cha has said he hopes his country will be elevated to the top tier — compliant with U.S. standards — after an extensive campaign to monitor the fishing sector, including spot inspections and electronic tags to track unscrupulous boat owners.
The latest TIP report is expected to be published in the coming weeks; but a survey by the ITF-Fishers’ Rights Network, shows that basic legal protections for workers are still not being met.
Of 520 fishers surveyed at Thai ports between March-June 2021, the FRN said just a tiny fraction had even had their contracts translated into their native languages.
“A shocking 89 percent of fishers had not had their contract translated or explained to them in a language they could understand,” said Jon Hartough, ITF-FRN Thailand Project Lead.
“Quite often fishers are recruited in rural areas of Myanmar and Cambodia … it’s a verbal contract when they are told what the terms and conditions will be. But when they sign the document, it’s unclear what the conditions are, they are signing,” he added.
“This is important … because of how this manifests in working conditions.” UN: Thailand’s Fishing Industry Fixing Some Abuses
Thailand’s fishing and seafood industry has made some improvement in working conditions, including less physical violence, but problems such as unfair pay and deception in contracting persist, a survey conducted by the U.N.’s International Labor Organization found.The European Union in 2015 gave Thailand a “yellow card” on its fishing exports, warning that it could face a ban on EU sales if it didn’t reform the industry.
Vulnerable fishers are often low-skilled and desperate for income — a condition worsened by the coronavirus pandemic, as well as Myanmar’s economic collapse following a February 1 coup.
“Burmese and Khmer fishers still face serious issues such as wage theft, lack of adequate food or clean drinking water on board, debt bondage, document retention and other labor abuses,” according to Ye Thwe, FRN president and former fisherman.
“The Thai government commitments are as thin as the paper they’re written on. Labor violations are still rampant, and contracts are not being properly followed,” he said, adding fishers often report late or incomplete payments, dangerous conditions at sea and deliberately misleading contracts – where they exist at all.
The Department of Fisheries says it has translated government guidelines into fishers’ languages, so they know their rights under tightened Thai laws. “The DOF has prepared a manual for commercial fishermen … in an easy-to-understand language and distributed it to fishermen, to build knowledge and understanding of legal guidelines,” Mesak Pakdeekong, director general of the Department of Fisheries, told reporters in early June.
Meanwhile, authorities have released a ‘PROTECT-U’ multilingual app to help victims of trafficking seek urgent help safely. While not named in the FRN study, big seafood companies including Thai Union, which owns Chicken of the Sea, say they have made major strides to clean up their supply chains and adhere strictly to government rules.
But labor rights groups say the recruitment system is prone to abuses.
Brokers travel across poor rural areas of Southeast Asia persuading desperate workers to go to sea for long periods of time, often far from contact with authorities or their families.
As profit margins are squeezed in overfished seas, experts say boat owners or unscrupulous captains who marshal the workers hold out on agreed salaries or instead promise a percentage of the catch as payment that never materializes.
Yet the supply of labor has increased since the pandemic with whole communities left out of work for months on end.
One Thai fisherman from the landlocked northeastern farming region of Isaan, who has been cheated of his wages before but is preparing to go back out to sea, said the poorest have few options as the pandemic crushes their incomes.“The guys from my village still go out to sea,” the fisher told VOA news, requesting anonymity. “We know the risks, but we’re willing to gamble our lives. Staying home can be as bad; we can go hungry.”
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Tanzania Publishes First COVID-19 Data in Over a Year
For the first time in more than a year, Tanzania has released figures on coronavirus, confirming 100 cases since a third wave of infections began. President Samia Hassan says Tanzania has budgeted $470 million to buy COVID-19 vaccine. The actions mark a sharp turn from Hassan’s predecessor, the late John Magufuli.A week ago, Tanzania’s health ministry warned citizens that a “third wave” of COVID-19 infection was spreading across Africa. On Monday, President Samia Hassan announced Tanzania has recorded 100 such cases in recent days, and said 70 patients required oxygen. FILE – Tanzanian President Samia Suluhu Hassan (C) arrives to address a joint Parliament session of Kenyan Members of Parliament and Senators in Nairobi, Kenya, May 5, 2021.She warned citizens to protect themselves from infection.Hassan said when you look at the number of patients, it’s not that high but we must protect ourselves so it doesn’t rise. She said the first step her government has taken is to go in line with the world by allowing the vaccine. And it will be voluntarily, she said. Hassan emphasized that a citizen who want to be vaccinated will get the shot and those who don’t want it will not be disturbed until they change their minds.Hassan said $470 million has been budgeted to purchase COVID-19 vaccine and provide economic relief for businesses that were severely hit by the pandemic.In a message on Twitter, U.S. Ambassador to Tanzania Donald Wright welcomed Hassan’s intent to buy vaccine and signaled that the U.S. is ready to help. Now, are the country’s health care services ready to deal with COVID-19? Shadrack Mwaibambe is the president of the Tanzania Medical Association.He says we have taken lessons from the first and second waves of COVID-19. The country is standing firm and where there are weaknesses, we are continuing to address them he says. Mwaibambe says that’s why the president has decided to handle the pandemic using scientific methods like accepting its presence and she’s fighting it. The amount of money that is set is enough and she has not diverted it to other areas he says.Rights activists say with the government now doing its part, citizens should also follow COVID-19 guidelines. Felista Mauya is the director of empowerment and accountability with the Legal and Human Rights Center.”We continue to emphasize that citizens and the whole society should continue to observe precautions by washing hands, wearing masks, and observing social distancing,” she says. “Mauya added that people should focus on the guidelines and statements that our leaders are issuing following all the health guidelines and we can fight the virus.”President Hassan has yet to announce when the vaccine will arrive, but said Tanzania has joined the COVAX facility that sends doses to lower-income countries.She said specialists are determining which brand of vaccine will be sent to Tanzania and how it will be distributed.
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COVID-19 Leaves Long-Term Scars on Europe’s Youth
European borders and economies are opening up this summer, thanks to falling coronavirus cases and rising vaccination numbers. But experts warn the pandemic’s scars could be long term and profound—especially for young people, a generation Europe cannot afford to lose.
Things are looking up for young Parisians. Bars and restaurants have reopened, also schools and universities, for the last weeks before summer vacations. Young people having coffee in Paris. France reopened bars and restaurants mid-may as coronavirus cases dropped. (Lisa Bryant/VOA)At a community room with other students, Sorbonne University student Katarzyna Mac is studying for final exams. She is grateful that months of coronavirus confinement are over. At a community room with other students, Sorbonne University student Katarzyna Mac is studying for final exams. She is grateful that months of coronavirus confinement are over. With France’s rolling lockdowns, Mac says, it was difficult and stressful to be alone all day in front of the computer. Like other students in France, she spent most of her academic year taking online classes from home. Katazyna Mac studies for final exams at her student housing outside Paris. (Lisa Bryant/VOA)Experts point to multiple ways the crisis has and continues to hit Europe’s youth — causing economic, social and mental distress. Many, like Mac, already live on the edge. Shuttered businesses, especially in sectors like hospitality, wiped out job opportunities on which many depend. European Union statistics estimate more than 17% of people under 25 are out of work — more than twice the regional average. Youth poverty and homelessness are on the rise. So is depression. Abbe Pierre Foundation’s European Studies head, Sarah Coupechoux, says many European youth are living on the edge. (Lisa Bryant/VOA)Sarah Coupechoux is Europe studies head for French nonprofit the Abbe Pierre Foundation. She says there is a segment of Europeans today, including young people, who are merely surviving. With the pandemic and job losses, huge lines of young people have been seeking food, and are hungry. A recent report by the charity also explores the growing difficulties Europe’s youth face in finding housing. Like many other young Europeans, Mac was too poor to leave home. But she recently managed to find subsidized housing, at a building for young students and workers on the edge of Paris. Her apartment has just enough room for a bed, desk and small kitchen. Dirty dishes are piled high in the sink. The refrigerator is mostly empty. She gets student aid and a small government stipend. But it’s not enough live on. Her parents don’t always have enough to help her out. Days of studying alone have also taken a psychological toll. Even before COVID, the disease caused by the coronavirus, she said, she had problems with stress and suicidal thoughts. It got worse with the pandemic. It was especially stressful not to be able to go to class normally. COVID-19 is the disease caused by the coronavirus. The pandemic has compounded hardships for other young people — especially, studies find — those from disadvantaged neighborhoods. In the working-class Paris suburb of Bobigny, youth activist Stanley Camille says students had a hard time accessing the internet, which they needed to follow online classes during lockdown. Families are poor in his town, he says. Often there’s only one computer for four or five children. Last year, France rolled out a multi-billion-dollar initiative to help its youth get the jobs, training and education they need. Student canteens offer lunches for just over a dollar. European leaders vow to fight against poverty. But experts like Coupechoux say much more is needed. Coupechoux says on national and local levels in Europe, institutions must be alerted on the importance of supporting this young generation. Mac agrees. She is getting psychological help — but says demand is high and state services are understaffed. She and her neighbors have started a support group — and share basics like milk to get by. Long walks in parks like this one, also help. Mac also landed a summer job doing civic service. Mac says she hopes life will finally get back to normal. But with threats of new variants spreading, nothing could be less certain.
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Biden Pushes for Adoption of Infrastructure Package
U.S. President Joe Biden heads to the midwestern state of Wisconsin Tuesday, making a pitch for congressional passage of a bipartisan $1.2 trillion infrastructure package to repair the country’s crumbling roads and bridges, and at the same time boost blue-collar employment.
Biden is visiting the small city of La Crosse, population 52,000, and will tour its public transit center before speaking about what he sees as the merits of the infrastructure package he negotiated last week with a group of 10 centrist U.S. senators, five Republicans and five Democrats. He told a group of Democratic donors Monday night the spending package “signals to the world that we can function, we can deliver. We can do significant things and show that America is back.”
The measure focuses on fixing deteriorating roads and bridges that Americans encounter every day. But Biden emphasized it also would greatly expand high-speed internet in the U.S. in rural communities, replace lead pipes that imperil drinking water systems, install electric vehicle charging stations and invest in public transit systems.A White House memo said the construction package is four times the size of the infrastructure investment adopted after the Great Recession of 2008-2009 and the biggest since the Depression of the 1930s spawned President Franklin Roosevelt’s massive New Deal spending.
The package includes the largest investment in passenger rail services since the creation of the country’s Amtrak system. In Wisconsin alone, the White House said, the measure would help repair 979 bridges and more than 3,100 kilometers of highways in poor condition.
The White House emphasized that 90% of the jobs generated by the infrastructure spending could go to workers without college degrees.
“This is a blue-collar blueprint to rebuild America,” the memo says.
Sorry, but your browser cannot support embedded video of this type, you can
download this video to view it offline.Download File360p | 8 MB480p | 12 MB540p | 16 MB720p | 35 MB1080p | 65 MBOriginal | 74 MB Embed” />Copy Download AudioBiden’s push for adoption of the infrastructure package got off to a rocky start last week.
He announced it jointly with the bipartisan group of lawmakers, only to shortly later tell reporters he would reject it if Congress did not also approve trillions of dollars in new social spending legislation that he wants to aid families and advance clean energy but that most Republicans adamantly oppose.
On Saturday, Biden said that his comments “created the impression that I was issuing a veto threat on the very plan I had just agreed to, which was certainly not my intent.” Key Republican ‘Trusts’ Biden on Infrastructure Deal Mitt Romney says he believes the US leader still stands by the roads-and-bridges repair package he negotiated with a centrist group of senators
Biden walked back the infrastructure veto threat and said he wholeheartedly supports it and the still-developing social spending legislation, while recognizing that Republicans would try to defeat the so-called “human infrastructure” legislation. If Congress eventually approves the social safety legislation, it could be that only Democratic lawmakers vote for it.
White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Monday that Biden is “eager” for Congress to approve both bills and that the president is going to “work his heart out” to make it happen.
“The president intends to sign both pieces of legislation into law,” Psaki said.
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COVID Leaves Long-Term Scars on Europe’s Youth
European borders and economies are opening up this summer, thanks to falling coronavirus cases and rising vaccination numbers. But experts warn the pandemic’s scars could be long term and profound — especially for young people, a generation Europe cannot afford to lose. For VOA, Lisa Bryant has the story from Paris.Camera: Lisa Bryant
Produced by: Jon Spier
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Rights Groups Slam Turkey’s Increasing Use of Renditions
International human rights groups are voicing growing concern over Turkey’s increasing practice of abducting people from abroad who are accused of terrorism offenses.A Turkish news channel broadcasts images of Selahaddin Gulen, handcuffed and paraded in front of a Turkish flag. Gulen was spirited out of Kenya in May by Turkish intelligence forces. He is accused of being a member of the FETO group, which Turkish authorities allege was behind a failed coup in 2016. Turkish officials accuse Gulen’s uncle, Fethullah, of being the ringleader of the coup. The older Gulen denies involvement. Earlier in June, the U.S.-based Human Rights Watch strongly criticized Turkey’s increasing use of international rendition – or the handing over of accused persons from other countries. Emma Sinclair Webb of Human Rights Watch told VOA fundamental legal practices are being undermined.”These are not extraditions; these are far more like renditions, where you capture the individual concerned, and you bypass courts and legal frameworks and bring them back forcibly back to Turkey,” said Sinclair. “And the concern here is that you are unlawfully disregarding these men’s asylum claims, citizenship in countries where they’ve been based for many years.”This year, a report from the democracy advocacy group Freedom House claimed Turkey had rendered people from at least 31 countries. Most of those taken are accused of belonging to the group Ankara blames for the coup attempt. Separately, relatives of a Turkish teacher in Kyrgyzstan allege he was abducted by Turkey, a charge Ankara denies. The scale of the Turkish operations is a sign of an increasing assertiveness and global reach of Turkey, says Sezin Oney, columnist for the Duvar news portal.”For a while, Turkey was using its soft power, but now it’s using this newfound diplomatic and foreign influence in much more hard core ways, especially intelligence-wise, as in the case renditions,” said Oney.Ankara is vowing to continue implementing this policy. In an attempt to deflect criticism, Turkish officials claim the United States used the same practice during its war on terrorism earlier in the 2000s. Professor Alexander Cooley, director of Columbia University’s Harriman Institute in New York, says Turkey is likely to be encouraged because it has faced little international criticism, which he says has worrying consequences.”There is no pushback from the international community that the Turkish government is conducting these operations either in tacit collaboration or formal collaboration with security services abroad, and there has been very little pushback,” said Cooley. “The implications are that it becomes a more acceptable practice, this breach of humanitarian norms and this fundamental abuse of human rights.”Ankara says it remains committed to tracking down those it calls its enemies and bringing them to justice, warning they will not find sanctuary anywhere.
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Former Journalist at Hong Kong’s Apple Daily Released on Bail
A former senior journalist at Hong Kong’s now-closed pro-democracy newspaper Apple Daily was released from custody Tuesday, two days after he was arrested at the airport, media reported.
Fung Wai-kong, 57, became the latest person from the media outlet to be targeted after a raid on the newspaper by 500 officers nearly two weeks ago and the arrests of five executives, two of whom have been charged under a sweeping new national security law.
Live footage showed Fung leaving a Hong Kong police station but he declined to comment to reporters.
In an email response for comment on Fung’s release, police said only that a male suspect had been released from custody. Investigations were ongoing and the person needed to report back to police in late July.
It was not immediately clear what the investigation into Fung was focused on. Fung is the seventh employee at the media group to be arrested in recent weeks, deepening concerns over press freedoms in the former British colony that returned to Chinese rule in 1997.
Hong Kong media outlets including online platform Stand News said Fung was released on cash bail of HK $200,000 ($25,760), had his travel documents confiscated and was ordered to report to police in late July.
Fung could not be reached for comment.
The Hong Kong government did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The government has said previously that media freedoms in the global financial hub are respected but not absolute and they cannot endanger national security.
Next Digital, the publisher of Apple Daily, did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment.
Apple Daily, a popular tabloid, was forced to fold following the raid on its headquarters on June 17 and the freezing of key assets and bank accounts. It printed its final edition last Thursday.
Authorities say dozens of the paper’s articles may have violated the national security law that Beijing imposed on the financial hub last year, the first instance of authorities taking aim at media reports under the legislation.
Hong Kong returned to China with the promise of continued wide-ranging freedoms not enjoyed on the mainland, including freedom of speech and an independent judiciary.
Next Digital said in a statement to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange late Tuesday that it had accepted a proposal to divest Amazing Sino, which operates the online edition of Taiwan’s Apple Daily.
The move comes more than a month after it ceased printing its Taiwan edition on the fiercely democratic island, which China views as a breakaway province, blaming declining advertising revenue and difficult business conditions in Hong Kong linked to politics.
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Reparations: Can Money Absolve the Sins of the Past?
The issue of reparations — making amends for historical wrongs perpetrated against a group or population — has always been highly controversial. But to the victims of atrocities like genocide and slavery, offering such compensation should be a no-brainer. VOA correspondent Mariama Diallo looks at examples of reparations as they relate to the debate over reparations for African Americans in the U.S.Henry Ridgwell contributed to this report.
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Zimbabwe Artists Transform Deadly Wild Dog Poaching Snares into Crafts
The African wild dog, or African painted dog, is one of the world’s most endangered mammals, with fewer than 7,000 remaining, mostly because of human-wildlife conflict. In Zimbabwe, the Painted Dog Conservation group finds and removes thousands of snares every year that can kill or injure the dogs, and turns them into crafts to raise funds for their protection. Columbus Mavhunga reports from Hwange, Zimbabwe.
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House to Vote on Bill Launching Probe of Jan. 6 Insurrection
A new committee to investigate the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol would have 13 members and the power to subpoena witnesses, according to legislation released by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. The House is expected to vote on the bill this week. The effort comes after Senate Republicans blocked the formation of an independent, bipartisan commission to probe the attack, in which hundreds of former President Donald Trump’s supporters violently broke into the Capitol and interrupted the certification of President Joe Biden’s victory. The new, partisan House panel would have eight members appointed by Pelosi and five appointed “after consultation with” Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy. A Pelosi aide said the speaker is considering including a Republican among her appointments, which would bring the likely partisan split to 7-6. The aide was granted anonymity to discuss her thinking. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of Calif., speaks during a media availability at the Capitol in Washington, Thursday, June 24, 2021. Pelosi announced on Thursday that she’s creating a special committee to investigate the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol,…Pelosi said in a statement Monday that Jan. 6 was “one of the darkest days in our nation’s history” and that the committee will seek the truth about it. “The Select Committee will investigate and report upon the facts and causes of the attack and report recommendations for preventing any future assault,” she said. Many Republicans were concerned about such a partisan probe, since majority Democrats are likely to investigate Trump’s role in the siege and the right wing groups that were present for it. Almost three dozen House Republicans voted to create an independent panel, which would have had an even partisan split among members. Seven Republicans in the Senate supported moving forward on that bill, but that was short of the 10 Senate Republicans who would be necessary to pass it. As laid out in Pelosi’s legislation, the new select committee would have subpoena power and no specific end date. The panel can issue interim reports as it conducts the probe.Trump is not explicitly referenced in the legislation, which directs the select committee to investigate “facts, circumstances and causes relating to the January 6, 2021, domestic terrorist attack upon the United States Capitol Complex and relating to the interference with the peaceful transfer of power.” The panel would also study “influencing factors that fomented such an attack on American representative democracy while engaged in a constitutional process.”
The House passed the bill to form an independent commission last month, and Pelosi, D-Calif., said it was her preference to have an independent panel lead the inquiry. But she said last week that Congress could not wait any longer to begin a deeper look at the insurrection so she would form the select panel. She has not said who will lead it. Still, Pelosi said that the select committee could be complementary to an independent panel, should one ever be formed, and that she is “hopeful there could be a commission at some point.” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., has said he might hold a second vote, but there’s no indication that any GOP votes have changed. Many Republicans have made clear that they want to move on from the Jan. 6 attack, brushing aside the many unanswered questions about the insurrection, including how the government and law enforcement missed intelligence leading up to the rioting and the role of Trump before and during the insurrection. Others in the GOP have gone further, with one suggesting the rioters looked like tourists and another insisting that a Trump supporter named Ashli Babbitt, who was shot and killed while trying to break into the House chamber, was “executed.”Two officers who battled the rioters, Metropolitan Police Officer Michael Fanone and Capitol Police Officer Harry Dunn, have been lobbying Republicans to support an independent commission and met with McCarthy on Friday. Afterward, they said they had asked McCarthy to denounce GOP comments downplaying the violence. FILE – House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., at the Capitol, May 13, 2021.In the absence of an independent commission, Fanone said he asked McCarthy for a commitment not to put “the wrong people” on the new select panel and that McCarthy said he would take it seriously. McCarthy’s office did not respond to requests for comment on either the meeting or the legislation to form the select committee. The officers also asked McCarthy to denounce 21 Republicans who voted earlier this month against giving medals of honor to the U.S. Capitol Police and the Metropolitan Police to thank them for their service on Jan. 6. Dozens of those officers suffered injuries, including chemical burns, brain injuries and broken bones. McCarthy, who voted for the measure, told them he would deal with those members privately. Seven people died during and after the rioting, including Babbitt and three other Trump supporters who died of medical emergencies. Two police officers died by suicide in the days that followed, and a third officer, Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick, collapsed and later died after engaging with the protesters. A medical examiner later determined he died of natural causes.
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G-20 Ministers in Italy to Discuss Coronavirus, Climate Change, Africa Development
The coronavirus pandemic, climate change and food security are on the agenda Tuesday as foreign ministers from the G-20 group of nations meet in Italy. The talks in the city of Matera represent the first time the ministers are gathering in person since 2019. “To bring the pandemic to an end, we must get more vaccine to more places,” U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in his opening remarks. “Multilateral cooperation will be key to stop this global health crisis.” Blinken also highlighted U.S. contributions to the COVAX dose-sharing facility to get supply of COVID-19 vaccines to low- and middle-income countries and praised Italy for making the pandemic a focus of Tuesday’s meetings. U.S. State Department officials said Blinken would stress the importance of working together to address such global challenges, a common theme in recent months as he and President Joe Biden set a foreign policy path heavily focused on boosting ties with allies. “To address the climate crisis, Secretary Blinken will encourage G-20 members to work together toward ambitious outcomes, including a recognition of the need to keep a 1.5 degree Celsius of warming threshold within reach, the importance of actions this decade that are aligned with that goal, and taking other steps like committing to end public finance for overseas unabated coal,” Susannah Cooper, director of the Office of Monetary Affairs in the Bureau of Economic and Business Affairs, told reporters ahead of the meetings.European Council President Charles Michel, left, waits for the start of a virtual G20 meeting, hosted by Saudi Arabia, at the European Council building in Brussels, Saturday, Nov. 21, 2020.Cooper said Blinken would advocate for “building a sustainable and inclusive economic recovery,” including an equitable global tax system with a minimum corporate tax rate. Finance ministers from G-7 nations, all of which are part of the G-20, agreed in principle in early June to the creation of a global minimum tax on corporations that would force companies that shift profits to subsidiaries in low- or no-tax jurisdictions to pay as much as 15% in taxes on that income to the country where they are headquartered. Tuesday’s meetings are also set to consider economic development issues in Africa, including gender equity and opportunities for young people, as well as humanitarian efforts and human rights. Italy is the last stop on a European trip for Blinken that included a conference on Libya in Germany, meeting with French President Emmanuel Macron in Paris and an audience with Pope Francis at the Vatican. On Monday he was in Rome, where ministers from a global coalition to fight Islamic State terrorists said 8 million people have been freed from the militants’ control in Iraq and Syria, but that the threat from Islamic State fighters remains there and in Africa. The ministers met face-to-face for the first time in two years, pledging to maintain watch against a resurgence of the insurgents. The resumption in ISIS “activities and its ability to rebuild its networks and capabilities to target security forces and civilians in areas in Iraq and Syria where the coalition is not active, requires strong vigilance and coordinated action,” the diplomats said in a concluding communique.
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4 Major Australian Cities Under New Lockdown
The number of major Australian cities heading into lockdown due to the growing presence of the highly infectious delta variant of COVID-19 has risen to four. Authorities in the eastern state of Queensland imposed a three-day lockdown for the capital, Brisbane, and other neighboring regions that took effect Tuesday evening, while in Western Australian state, the capital Perth entered a four-day lockdown. The cities of Darwin, the capital of Northern Territory state, and Sydney in New South Wales state are already under lengthy lockdowns. At least 150 newly confirmed coronavirus cases across Australia have been traced to a Sydney airport limousine driver who had been transporting international air crews. A transit worker is seen wearing a face mask inside a mostly empty city center train station during a lockdown in Sydney, Australia, June 29, 2021.Australia has been largely successful in containing the spread of COVID-19 due to aggressive lockdown efforts, posting just 30,560 total confirmed cases and 910 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center. But it has proved vulnerable to fresh outbreaks due to a slow rollout of its vaccination campaign and confusing requirements involving the two-shot AstraZeneca vaccine, which is the dominant vaccine in its stockpile. Health officials are now offering the AstraZeneca vaccine to all adults under 60 years of age, lifting a restriction imposed due to concerns of a rare blood clotting condition that has been blamed for at least one death. Adults under the age of 60 had only been able to receive the two-shot Pfizer vaccine, which is in far less supply than the AstraZeneca shot. Delta variant gains ground The delta variant of COVID-19, which was first detected in India, has now been identified in more than 80 countries and continues to spread rapidly across the globe. FILE – Pedestrians walk past a sign warning members of the public about a “Coronavirus variant of concern,” in Hounslow, west London, Britain, June 1, 2021.Portugal, Spain and Hong Kong have announced new restrictions on travelers from Britain, where nearly 95% of its COVID-19 cases are of the delta variant. The United States on Monday raised its travel advisories to Liberia, Uganda, Mozambique and Zambia and United Arab Emirates to Level 4 — “Do not travel” — due to their increasing rates of COVID-19 infections. Bangladesh is preparing to impose a strict one-week lockdown due to a wave of new COVID-19 infections. The government announced Monday that soldiers, police and border guards will be deployed to enforce the lockdown, which takes effect Thursday and mandates that most of its 168 million residents remain indoors, except for those who work in Bangladesh’s critical garment industry or other essential services. Tens of thousands of migrant workers are scrambling to evacuate the capital, Dhaka, before the lockdown goes into effect. The country reported a record-high 119 coronavirus related deaths on Monday. COVID-19 vaccine updates A handful of new studies is providing welcome news in the fight against COVID-19. A new study conducted by scientists at Oxford University suggests that mixing the Pfizer and AstraZeneca vaccines in a two-shot regimen will provide a higher level of immunity against the disease than both doses of AstraZeneca, regardless of the order they were given. FILE – A nurse fills a syringe with the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine at a health care center in Seoul, Feb. 26, 2021.A separate Oxford study shows a third dose of the AstraZeneca vaccine produced a strong immune response. The vaccine, which was developed jointly by AstraZeneca and Oxford, is given as two doses between four and 12 weeks apart. The study involved 90 volunteers in Britain who received a third dose of AstraZeneca after participating in the initial clinical trial last year. Meanwhile, researchers at the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis said Monday in a study published in the journal Nature that the COVID-19 vaccines developed by Pfizer and Moderna may protect a person against the disease for years. The study suggests that people who received either of the vaccines, which were developed through the messenger RNA technology, may not have to receive a booster shot. Dr. Ali Ellebedy, the study’s lead researcher, said a person’s immunity is still highly active even 15 weeks after receiving the first dose of either the Pfizer or Moderna vaccine. He said a person’s immunity typically declines after one or two weeks after vaccination. Dr. Ellebedy said the study did not consider the one-dose Johnson & Johnson vaccine, but he said he expected the immune response from that vaccine to be less durable than those produced by the mRNA vaccines. As of early Tuesday, there are 181.3 million confirmed COVID-19 infections around the world, including 3.9 million deaths, according to Johns Hopkins. The United States leads both categories with 33.6 million confirmed cases and 604,114 deaths. India is second in the number of total infections with 30.3 million, followed by Brazil with 18.4 million. The positions are reversed in the number of fatalities, with Brazil in second place with 514,092 and India in third with 397,637.
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Ex- Busan, South Korea Mayor Jailed for Sex Abuse
The former mayor of South Korea’s second-largest city was jailed Tuesday on a three-year sentence for sexually abusing two city employees during his tenure. The lawyers of Oh Keo-don didn’t immediately return calls and text messages asking whether they plan to appeal. Busan’s district court also ordered Oh to receive counseling and banned him from jobs at child welfare organizations and disability facilities for five years following the end of his jail term. Oh, who was seen as a key ally of Busan-raised President Moon Jae-in, stepped down as the city’s mayor in April 2020 after admitting he had “unnecessary physical contact” with a female public servant who accused him of groping her in his office. The unidentified woman said Oh’s behavior caused her post traumatic stress disorder, according to her lawyers. Oh was later separately accused of making unwanted sexual contact with another female city employee in 2018. Oh’s lawyers insisted it was unclear his behavior was responsible for the woman’s PTSD. They pleaded for leniency, saying that the 72-year-old Oh made positive contributions to society and was dealing with health issues that cause cognitive impairment. The court rejected such claims, saying it was clear that Oh abused his status while harassing the women and that his actions weren’t accidental or one-off in nature. “Even based on materials submitted by the defendant, it’s difficult to believe that the defendant has a degree of cognitive impairment that would have influenced his actions when he was committing the crimes,” the court said in a statement. Moon’s Democratic Party has been rocked by sexual misconduct allegations surrounding some of its major politicians. Former Chungcheong Province Governor Ahn Hee-jung, once seen as a presidential hopeful, is currently in prison for raping his former secretary. Park Won-soon, then Seoul’s mayor, was found dead of an apparent suicide in July 2020 after a female employee accused him of extended sexual harassment. Moon’s liberal party lost the mayoral by-elections in both Seoul and Busan to conservative opposition candidates in April, a huge setback that analysts say possibly set the stage for an unpredictable presidential vote in March of next year.
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EU Asylum Applications Drop Due to COVID, not Lower Demand
The European Union’s asylum agency said Tuesday that the number of people seeking international protection in Europe hit its lowest level last year since 2013, but that the drop was due mostly to coronavirus travel restrictions. EASO said in a new report that 485,000 asylum applications were made in the 27 EU countries plus Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway and Switzerland in 2020. That’s a 32% decrease over the previous year. It said that “reduced applications were primarily due to restricted mobility and travel, rather than a decrease in the number of people in need of international protection.” Two-thirds of the applications were lodged in just three countries. Germany, where most people from conflict-torn Syria are seeking refuge, registered 122,000 applications, while France had 93,000 applications for international protection and Spain had 89,000. But EASO said that when economic growth and population size are taken into account, Cyprus, Greece and Malta remain under the greatest pressure to process applications and house asylum-seekers. Most people seeking protection were from Syria and Afghanistan, followed by nationals of Venezuela and Colombia – who tend to lodge their applications in Spain – and Iraqis. Citizens of Turkey remain among the top seven nationalities hoping to find protection in Europe.
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Pandemic Pushes Refugees in Turkey Into Debt Crisis
The coronavirus pandemic has forced millions of Syrian refugees living in Turkey deeper into poverty, with many having to take on large debts, according to aid agencies. Henry Ridgwell reports from London.
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Global Coalition Fears Islamic State Expansion in Africa
Western powers are promising recent successes by the Islamic State across Africa will not go unanswered, backing plans for a task force to focus on the terror group’s spread from Iraq and Syria to the African continent.The announcement Monday following a meeting in Rome by the Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS comes a day before the seventh anniversary of the terror group’s proclamation of its self-declared caliphate in Iraq and Syria, and two years since the caliphate’s territorial defeat in Syria.But despite constant pressure from the U.S. military and other coalition members, Western counterterrorism officials warn that IS, or Daesh as the group is also known, has found ways not just to survive but to spread, increasingly focusing the group’s propaganda on the exploits of its African affiliates.“We are fearing the expansion and spread of Daesh in Africa,” Italian Foreign Minister Luigi Di Maio told reporters Monday, citing what he described as a “cry for help” from communities in countries such as Niger and Mali.”We know that many villages have fallen in the hands of terrorists,” Di Maio said through an interpreter, adding the threat is pressing ever closer.“We’re now seeing that a number of terrorist cells are proliferating in regions such as the Sahel, where obviously the main migration routes are present, the routes of those who come to Europe,” he said.#ISIS-#Africa: “In my recent missions to #Niger & #Mali, I witnessed the cry for help from those communities” per #Italy FM Di Maio (via translator)”We know that many villages have fallen in the hands of terrorists…” Di Maio says, noting need for “holistic approach”— Jeff Seldin (@jseldin) June 28, 2021Di Maio did not share details about how the new African task force will work to combat IS, though he noted the need for a “holistic approach,” which considered factors such as climate change and poverty that might drive some people toward extremism.“We must step up the action undertaken by the coalition, not by shifting our focus but by increasing the areas in which we can operate … [in] the Sahel, Mozambique and the Horn of Africa,” he said.Speaking alongside Di Maio Monday, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken backed the call for the task force to push back against IS gains in Africa.”We strongly support Italy’s initiative to make sure that the coalition against Daesh focuses its expertise on Africa while keeping our eyes closely on Syria and Iraq,” Blinken said. “We heard a strong consensus.”In a communique issued after the meeting, ministers from the 83-coalition countries noted three of the coalition’s newest members — the Central African Republic, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Mauritania — are from Africa.Three other African nations — Burkina Faso, Mozambique and Ghana — attended as observers, officials said.As if to underscore the growing threat from IS affiliates in Africa, IS’s West Africa Province circulated a video last Friday allegedly showing fighters from the Boko Haram terror group switching sides to join with their former rivals.”We have now joined with our Ikhwan (brothers),” a former Boko Haram fighter said in the video obtained by SITE Intelligence Group.“We should not relent in our effort to fight the kuffar (infidels),” the speaker added, according to a copy obtained by Reuters.The video comes less than a month after IS-West Africa first issued claims that longtime Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau died after being captured by its fighters..@HumAngle_@Reuters have reported #ISIS-West #Africa leader Abu Musab al-Barnawi confirmed #BokoHaram’s Shekau death last month in a recent audio recordinghttps://t.co/o69685Q6TL— Jeff Seldin (@jseldin) June 7, 2021U.S. officials have yet to confirm Shekau’s death, though they tell VOA the sourcing for such reports appear to be more credible than previous claims of his demise.Yet while U.S. officials and experts say Shekau’s death would be a positive development, they caution that the danger from terror groups like IS-West Africa are far from gone.“The Islamic State’s presence in Africa has been clear and steadily growing, even as IS Central’s power has waned,” said Jason Warner, lead Africa researcher at West Point’s Combating Terrorism Center.“The sheer number of IS African provinces and wings with clear staying power has arguably created an even more intractable threat from IS than we’ve seen in the past,” he added, noting the threat in Africa “is arguably at its pinnacle right now.”Yet, other experts worry that the Defeat ISIS coalition’s focus on Africa, first suggested by U.S. officials in late 2019, may be a case of too little, too late.“We agreed at the working level that West #Africa & the #Sahel would be a preferred, initial area of focus for the Coalition outside of the #ISIS core space –& w/good reason” per @SecPompeo “ISIS is outpacing the ability of regional gvts and int’l partners to address the threat”— Jeff Seldin (@jseldin) November 14, 2019 “While it is good that the coalition is talking about Africa and bringing relevant countries into the discussion, any coordination seems to be still in the early stages, while the conditions on the ground are deteriorating very fast,” Emily Estelle, a research fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, told VOA.“The proposed task force should focus its energy on backing up military success with governance success,” she added. “This is the gap that lets IS and other groups keep coming back after military losses.”But there are questions about how much military might the coalition will be able to muster across Africa.France this month announced it would end its counterterrorism operation in the Sahel, and the U.S. military is still in the process of a posture review that could see more of its troops leave Africa.U.S. military officials have previously noted that the removal of U.S. forces from Somalia, ordered by former U.S. President Donald Trump, “has introduced new layers of complexity and risk.”And a report from the Pentagon’s inspector general late last year warned the terrorist threat across Africa was expanding, despite U.S. efforts to contain it.In a separate but related move Monday, the U.S. designated Ousmane Illiassou Djibo, a top official with IS in the Greater Sahara, as a specially designated global terrorist, describing him as the architect of a network to kidnap or kill westerners in Niger and surrounding areas.US designates a top #ISIS in the Greater Sahara (ISIS-GS) official as a Specially Designated Global TerroristPer @StateDept, Ousmane Illiassou Djibo –aka Petit Chapori – is a close collaborator/key lieutenant of ISIS-GS leader, Adnan Abu Walid al-Sahrawi pic.twitter.com/ii9XEWXNB2— Jeff Seldin (@jseldin) June 28, 2021IS in SyriaDespite the focus on IS in Africa, U.S. officials have been warning of the ongoing threat from the terror group’s core leadership in Iraq and especially in Syria, where IS has been able to revive its fortunes in areas nominally controlled by the Syrian government and its Russian allies.There have also been persistent concerns about the 10,000 IS fighters, including 2,000 foreign fighters, being held by the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces, a situation Blinken described as untenable.“There is some urgency,” he told reporters. “There is a need for countries to take action to repatriate foreign fighters that come from those countries, to prosecute them where appropriate, to rehabilitate and reintegrate where appropriate.”AfghanistanThe Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS also expressed concerns about the terror group’s fortunes in Afghanistan, praising efforts by Kabul to counter the so-called Khorasan province.Earlier this month, U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin told lawmakers there was a “medium” risk of groups like IS-Khorasan regenerating the ability to threaten the West.Intelligence assessments from the U.S. and from United Nation member states have also warned of the affiliate’s ability to threaten both Afghanistan and the wider region.Cindy Saine, Chris Hannas contributed to this report
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