Since the brutal civil war in Ethiopia’s Tigray region began in November, many health care centers in the area have been looted and destroyed. Parents often have to travel for weeks to get care for children injured in battles. VOA’s Heather Murdock has more from Mekelle and Edaga Hamus in Ethiopia.Camera: Yan Boechat
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Month: June 2021
Will Promises of Democratic Transition in Mali Convince France to Leave?
A promise Monday by Mali’s new interim president to hold democratic elections by early next year appears to meet some conditions set by France to resume recently suspended cooperation with Malian forces. But some hope Paris is slowly heading for the exit when it comes to its yearslong Barkhane anti-terrorist operation in the Sahel.France’s announcement last week that it was halting counterinsurgency cooperation with Malian forces followed Mali’s second coup in less than a year. President Emmanuel Macron denounced the power grab as unacceptable, warning also he would pull French troops from Mali altogether if it tipped to radical Islam. Sworn in as Mali’s latest interim president days later, junta leader Assimi Goita vowed to preserve his country’s democratic gains and meet promises to hold elections by next February. Not everyone believes him. “I think Goita is trying to reassure the international public opinion and international partners,” Sambe said. “But in the meantime, since the first transition, we see the military tried to keep themselves in power. And the last coup is an illustration of this.” FILE – French President Emmanuel Macron talks with reporters in Paris, April 29, 2021.Bakary Sambe is director of the Timbuktu Institute research group. He said while Goita and his military junta are under pressure, so, too, is Macron, as he eyes next year’s presidential elections at home and sharpens his anti-terrorism rhetoric. Support for keeping France’s eight-year-old, 5,100-man Barkhane anti-terrorism operation in the Sahel is fading — both in France and in the countries where it operates, as anti-French sentiment is mounting. Meanwhile, Sambe said some Malians support Goita and the idea of holding talks with at least some armed groups in the country, which France rejects. “Venturing sanctions against the junta will be perceived as a double punishment against the Malians, who already doubt the effectiveness of the action of the international community which has neither defeated terrorism nor stabilized Mali,” Sambe said. Meanwhile, here in France, some hope the suspension of cooperation with Mali’s army will be a first step to a bigger drawdown and eventual French military exit from the Sahel — a vast area edging the Sahara Desert that is rife with instability. Others said they aren’t sure of what will happen. French anti-terrorism specialist Marc-Antoine Pérouse de Montclos said no other forces in the region can take France’s place. Meanwhile, he told France’s TV5 Monde channel that militants are profiting from the security void. And, he notes, Mali isn’t France’s only partner in the Sahel counterinsurgency effort. A broader, so-called G-5 Sahel coalition also includes Mauritania, Chad, Niger and Burkina Faso. A case in point is Burkina Faso, where suspected Islamist militants killed at least 160 people early Saturday. French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian heads to Ouagadougou this week to show France’s solidarity — illustrating the bigger ties binding France to a complicated conflict.
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Blinken Slams China’s Lack of Transparency Amid Review of COVID-19 Origins
The United States renewed its call to “get to the bottom of” the origins of COVID-19, singling out China for bending international organizations to its worldview as the U.S. restores its annual contributions to the World Health Organization.On Monday, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken told the FILE – Secretary of State Antony Blinken, June 3, 2021.”What we’ve seen, more than unfortunately, from the PRC (People’s Republic of China) since the beginning of this crisis is a failure to meet its basic responsibilities in terms of sharing information and providing access,” Blinken said, stopping short of elaborating on what the U.S. would do to pressure China for a full-access investigation. “WHO is in need of reform,” he added, stressing that the U.S. is reengaging in the WHO in hopes to “prevent, detect and mitigate” the next pandemic.In Geneva, a senior WHO official said the organization cannot force the Beijing government to provide more information on the origins of the coronavirus.”WHO doesn’t have the power to compel anyone in this regard,” said Mike Ryan, executive director of the organization’s emergencies program, at a press conference on Monday, Reuters reported.Ryan said the organization will propose necessary studies to take the understanding of COVID-19 origins to the “next level.”While not weighing in on the origins of COVID-19, Blinken pointed out there are “two possible and likely scenarios”: one is that “it emerged from the laboratory; the other is that it was naturally occurring.”The U.S. is distributing the first 25 million doses of its committed 80 million excess doses of COVID-19 vaccines to Asia, Africa and Latin America, while China is actively pushing Beijing’s “vaccine diplomacy,” positioning itself as the dominant provider of COVID-19 vaccinations to other countries. “We are moving out as expeditiously as we possibly can in getting the vaccines out there, including to Taiwan,” Blinken said. The U.S. promised to give Taiwan 750,000 doses of COVID-19 vaccine.On Sunday, a bipartisan trio of U.S. senators — Democrat Christopher Coons of Delaware, Democrat Tammy Duckworth of Illinois and Republican Dan Sullivan of Alaska — visited Taiwan, signaling Washington’s support to secure vaccines for the self-ruled democracy as it battles a spike in domestic coronavirus cases.US Donates 750,000 COVID Shots to TaiwanBoris Johnson to ask world leaders to ‘vaccinate the world’ by end of 2022In Beijing, Chinese officials pushed back, accusing the U.S. of politicalizing the coronavirus origins investigation.”Tracing the origin of the virus is a scientific matter that should be studied by scientists worldwide in collaboration, rather than be politicized,” said Wang Wenbin, a spokesperson for China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs.“The WHO released the report of the WHO-China joint study of the origins in March. Compiled in line with WHO procedures and following science-based methods, it was an authoritative and scientific report,” Wang said Monday during a briefing.In late May, Biden instructed U.S. federal agencies to “redouble” efforts to collect and analyze information that “could bring us closer to a definitive conclusion” amid growing speculation that COVID-19 might have leaked from a Chinese laboratory.U.S. officials have stressed for months that a lack of cooperation from the government in Beijing hinders outside efforts to learn more about the origins of the coronavirus that has killed at least 3.4 million people worldwide, including nearly 600,000 in the United States.Biden Orders Fresh Intelligence Report on COVID-19 OriginAmid growing speculation that COVID-19 might have leaked from Chinese laboratory, president tells US intelligence community to report back to him in 90 daysThe United States is proposing $2.8 billion in foreign assistance to advance human rights, fight corruption and strengthen democracies. The State Department has requested $300 million for the National Endowment for Democracy.Last week, Biden signed an executive order to ban American investments in 59 Chinese companies that undermine the security or democratic values of the U.S. and its allies. The move expands a Trump-era list of Chinese companies blacklisted for their alleged ties to the country’s military. Biden Expands List of Sanctioned Chinese Firms A new executive order signed Thursday will take effect August 2On Monday, Blinken told American lawmakers that the Biden administration is building more resilient and diversified supply chains, including those of 5G and surveillance technology.The U.S. is also consulting with allies on a “shared approach” to the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing amid calls to boycott the Chinese Communist Party over human rights abuses.”More on that in weeks to come,” Blinken said during the House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing.China is scheduled to host the next Winter Olympics in February 2022. But the CCP is under international scrutiny over crushing the democratic opposition in Hong Kong and using practices that the U.S. deems genocide against ethnic minorities in Xinjiang, an allegation that China has rejected.VOA’s White House correspondent Steve Herman contributed to this story.
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Thailand Debuts Locally Made AstraZeneca, But Supplies Are Tight
Health authorities in Thailand began their much-anticipated mass rollout of locally produced AstraZeneca vaccines on Monday, but it appeared that supplies were falling short of demand from patients who had scheduled vaccinations for this week. Hospitals in various parts of the country have been posting notices for several days that some scheduled appointments would be delayed, adding to existing public skepticism about how many doses Siam Bioscience would be able to produce each month. The government has said it will produce 6 million doses in June, then 10 million doses each month from July to November, and 5 million doses in December. “The vaccines will be delivered as planned,” Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha told reporters Monday morning as he paid a visit to a vaccination station at an indoor stadium in the capital, Bangkok. Prayuth’s government has come under fierce criticism for failure to secure timely and sufficient vaccine supplies. It also faces criticism for its reliance on Siam Bioscience, which is owned by the country’s king and had no previous experience in vaccine production. A person receives the first dose of the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine as Thailand starts a mass inoculation at a gymnasium inside the Siam paragon Shopping center, Bangkok, Thailand, June 7, 2021.Prayuth said the Health Ministry had confirmed that vaccinations could begin Monday in every province, and vaccines would be allocated according to the infection rate in each area. Opas Karnkawinpong, director-general of the Department of Disease Control, reported that 143,116 people nationwide had received vaccinations Monday by midday, about half of them 60 years of age or older. The stadium vaccination station Prayuth visited can provide 1,500 shots a day, said Mongkon Wanitphakdeedecha, director of Vichaivej International Hospital, who was supervising the operation. He said they have three days’ supply on hand, but he did not know if other sites had enough for more than one day. One of the people getting vaccinated there was Kanokarn Chueboonchart, who said afterward that she felt no side effects. “I am working at a bank and I must meet with customers,” she said. “So now that I have received the shot, I feel a bit better, knowing that the vaccine will give me some protection.” Thailand last year had been considered a success story in containing the spread of the virus and limiting the number of related deaths. It had originally planned to obtain supplies to cover just 20% of the country’s 69 million people, with most available only in the second half of this year. However, a surge of the coronavirus beginning in April has been devastating and underlined the need for a more ambitious vaccination campaign. The surge has accounted for 84% of the 179,886 total confirmed cases in Thailand since January 2020, and 92.5% of the total of 1,269 related deaths. The government has now targeted vaccinating 70% of the population this year, a figure believed to confer herd immunity against the disease. As of Monday, Thailand had reported giving a total of 4.22 million vaccinations, with just more than 4% of the country’s 70 million people receiving at least one jab. The government has been scrambling to obtain additional supplies to supplement the Chinese-made Sinovac it has been using so far and the AstraZeneca now coming onstream. It has said it has been in negotiations with Pfizer and Johnson & Johnson. China has supplied 6.5 million doses of Sinovac to Thailand, including 500,000 doses that arrived Saturday. Siam Bioscience was reported to have delivered its first 1.8 million doses to AstraZeneca’s local office last Wednesday, which were then turned over to the Health Ministry on Friday. Up-to-date data on how much had been delivered by Monday to the various provinces was not available.
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Supreme Court: Migrants Temporarily in US Ineligible for Permanent Residency
The U.S. Supreme Court unanimously ruled Monday that 400,000 immigrants from 12 countries living in the United States for humanitarian reasons are not eligible to become permanent residents. Justice Elena Kagan, writing for the court, said that U.S. immigration law blocks migrants who entered the country illegally from obtaining permanent residency, or “green cards,” although they have Temporary Protected Status. FILE – Associate Justice Elena Kagan.The TPS designation applies to migrants who came to the U.S. to escape war or natural disasters in their homelands. It protects them from being deported and they can work legally in the U.S., but, now with the Supreme Court ruling, they cannot seek permanent residency. The ruling came in a case involving a couple from El Salvador, Jose Sanchez and Sonia Gonzales, who have been in the U.S. since the late 1990s and live in New Jersey. The decision turned on a question as to whether people who came to the U.S. illegally, yet were granted humanitarian protections, were ever “admitted” to the country. Although a district court ruled in favor of the couple, an appeals court reversed the decision. It held that TPS does not “constitute an admission” into the U.S. The Supreme Court agreed that the two were not admitted legally. “The TPS program gives foreign nationals nonimmigrant status, but it does not admit them,” Kagan wrote. “So the conferral of TPS does not make an unlawful entrant … eligible” for a green card. The House of Representatives has approved legislation that would allow the migrants using the TPS program to become permanent residents, but the fate of the measure is uncertain in the Senate. Currently, besides El Salvador, migrants with TPS status from 11 other countries are protected from deportation. Those countries include Haiti, Honduras, Myanmar, Nepal, Nicaragua, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, Syria, Venezuela and Yemen.
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Bruce Springsteen Plans Broadway Return of His One-Man Show
The Boss just can’t quit Broadway.
Bruce Springsteen will return to Broadway this summer for a limited run of his one-man show “Springsteen on Broadway.” Performances at the St. James Theatre begin June 26 with an end date set — at least for now — for Sept. 4.
“I loved doing ‘Springsteen on Broadway’ and I’m thrilled to have been asked to reprise the show as part of the reopening of Broadway,” the rocker said in a statement.
“Springsteen on Broadway” debuted in 2017 and was extended three times, finally closing in late 2018. Columbia Records put out a two-disc soundtrack of “Springsteen on Broadway” and a filmed version of the show is on Netflix.
In the show, Springsteen performs 15 songs — including “My Hometown,” “Thunder Road,” and “Born in the USA” — and tells stories about growing up in New Jersey. Some of the stories will be familiar to readers of his autobiography, and he even reads from it. His wife, Patti Scialfa, accompanies him for “Brilliant Disguise.”
Audience members will be required to provide proof of full COVID-19 vaccination in order to enter the theater.
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To the Beach! Spain Opens Borders to Tourists, Cruise Ships
Spain jumpstarted its summer tourism season on Monday by welcoming vaccinated visitors from most countries as well as European visitors who can prove they are not infected with coronavirus. It also reopened its ports to cruise ship stops.
The move opened borders for the first vacationers from the United States and other countries outside of the European Union that had been banned since March last year, when the pandemic hit global travel.
Matthew Eisenberg, a 22-year-old student, stepped out of Madrid airport’s arrivals lounge in excitment, ready to enjoy the Spanish capital along with two more American friends.
“We came to Spain the first day we could, because we are very excited to travel here,” Eisenberg said, showing the certificate for the two Moderna jabs he received in February and March.
The official certificates need to show that visitors were vaccinated at least 14 days before the trip or that they overcame a COVID-19 infection in the past six months, according to a Spanish government order published Saturday.
The certificates can be in Spanish, English, French or German — or their equivalent translations in Spanish, the order said. The vaccines accepted are those approved by Europe’s drug regulator — Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna, AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson — as well as two Chinese vaccines authorized by the World Health Organization, Sinopharm and Sinovac.
The same documents will be valid for visitors from the European Union until the bloc gets together its “Digital Green Certificate” that some have dubbed a vaccine passport for traveling.
Non-vaccinated travelers from the EU’s 27 countries can also enter Spain now with the negative results of recent antigen tests, which are cheaper and faster than PCR tests for coronavirus.
But Spain is still banning nonessential travelers from Brazil, India and South Africa, where virus variants have been been a major source of concern.
The Spanish government has set a goal of receiving between 14.5 million to 15.5 million visitors between July and September. That’s about 40% of the tourists in the same period of 2019 but twice as many as last summer, when only EU visitors could enter Spain.
Tourism is a major industry that in 2019 accounted for over 12% of Spain’s GDP.
In a setback, many of the British tourists who love Southern Europe’s beaches and are the top spenders among foreign visitors in Spain, aren’t expected in mass yet because they are required to quarantine by British authorities on their return to the U.K.
Manchester resident Randolph Sweeting said that despite the mandatory isolation, his holiday in Mallorca, one of the Mediterranean islands favored by many European tourists, was worth the mandatory self-isolation.
“I was here twice last year and when I went home I had to quarantine on my own for two weeks. So it’s not a problem for me, I’ve done it before,” the 68-year-old said at the Palma de Mallorca airport.
Belén Sanmartín, director of the Melià Calvià Beach Hotel in Mallorca, said that the U.K. government’s decision to keep Spain in its list of high-risk territories was hard to understand in the Balearic Islands, where the infection rate is lower than in Britain.
“It has been a big disappointment because we were ready to receive visitors from the British market, we had done our homework,” Sanmartín said, adding that bookings in her hotel were slowly picking up mostly because of Spanish mainlanders, and German and French tourists.
In another move to boost tourism, Spanish ports opened to cruise ships on Monday, nearly 15 months after they were banned as the first coronavirus outbreaks were detected.
After peaking in late January at nearly 900 new cases per 100,000 residents in 14-days, the coronavirus contagion indicator in Spain has dropped to 117 per 100,000. Still, its descent has stalled in the past days as new infections are spreading among unvaccinated groups.
Spain has counted over 80,000 COVID-19 deaths in the pandemic.
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Roaming Herd of Elephants Continue Journey Through Southwest China
Chinese state media reported Monday that authorities are continuing to monitor the wandering herd of 15 wild Asian elephants that has been in the suburbs of Kunming, Yunnan province, in southwestern China, since last week.State broadcaster CCTV reported rain and cooler temperatures kept the elephants from moving far and confined them in a small area in Xiyang Township in the Jinning District.The broadcaster reported that one of the herd’s adult male elephants left the others Sunday and headed northeast to an area that was 1.5 kilometers away from the rest of his companions and has not yet returned. His departure prompted local authorities to restudy the herd’s possible travel routes and update contingency plans.Meanwhile, local authorities have been monitoring the elephants with a task force of hundreds of people, vehicles and a dozen drones. The elephants have not harmed any people but caused considerable damage. CCTV aired video of yards trampled and some buildings damaged by the elephants foraging in neighborhoods.State media report more than $1 million in crops have been damaged, as well.To prevent the elephants from entering residential and business areas, local officials have blocked roads, using heavy industrial trucks. They have been trying to guide the elephants to move west or southwest to avoid populated areas.Experts are not sure why the herd — composed of six female and three male adults, three juveniles and three calves — left their home in southern Yunnan’s Xishuangbanna Dai Autonomous Prefecture.
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Greece Deploys Drones to Stop Partygoers from Breaching COVID Safety Protocols
Authorities on Greece’s most popular tourist island, Mykonos, will deploy more than a dozen drones to spot those who defy safety protocols aimed at preventing the spread and resurgence of COVID-19.
The decision, known as “Operation Mykonos,” comes after a string of local so-called “Corona-parties” organized by entrepreneurs at private villas and estates in recent weeks to bypass safety rules banning the operation of nightclubs.
It also comes as the beleaguered government of Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis scrambles to revive its battered tourism sector, luring foreign travelers — mainly from the United States, Europe, Israel, and Russia — with the promise of a safe summer holiday stay under the Greek sun.
Foreign travelers are required to abide by local lockdowns, curfews, and safety protocols during their stays.
FILE – People gather as the sun sets at the windmills on the Aegean Sea island of Mykonos, Greece, Aug. 16, 2020.Under “Operation Mykonos,” authorities will deploy 15 drones to fly over private villas or establishments in Mykonos that in recent weeks were host to parties packed with hundreds of locals and foreigners. Ten-member strong teams of officers will also be formed to raid the establishments upon notice, arresting and fining the offenders, authorities told VOA.
Fines range between $365 to over $6,000.
Officials tell VOA the measures, coupled with heightened police controls, inspections and added surveillance cameras across Mykonos, will serve as a blueprint for other popular hotspots among foreign travelers. These include Rhodes, Santorini and Paros, according to authorities.
“Illegal parties spell a greater risk of seeing the virus spread, infecting more and more people,” warned Nikos Hardalias, the head of Greece’s Civil Protection Agency, on Sunday. “It spells a spike in COVID cases that can lead to fresh restrictions, leading businesses to shut down, causing major damage to tourist areas.”
“It is high time,” he warned, “for everyone to size up to the challenge and take on full responsibility of their actions.”
On Monday, government spokesman Aristotelia Peloni also criticized the mushrooming “corona-parties” gripping the country, saying she wished “Greece’s youth showed similar zeal and enthusiasm in the state’s nationwide vaccination drive.”
“The country’s freedom,” she said, “can only come through comprehensive immunization.”
Effectively in lockdown since last November, Greece started easing some of its sweeping restrictions, including curfews and travel bans, in mid-May when it re-launched international travel.
The latest crackdown, however, underscores the paradox of what critics call a hasty and ill-thought-out strategy. FILE – A waiter serves a group of people in a restaurant of Plaka district, as restaurants and cafes in Greece open after six months of lockdown, amid the coronavirus outbreak, in Athens, Greece, May 3, 2021.“You can’t say ‘restaurants and bars can open but no music playing in the background to block crowds from gathering,’” said Heracles Zissimopoulos, a leading entrepreneur on the island of Mykonos. “It’s absurd.”
“The government should seriously rethink its policy, and provide locals and tourists with an outlet, instead. Otherwise, these types of parties will be difficult to stop,” he added.
Greece recorded less than 3,000 cases during the country’s first bout with the pandemic. But as tourists streamed in last summer, infections and deaths sky-rocketed, making Greeks apprehensive to foreign travelers.
But with 20 percent of the nation’s domestic output reliant on tourism, Greeks now know they can ill afford to lose a second summer tourism season in a row.
FILE – People wait at the reception hall of a COVID-19 vaccination mega center in Athens, Feb. 15, 2021.Under a campaign called “Blue Freedom,” the government wants to vaccinate all 700,000 or so adult residents of Greece’s islands in the Aegean and Ionian Seas by the end of June, hoping Greece can be included in Britain’s revised green-list of travel nations. All islanders are being offered the single-shot Johnson & Johnson vaccine to boost immunization.
As of early June, Mykonos had vaccinated about four in ten of its residents, and Santorini over 50% — among the highest in the country.
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High Court Asked to Review Men-Only Draft Registration Law
The Supreme Court is being asked to decide whether it’s sex discrimination for the government to require only men to register for the draft when they turn 18.
The question of whether it’s unconstitutional to require men but not women to register could be viewed as one with little practical impact. The last time there was a draft was during the Vietnam War, and the military has been all-volunteer since. But the registration requirement is one of the few remaining places where federal law treats men and women differently, and women’s groups are among those arguing that allowing it to stand is harmful.
The justices could say as soon as Monday whether they will hear a case involving the Military Selective Service Act, which requires men to register for the draft.
Ria Tabacco Mar, the director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s Women’s Rights Project, who is urging the court to take up the issue, says requiring men to register imposes a “serious burden on men that’s not being imposed on women.”
Men who do not register can lose eligibility for student loans and civil service jobs, and failing to register is also a felony punishable by a fine of up to $250,000 and five years in prison. But Tabacco Mar says the male-only requirement does more than that.
“It’s also sending a tremendously harmful message that women are less fit than men to serve their country in this particular way and conversely that men are less fit than women to stay home as caregivers in the event of an armed conflict. We think those stereotypes demean both men and women,” she said.
Even if the draft is never used again, retaining the men-only requirement sends a “really damaging message,” said Tabacco Mar, who represents the National Coalition For Men and two individual men challenging the law.
A group of retired senior military officers and the National Organization for Women Foundation are among the others urging the court to take the case.
If the court agrees to hear the case, it wouldn’t be deciding whether women have to register, just whether the current system is constitutional. If it isn’t, then it would then be up to Congress to decide how to respond, either by passing a law requiring everyone to register or deciding registration is no longer necessary.
The issue of who has to register for the draft has been to the court before. In 1981, the court voted 6-3 to uphold the men-only registration requirement. At the time, the decision was something of an outlier because the court was regularly invalidating gender-based distinctions in cases about other areas of the law. Many of those cases were brought by the founding director of the ACLU’s Women’s Rights Project, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who became a justice in 1993.
The last time the high court considered the Military Selective Service Act, then-Justice William Rehnquist explained that the purpose of registration “was to prepare for a draft of combat troops.” He said that because women could not serve in combat, the law was not unlawful sex discrimination that violated the Constitution.
But military policy has changed. In 2013, the Department of Defense lifted the ban on women serving in combat. Two years later, the department said all military roles would be open to women without exception.
Just last year, a congressional commission concluded that the “time is right” to extend the obligation to register to women. “The current disparate treatment of women unacceptably excludes women from a fundamental civic obligation and reinforces gender stereotypes about the role of women, undermining national security,” the commission said in a report.
The Biden administration is urging the justices not to take the case and to let Congress instead tackle the issue. Administration lawyers wrote in a brief that any “reconsideration of the constitutionality of the male-only registration requirement … would be premature at this time” because Congress is “actively considering” the issue.
The Selective Service System, the agency that oversees registration, said in a statement that it doesn’t comment on pending litigation but that it is “capable of performing whatever mission Congress should mandate.”
If the court agrees to take the case, arguments wouldn’t happen until the fall at the earliest, after the court’s summer break. The court already has high-profile cases awaiting it then. They include a major challenge to abortion rights and an appeal to expand gun rights.
The case about the draft is National Coalition For Men v. Selective Service System, 20-928.
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Nuclear Power Cautiously Embraced for Biden’s Green Goals
Environmentalists, for decades, have had mixed feelings about nuclear power. Now, U.S. President Joe Biden’s administration has decided to cautiously embrace the energy resource — despite lingering safety concerns — to help achieve its goal of a net zero carbon economy for America by the year 2050. VOA’s White House bureau chief Steve Herman reports from the North Anna Power Station in Mineral, Virginia.
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Seoul Court Rejects Slave Labor Claim Against Japanese Firms
A South Korean court on Monday rejected a claim by dozens of wartime Korean factory workers and their relatives who sought compensation from 16 Japanese companies for their slave labor during Japan’s colonial occupation of Korea.
The decision by the Seoul Central District Court appeared to run against landmark Supreme Court rulings in 2018 that ordered Nippon Steel and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries to compensate Korean forced laborers.
It largely aligns with the position maintained by the Japanese government, which insists all wartimes compensation issues were settled under a 1965 treaty normalizing relations between the two nations.
A total of 85 plaintiffs had sought a combined $7.7 million in damages against 16 Japanese companies, including Nippon Steel, Nissan Chemical and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries.
The court dismissed their civil lawsuit after concluding the 1965 treaty doesn’t allow South Korean citizens to pursue legal action against the Japanese government or nationals over wartime grievances. Accepting the plaintiffs’ claim would violate international legal principles that countries cannot use domestic law as justification for failures to perform a treaty, the court said.
Some plaintiffs told reporters outside court they planned to appeal. An emotional Lim Chul-ho, 85, the son of a deceased forced laborer, said the court made a “pathetic” decision that should have never happened.
“Are they really South Korean judges? Is this really a South Korean court?” he asked. “We don’t need a country or government that doesn’t protect its own people.”
South Korea’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement that it respects the decisions by domestic courts and is willing to engage in talks with Tokyo to find “rational” solutions that can satisfy both governments and the wartime victims.
It wasn’t immediately clear how the ruling would affect diplomacy between the estranged U.S allies, which have faced pressure from the Biden administration to repair relations that sank to post-war lows during the Trump years over history and trade disputes.
The Seoul court in April had issued a similar ruling on a claim by Korean victims of Japanese wartime sexual slavery and their relatives, another sticking point in bilateral relations. The court in that ruling denied their claim for compensation from Japan’s government, citing diplomatic considerations and principles of international law that grant countries immunity from the jurisdiction of foreign courts.
Relations between Seoul and Tokyo have been strained since the Supreme Court in 2018 ordered Nippon Steel and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries to compensate Korean forced laborers. Those rulings led to further tensions over trade when Japan put export controls on chemicals vital to South Korea’s semiconductor industry in 2019.
Seoul accused Tokyo of weaponizing trade and threatened to terminate a military intelligence-sharing agreement with Tokyo that is a major symbol of their three-way security cooperation with Washington. South Korea eventually backed off and kept the deal after being pressured by the Trump administration, which until then seemed content to let its allies escalate their feud in public.
South Korea’s tone on Japan has softened since the inauguration of President Joe Biden, who has been stepping up efforts to bolster three-way cooperation between the countries that declined under Donald Trump’s “America first” approach, to coordinate action in the face of China’s growing influence and North Korea’s nuclear threat.
South Korean President Moon Jae-in in a nationally televised speech in March said his government was eager to build “future-oriented” ties with Japan and said that the countries should not allow their wartime past to hold them back.
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China Hosts Southeast Asian Ministers as it Competes With US for Influence
China is hosting foreign ministers from 10 Southeast Asian nations this week amid heightened competition between Beijing and Washington for influence in the region. Chinese state media said the meeting Tuesday in the southwestern megacity of Chongqing will cover issues from restoring tourism and other economic exchanges battered by COVID-19, to more coordinated efforts in fighting the pandemic and the feasibility of creating a vaccine passport to allow freer travel among them. Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi is also expected to meet separately with each of his counterparts on the sidelines of the conference. Beijing has been building influence with the 10 countries that make up the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, despite frictions with some of them over rival territorial claims in South China Sea.The Philippines has complained repeatedly over the presence of Chinese boats moored at a reef that it claims and Malaysia last week protested over an intrusion by 16 Chinese military aircraft into its airspace, calling the incident a “serious threat to national sovereignty and flight safety.” Chinese economic and diplomatic heft have helped override such concerns, however, while the bloc has been unable to form a unified stand in the face of opposition from Chinese allies within, primarily Cambodia. “Over the past three decades, China-ASEAN cooperation has grown in leaps and bounds, becoming the most successful and dynamic example of cooperation in the Asia-Pacific region,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin said on Sunday in announcing the meeting. “The fact that the two sides agreed to hold a face-to-face special foreign ministers’ meeting despite the ongoing grim COVID-19 situation reflects how countries attach great importance to and hold high expectations of China-ASEAN relations under the new circumstances,” Wang said. FILE – U.S. Navy sailors move aircraft from an elevator into the hangar bay of aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt in South China Sea, Apr. 8, 2018. (US Navy/Mass Communication Specialist Seaman Michael Hogan/Handout via Reuters)The U.S., which maintains an active naval presence in the South China Sea and strong relations with the region, has expressed concerns over China’s growing presence, particularly its impact on security and Beijing’s political influence over fragile democracies. In a meeting with Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen on Tuesday, U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman focused on China’s construction of new facilities at Ream Naval Base and urged Cambodia’s leadership to maintain an independent and balanced foreign policy, “in the best interests of the Cambodian people.” China, meanwhile, calls the U.S. naval presence the biggest threat to security in the region, particularly its insistence on sailing close to Chinese-held features in what are termed freedom of navigation operations. Beijing also strongly objects to strengthened relations between the U.S. and Taiwan, the self-governing island claimed by China, which threatens to use military force to bring it under its control. Washington sent a strong message of support on Sunday when three senators flew to Taipei on an Air Force transport plane to announce the U.S. will give Taiwan 750,000 doses of COVID-19 vaccine after the island complained that China is hindering its efforts to secure vaccines as it battles an outbreak.Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen meets U.S. Senators Tammy Duckworth (D-IL), Dan Sullivan (R-AK) and Chris Coons (D-DE) in Taipei, Taiwan, June 6, 2021. (Taiwan Presidential Office/Handout via Reuters)Democratic Sen. Tammy Duckworth of Illinois, who made a three-hour stop in Taiwan with fellow Democrat Christopher Coons of Delaware and Republican Dan Sullivan of Alaska, said their visit underscores bipartisan U.S. backing for the democratic island.
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Harris Visiting Guatemala, Mexico in First Foreign Trip as US VP
The United States is set to announce Monday new measures to fight smuggling and trafficking as Vice President Kamala Harris meets with leaders in Guatemala to discuss migration and security issues. A senior administration official told reporters they also hope to announce additional measures to address corruption, but that there are no plans to unveil additional aid money at this time. U.S. President Joe Biden has tasked Harris with leading the effort to address the causes behind a rise in migrants traveling to the U.S.-Mexico border. WATCH: Harris travels to Guatemala and Mexico Sorry, but your browser cannot support embedded video of this type, you can
download this video to view it offline.Download File360p | 8 MB480p | 11 MB540p | 15 MB720p | 35 MB1080p | 64 MBOriginal | 69 MB Embed” />Copy Download AudioAdministration officials highlighted corruption as a major factor both in that migration and in private companies avoiding expanding their investments in Central America. “For us it’s a direct correlation between corruption and people arriving on our southwest border,” one official said. In addition to talks with Guatemalan President Alejandro Giammattei, Harris is also meeting Monday with community leaders and entrepreneurs. “What she wants to do is hear from all of the individuals that she’s going to meet with, so that she can advance a very comprehensive agenda, a strategy that the vice president has elaborated, that takes into account the need to grow the Guatemalan economy, to deal with the climate crisis and the food insecurity that has resulted, to work to combat poverty, violence and corruption,” said Nancy McEldowney, national security adviser to the vice president. I’m here in Guatemala City for my first international trip as Vice President. I look forward to meeting with President @DrGiammattei and community leaders. pic.twitter.com/HHCWRt2zBi— Vice President Kamala Harris (@VP) June 7, 2021Harris continues similar discussions Tuesday in Mexico City with President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, entrepreneurs and labor figures. Ahead of her trip, Harris emphasized the need for increased employment opportunities and better living conditions. She announced $310 million in U.S. aid to support refugees and deal with food shortages. She also recently won commitments from U.S. companies and organizations to invest in Central American countries to promote economic opportunity and job training. The U.S. also last week said it would send a combined 1.5 million doses of coronavirus vaccines to Guatemala and Mexico. Harris’s diplomatic outreach has touched off political mockery at home from opposition Republicans because she has yet to visit the U.S.-Mexico border even though she said she would at some point. At a news conference, some Republicans displayed a milk carton showing Harris with the headline: “MISSING AT THE BORDER.” In recent years, the United States has sent billions of dollars in assistance to Central American countries in hopes of curbing the motivation for residents there to migrate north to the United States. But so far, the aid has not stemmed the tide of migration as people look to escape crime and poverty in search of a better life in the U.S. Former President Donald Trump adopted get-tough policies at the border to turn back migrants. Biden also is turning back migrants but unlike Trump has allowed unaccompanied children to enter the United States. The policy shift combined with a predictable rise in spring migration and the easing of pandemic restrictions at the border contributed to the arrival of thousands of migrants in recent months, increasing pressure on the Biden administration to resolve the issue. “We have to give people a sense of hope, a sense of hope that help is on the way, a sense of hope that if they stay, things will get better,” Harris said after Biden named her to lead diplomatic efforts in Latin America. The Harris trip got off to a tentative start when her plane leaving Washington was forced to return after 30 minutes by what was described as a “technical issue.” She boarded another plane and left about an hour and a half later.
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Somaliland Opposition Joins Forces to Grab Control of Parliament
Two opposition parties in the self-declared republic of Somaliland said Sunday they had formed a coalition giving them a majority in parliament following long-delayed local and legislative elections. The territory in the north of Somalia declared independence 30 years ago but has never achieved international recognition. But it has a functioning government and institutions, its own currency, passport and armed forces. In the May 31 elections, more than a million voters were eligible to cast ballots to elect 82 lawmakers and 220 local councilors in a political system limited to three parties. According to official results, the leading opposition party, Wadani, won 31 seats in parliament, followed by the ruling party Kulmiye with 30 seats and the opposition UCID with 21. Wadani and the UCID announced their alliance shortly after the results were announced on Sunday. Ismail Adan Isman, spokesman of the new coalition, told reporters that the move was “in the interest of the unity of the people of Somaliland.” With a combined 52 seats, the alliance will enjoy an absolute majority in parliament. The two parties together also won 127 local councilors — 79 for Wadani and 48 for the UCID — against 93 for the outgoing ruling party. The new balance of power is expected to reduce President Muse Bihi’s room for maneuver. The next presidential election is set for late 2022. Somaliland’s last legislative elections were in 2005, and the May 31 vote had been postponed several times. Somaliland, formerly British Somalia, fused with the former Italian Somalia at independence in 1960. It seceded unilaterally in 1991 after the fall of the dictator Siad Barre, which plunged the country into clan-based fighting.
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China Blocks Several Cryptocurrency-related Social Media Accounts Amid Crackdown
A slew of crypto-related accounts in China’s Twitter-like Weibo platform were blocked over the weekend, as Beijing stepped up a crackdown on bitcoin trading and mining. More actions are expected, including linking illegal crypto activities in China more directly with the country’s criminal law, according to analysts and a financial regulator. Last month, China’s State Council, or cabinet, vowed to crack down on bitcoin mining and trading, escalating a campaign against cryptocurrencies days after three industry bodies banned crypto-related financial and payment services. Over the weekend, access to several of widely followed crypto-related Weibo accounts was denied, with a message saying each account “violates laws and rules.” “It’s a Judgment Day for crypto KOL,” wrote a Weibo bitcoin commentator, or key opinion leader (KOL), who calls herself “Woman Dr. bitcoin mini.” Her main account was also blocked on Saturday. “The government makes it clear that no Chinese version of Elon Musk can exist in the Chinese crypto market,” said NYU Law School adjunct professor Winston Ma, referring to the Tesla founder and cryptocurrency enthusiast. Ma, author of the book “The Digital War,” also expects China’s supreme court to publish a judicial interpretation soon that may link crypto mining and trading businesses with China’s body of criminal law. The view was echoed by a financial regulator, who said that such an interpretation would address the legal ambiguity that has failed to clearly identify bitcoin trading businesses as “illegal operations.” All the rules against cryptocurrencies so far in China have been published by administrative bodies. The Weibo freeze comes as Chinese media have stepped up reporting against crypto trading. The official Xinhua News Agency has published articles that exposed a series of crypto-related scams. State broadcaster CCTV has said cryptocurrency is a lightly regulated asset often used in black market trade, money laundering, arms smuggling, gambling and drug dealings. The stepped-up crackdown also comes as China’s central bank is accelerating testing of its own digital currency.
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VP Harris Heads South to Focus on Root Causes of Migration to US
U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris will be in Guatemala and Mexico this week on a trip that spotlights migration issues at the southern U.S. border. Michelle Quinn reports.
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More Than 160 Killed in Deadliest Attack of Burkina Faso’s War
The government of Burkina Faso has declared three days of mourning following an attack that left at least 160 people dead late last week in the northern village of Solhan.
The International Committee for the Red Cross, noting that local hospitals are overwhelmed, said it responded Sunday morning to a request for medical supplies in Dori, a town in northern Burkina Faso.
“Upon requests for support by the health authorities in Dori, we sent half a ton of medical support, mainly dressings, medication, sets of plaster, syringes, and anesthetic, was really important to be sent with no delay,” Laurent Saugy, the head of the Burkina Faso delegation of the International Committee for the Red Cross, told VOA.
The attack happened overnight Friday on the village of Solhan, located in Yagha province, near the border with Niger, in the country’s Sahel region.
The extent of the carnage is not known because the number of dead and injured continues to rise. No group has claimed responsibility for the attack, although analysts say it could be the work of the Islamic State in the Greater Sahara.
The attack is the deadliest since the conflict between Burkina Faso and armed groups linked to al-Qaida and the Islamic State group began in 2015. This weekend’s violence follows a period of relative calm.
Between March 2020 and April 2021, the number of attacks in Burkina Faso fell dramatically. Since the beginning of April, seven major attacks have come in quick succession.
On May 17, Burkina Faso’s foreign minister, Cherif Sy, visited Sebba, the nearest town to Solhan. He said the situation in Sebba was favorable and that peace had returned to the area.
Mahamadou Sawadogo, a Burkinabe security analyst and former military police officer, told VOA that this attack could be seen as a show of force, a demonstration of power by armed terrorist groups. He said that they have shown they control the province of Yagha and particularly the area of Solhan, which they have been trying to conquer since 2020.
Solhan is the site of an informal gold mine that terror groups frequently exploit for funding.
The military in Burkina Faso is under-resourced and is finding it impossible to provide security in all regions of the country despite assistance from French and U.S. troops.
Aside from the number of people killed, the humanitarian aftermath could also be significant. There are already 1.2 million displaced people in the country.
“Beyond the sheer death toll, there are other counts to keep,” Marine Olivesi, advocacy manager for the Norwegian Refugee Council in Ouagadougou, told VOA.
“How many families are going to be forced into displacement as a result of these attacks? For how many weeks, months, years? And, on top of that, there are things you can’t quantify that are just as daunting: the trauma for the children there, the fear of not knowing where to go to keep them safe, the stress of not having a place to sleep or enough to eat,” she added.
Apart from a statement on Twitter, the president, Roch Kabore, has yet to speak publicly about the attack.
“I honor the memory of the hundred civilians killed in this barbaric attack and send my condolences to the families of the victims,” Kabore wrote on Twitter, announced a national mourning beginning at midnight.Dans la nuit du 04 au 05 juin, des individus armés ont attaqué le village SOLHAN dans la commune de Sebba dans la région du Sahel. Je m’incline devant la mémoire de la centaine de civils tués dans cette attaque barbare et adresse mes condoléances aux familles des victimes 1/2— Roch KABORE (@rochkaborepf) June 5, 2021A United Nations spokesperson said Secretary-General Antonio Guterres voiced outrage over the killings. The spokesperson cited Guterres as saying the incident “underscores the urgent need for the international community to redouble support to Member States in the fight against violent extremism and its unacceptable human toll.”
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Serena Williams Knocked Out of French Open; Federer Withdraws
Serena Williams turns 40 in September. Roger Federer hits that milestone the month before. No one knows how many more French Open appearances each will make, and this year’s tournament ended for both on Sunday.Williams fell way behind and could not put together a comeback against a much younger and less-experienced opponent in the fourth round at Roland Garros, losing 6-3, 7-5 to Elena Rybakina, who wasn’t even born when the American made her tournament debut in 1998.Asked whether that might have been her last match at the clay-court major, Williams replied: “Yeah, I’m definitely not thinking about it at all. I’m definitely thinking just about other things, but not about that.”Her defeat came hours after Federer withdrew, saying he needed to let his body recover ahead of Wimbledon after a long third-round victory that ended at nearly 1 a.m. on Sunday.Wimbledon, which Federer has won eight times and Williams seven, begins June 28.”I’m kind of excited to switch surfaces,” Williams said. “Historically I have done pretty well on grass.”She has won 23 Grand Slam singles titles; Federer has won 20. They are two of the sport’s greatest and most popular players, so it was quite a blow to the tournament, its TV partners and tennis fans to see both gone from the French Open field one after the other — and a week after Naomi Osaka pulled out, citing a need for a mental health break.Switzerland’s Roger Federer returns a shot to Germany’s Dominik Koepfer during their match on day seven of the French Open tennis tournament at Roland Garros in Paris, France, June 5, 2021.Williams has won the French Open three times. But the American hasn’t been past the fourth round in Paris since she was the runner-up in 2016.Rybakina is a 21-year-old from Kazakhstan who is ranked 22nd. This was just the seventh Grand Slam appearance for Rybakina — and the first time she ever made it past the second round.”When I was small, of course, I was watching her matches on TV. So many Grand Slams,” Rybakina said of Williams.Against Williams, whose right thigh was heavily taped, Rybakina hit big, flat serves. She dealt with, but managed to steady, her nerves. She even produced the occasional return winner off Williams’ speedy serve, breaking her five times, including in the next-to-last game.”I knew that the serve was going to be difficult for me to return. She’s powerful, but I was ready,” Rybakina said. “Then, after few points, I felt … comfortable.”Rybakina said she followed her coach’s strategy of sending shots to Williams’ backhand side and trying to stay away from her forehand.Every time Williams appeared as if she might turn things around, she could not quite get the momentum fully in her favor.Repeatedly one sort of mistake or another undid Williams. She ended up with 19 unforced errors and only 15 winners. “I’m so close. There is literally a point here, a point there, that could change the whole course of the match,” Williams said. “I’m not winning those points. That, like, literally could just change everything.”Since winning the 2017 Australian Open while pregnant for her most recent major singles title — No. 23 set a record for the professional era — Williams has come close to tying Margaret Court’s all-time mark of 24. That includes four runner-up finishes at Grand Slam tournaments, most recently against Bianca Andreescu at the 2019 U.S. Open.But since then, Williams has been beaten twice in semifinals, and once each in the third and fourth rounds. Last year at the French Open, she withdrew before the second round, citing an injured left Achilles.Federer, meanwhile, never had pulled out of a Grand Slam tournament once he had started competing in it until now.
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Malawi Moves to Allow Hijabs in All Schools
Malawi is taking steps to start allowing Muslim students to wear the hijab, or headscarf, in all educational institutions. The controversial issue has forced some schools to close in the predominantly Christian country.
The issue of wearing the hijab has long been a point of contention in Malawi, especially in Christian-run schools where female Muslim students have not been allowed to cover their heads in class.The controversy reached its peak in October when suspected angry Muslims in eastern Malawi torched the office of a Catholic primary school head teacher who had turned away pupils wearing the garment.The standoff forced several Christian primary schools in the Muslim-dominated region to close.As a result, the Ministry of Education requested that the quasi-religious Public Affairs Committee, or PAC, help resolve the matter.Gilford Matonga, a spokesperson for the PAC, says a compromise had to be reached.
“One of the recommendations is that the Islamic girl child is allowed to wear the hijab that matches the school uniform wherever they are going to school. On the other side is that no girl child shall be forced to put on the hijab if they wish not to put on [the hijab],” Matonga said.
Abdul-Salaam Faduweck is the spokesperson for the Hijab Task Force, a branch of the Muslim Association of Malawi, which has been lobbying for the scarves to be worn in all schools nationwide.
He said the task force has welcomed the PAC’s recommendation with the expectation that the school uniforms will be in line with a complete hijab.
“We need the uniform to be according to the understanding of the meaning of hijab itself. If it is a skirt it has to be a long skirt, it has to be loose not tight. If it is a blouse it has to be with a long sleeve and not very tight. And the learner has to cover the head with a scarf. That is a complete hijab,” Faduweck said.
Imran Sheriff, a lecturer in religious studies at the University of Malawi, said the recommendation is partly impractical, especially since the headscarf is also regarded as part of the school uniform in Muslim schools.“The putting on a hijab is based on religion and putting on school uniform is based on school regulations in order that the students should look equal. So, if it is an Islamic institution, if the hijab is part of the uniform, then everybody will be obliged [to put on a headscarf],” Sheriff said.Michael Kaiyatsa, executive director for the Center for Human Rights and Rehabilitation in Malawi, said now is the time for Malawi to allow all religious symbols into class to promote religious coexistence.“It shouldn’t be Muslims or a particular religion. If we allow, then it should be across the board. If people are allowed to come to schools with rosaries around their necks, then why shouldn’t we allow other religions to do the same?” Kaiyatsa asked.
The PAC’s Matonga said the organization is expected to present the recommendations to the education officials next week for their input.Education authorities told VOA they could not comment on the matter now because they have yet to receive the recommendations.
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Harris Heads to Guatemala, Mexico in First Foreign Trip as US Vice President
Kamala Harris left Sunday on her first trip as U.S. vice president, visiting Guatemala and Mexico on a mission to try to figure out how to keep the people there and in Honduras and El Salvador from migrating north to the United States.As thousands of migrants try to cross the southwestern U.S. border with Mexico, Harris is looking to reach agreements for more cooperation on border security and economic development to keep people in their home countries even as corruption in the region complicates already difficult issues.Harris, who has little foreign policy experience, was tasked by President Joe Biden to resolve the migration dilemma for the U.S., searching for a way to stem the flow of migrants in a humane way and not allow unfettered access into the U.S.She is meeting with Guatemalan President Alejandro Giammattei on Monday and Mexico’s Andrés Manuel López Obrador on Tuesday. In addition, Harris is meeting community leaders, innovators and entrepreneurs in Guatemala, and while in Mexico, she is participating in a conversation with female entrepreneurs and holding a roundtable with labor workers.Sorry, but your browser cannot support embedded video of this type, you can
download this video to view it offline.Download File360p | 11 MB480p | 15 MB540p | 21 MB720p | 42 MB1080p | 86 MBOriginal | 606 MB Embed” />Copy Download AudioWatch: ‘Kamala Harris Heads to Mexico, Guatemala’ by VOA’s Patsy WidakuswaraAhead of her visits to the two countries, she has emphasized the need for increased employment opportunities and better living conditions. She announced $310 million in U.S. aid to support refugees and deal with food shortages. She also recently won commitments from U.S. companies and organizations to invest in Central American countries to promote economic opportunity and job training.The U.S. also last week said it would send a combined 1.5 million doses of coronavirus vaccines to Guatemala and Mexico.Harris’s diplomatic outreach has touched off political mockery at home because she has yet to visit the U.S.-Mexico border even though she said she would at some point.At a news conference, some Republicans displayed a milk carton showing Harris with the headline: “MISSING AT THE BORDER.”Over recent years, the U.S. has sent billions of dollars in assistance to Central American countries in hopes of curbing the motivation for residents there to migrate north to the U.S. But so far, the aid has not stemmed the tide of migration as people look to escape crime and poverty in search of a better life in the U.S.Former President Donald Trump adopted get-tough policies at the border to turn back migrants. Biden also is turning back migrants but has allowed unaccompanied children to enter the U.S., unlike Trump. The policy shift combined with a predictable rise in spring migration and the easing of pandemic restrictions at the border, contributed to the arrival of thousands of migrants in recent months, increasing pressure on the Biden administration to resolve the issue.”We have to give people a sense of hope, a sense of hope that help is on the way, a sense of hope that if they stay, things will get better,” Harris said after Biden named her to lead diplomatic efforts in Latin America.The Harris trip got off to a tentative start when her plane leaving Washington was forced to return after 30 minutes by what was described as a “technical issue.” She boarded another plane and left about an hour and a half later.
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Turkey Vows to Defeat ‘Sea Snot’ Outbreak in Marmara Sea
Turkey’s environment minister pledged on Sunday to defeat a plague of “sea snot” threatening the Sea of Marmara, using a disaster management plan he said would secure its future.A thick, slimy layer of the organic matter, known as marine mucilage, has spread through the sea south of Istanbul, posing a threat to marine life and the fishing industry.Harbors, shorelines and swathes of seawater have been blanketed by the viscous, greyish substance, some of which has sunk below the waves, suffocating life on the seabed.Environment Minister Murat Kurum said Turkey planned to designate the entire Sea of Marmara a protected area, reduce pollution and improve treatment of wastewater from coastal cities and ships, which has helped the sea snot to spread.He also called on local residents, artists and nongovernmental organizations to join what he said would be Turkey’s biggest maritime cleanup operation, starting Tuesday.”Hopefully, together we will protect our Marmara within the framework of a disaster management plan,” Kurum said, speaking from a marine research vessel that has been taking samples of the slimy substance.”We will take all the necessary steps within three years and realize the projects that will save not only the present but also the future together,” he added.Kurum said the measures Turkey planned would reduce nitrogen levels in the sea by 40%, a move he said scientists believed would help restore the waters to their previous state.Scientists say climate change and pollution have contributed to the proliferation of the organic matter, which contains a wide variety of microorganisms and can flourish when nutrient-rich sewage flows into seawater.President Recep Tayyip Erdogan blamed the outbreak on untreated water from cities, including Istanbul, home to 16 million people, and vowed to “clear our seas from the mucilage scourge.”
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New York Film Industry Booming Despite COVID Pandemic
As New York COVID restrictions ease, Broadway is hoping to draw people back to the theater while the movie industry is expanding its footprint in the Big Apple. Evgeny Maslov has the story, narrated by Anna Rice.Camera: Michael Eckels, VOA & News agencies
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Veterans Mark 77 Years Since Allied Liberation of Europe
Sunday marked the 77th anniversary of D-Day, when Allied forces landed on the beaches of France’s Normandy region. Historians say the months-long battles that followed liberated Europe from Nazi Germany and gave the Allies the upper hand in World War II. VOA’s Arash Arabasadi reports how survivors marked the day.
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