Turkey is claiming success in its COVID immunization campaign, but the majority Kurdish region lags far behind the rest of the country. Some blame it on the health ministry’s refusal to use the Kurdish language in literature that encourages people to get vaccinated. For VOA, Dorian Jones reports from Istanbul.
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Month: July 2021
Cameroon Begins Campaign Against Hate Speech
Cameroon has launched a campaign against what it calls online hate speech, which officials blame for social conflict and damaging the central African state’s image. Rights groups, however, note that along with xenophobic statements, authorities also define hate speech as criticism of the state and President Paul Biya.
More than 700 people from churches, political parties and universities listen to Cameroonian officials in the courtyard of the Yaounde City Council. The officials are asking the crowd to stop using xenophobic terms and stop portraying a negative image of the country, especially on social media platforms.Among the listeners is 47-year old electrician Alex Ndikum. Ndikum says he was scandalized when some French-speaking Cameroonians called him an Anglofou, a term derived from “Anglophone” that means uncivilized.”All of us, we are citizens of Cameroon and another citizen will address you Biafra {Nigerian activist}. All those types of things make one feel so bad,” Ndikum told VOA. “If people are being sensitized on how to behave, on how to react with one another, I think that will go a long way to curb hate speech.”Chi Asafor Cornelius is secretary general of Cameroon’s National Commission for the Promotion of Bilingualism and Multiculturalism, which helped organized the campaign. He warns hate speech in Cameroon has a political element that is heightening tensions between ethnic groups. Asafor calls for what he calls a national coalition against hate speech and xenophobia.”This coalition should be put in place to better tackle this issue that is taking a very dangerous turn in our country, and to have the perpetrators of that hate speech truly punished,” Asafor said. “Sensitize political parties on the necessity to educate on the dangers of hate speech and xenophobia in our country.”The campaigners also want Cameroonians to show love of their country and its institutions. They say that means Cameroonians outside the country should stop protests against President Biya. The most recent protest took place in Belgium last Saturday. Protestors hold signs and chant slogans during a demonstration against the government of Cameroon and French involvement in government affairs outside an EU summit in Brussels, July 17, 2020.Prince Ekosso is president of the opposition United Socialist Democratic Party. He says Cameroonians protest in Europe because they are denied the right to protest in Cameroon.
“Our constitution provides freedom of expression and democracy, and if some of the values of democracy are not respected by the same government that is supposed to be the guarantor of the constitution, it makes it possible for Cameroonians to express themselves out of Cameroon because in those countries there is democracy,” Ekosso said.Asafor said clashes between communities have increased in Cameroon since the disputed 2018 presidential election in which President Biya was declared the winner. Opposition leader Maurice Kamto also claimed victory.Willibroad Dze-Ngwa is executive director of Africa Network Against Illiteracy, Conflict and Human Rights Abuse. He says politicians use hate speech to promote dissent among opponents and prevent them from uniting in opposition.”I think if there was legislation to bar politicians who engage in hate speech from occupying public offices, it would be important. And for current vote holders, if they are found guilty of hate speech, I think they should be publicly sanctioned,” he said.The International Crisis Group warned in a December report that social media platforms, especially Facebook, were increasingly being used by Cameroonian youths to heighten political and ethnic tensions.Cameroon says the ongoing campaign will reduce the tensions if youths who constitute about 65% of the population agree to stop hurting the image of their country over social media.
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UN Urges International Community Not to Give Up on South Sudan
As South Sudan marks its 10th year of independence, the U.N. refugee agency is calling on countries to continue support for the world’s youngest nation, which, it says, shows promising signs of creating a better future for its beleaguered population.
The past 10 years in South Sudan have been marked by brutal conflict, hundreds of thousands of deaths, and the largest displacement crisis in Africa. The U.N. refugee agency says 1.6 million people are internally displaced within South Sudan and another 2.2 million are refugees in neighboring countries. The UNHCR representative in South Sudan, Arafat Jamal, says more than two-thirds of the country’s 12 million people need humanitarian assistance. Speaking on a video link from the capital, Juba, he says the country is suffering from one of the worst food and nutrition crises in the world, noting 7.2 million people do not have enough to eat. FILE – Elizabeth Girosdh breastfeeds her eight-month old twins in a health clinic in Pibor, South Sudan.On top of the many humanitarian problems, he says the country is plagued by government corruption and a multitude of natural disasters. Despite those difficulties, he says signs of hope are emerging that conditions will improve.“The reason I say this is that there is a peace process. Peace has held largely since 2018. And there is a framework for this peace,” Jamal said. “All the different sides in this country recognize that for there to be peace, there needs to be peace for all citizens. And that includes refugees and internally displaced people.”A further sign of hope, he says, is that many refugees are returning home on their own. Since 2017, he says nearly 400,000 refugees have gone back to South Sudan with no encouragement or assistance from the international community. Jamal says South Sudan has been independent for just 10 years, noting that is not a very long time for a country to get its act together.“I think, as donors, as international community, we cannot just be impatient and say the country has not got it together. Countries throughout the world have taken longer to get their act together,” he said. “So, I think if we are able to bring peace to the country…If we have a bit more patience and a bit more ability to be in solidarity, hold the hands, work together with the government, not be so antagonistic, I think we could come to something better.”The UNHCR says it needs $224 million this year to sustain current aid efforts and respond to future humanitarian and development needs. It says it has received only 38 percent of the funding—far from enough to support South Sudan’s complex requirements.
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Swedish Plane Carrying Skydivers Crashes, Killing 9
Police in Sweden say a small plane carrying skydivers crashed outside the south-central city of Orebro late Thursday, killing all nine people on board.
Regional police told reporters they were notified of the crash around 7:30 p.m. local time. Aviation officials say the plane, a single-engine DHC-2 Beaver, crashed shortly after takeoff.
Officials confirmed the dead include the pilot and eight passengers, members of a local skydiving club.
Police and fire officials held a news conference Friday in at the Orebro airfield, about 200 kilometers west of Stockholm. They said the airfield rescue team was first on the crash scene and extinguished the burning wreckage. But officials said it was clear there would be no survivors.
The cause of the crash is being investigated.
On Twitter Friday, Prime Minister Stefan Lofven wrote, “My thoughts are with the victims, their families and loved ones in this very difficult time.”
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US Ships Moderna Vaccine to Indonesia Amid COVID-19 Surge
As Indonesia deals with a surge in COVID-19 cases, the Biden administration is sending three million doses of the Moderna coronavirus vaccine to the country on July 9, a senior administration official tells VOA. The shipment is one of the largest batches the U.S. has donated, the official said. In total, the U.S. has allocated four million doses for Indonesia, with the remaining one million doses to be shipped “soon.”The administration is also sending 500,000 doses of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine to Moldova, the first batch of U.S. vaccine shared with Europe. A woman receives a shot of the Sinovac COVID-19 vaccine during a mass vaccination at Gelora Bung Karno Main Stadium in Jakarta, Indonesia, June 26, 2021.Indonesia surge Indonesia is battling a record-breaking surge in new cases and deaths, due to the highly contagious delta variant. “We recognize the difficult situation Indonesia currently finds itself in with a surge of COVID-19 cases,” said the Biden administration official. “Our thoughts are with all those in Indonesia affected by this surge. We support the Indonesian people as they fight this surge and are doing everything we can to help them in this time of need.” During a Friday press conference, Indonesian Minister for Foreign Affairs Retno Marsudi confirmed the shipment.“This is the first shipment through the COVAX mechanism,” Marsudi said, referring to the United Nations vaccine sharing mechanism.Indonesia relies heavily on Chinese vaccines, with only about 5% of its population fully vaccinated. The country has procured 108.5 million doses of the Sinovac vaccine but is seeing rising infections among medical workers fully vaccinated with it.After several fully inoculated medical personnel died from COVID-19, Health Minister Budi Gunadi Sadikin said on Friday the government would give 1.47 million health workers an extra shot using the Moderna vaccine.”The third jab will only be given to health workers, because health workers are the ones who are exposed to high levels of virus every day,” he told a press conference. “They must be protected at all costs.”The Indonesian government authorized the Moderna vaccine for emergency use last week.People line up to get vaccinated with the Sinovac COVID-19 vaccine during a mass vaccination at Gelora Bung Karno Main Stadium in Jakarta, Indonesia, June 26, 2021.Broader COVID-19 response efforts The senior White House official said that in addition to vaccines, the administration is moving forward on plans to increase assistance for Indonesia’s broader COVID-19 response efforts. “To date, we have provided more than $14.5 million in direct COVID-19 relief to Indonesia, including $3.5 million to help vaccinate Indonesians quickly and safely,” the official said. The official added that support from the U.S. Agency for International Development, USAID, has also provided Jakarta with public health education, trained thousands of health workers, funded a national COVID-19 information website that has reached more than 36 million people, and donated COVID-19 testing equipment, 1,000 ventilators, and nearly 2,000 handwashing stations.The four-million-dose vaccine shipment to Indonesia is part of the 80 million doses the U.S. has allocated to help countries in need, on top of the 500 million doses it has committed to COVAX. Activists say it is not enough. “We need far more from the United States and other countries that have surpluses to share,” said Tom Hart, acting CEO of the ONE Campaign, a nonprofit group that fights global poverty and disease. According to CDC data, most U.S. states have administered at least 75 percent of their first vaccine dose. Hart pointed out that in some countries, less than one percent of people have received a COVID-19 vaccine. “We have locked up in the United States and the G-7 and other EU countries, the global supply of the very thing to end this pandemic,” said Hart. “And so far, not sharing at nearly the pace or scale that we need to reach what’s the global herd immunity that will make all of us safe.”Eva Mazrieva contributed to this report, which includes some information from Agence France-Presse and Reuters.
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Myanmar Junta Reportedly Arresting Dissidents’ Family Members
Myanmar’s post-coup ruling State Administration Council has, since the last week of February, been arresting family members of dissidents in an effort to pressure the dissidents to turn themselves in, according to dissidents, lawyers helping those charged, and an official of the opposition National Unity Government.Family members of activists, politicians, and officials involved in the Civil Disobedience Movement, they say, have been arrested and imprisoned by SAC. Some, they say, were beaten and tortured by security forces for failing to provide information about dissidents who have evaded arrest.”Arresting innocent family members is a coercive act. We strongly condemn this,” Aung Myo Min, the NUG’s human rights minister, who has spent three decades defending human rights, told VOA June 30.VOA made repeated attempts to get a comment from the SAC for this report but was unable to do so.SAC security forces began arresting dissidents’ family members during the last week of February, according to the Thailand-based Assistance Association for Political Prisoners. While there were only a few cases in February and March, according to the AAPP, more than 30 family members were arrested in April.The AAPP said that as of June 22, at least 85 family members of dissidents have been arrested since the Feb. 1 coup in Myanmar, with 29 released and 53 still in custody. The total includes 41 girls or women ages 2 to 75 years old.Tin Htut Paing, a well-known activist in Yangon’s working-class North Okkalapa township told VOA June 23 that his mother, Mi Ngal, both of whose sons are activists, was beaten and arrested by SAC forces May 2.According to Tin Htut Paing, who has been evading arrest and is in hiding, he heard from his father that his mother had been sentenced to three years’ imprisonment under the country’s legal code.“Although my mother had not committed any crime, was sentenced by the military court to a maximum sentence,” he said.“As North Okkalapa township is under military rule, no appeal can be lodged of the sentence handed down by the military court,” he said.Students protest against the February military takeover by the State Administration Council as they march in Yangon, Myanmar, July 7, 2021. The sign reads, ‘Hold spirit and fight. Defeat the dictatorship in any way you can.’“Imprisoning my innocent mother was a manifestation of the atrocities of the military,” Tin Htut Paing added.Another activist, Zarni Kyaw, told VOA three of his family members had been arrested because of his actions.Zarni Kyaw, 41, a protest leader, left his township in central Myanmar after an arrest warrant was issued for him. Three weeks later, soldiers came to his home and arrested his 80-year-old father, 49-year-old sister and 60-year-old uncle, he told VOA.“My dad is a retired military personnel and had served for Tatmadaw [the Myanmar military] for many years. But they don’t care and appreciate his service,” said Zarni Kyaw, who is now training with opposition Karen National Union forces.The whereabouts of family members arrested by the military council are not easy to find out. They were not sent directly to prison, but some were detained in military-owned buildings, and some faced lengthy interrogations at the detention centers, activists and lawyers say. In some cases, other family members did not know where the detainees were being held until they were sent to prison after days of harsh interrogations, according to lawyer Zarli Aye.”Some of them were detained for more than a month during interrogation and then were sent to prison,” said Zarli Aye, a member of a “Lawyers for You” team formed in early March to provide free assistance for those arrested.”When we met with them [arrested family members] in prison, I was told they were forced to call the fugitives to persuade them to come back. Soldiers used various methods against the prisoners when they failed to follow what soldiers asked,” she said. She said some were beaten and denied food and water for a period of days, and a young girl was threatened with rape.The lawyers’ group is assisting 20 arrested activists’ family members being held in Yangon’s Insein Prison, but no one has been convicted yet. All cases are being heard in special courts inside the prison, Zarli Aye said.While the law does not allow anyone to be held for more than 24 hours, since the coup, many people, including activists’ relatives, have been detained illegally for several days with no reason given. Zarli Aye also said these prisoners are not receiving a fair trial after they have been charged.”They have been subjected to human rights abuses since before the trial. They were detained for several days without remand. They are not allowed to see family members and to receive food from outside, even after being sent to prison. Also judges impose restrictions on us during the court hearings. My questions to police officers who filed complaints in the case were rejected by judges very often,” Zarli Aye said.The SAC’s arrests of fugitives’ family members do not seem to be succeeding; activists feel sorry for those arrested but remain determined to continue their fight.Zarni Kyaw understands his three family members would be released if he surrendered for arrest but still plans to join the Karen National Liberation Army, the military branch of the KNU.“Joining the KNU and fighting with them is the best way to overthrow the military regime. I hope my father would agree with my decision,” he told VOA.Tin Htut Paing, the activist whose mother was arrested, has made a similar decision, saying that he expects the opposition to win and on that day, “those unjustly detained with my mother will be released.”
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Taliban Seize More Territory, Say They Control Most of Afghanistan
KABUL / MOSCOW – Taliban officials said on Friday the Sunni Muslim insurgent group had taken control of 85% of territory in Afghanistan, and its fighters were tightening their grip on strategic areas.
Government officials dismissed the assertion by a Taliban delegation visiting Moscow as part of a propaganda campaign launched as foreign forces, including the United States, withdraw after almost 20 years of fighting.
But local Afghan officials said Taliban fighters, emboldened by the withdrawal, had captured an important district in Heart province, home to tens of thousands of minority Shiite Hazaras.
Torghundi, a northern town on the border with Turkmenistan, had also been captured by the Taliban overnight, Afghan and Taliban officials said. Taliban insurgents were now in complete control of the police headquarters, intelligence services, customs operations and the municipal center, they said.
Hundreds of Afghan security personnel and refugees continued to flee across the border into neighboring Iran and Tajikistan, causing concern in Moscow and other foreign capitals that radical Islamists could infiltrate Central Asia.
Three visiting Taliban officials sought to address those concerns during their visit to Moscow.
“We will take all measures so that Islamic State will not operate on Afghan territory… and our territory will never be used against our neighbors,” one of the Taliban officials, Shahabuddin Delawar, told a news conference.
He said “you and the entire world community have probably recently learned that 85% of the territory of Afghanistan has come under the control” of the Taliban.
The same delegation said a day earlier that the group would not attack the Tajik-Afghan border, the fate of which is in focus in Russia and Central Asia. ‘Lion of Herat’ appeals to civilians
A prominent anti-Taliban commander of a private militia rejected the assurances made in Moscow, and said he would support efforts by Afghan forces to claw back control of parts of western Afghanistan, including a border crossing with Iran.
Mohammad Ismail Khan, a former minister and a survivor of a Taliban attack in 2009, was a leading member of the Northern Alliance whose militia helped U.S. forces topple the Taliban in 2001.
A veteran Tajik commander widely known as the Lion of Herat, Ismail Khan urged civilians to join the fight to protect their basic human rights.
He said hundreds of armed civilians from Ghor, Badghis, Nimroz, Farah, Helmand and Kandahar provinces had come to his house and were ready to fill the security void created by foreign force withdrawal.
U.S. President Joe Biden on Thursday defended his decision to pull military forces out of Afghanistan despite large parts of country being overrun by the insurgent group.
He said the Afghan people must decide their own future and that he would not consign another generation of Americans to the two-decade-old war.
Biden set a target date of Aug. 31 for the final withdrawal of U.S. forces, minus about 650 troops to provide security for the U.S. embassy in Kabul.
A long-time skeptic of the U.S. and NATO military presence in Afghanistan, Biden said the United States had long ago achieved its original rationale for invading the country in 2001: to root out al-Qaeda militants and prevent another attack on the United States like the one launched on September. 11, 2001.
The mastermind of that attack, Osama bin Laden, was killed by a U.S. military team in neighboring Pakistan in 2011.
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Tax Reform Tops Agenda as G-20 Finance Chiefs Meet in Venice
Finance ministers and central bankers from the group of 20 rich countries will meet face to face on Friday for the first time since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic at a gathering in Venice where corporate tax reform will top the agenda.The G-20 is expected to give its political endorsement to plans for new rules on where and how much companies are taxed which were backed last week by 130 countries at the Paris-based Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.The deal envisages a global minimum corporate income tax of at least 15%, a level which the OECD estimates could yield around $150 billion in additional global tax revenues but leaves much of the details to be hammered out.Officials say the two-day gathering in Italy’s historic lagoon city will open a discussion on how to put the OECD proposals into practice, with the aim of reaching a final agreement at a Rome G-20 leaders’ summit in October.The G-20 members account for more than 80% of world gross domestic product, 75% of global trade and 60% of the population of the planet, including big-hitters United States, Japan, Britain, France, Germany and India.If all goes to plan, the new tax rules should be translated into binding legislation worldwide before the end of 2023.Ministers may seek assurances from the U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen that she can win legislative approval for the proposals in a divided U.S. Congress where Republicans and business groups are fighting Joe Biden’s proposed tax increases on corporations and wealthy Americans.Aside from tax, ministers will discuss a global economic recovery which officials from G-20 president Italy told reporters was hugely uneven, with wealthy Western countries picking up strongly while developing nations are left behind.International Monetary Fund chief Kristalina Georgieva delivered the same message this week, saying there was a “dangerous divergence” between wealthy and developing countries as they seek to recover from the COVID-19 pandemic.The G-20 will ask the IMF to allocate $650 billion of its reserve asset known as Special Drawing Rights by the end of August, with a recommendation that ways are found to ensure a significant part of the money goes to countries most in need.Some delegations at the meeting may express concerns that rising inflation and interest rates in the United States could unbalance the global economy, G-20 officials said, though this is unlikely to appear in the final communique.The G-20 ministers and central bankers will meet from 1:15 p.m. to 5:30 p.m. (1115-1530 GMT) on Friday and from 9:45 a.m. to 5:15 p.m. (0745-1515 GMT) on Saturday, followed by a closing news conference by the Italian presidency.Side events include a tax symposium on Friday and a climate change conference on Sunday.
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Where Surfside Condo Once Stood, Debate Begins Over What Comes Next
Even as searchers scrambled to locate the remains of dozens more victims of a Florida condominium tower collapse, debate has begun in this beachside community over what to do with the site where the building once stood. Should the prime beach property in Surfside be turned into a memorial? Or should it be sold for hundreds of millions of dollars to raise money for victims and their kin? Experts in trauma stemming from disasters said it’s crucial that there be some type of physical place where the families of those killed in the June 24 collapse can visit. They also say creating that space should not be the responsibility of those facing the trauma. But in an excruciating twist, it will be up to the survivors and family of those killed, who are the owners of the Champlain tower condos and land plot, to determine what exactly is done with the land now covered in rubble. That is land where up to 76 bodies may still be buried. Officials said on Thursday that 64 remains have been recovered in one of the deadliest structure collapses in U.S. history. “My clients are in favor of the site being a memorial,” said Robert McKee, a Miami attorney representing several survivors and family members of victims in the collapse. “I can’t imagine why anyone would choose to live in a place where more than 100 people will likely have died.” McKee and other lawyers took part in a Wednesday hearing before Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Michael Hanzman, who is overseeing the growing number of lawsuits connected to the collapse. A court-appointed receiver has been tasked with legally safeguarding the property and getting the maximum value for those who own it. McKee said while his clients want to see a memorial on the land, some have expressed concern that doing so would result in survivors and families of victims receiving far less money for the land than it’s worth, which could be up to $130 million on the commercial market.Survivor Steve Rosenthal, one of McKee’s clients, has pushed political leaders to come up with a plan for the government to purchase the site of the Champlain collapse for full commercial value, according to the lawyer. McKee said he pitched the idea before Judge Hanzman during Wednesday’s hearing – to have any combination of different levels of government buy the land and turn it into a memorial.What does seem certain about the collapse site at this point is that it could take years for lawsuits related to the disaster to wind through the legal system, and until they do it is probably unlikely any concrete course of action will be decided upon, McKee said. ‘Unspeakable horror’Yuval Neria, director of trauma and PTSD at the New York State Psychiatric Institute and an expert on disaster mental health, said it is critical for the survivors and family to have a memorial. “Human beings need a grave, something to visit,” he said. That could be especially true in the Champlain tower collapse.”There is something very tragic and very unique about this event,” Neria said. “It’s very different from a war, or terrorist event or even a natural disaster. There is really a sense of meaninglessness, and the psychological recovery will be very, very difficult.” For Laura van Dernoot Lipsky, founder and director of the Trauma Stewardship Institute and who has worked for over three decades on disaster response, giving the grieving the opportunity to have a memorial was of paramount concern. “There will be people who never go, and there will be people who go every single day,” she said. “But what is most important with this kind of trauma is that there be options to go.” Lipsky said American culture is among the most unhealthy when it comes to allowing disaster victims — or anyone — the time and space to grieve. Instead, she argues, the U.S. culture puts a premium on people who bypass the grieving process to engage in some action. For that reason, she urged community leaders to take as much burden off survivors and family members of victims as possible. “You want to create the space for the survivors, so that it’s not on them,” she said. “You don’t want it to be a burden on the folks who survived this unspeakable horror.”
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Cannabis-Growing Gathers Momentum in Zimbabwe
Zimbabwe recently scrapped rules requiring sole state ownership for cannabis farming to encourage investment in the plant for industrial and medicinal uses. Zimbabwe is Africa’s largest tobacco producer, but authorities expect hemp export earnings to start replacing tobacco as farmers seek higher earnings from the crop.Farmer Jesper Kirk has been growing mainly tobacco since he moved to a 250-hectare farm five years ago. He now plans to increase his hectarage of hemp, a type of cannabis plant that has very low levels of THC — the intoxicating substance in marijuana — when the growing season begins in a few months.”I went for hemp because it is an export crop,” he said. “Much more reliable market. Whereas, for example potatoes, local market crop is a little more unstable market in terms of the number of people growing it. So, I wanted a slightly stable market in terms of demand.”About five years ago, Zimbabwe Industrial Hemp Trust led experiments raising cannabis and the project has spread to several parts of Zimbabwe.The trust is providing technical assistance and looking for markets for farmers, said the group’s head, Dr. Zorodzai Maroveke.She said Zimbabwe is making a smart choice with cannabis, since the tobacco market is shrinking because of anti-smoking campaigns.”It’s most relevant now considering the threat that the tobacco industry faces and knowing very well that Zimbabwe heavily depends on tobacco production,” she said. “It’s relevant that our economy has to start looking for alternatives. And I think industrial hemp tops the list. It’s a green crop and there is a lot of social impact in comparison to tobacco. I think in 10 years you will see the value chains that will come out of this sector are way more than tobacco.”Zimbabwe farmer Jesper Kirk says he started growing hemp for exporting as it has a stable market. (Columbus Mavhunga/VOA)While Kirk is thinking of exporting his crop, Walter Ruprecht has used some hemp produced by farmers this year to produce paper. He said cannabis has a lot of potential for Zimbabwe, both for industrial and even medicinal use.“The advantages are that it is obviously going to create thousands of jobs in the farming areas, just like what tobacco has done for decades,” he said. “Hemp has many advantages for its medicinal interests at the moment. However, there are other composites that can be available that it can be used such as textiles, pulp and paper. It’s a nitrogen supplement to the soil, it eliminates weeds. It has so many advantages to the small farmers and of course the value chains, which stretches to hundreds of thousands of dollars of opportunities.”The global cannabis industry is expected to be a $46 billion business worldwide in three years — up from $16.47 billion this year, said Tino Kambasha of the Zimbabwe Investment Development Agency.Sorry, but your browser cannot support embedded video of this type, you can
download this video to view it offline.Download File360p | 10 MB480p | 15 MB540p | 20 MB720p | 38 MB1080p | 80 MBOriginal | 93 MB Embed” />Copy Download Audio“So, it’s a market that is growing fast and we think it’s going to be a game-changer for this country,” Kambasha said. “And Zimbabwe has gone a little step further to show that it is willing work with its partners and investors. By coming up with an investor agreement which further protects you against anything like expropriation and change or changes in law, which is quite great.”Because of the new cannabis regulations, Kambasha added, Zimbabwe has attracted investors from the U.S., Britain, Germany, Switzerland and other countries.That might be a needed shot in the arm for Zimbabwe’s economy, which has been stuck in the doldrums for more than 20 years.
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Vietnam Announces Lockdown, Vaccination Goals
Vietnam enacted on Friday a two-week lockdown on movement in Ho Chi Minh City to battle a growing outbreak of the coronavirus.Hanoi also announced plans to vaccinate 50% of the population age 18 and older by the end of the year and set a goal of 70% of its population vaccinated by next March.”Vaccination against COVID-19 is a necessary and important measure to contain the disease and ensure socio-economic development,” the Health Ministry said in a statement, according to Agence France-Presse.The country of 100 million had registered fewer than 3,000 cases of COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, as of April. As of Friday, Vietnam had 24,810 confirmed cases of COVID-19 and 104 deaths, according to the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Research Center.Vietnam has administered about 4 million vaccine doses, with about 240,000 people fully vaccinated – 0.25% of the population, according to Johns Hopkins’ Vaccine Tracker.The 9 million residents of Ho Chi Minh City, the country’s economic hub, are barred from gathering in groups larger than two people and are allowed to leave their homes for the next two weeks only in cases of emergency or to buy food or medicine.Meanwhile, Fiji Prime Minister Frank Bainimarama said the South Pacific nation would make it compulsory for residents to become vaccinated against the coronavirus.”No jabs, no job — that is what the science tells us is safest and that is now the policy of the government and enforced through law,” Bainimarama said in a national address late Thursday, according to an AFP report.Fiji, which has a population of about 900,000, has been battling an outbreak of the delta variant of the coronavirus since April.Until April, Fiji had recorded no confirmed cases of the virus in a year, AFP reported. As of Friday, the country had recorded 8,661 confirmed cases of COVID-19 and 48 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins.The prime minister said all public servants would be forced to take leave if they failed to receive their first vaccination by Aug. 15 and would be dismissed if they failed to receive their second dose by Nov. 1. Private sector employees would need to have a first vaccination by Aug. 1 or face hefty fines and companies were threatened with being shuttered, the AFP report said.People wearing face masks as a precaution against the coronavirus wait to receive the second dose of the vaccine as an elderly woman pleads with a policeman to let her ahead of others at a public health center in Hyderabad, India, July 9, 2021.So far, the nation has administered nearly 380,000 vaccinations, according to Johns Hopkins’ Vaccine Tracker.On Thursday, Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga announced the Olympic Games would continue under a coronavirus state of emergency that bans spectators from all Tokyo-based venues. The arenas in surrounding Kanagawa, Saitama and Chiba would also be inaccessible to fans.“Taking into consideration the impact of the delta strain, and in order to prevent the resurgence of infections from spreading across the country, we need to step up virus prevention measures,” Suga said.The Olympics run from July 23 to Aug. 8, and the capital’s state of emergency is scheduled for July 23 to Aug. 22, lifting before the Paralympic Games open on August 24. Olympic and Tokyo officials said spectator capacity for the Paralympics would depend on future nationwide infection rates.This ban deals a significant blow to Olympic organizers expecting $800 million in ticket sales, and to the Japanese government, which spent $15.4 billion on the games.Meanwhile, the SEA Games Federation announced Thursday this year’s Southeast Asian Games has been postponed due to an increase of new infections in Vietnam, the host country. The regional games were scheduled to be held in the capital, Hanoi, and 11 other locations from Nov. 21 to Dec. 2.As the world surpassed 4 million coronavirus-related deaths earlier this week, United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned that millions more remain at risk “if the virus is allowed to spread like wildfire.”The head of the global body said in a written statement that most of the world is “still in the shadows” due to the inequitable distribution of COVID-19 vaccine between the world’s richest and poorest nations and the rapid global spread of the more contagious delta variant of COVID-19.Guterres called for the creation of an emergency task force, composed of vaccine-producing nations, the World Health Organization and global financial institutions, to implement a global vaccine plan that will at least double production of COVID-19 shots and ensure equitable distribution through the COVAX global vaccine sharing initiative.“Vaccine equity is the greatest immediate moral test of our times,” Guterres said, which he also called a “practical necessity.”“Until everyone is vaccinated, everyone is under threat,” he added.The Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center on Thursday reported 4,005,889 COVID-19 deaths out of 185.3 million total confirmed cases.The World Health Organization is urging nations to proceed with “extreme caution” as they ease or altogether end lockdowns and other restrictions in the face of a steady rise of new infections due to the delta variant.This report includes information from The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters.
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Australian Police Crack Down on COVID-19 Rule-breakers In Sydney
Coronavirus infections are rising in Australia, despite a two-week-old lockdown intended to stop their spread. Officials are now focusing on how to enforce compliance with COVID-19 lockdown rules, particularly where such restrictions appear to be mostly ignored.Authorities have said that strict stay-at-home orders in some of Australia’s most ethnically diverse areas in Sydney have been widely flouted, although charities have said community health messages for some migrant groups have been inadequate.A major police operation is underway in parts of Sydney to ensure the rules are followed. Officers on horseback are expected to patrol main shopping areas.Senior commanders have denied the crackdown is targeting multicultural areas.Australian Prime Minister Prime Minister Scott Morrison said too many people have broken the rules.“We haven’t seen the compliance that has been necessary. It is important to get that compliance in place,” he said. “The virus does not move on its own. It moves by people moving the virus around, and that is why it is so important that the restrictions that have been put in place that are appropriate just need to be complied with.”Under Sydney’s lockdown, which is due to end on July 16, residents can only leave home to work, study, buy groceries, care for a relative or other dependent, or receive a COVID-19 vaccination.Starting Friday, people will only be able to exercise in groups of two and do so within 10 kilometers of their homes.The New South Wales chief health officer, Dr. Kerry Chant, urged residents to stay home.“People are looking at countries overseas where they are seeing people going about their work and pleasure in a sort of seminormal way, and I think that is really important to highlight. That is because those countries have got vaccination coverages for their adult population, and in some cases down in the childhood population, that is very different from our situation. We have only got 9% vaccination coverage.”Health officials have estimated there are 513 active coronavirus infections in Australia. Ninety–two patients are in the hospital.New South Wales, including the state capital, Sydney, recorded another 44 new infections Friday.Australia has recorded almost 31,000 COVID-19 cases and 910 deaths since the pandemic began.Its international borders remain closed to most foreign nationals.
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Victims of California Synagogue Shooting Can Sue Gunmaker
A California judge decided victims of the 2019 synagogue shooting near San Diego that killed one worshiper and wounded three can sue the manufacturer of the semiautomatic rifle and the gun shop that sold it to the teenage gunman, according to a newspaper report.Superior Court Judge Kenneth Medel said Wednesday that victims and families in the Poway, California, synagogue shooting have adequately alleged that Smith & Wesson, the nation’s largest gunmaker, knew its AR-15-style rifle could be easily modified into a machine-gun-like or an assault weapon in violation of state law.A 2005 federal law shields gunmakers from damages in most cases for crimes committed with their weapons. But it allows lawsuits if the manufacturer was negligent or knowingly violated a state or federal law, the San Francisco Chronicle reported Thursday.Medel said the plaintiffs may also be able to sue on their claims that Smith & Wesson negligently marketed the rifle to youths on social media and video game-style ads, the newspaper said.The judge also said the shop, San Diego Guns, could be sued for selling the weapon to John Earnest, who was 19 and lacked a hunting license that would have exempted him from California’s 21-year minimum age for owning long guns.Prosecutors say Earnest, a nursing student, opened fire with a semi-automatic rifle during the last day of Passover services in April 2019. The attack killed 60-year-old Lori Gilbert-Kaye and wounded three others, including an 8-year-old girl and the rabbi, who lost a finger.Earnest then allegedly called 911 to say he had shot up a synagogue because Jews were trying to “destroy all white people,” authorities said.Earnest faces state murder charges carrying a potential death sentence and federal hate-crime charges.Wednesday’s ruling is a victory for “all Americans who believe that the gun industry is not above the law,” said Jon Lowy, chief counsel for the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, which sued on behalf of the victims.Lawyers for Smith & Wesson didn’t immediately respond to the Chronicle’s request for comment.
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As France Plans to Shrink Sahel Force, Jihadi Threat Grows
During a grueling, weekslong mission in northern Mali, French soldiers were confronted by a familiar threat: Extremists trying to impose the same strict Islamic rule that preceded France’s military intervention here more than eight years ago.Traumatized residents showed scars on their shoulders and backs from whippings they endured after failing to submit to the jihadis’ authority.”We were witness to the presence of the enemy trying to impose Shariah law, banning young children from playing soccer and imposing a dress code,” said Col. Stephane Gouvernet, battalion commander for the recent French mission dubbed Equinoxe.France is preparing to reduce its military presence here in West Africa’s Sahel region — the vast area south of the Sahara Desert where extremist groups are fighting for control. In June, French President Emmanuel Macron announced the end of Operation Barkhane, France’s seven-year effort fighting extremists linked to al-Qaida and the Islamic State in Africa’s Sahel region. France’s more than 5,000 troops will be reduced in the coming months, although no timeframe has been given.Instead, France will participate in a special forces unit with other European countries and African countries will be responsible for patrolling the Sahel.The move comes after years of criticism that France’s military operation is simply another reiteration of colonial rule. But the shift also takes place amid a worsening political and security crisis in the region. In May, Mali had its second coup in nine months.Although officials of Mali’s government have been able to return to some towns once overrun by jihadis, for the first time since 2012, there are reports of extremists amputating hands to punish suspected thieves — a throwback to the Shariah law imposed in northern Mali prior to the French military intervention.There have been spikes, too, in extremist attacks in Burkina Faso and Niger, sparking concern that the reduction of the French force will create a security void in the Sahel region that will be quickly filled by the jihadis.”If an adequate plan is not finalized and in place, the tempo of attacks on local forces could rise across the region over the coming weeks, as jihadists attempt to benefit from a security vacuum,” said Liam Morrissey, chief executive officer for MS Risk Limited, a British security consultancy operating in the Sahel for 12 years.The Sahel RegionWhile France has spent billions on its anti-jihadi campaign, called Operation Barkhane, Sahel experts say that it never dedicated the necessary resources to defeat the extremists, said Michael Shurkin, director of global programs at 14 North Strategies, a consultancy based in Dakar, Senegal.”They have always been aware that their force in the Sahel is far too undersized to accomplish anything like a counterinsurgency campaign,” he said.France has several thousand troops covering more than 1,000 kilometers of terrain in the volatile region where the borders of Niger, Mali and Burkina Faso meet. Alerts about attacks are often missed or responded to hours later, especially in remote villages. Operations rely heavily on the French air force, which conduct airstrikes, transport troops and deliver equipment. The desert is harsh with temperatures reaching near 50 degrees Celsius, exhausting troops and requiring additional maintenance for equipment.The Associated Press spent the days before Macron’s announcement accompanying the French military in the field, where pilots navigated hostile terrain in the pitch dark to retrieve troops after a long operation.FILE- In this June 9, 2021 file photo, French Barkhane force soldiers who wrapped up a four-month tour of duty in the Sahel leave their base in Gao, Mali.Some soldiers questioned if the fight was worth it. “What are we doing here anyway?” asked one soldier after Macron’s announcement. The AP is not using his name because he was not authorized to speak to the media.Others acknowledged the jihadis are a long-term threat. “We are facing something that is going to be for years. For the next 10 years you will have terrorists in the area,” Col. Yann Malard, airbase commander and Operation Barkhane’s representative in Niger, told the AP.The French strategy has been to weaken the jihadis and train local forces to secure their own countries. Since arriving, it has trained some 18,000 soldiers, mostly Malians, according to a Barkhane spokesperson, but progress is slow. Most Sahelian states are still too poor and understaffed to deliver the security and services that communities desperately need, analysts and activists say.State forces have also been accused of committing human rights abuses against civilians, deepening the mistrust, said Alex Thurston, assistant professor of political science at the University of Cincinnati.Since 2019 there have been more than 600 unlawful killings by security forces in Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger during counterterrorism operations, according to Human Rights Watch. France’s Barkhane, too, has been accused of possible violations of international humanitarian law and human rights, after an airstrike in Mali in January killed 22 people, 19 of whom were civilians, according to a report by the U.N. peacekeeping mission in Mali.Soldiers agree that there are limits to what can be achieved militarily and without political stability in the Sahel, jihadis have the edge.”We don’t have an example of a big win in counterinsurgency, and it’s difficult to achieve that in the current environment because for an insurgency to win they just need to stay alive,” said Vjatseslav Senin, senior national representative for the 70 Estonian troops who are fighting alongside the French in Barkhane.Some of those living in the Sahel fear what hard-fought gains have been made will unravel all too quickly.Ali Toure, a Malian working in the French military base in Gao warned that “if the French army leaves Mali, jihadis will enter within two weeks and destroy the country.”
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Tropical Storm Pounds East Coast After Killing 1 in Florida
Tropical Storm Elsa carved a destructive and soaking path up the East Coast after killing at least one person in Florida and spinning up a tornado at a Georgia Navy base that flipped recreational vehicles upside-down and blew one of them into a lake.Elsa’s winds strengthened Thursday to 85 kph, as the storm dropped heavy rains on parts of North Carolina and Virginia, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said in its latest update. Elsa was expected to pass near the eastern mid-Atlantic states by Thursday night and move near or over the northeastern United States on Friday.No significant change in strength is expected through Friday, and Elsa is forecast to become a post-tropical cyclone by Friday night, the center said.Tropical storm warnings were in effect along the coast from North Carolina to Massachusetts. There was a chance Long Island in New York would see sustained tropical storm-force winds late Thursday night and into Friday morning, the National Weather Service in New York warned.The National Weather Service in Morehead City, North Carolina, tweeted that a tornado was spotted near Fairfield on Thursday afternoon. A tornado warning had been issued for Hyde County and surrounding counties.Elsa seemed to spare Florida from significant damage, though it still threatened flooding downpours and caused several tornado warnings.Authorities in Jacksonville, Florida, said one person was killed Wednesday when a tree fell and struck two cars. A spokesperson for the Naval Air Force Atlantic Office said Thursday that a sailor assigned to Patrol and Reconnaissance Squadron 16 in Jacksonville was killed.Kyle Raison walks along the dock at the Sea Hag Marina as scallop rental boats are tied off after Tropical Storm Elsa made landfall nearby on July 7, 2021, in Steinhatchee, Florida.Forecasters reported 80 kph wind gusts in the city. The tree fell during heavy rains, according to Capt. Eric Prosswimmer of the Jacksonville Fire Rescue Department.Nine people were injured Wednesday evening in coastal Camden County, Georgia, when a tornado struck a campground for active-duty service members and military retirees at Kings Bay Naval Submarine Base. Eight of those hurt were taken to hospitals, base spokesperson Chris Tucker said. Some have since been released and others were kept for observation, he said.The EF-2 tornado flipped over multiple RVs, throwing one of the overturned vehicles about 61 meters into a lake, the National Weather Service said in a preliminary report early Thursday after its employees surveyed the damage.Tucker said about a dozen recreational vehicles at the campground were damaged. Some buildings were also damaged on the base, which is the East Coast hub for the Navy’s fleet of submarines armed with nuclear missiles. Tucker said there was no damage to submarines or any other “military assets.”Sergio Rodriguez, who lives near the RV park, said he raced to the scene fearing friends staying at the park might be hurt.”There were just RVs flipped over on their sides, pickup trucks flipped over, a couple of trailers had been shifted and a couple of trailers were in the water” of a pond on the site, Rodriguez said in a phone interview.In South Carolina, a Coast Guard Air Station Savannah crew rescued a family that became stranded on Otter Island on Wednesday after their boat drifted off the beach due to Elsa. A man, his wife and daughter, and three cousins were hoisted into a helicopter and taken to Charleston Executive Airport in good health Wednesday night, the Coast Guard said in a news release.The hurricane center said there was a risk of flooding in South Carolina, which was predicted to get 8 to 13 centimeters of rainfall.More than 18 centimeters of rain was recorded at a weather station near Gainesville, Florida, the weather service reported.Scattered power outages were being reported along Elsa’s path Thursday afternoon, with about 26,000 homes and businesses without electricity from Florida to Virginia, according to the website poweroutages.us.Elsa is the earliest fifth-named storm on record, said Brian McNoldy, a hurricane researcher at the University of Miami.
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Oxfam: 11 People Die of Hunger Each Minute Around the Globe
Anti-poverty organization Oxfam said Thursday that 11 people die of hunger each minute and that the number facing faminelike conditions around the globe has increased six times over the last year.In a report titled The Hunger Virus Multiplies, Oxfam said that the death toll from famine outpaces that of COVID-19, which kills around seven people per minute.”The statistics are staggering, but we must remember that these figures are made up of individual people facing unimaginable suffering. Even one person is too many,” said Oxfam America’s president and CEO, Abby Maxman.The humanitarian group also said that 155 million people around the world are now living in crisis levels of food insecurity or worse — some 20 million more than last year. Around two-thirds of them face hunger because their country is in military conflict.”Today, unrelenting conflict on top of the COVID-19 economic fallout, and a worsening climate crisis, has pushed more than 520,000 people to the brink of starvation,” Maxman said. “Instead of battling the pandemic, warring parties fought each other, too often landing the last blow to millions already battered by weather disasters and economic shocks.”Despite the pandemic, Oxfam said that global military spending increased by $51 billion during the pandemic — an amount that exceeds by at least six times what the U.N. needs to stop hunger.The report listed a number of countries as “the worst hunger hotspots,” including Afghanistan, Ethiopia, South Sudan, Syria and Yemen — all embroiled in conflict.”Starvation continues to be used as a weapon of war, depriving civilians of food and water and impeding humanitarian relief. People can’t live safely or find food when their markets are being bombed and crops and livestock are destroyed,” Maxman said.The organization urged governments to stop conflicts from continuing to spawn “catastrophic hunger” and to ensure that relief agencies could operate in conflict zones and reach those in need. It also called on donor countries to “immediately and fully” fund the U.N.’s efforts to alleviate hunger.”We work together with more than 694 partners across 68 countries. Oxfam aims to reach millions of people over the coming months and is urgently seeking funding to support its programs across the world,” the report’s press release said.Meanwhile, global warming and the economic repercussions of the pandemic have caused a 40% increase in global food prices, the highest in over a decade. This surge has contributed significantly to pushing tens of millions more people into hunger, said the report.
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Olympic Flame Arrives In Tokyo
The Olympic flame arrived Friday in Tokyo, but the public will be kept away at a low-key welcoming ceremony because of coronavirus fears, the day after a “heartbreaking” announcement that spectators would be banned from most games events.On a rainy morning exactly two weeks before the opening ceremony of the biggest sporting event since the pandemic began, the flame was brought on stage in a lantern and handed to Tokyo Governor Yuriko Koike.Tokyo 2020 organizers and government officials announced Thursday night their decision to bar fans from Olympic events in the capital, which will be under a virus emergency throughout the games.It means the pandemic-postponed games will be the first to take place largely behind closed doors. A handful of competitions will take place outside the capital.The torch relay was meant to build excitement for the games, but it has been pulled from public roads in the capital to prevent crowds spreading the virus as infections rise.Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra members perform during the unveiling ceremony of the Olympic flame at the Komazawa Olympic Park General Sports Ground in Tokyo, July 9, 2021.Before the flame arrived, five male trumpet players dressed in suits played a rousing melody under a gazebo to shelter them from the drizzle, in front of only journalists and a handful of officials.The stands stood empty at the Komazawa Olympic Park stadium in the capital’s southeastern suburbs, which was used in the 1964 Tokyo Olympics.”I’m glad that we welcome the torch relay, with these legacies we proudly show at home and abroad,” Koike said.But the Tokyo governor, who was recently hospitalized for exhaustion, coughed three times during her brief speech and several more times after that.Hint of what’s to comeFriday’s event gave a taste of the atmosphere that could await athletes at the opening ceremony, to be held at the National Stadium in the city center.The decision to bar fans came after the government said a state of emergency would be imposed in Tokyo throughout the games to curb a rebound in infections and fears over the more infectious delta variant that has led to virus resurgences in many countries.On Thursday night, Koike could not hide her disappointment.”I feel heartbreaking grief about this decision,” she said.When the 2020 Games were postponed last year as the scale of the pandemic became clear, there was talk they would be staged as proof the world had overcome the virus.But that triumphant tone has given way to the harsh reality of new infection surges and more contagious variants.Troubled relayThe nationwide torch relay has been fraught with problems since it began in March, with almost half the legs disrupted in some way.The relay was forced off public roads in famous tourist cities such as Kyoto and Hiroshima over fears that crowds of fans could spread the virus.And it has also met with some public opposition, with a 53-year-old woman arrested on Sunday for squirting liquid from a water pistol toward a runner.
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Egypt, Sudan Seek UN Help to Resolve Mega Dam Dispute with Ethiopia
The foreign ministers of Egypt and Sudan appealed to the U.N. Security Council on Thursday to intervene in their dispute with Ethiopia over the operation of a mega dam on the Nile River.“We come here in search for a viable path towards a peaceful, amicable and negotiated solution, and to avert the dire consequences of our inability to reach a settlement to this matter,” Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry said.Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry speaks in New York City about Ethiopia’s contentious dam project on July 7, 2021.“Our expectation is that this council will take the necessary measures to ensure the parties engage in an effective process of negotiation that could yield an agreement that serves our collective interests,” he added.Tensions have escalated since Addis Ababa said Monday it had begun its second phase of filling the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam — or GERD, as it is known. Downstream neighbors Egypt and Sudan object, insisting that a legally binding agreement that governs how the dam is filled and operated must first be in place.“Silence from the council would send out the wrong message and would signify a tacit approval of the fact that this unilateral filling was acceptable,” Sudan’s foreign minister, Mariam al-Mahdi said.The Nile flows northward, with one tributary (the White Nile) beginning in South Sudan and the other (the Blue Nile) in Ethiopia. They merge in Sudan and continue flowing north to the Mediterranean Sea. Along the way, the river crosses through 11 countries, and populations have depended on its water for millennia.Ethiopia started building the GERD in 2011 on the Blue Nile as a major hydropower project. Construction is nearly complete, and Addis Ababa says the dam will help bring electricity to 65 million Ethiopians who do not have it.Seleshi Bekele Awulachew, Ethiopia’s Minister of Water, Irrigation and Energy speaks during a news conference on the current status of Great Renaissance Nile Dam construction in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, Sept. 18, 2019.“We are dealing here with a hydroelectric dam. We are not building a nuclear plant,” said Seleshi Bekele Awulachew, Ethiopia’s minister for water, irrigation and energy. “It’s not the first of its kind in Africa or in the world.”He urged the council not to become involved in the issue, which the African Union is mediating.“If the council consents to the path preferred by Egypt and Sudan, it will certainly be entangled in resolving disputes on all transboundary rivers,” Ethiopia’s minister said.After 10 years of negotiations, the three countries still have not resolved the situation. Council members urged them to find the political will and momentum to quickly resume substantive negotiations to resolve outstanding differences.U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, speaks to reporters during a news conference at U.N. headquarters, March 1, 2021.“A balanced and equitable solution to the filling and operation of the GERD can be reached with political commitment from all parties,” U.S. envoy Linda Thomas-Greenfield said. “Egypt and Sudan’s concerns over water security and the safety and operation of the dam can be reconciled with Ethiopia’s development needs.”She said the African Union is the most appropriate body to address the dispute and that Washington would provide political and technical support. The U.N., the European Union and South Africa have also been involved as observers to these talks, which recently stalled.Russia went a step further, proposing that the parties undertake a round of negotiations with the African Union chair while the three ministers are all in New York.Vassily Nebenzia, Russian Ambassador to the United Nations, addresses the Security Council at U.N. headquarters in New York, April 10, 2019.“We believe that this would be the best contribution the council could make to finding a solution to the situation,” Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia said.Egypt and Sudan asked the council to adopt a resolution put forward by council member Tunisia. It demands that Ethiopia stop filling the dam and calls for the three countries to resume negotiations and reach a legally binding agreement within six months.Sudan’s foreign minister acknowledged after the meeting that the council appeared to have little appetite to adopt the resolution.But Cairo and Khartoum insist the issue is an important national security issue.“This is a situation that Egypt cannot and will not tolerate,” Shoukry told the council.
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US Government Media Whistleblowers Cleared of Wrongdoing
A U.S. government watchdog has cleared six senior officials at the government’s independent media agency of wrongdoing when they protested last year that the agency’s chief, appointed by former President Donald Trump, was attempting to politicize news operations.The inspector general at the U.S. State Department recently concluded that Trump administration officials including Michael Pack had unlawfully retaliated against the six, five of whom have been reinstated under President Joe Biden while a sixth retired.Pack at the time was chief executive officer of the U.S. Agency for Global Media, which oversees five networks: Voice of America, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Radio Free Asia, the Middle East Broadcasting Network, and the Office of Cuba Broadcasting.Legally protectedThe inspector general concluded that the six officials were protected under U.S. law as whistleblowers when they raised concerns about Pack’s actions. Pack last August suspended their security clearances, a prerequisite for their jobs, and placed them on administrative leave. He said his actions were aimed at restoring “respect for the rule of law in our work.”Lawyers for five of the officials, Robert Litt and Mark Zaid, said the inspector general determined that Pack’s actions were “without a legitimate basis.”“These official findings constitute a complete vindication of these six officials and entirely clears their record,” the lawyers said in a statement.FILE – The U.S. Agency for Global Media logo at Voice of America, in Washington, Nov. 22, 2019.Pack’s contentious six-month tenure as the USAGM chief ended January 20 when Biden sought and received his resignation within hours of his inauguration.Kelu Chao, the Biden-appointed acting USAGM chief, quickly reappointed five of the officials: Chief Financial Officer Grant Turner, Chief Strategy Officer Shawn Powers, General Counsel David Kligerman, Deputy Director for Operations Matt Walsh and Executive Director Oanh Tran. The sixth official, Marie Lennon, opted to retire.David Seide, a lawyer for the Government Accountability Project, a whistleblower protection organization that represented Turner in the complaint against Pack, said that Pack and his Trump-appointed allies, during their tenure at USAGM, “managed to break the law, abuse authority, endanger public health and safety, and grossly mismanage the agency.”Visa renewals deniedThe Government Accountability Project accused Pack of disregarding the dangers to foreign journalists working for VOA in the United States by not signing pro forma paperwork to renew their J-1 visas to enter the U.S., as had routinely been done for years by previous agency leaders.The watchdog group said one VOA journalist in China was persecuted by the Chinese government and his life was threatened. The State Department had approved his visa, the watchdog group said, but Pack refused to sign off, posing a question for critics of his action: “Why are non-U.S. citizens being brought to the U.S. to report on ‘significant American thought and institutions’ back to the rest of the world?”VOA employs dozens of foreign journalists, many of them hired for their expertise and knowledge of their homelands and the news topics that readers, listeners and viewers overseas most want to know about.Pack, a conservative filmmaker, was named by Trump to head USAGM in mid-2018. In the face of opposition from Democratic lawmakers and some Republicans, his nomination languished in the Senate for two years, but he won Senate confirmation in June 2020 and assumed leadership of the agency shortly thereafter.
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States Plan to Deploy National Guard, Police to US-Mexico Border
Amid record-setting migrant arrivals at the U.S.-Mexico border, several Republican-led states as far away as South Dakota are mobilizing to send National Guard units to the region at the behest of the Republican governors in Texas and Arizona who have criticized the Biden administration’s response to the surge.Although cooperation between state and federal authorities on border enforcement and immigration matters is hardly new, the scale of expected involvement by U.S. states far from the southern border is widely viewed as unprecedented.In recent weeks, states including Arkansas, Florida, Iowa, Nebraska, Ohio, South Dakota and Wisconsin have announced plans to deploy National Guard troops or law enforcement personnel along the southern border.The role those units can play and the duties they perform remains to be seen and could be a point of contention. Legal experts told VOA the authority to enforce U.S. immigration law is “almost exclusive” to the federal government but is not a military matter.”Federal law is really clear that members of the military cannot engage in law enforcement activities of any kind within the United States territory,” said César Cuauhtémoc García Hernández, a professor at the Mortiz College of Law at Ohio State University, in a VOA interview.Gov. Greg Abbott speaks during a press conference on details of his plan for Texas to build a border wall and provide $250 million in state funds as a “down payment.”, June 16, 2021 in Austin, Texas.FILE – Image provided by U.S. Customs and Border Protection shows members of the New Mexico Army National Guard visiting the U.S. Border Patrol office in El Paso, Texas, April 7, 2018.
Even so, it is not unusual for the Pentagon spokesman John Kirby speaks during a briefing at the Pentagon in Washington, July 2, 2021.Pentagon press secretary John Kirby told reporters that about 3,000 National Guard troops — all working under the command of the U.S. Northern Command and having federal status — will continue the military mission at the southern border that began in 2018 under the former Trump administration. Kirby added that the effort was separate from state-level operations.Hernández said militarizing the border has both practical and symbolic effect.”The symbolism of involving the military in any law enforcement action suggests that this is a critically important activity, one that is vital to national security,” he said, adding that it suggests existing resources are “overwhelmed” and need “reinforcements.”
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Interview: US, Taiwan Trade Talks and Global Semiconductor Shortage
At a time of global semiconductor shortages and rising trade tensions with China, U.S. officials are pledging to continue “strong, robust, and dynamic engagement” with Taiwan on economic and trade issues.Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, Taiwan’s biggest chip producer, accounts for more than half of the world’s supply of semiconductors. When it comes to highly advanced semiconductors, experts say Taiwan accounts for 92% of global supply. But U.S. officials say the trade relationship with the United States goes much further.A week ago, the U.S. and Taiwan resumed trade talks through the Trade and Investment Framework Agreement (TIFA) Council after a five-year pause.“Taiwan is one of our most important partners in the region. They’re also a very critically important economic and trade partner as our ninth largest trading partner,” said Matt Murray, the State Department’s deputy assistant secretary for trade policy and negotiations, during an interview on Wednesday.Murray told VOA the U.S. will continue trade talks with Taiwan under the framework of TIFA, along with working-level consultations under the so-called Economic Prosperity Partnership Dialogue (EPPD) which was launched last November. Additional talks are focused on the resilience of global supply chains, including semiconductors.The following are excerpts from the interview. It has been edited for brevity and clarity.VOA: The U.S.-Taiwan trade talks resumed after a five-year pause. Is the U.S. now focusing on a bilateral trade deal with Taiwan? What is its implication to the ongoing review of U.S.-China trade policy?Matt Murray: We continue to go step by step and look for opportunities with Taiwan. My team is focused on three areas. One is the TIFA talk and resumption of that, which was successful last week. Another area that’s really important to us is the Economic Prosperity Partnership Dialogue (EPPD,) which was launched by our former Undersecretary of State Keith Krach last November, and which we have continued at the working level these past several months.For example, in February, under the auspices of the EPPD, the United States and Taiwan held a very successful public-private partnership type seminar on semiconductor supply-chain, which I was able to participate in. And so those kinds of engagements have also been hugely important.And then third, we’ve been very focused on the supply chain issue more broadly and talking to our friends in Taiwan about ways that we can address common concerns over supply chain resilience. So, I think as we go step by step and move forward with Taiwan, you know, we’ll see eventually what some of the outcomes might be over time.We continue to be undergoing a review on our China economic policy, as well as our friends at the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, who are focused on reviewing the Phase One trade agreement. And so, we want to continue to have the time to figure that out, but certainly it’s whatever we do going forward with respect to China, engaging with like-minded partners and allies is going to have to be critically important.I would say that engagement with Taiwan, with Japan, with Korea, with our European allies, Australia, and many others — that’s going to be really the key for us going forward.VOA: In February, you had a virtual meeting with Taiwan’s Economics Minister Wang Mei-hua (王美花), where the global automotive semiconductor shortage was discussed. What was your takeaway?Murray: Several takeaways. It’s held under the auspices of the EPPD where we were able to set up a supply chain seminar to focus on semiconductors. And I think, you know, as often is the case, we were arranging for that meeting to happen before we realized that there was going to be a crisis in terms of the shortages in the auto sector. So that supply chain seminar was more broad than that — it wasn’t just focused on the shortages in the auto sector, it was really about how we could collaborate with Taiwan, with the many companies in Taiwan, with government agencies there. And again, we set that up through, under the auspices of Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office in the United States (TECRO) and our American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) to have that discussion.I think the key takeaway is that Taiwan is a really important partner, and they want to be a part of the solutions moving forward. So, whether that’s, you know, open communication with us on what’s available in the supply chain, what isn’t, where there might be issues coming forward, that’s really important. Whether that’s investments here in the United States, it’s also really important or whether that’s also coordinating with third countries and in the region, I think it is really important as we seek to address some of these disruptions to our supply chain that have happened over the last year.VOA:The global chip shortage — it is still a problem. Do you expect the situation to improve by the end of this year?Murray: I think there’s a lot of people in government and industry that are working very hard to make sure the problem does improve. I think one of the key things we found over the last six months is just how important it is to communicate about shortages, about where we might have problems or disruptions, because I think that the global supply chain particularly for semiconductors is so complex, it might start with wafer production in one economy but then move somewhere else for refinishing into another chip, then it ultimately goes into an auto part which ultimately goes into a car, but again it’s not just about the auto sector either.I mean, these are the same chips that also ultimately go into our phones or into the computers we use or into medical devices. And I think we’ve certainly seen, and the administration has been very clear about this, that semiconductors are very critically important sector, and that’s why it was one of the sectors identified in the 100-day report that was released by the White House on June 8th.VOA: As you mentioned, the Biden administration has issued a 100-day review on steps to strengthen critical supply chains. One of the recommendations is to use diplomatic tools, working with like-minded allies such as the Quad and the G-7, to facilitate resilient supply chains. What are the specifics? Can you unpack it for us?Murray: In the 100-day report, we identified four critical supply chains. One is semiconductors, another one is pharmaceutical APIs, another one is advanced capacity batteries, another one is critical minerals and critical materials. For each of those parts of the report, one U.S. government agency was designated as the drafter and then a lot of us then were able to contribute to those reports to look at what are some of the vulnerabilities in our supply chain, where are some of the opportunities that we could build a better supply chain, a more resilient supply chain. And so, we’ve taken those findings and we’ve gone out to a lot of our international partners just to share what we are finding out, what we are discovering, what we are learning, but also to hear from them, because every single government, every single country is going to have a slightly different twist or slightly different issue to deal with when it comes to supply chains.Ultimately, it’s going to be more of the multilateral organizations where we can have strong engagements on the margins to talk about supply chains, whether that’s the G-7, whether that’s the Quad, whether that’s the newly announced U.S.-EU Trade and Technology Council or so many other different opportunities, and we want to take advantage of those opportunities because these are issues of shared concern, not just for the United States but around the world.VOA: You were the Economic Minister Counselor at the U.S. Embassy in Beijing. China has opposed any official contacts between the U.S. and Taiwan. Is promoting the U.S.-Taiwan trade relationship an irritant to the U.S.-China relationship?Murray: Well, I think we’ve been very clear historically to Beijing and the Chinese government what our approach to Taiwan is, and how we want to continue to have a relationship with Taiwan.Given my new role here as the deputy secretary for trade policy negotiations, clearly when we talk about Taiwan being our ninth largest trading partner, we need to have a strong, robust, dynamic, engagement with Taiwan about economic and trade issues. That — that’s very clear to us.Looking at the China issues both from the time I was in Beijing and now, we’re addressing those issues separately. We have to address our own economic and trade concerns with China, and we’ve done that through a number of different dialogues and negotiations over the years. I’ve been working on China off and on for more than 15 years, and, you know, it goes back to when China also joined the World Trade Organization in 2001, but we still have very serious concerns about China’s behaviors in terms of whether it’s intellectual property rights, or whether it’s forced technology transfer, or its lack of market access for U.S. and foreign companies.We have very strong concerns about the way China treats U.S. companies and other foreign companies when they’re in China. We have very strong concerns about China not living up to the commitments that it’s made — either to the international community or to us bilaterally. And so we want to address those with China and separately from anything that we’re doing with Taiwan.
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Court Orders Ugandan Government to Regulate COVID-19 Treatment Costs
Edward Bindhe was diagnosed in early June with COVID-19. Upon consultation with a doctor, he bought drugs off the shelf and stocked up on local herbs.Then, with a collapsed lung, failed breathing and total body weakness, Bindhe, who had just lost two relatives to COVID-19, was admitted to a private hospital.Bindhe, who is continuing to receive treatment as an outpatient, said that while in the ward, a cashier constantly visited his bed reminding him of his accumulating medical bill.“After two days of admission, the hospital told me they needed me to advance some money, 2.5 [million shillings or $750], and I did not have it anyway,” he said. “That’s when I was then transferred to the COVID ward. Thereafter, on 29th, like, I started getting better. And the doctor said, ‘No, now we can discharge you.’ So, at discharging me, that’s when they gave me a medical bill of 8.8 [million shillings, or $2,482].”Overcharging patients, early dismissalsThrough June, local media was awash with reports of hospitals overcharging patients, pushing some families to abandon deceased loved ones in hospitals, while some patients were released from hospitals for failure to pay their bills.It is for those reasons that Moses Mulumba, the head of the Center for Health, Human Rights and Development, a health advocacy organization, petitioned the High Court in Kampala on June 28, seeking intervention.FILE – A woman receives a coronavirus vaccination at the Kololo airstrip in Kampala, Uganda, May 31, 2021.The court ruled Thursday that Health Minister Jane Ruth Aceng and the attorney general must intervene by making regulations for reasonable fees payable to hospitals for management and treatment of COVID-19 patients.The court also ordered the Uganda medical and dental practitioners council to make recommendations to the minister of health regarding reasonable fees chargeable by hospitals for treatment and management of persons suffering from COVID-19.Mulumba said he was happy they got a consent judgment.“The government has been watching the pandemic for over a year. And it has done all the steps,” he said. “But many of these steps are toward making sure the individual is contained, the individual is held accountable. And it was a very simple ask: that when it comes to a pandemic like COVID-19, the minister should invoke her powers under the public health legislation to actually regulate the actors. Because we believe that the actors are part of the national response. And if they are part of the national response, they need to look at themselves not just as businesspeople.”FILE – A couple wait for the COVID-19 vaccine at the Butanda Health Centre III in western Uganda, April 27, 2021.The few Ugandans who were ladmitted to public health centers offering free treatment still faced other challenges.Irene Nakasita spent three weeks in a referral hospital in Jinja after she failed to get admitted at the Mulago National Hospital, where she was told there were no beds left.Now, back in a private hospital to deal with the side effects of COVID-19 drugs administered to her at the public hospital, Nakasita said that while the government can intervene in the affairs of private hospitals, they need to improve services in the public facilities to save Ugandans from heavy bills.’Pay the doctors’“I know how I suffered,” she said. “So, let government fix issues in the government facilities so that people are comfortable to go there and get medicine. And then also pay the doctors. Because partly why I suffered in Jinja, some of those doctors were complaining they were not paid and now their lives are being risked to attend to COVID patients. They never attended to us — they left us in the hands of nurses.”Attorney General Kiryowa Kiwanuka said the court order would be followed.“We are going to advise the Ministry of Health to comply with the order of court,” Kiwanuka said. “And the Ministry of Health and the medical council need to meet and engage with the medical practitioners and get back to court with the compliance.”At a government news conference last week, the head of the Uganda health care federation said 45 percent of patient bills are driven by personal protective equipment, oxygen and medication.
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Montenegro Close to Deal on Lifting Chinese Debt Burden: Minister
Montenegro is weeks away from securing a deal to either swap or refinance with European and U.S. banks nearly $1 billion in debt owed to China, and it hopes to reduce the interest rate on the debt to below 1%, Economy Minister Jakov Milatovic told Reuters.
Montenegro borrowed $944 million from China in 2014 to fund a 41-km (25-mile) stretch of road, which foes of then-Prime Minister Milo Djukanovic dubbed the “Road to Nowhere,” saying it typified waste under his rule, an accusation he denied.
Prime Minister Zdravko Krivokapic, who came to power in December, is seeking to reduce the cost of the Chinese debt, which has a 2% interest rate and reduce currency risk as the loan is denominated in U.S. dollars, Milatovic said.
“We are negotiating with a number of Western banks from Europe and the United States. We are for sure going to do it with the Western banks,” Milatovic, 35, said, adding that he was seeking an interest rate of “less than 1%” for the debt.
“There are two options: the first is to refinance, the second is to swap the loan, or the third option is to do part of the first one and part of the second one,” he said. “We believe we can get much better terms – I am very optimistic about it.”
Milatovic declined to name the European or U.S. banks but when asked how soon there could be a resolution, he said: “Soon – I think weeks.”
Reuters reported on June 11 that Montenegro was counting on European Union aid to ease its Chinese debt burden.
The Chinese loan was taken out in 2014 from the state-owned Export Import Bank of China with a six-year grace period and a 14-year additional maturity. The principal is already starting to be paid off.
A source with knowledge of the negotiations told Reuters that Montenegro was likely to swap the debt and continue refinancing negotiations and then terminate the swap when the refinancing talks were successful.
‘Captured state’
Nestled on the shore of the Adriatic, Montenegro has for centuries tumbled with the vicissitudes of great powers, though after seceding from a state union with Serbia in 2006, Montenegro joined NATO in 2017 and hopes to be an EU member this decade.
Prime Minister Krivokapic, a 62-year-old former engineering professor, said Montenegro was for the first time in decades entering into a democratic transition toward what he cast as a Euro-Atlantic future along the lines of Luxembourg.
Krivokapic said his biggest challenge was to establish rule of law in Montenegro which he said had in essence been “captured” by criminals and ensnared in corruption for years. “International organized crime has been present in Montenegro and as a small country we cannot tackle this problem on our own,” Krivokapic said. “Zero corruption is the formula for the work of this government.”
Tourism
Montenegro’s economy collapsed 15% in 2020, one of the biggest drops in Europe, as the COVID-19 pandemic cut off tourism.
“We are now seeing a strong recovery of our tourism sector,” Milatovic said. Tourism activity is around 70-80% of the 2019 level, with a full recovery of the sector expected by the end of 2022.
The government is forecasting the economy will grow 10.5% in 2021, with inflation of about 2%, and 2022 economic growth of 6-7%.
Krivokapic’s government inherited badly run state enterprises, so ministers are looking at the possibility of creating a professionally run national holding company to manage the assets, Milatovic said.
“This is something Greece did in its recovery period – this is the right way to go in order to privatize some of the assets and make some of the state-owned enterprises more efficient and at the end of the day provide a return on the assets for taxpayers.
“Some of the assets would be sold, some of them would be run by the holding,” he said.
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Biden: US Mission in Afghanistan to End August 31
U.S. President Joe Biden says the U.S. military mission in Afghanistan will end on August 31.
Biden’s remarks at the White House Thursday came after he and Vice President Kamala Harris met with national security leaders for an update on the pullout.
On Tuesday, the U.S. military announced the withdrawal process was more than 90% complete. Officials have said the entire process is expected to finish by late August. NATO troops also are following suit, and most of them already have left the country.White House press secretary Jen Psaki told reporters Wednesday the United States supports diplomatic negotiations to resolve the conflict in Afghanistan, and that after the military withdrawal it intends to have diplomatic and humanitarian presences in the country.
“One of the reasons that the president made the decision he did is because he does not feel there’s a military solution for a 20-year war,” Psaki said.
Taliban fighters have made rapid territorial advances across Afghanistan since May 1, when the United States and NATO allies formally began withdrawing their last remaining troops from the country.The insurgents have since overrun at least 150 of Afghanistan’s more than 400 districts.An Afghan army soldier walks past Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles, MRAP, that were left after the American military left Bagram air base, in Parwan province north of Kabul, Afghanistan, July 5, 2021.Authorities in Afghanistan said Wednesday pro-government forces had pushed back Taliban insurgents from parts of a northwestern city and regained control of official buildings after hours of fierce clashes.Fighting erupted in parts of Qala-e-Naw, the capital of Badghis province, after the Taliban assaulted it overnight from multiple directions. Residents and officials said insurgent fighters pushed their way into the city, taking over key security installations, including provincial police headquarters, and freeing about 600 inmates from the central prison.Video footage released by the Taliban showed the prisoners escaping from the facility and insurgent fighters riding motorbikes moving into different parts of the city.Provincial Governor Hessamuddin Shams told VOA the Taliban captured all the districts around Qala-e-Naw in recent days, enabling them to attack the provincial capital.The foreign troop exit is the outcome of a peace deal negotiated by Washington with the Taliban in February 2020 under then-U.S. President Donald Trump. It requires the insurgents to fight terrorism on Afghan soil and negotiate a political peace deal with the Kabul government.However, the U.S.-brokered intra-Afghan peace negotiations have moved slowly since they started last September in Qatar and have met with little success.
American troops vacated Bagram Air Base, the largest such facility in Afghanistan, in the middle of the night last Thursday, prompting criticism and complaints by Afghan commanders they were kept in the dark about the departure plans.U.S. officials maintain the transfer of Bagram was fully coordinated with Afghan leaders, just as the handing over of other military bases in the country was.The abrupt exit, Afghan officials insisted, allowed looting on the military base by locals before Afghan forces arrived and took control of the facility.Ayaz Gul and VOA National Security Correspondent Jeff Seldin contributed to this report.
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