Some Nigerian companies are using coconut and palm shells to make charcoal briquettes in an effort to slow ongoing deforestation. Nigeria banned charcoal exports after a World Bank report showed the country lost nearly half its forest cover in just a decade. Timothy Obiezu reports from Kuje, Nigeria.Camera: Emeka Gibson
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Month: July 2021
Biden Revives Trump’s Africa Business Initiative
The Biden administration on Tuesday announced a new push to expand business ties between U.S. companies and Africa, with a focus on clean energy, health, agribusiness and transportation infrastructure on the continent. U.S. industry executives welcomed the interest but said dollar flows will lag until the administration wraps up its lengthy review of Trump administration trade measures and sets a clear policy on investments in liquefied natural gas. Dana Banks, senior director for Africa at the White House National Security Council, told a conference the administration planned to “re-imagine” and revive Prosper Africa, an initiative launched by former President Donald Trump in 2018, as the “centerpiece of U.S. economic and commercial engagement with Africa.” Travis Adkins, deputy assistant administrator for Africa at the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), added: “We’re looking at the ways in which we [can] foster two-way trade, looking at mutually beneficial partnerships that work together to mobilize investment, create jobs, and … shared opportunities on both sides of the Atlantic.” President Joe Biden, who requested nearly $80 million for the initiative in his budget proposal in May, aims to focus it on women and equity, with an expanded role for small- and medium-sized businesses, Banks said. The administration’s goal was to “reinvigorate Prosper Africa as the centerpiece of U.S. economic and commercial engagement with Africa,” she said. “This is an area that is a priority both at home and abroad,” Banks told Reuters ahead of the conference, adding that African countries were eager to expand their cooperation with the United States. China and EuropeU.S. business executives warn the United States is in danger of being overtaken by China and Europe, which are already investing and signing trade agreements across the continent. “We can’t wait another year to devise an Africa policy; we need to be bold in our thinking,” said Scott Eisner, president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s U.S.-Africa Business Center. He said many companies had started to eye investments in Kenya given the Trump administration’s talks with Nairobi on a bilateral free trade agreement, but that those plans were on ice until the policy review was completed. The U.S. Trade Representative’s office had no immediate comment on the status of the review. Liquefied natural gasAnother hurdle is uncertainty about the administration’s policy on LNG projects. Nigeria and other countries are eager to secure U.S. investment in such plans, but are waiting to see whether the administration will back LNG investments even as it seeks to halve U.S. fossil-fuel emissions. “We’ve committed as an institution to have over 50% of our investments focused on activities that combat climate change,” said Kyeh Kim, a senior official at Millennium Challenge Corporation, an independent U.S. foreign aid agency.
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Somalia Green Energy Association Touts Clean Power Potential
Somalia lacks a national power grid and relies on imported fuel and wood and charcoal for its energy needs. But energy experts say with the longest coastline in mainland Africa and an average of 10 hours of sunshine per day, Somalia has great potential for onshore wind and solar power. Mohamed Sheikh Nor reports from Mogadishu. Camera: Mohamed Sheikh Nor Produced by: Marcus Harton
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UN Says Armed Groups Threaten Thousands of Eritrean Refugees in Tigray
The UN refugee agency warns about 24,000 Eritrean refugees trapped in two camps in northern Ethiopia’s Tigray province are in great danger as fighting among armed groups escalates. Concerns are growing for the safety and wellbeing of thousands of Eritrean refugees in Mai Aini and Adi Harush camps as fighting intensifies in Tigray’s Mai Tsebri area. The UN refugee agency reports aid agencies have been unable to access the camps since July 14. It says conditions for the refugees have become increasingly dire and worrisome since then. UNHCR spokesman Babar Baloch says members of armed groups have infiltrated the camps. He says the Eritreans are living in constant fear. He says they are facing intimidation and harassment and are cut off from humanitarian assistance.”We have received disturbing and credible reports in recent days from Mai Aini camp that at least one refugee was killed by armed elements operating inside the camp,” Baloch said. “The latest death is in addition to the killing of another refugee on 14 July.” Food Aid Remains Out of Reach for Millions in TigrayThe WFP renews appeal for unimpeded access to northern Ethiopian province where four million people are suffering from acute hungerBaloch says he does not know which of the armed groups is responsible for the killings. However, his agency, he says, has received credible reports that people with guns are operating inside the two refugee camps.He says the UNHCR has been appealing to the local authorities and the Ethiopian refugee agency to provide safety for the refugees and to grant aid agencies access to the camps. He notes the Eritrean refugees have been without humanitarian assistance for the last two weeks.”Trapped refugees need urgent life-saving assistance,” Baloch said. “Clean drinking water is running out, no healthcare services are available, and hunger is a real danger. The last food distribution to both refugee camps was done in late June, which provided them rations for just one month. Baloch says recent armed clashes in Afar region to the east of Tigray have displaced thousands of people, among them about 55,000 Eritrean refugees. He says concerns for their safety also are growing as armed confrontations are taking place near where the refugees live.
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Cameroon Receives US Johnson & Johnson Vaccine Amid Covid Hesitancy
Cameroonian authorities are urging the public to get vaccinated against COVID-19, following a U.S. donation Monday of 300,000 Johnson & Johnson doses. Cameroonians can now choose between the Chinese Sinopharm, Oxford-AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson jabs but vaccine hesitancy remains high.Just 10 civilians have visited the Biyem Assi hospital in Cameroon’s capital Yaounde today to be vaccinated against COVID-19. Among them is Olivia Forbi, a 38-year-old vegetable seller.Forbi said she wants the Johnson & Johnson vaccine she heard about from Cameroon state radio.”I have learnt that Johnson & Johnson is more than 75 percent effective in stopping the spread of the coronavirus and secondly, you take it in one dose. Sinopharm and AstraZeneca, you take in two doses. You spend more time going for the second dose,” said Forbi.On July 21, President Joe Biden announced the U.S. was shipping 1.3 million vaccine doses to Africa. Cameroon, Central African Republic, Gambia, Lesotho, Niger, Senegal and Zambia are the seven beneficiaries.Mary Daschbach is in charge of mission at the U.S. embassy in Yaounde. She says she handed over 303,050 Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccines to the government of Cameroon on Monday.”We don’t want to see people dying in Cameroon from the variant that is raging round the rest of the world. We have seen what it has done in Indonesia, we have seen what it has done in Tunisia and we see what it is doing in the United States to people who have chosen not to get vaccinated. It is very important, the vaccine is effective at preventing people from dying,” she said.Dashbach said she was hopeful the 303,050 dozes donated by the United States of America will save 303,050 lives in Cameroon.Manaouda Malachie is Cameroon’s health minister. He said civilians should consider Johnson & Johnson as another life-saving vaccine.He said he is very grateful to the American government and its people for making it possible for Cameroon to have a variety of COVID-19 vaccines. He said he is pleading with people from 18 years and above who are still reluctant to be vaccinated to rush for either the Johnson & Johnson, Sinopharm or AstraZeneca vaccines and save their lives.Cameroon has received more than a million doses since April, but less than 25 percent of the vaccines have been dispensed.Alirou Bachirou is a 24-year-old cattle seller who has refused vaccination.Bachirou said he prefers local remedies Cameroon government has officially introduced to stop the spread of COVID 19. He said people should trust African healers’ remedies and stop believing that all solutions to their health problems must come from America or Europe.This month, Cameroon approved the sale of a herbal remedy from Samuel Kleda, a Roman Catholic bishop in the Central African.The government said the recipe is supplementary aid to fighting coronavirus infections and was not a cure for COVID-19.
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Weightlifter Guryeva Wins Turkmenistan’s 1st Olympic medal
Sparsely populated and isolated from most of the outside world, Turkmenistan has finally won its first Olympic medal since independence from the Soviet Union.
Weightlifter Polina Guryeva won a silver medal for the Central Asian nation at the Tokyo Games on Tuesday, and then predicted she would go down in the country’s history.
“I was in shock because it’s the first Olympic medal in the history of the Turkmen people. It’s the first medal, which I won. No sport in Turkmenistan has had a medal, not one medal,” the 21-year-old Guryeva said. “I think I’ve entered the history of Turkmenistan by winning a medal. I’m so in shock.”
Guryeva lifted a total 217 kilograms in the 59-kilogram category, edging Mikiko Andoh of Japan for second place. Kuo Hsing-Chun of Taiwan won gold by lifting 236kg.
Guryeva, who calls Kuo her “idol” and copies her training exercises, finished in 28th place at the 2019 world championships while competing one weight category higher. On her coach’s advice, she used the one-year Olympic delay caused by the coronavirus pandemic to reset, dropping down a class.
“When the pandemic began, I didn’t have a chance of qualifying,” she said. “In October, I dropped down and started training. And I went to the Asian Championships in Uzbekistan, lifted 211 total, and then I got the chance to go to the Olympics. And then I started training even harder to get this medal.”
Guryeva will return home to a country which has often had little contact with the outside world but is trying to make its name in the world of sports. The gas-rich nation sent two medalists to the Soviet Union’s Olympic teams for the 1956 and 1960 Games but success has been rare since.
Hosting the 2018 weightlifting world championships at a lavish new sports complex in the capital, Ashgabat, was one step toward raising the country’s profile. Turkmenistan’s authoritarian president, Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov, is a fan of cycling and the country was scheduled to hold the track cycling championships this year, too, but they were moved because of the pandemic.
The Turkmenistan government says it has not had any cases of COVID-19 but has made vaccinations mandatory.
For Kuo, the victory was about completing a set of major championship medals. The Taiwanese lifter finally added Olympic gold to her four world titles.
“I have all the pieces together. Now I am very happy,” she said through a translator.
Andoh lifted a total of 214kg for bronze despite what she later revealed was severe pain in her feet. After her last lift, she fell to the ground on stage with a smile and was helped away by her coaches.
In the 64-kilogram category, Maude Charron got hear a song at the Olympics that her “idol” never did — the Canadian national anthem.
Charron won an unusually open competition with six women in the running for a place on the podium ahead of their last lifts. Charron’s total of 236kg was four more than silver medalist Giorgia Bordignon of Italy and six ahead of Chen Wen-Huei of Taiwan.
Christine Girard, the Olympic champion from the 2012 London Games, never got to stand on the top step of the podium while “O Canada” was played because she originally finished in third place. The lifters that finished above her, from Kazakhstan and Russia, both later tested positive for doping.
“I asked her how to prepare for the games, how not to be too intimidated by the rings, and she wrote me a message,” Charron said. “Now I just feel like that’s her medal, that’s her moment because she didn’t have it in real time.”
Weightlifting has reallocated dozens of past Olympic medals and cut the Tokyo allocation for countries which racked up the most doping offenses.
“For sure anti-doping made a great deal in just cleaning the sport,” Charron said. “There is a progression in this clean way.”
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COVID Exacerbating Terrorist Recruitment in Kenya, Experts Say
Kenyan aid groups and analysts say the al-Shabab terror group is preying on young people who are struggling during the COVID pandemic, to recruit them into their ranks. To counter the effort, local groups in Kenya hold outreach sessions in low-income neighborhoods, as Ruud Elmendorp reports from Mombasa.
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European Union Urges Resumption of Tunisian Parliament
The European Union on Tuesday stressed the need to preserve democracy and stability in Tunisia following Tunisian President Kais Saied’s suspension of parliament and firing of the country’s prime minister.“We call for the restoration of institutional stability as soon as possible, and in particular for the resumption of parliamentary activity, respect for fundamental rights and an abstention from all forms of violence,” EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said in a statement.U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said he had spoken to Saied by telephone and expressed “support for Tunisia’s democracy.”“I encouraged President Saied to adhere to the principles of democracy and human rights that are the basis of governance in Tunisia and urged him to maintain open dialogue with all political actors and the Tunisian people,” Blinken tweeted.Saied’s move late Sunday followed weeks of political turbulence in the country – fueled in part by public anger over the government’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic.Tunisia’s President Kais Saied, center, leads a security meeting with members of the army and police forces in Tunis, July 25, 2021.Saied, a political independent, said he was acting in response to the country’s economic woes and political deadlock and added that the country’s constitution gave him that authority.Rached Ghannouchi, the parliament speaker and head of the dominant Ennahdha party, called the president’s actions a “coup” and said the legislature would continue its work.Two other main parties in parliament also called it a coup, which the president rejected.White House press secretary Jen Psaki said the Biden administration is concerned about the situation. She told reporters the developments “come as Tunisian authorities are seeking to stabilize their economy, confront a resurgence in the COVID-19 pandemic, and improve living standards for all Tunisians.”Saied’s announcement drew crowds of demonstrators into the streets of the capital, Tunis, and elsewhere to celebrate, reflecting people’s anger at parliament to address the country’s problems.Supporters of Tunisia’s biggest political party, the moderate Islamist Ennahda, take cover from stones thrown at them by supporters of President Kais Saied, outside the parliament building in Tunis, July 26, 2021.There were also protesters outside the parliament building who were against the president’s actions, and clashes took place between the opposing groups.Tunisian authorities shut down a live broadcast of Qatar’s Al-Jazeera TV, alleging that its correspondent appeared to encourage the small crowd of protesters to chant against the government. The broadcaster reported that its office in the Tunisian capital was sealed shut and that journalists were not being allowed to enter.Tunisia has struggled economically for years, and along with political challenges, it has dealt with a spike in COVID-19 cases and deaths.Political analyst Amin Mustafa told VOA that “most Tunisians have been badly hurt by the ongoing economic crisis and high unemployment, so the issue of suspending parliament is not likely to arouse a strong negative reaction.” The influential Tunisian Federation of Labor declared Monday that it considers “all measures taken by the president to be legal.”(Edward Yeranian in Cairo contributed to this report. Some information for this report came from The Associated Press, AFP and Reuters. )
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First Person Charged Under Hong Kong Security Law Found Guilty
The first person charged under Hong Kong’s national security law was found guilty on Tuesday of terrorism and inciting secession in a landmark case with long-term implications for how the legislation reshapes the city’s common law traditions.
An alternative charge of dangerous driving causing grievous bodily harm was not considered. The High Court will hear mitigation arguments on Thursday and sentencing will be announced at a later date.
Former waiter Tong Ying-kit, 24, was accused of driving his motorcycle into three riot police while carrying a flag with the protest slogan “Liberate Hong Kong, revolution of our times,” which prosecutors said was secessionist.
The widely anticipated ruling, much of which has hinged on the interpretation of the slogan, imposes new limits on free speech in the former British colony. Pro-democracy activists and human rights groups have also criticized the decision to deny Tong bail and a jury trial, which have been key features of Hong Kong’s rule of law.
His trial was presided over by judges Esther Toh, Anthea Pang and Wilson Chan, picked by city leader Carrie Lam to hear national security cases.
Toh read out a summary of the ruling in court, saying “such display of the words was capable of inciting others to commit secession.”
She added that Tong was aware of the slogan’s secessionist meaning, and that he intended to communicate this meaning to others. He also had a “political agenda” and his actions caused “grave harm to society.”
Tong had pleaded not guilty to all charges, which stemmed from events on July 1, 2020, shortly after the law was enacted.
Tong’s trial focused mostly on the meaning of the slogan, which was ubiquitous during Hong Kong’s mass 2019 protests.
It was chanted on the streets, posted online, scrawled on walls and printed on everything from pamphlets, books, stickers and T-shirts to coffee mugs.
The debates drew on a range of topics, including ancient Chinese history, the U.S. civil rights movement and Malcolm X, to ascertain whether the slogan was secessionist.
Two expert witnesses called by the defense to analyze the slogan’s meaning, drawing upon sources including an examination of some 25 million online posts, found “no substantial link” between the slogan and Hong Kong independence.
The governments in Beijing and Hong Kong have said repeatedly the security law was necessary to bring stability after the often-violent 2019 protests and that the rights and freedoms promised to the city upon its return to Chinese rule in 1997 remain intact.
The law, imposed by Beijing in June 2020, punishes what China sees as subversion, secession, terrorism and collusion with foreign forces.
The government has said that all prosecutions have been handled independently and according to law, and that legal enforcement action has nothing to do with the political stance, background or profession of those arrested.
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Former US Senator Enzi of Wyoming Dies After Bicycle Accident
Retired U.S. Senator Mike Enzi, a Wyoming Republican known as a consensus-builder in an increasingly polarized Washington, has died. He was 77.
Enzi died Monday surrounded by family and friends, former spokesman Max D’Onofrio said.
Enzi had been hospitalized with a broken neck and ribs after a bicycle accident near Gillette on Friday. He was stabilized before being flown to a hospital in Colorado but remained unconscious, D’Onofrio said.
Enzi fell near his home about 8:30 p.m. Friday, family friend John Daly said, around the time Gillette police received a report of a man lying unresponsive in a road near a bike.
Police have seen no indication that anybody else was nearby or involved in the accident, Lt. Brent Wasson told the newspaper.
A former shoe salesman first elected to the Senate in 1996, Enzi became known for emphasizing compromise over grandstanding and confrontation to get bills passed.
His “80-20 rule” called on colleagues to focus on the 80% of an issue where legislators tended to agree and discard the 20% where they didn’t.
“Nothing gets done when we’re just telling each other how wrong we are,” Enzi said in his farewell address to the Senate in 2020. “Just ask yourself: Has anyone ever really changed your opinion by getting in your face and yelling at you or saying to you how wrong you are? Usually that doesn’t change hearts or minds.”
Wyoming voters reelected Enzi by wide margins three times before he announced in 2019 that he would not seek a fifth term. Enzi was succeeded in the Senate in 2021 by Republican Cynthia Lummis, a former congresswoman and state treasurer.
Enzi’s political career began at 30 when he was elected mayor of Gillette, a city at the heart of Wyoming’s then-booming coal mining industry. He was elected to the Wyoming House in 1986 and state Senate in 1991.
The retirement of Republican Sen. Alan Simpson opened the way for Enzi’s election to the Senate. Enzi beat John Barrasso in a nine-way Republican primary and then Democratic former Wyoming Secretary of State Kathy Karpan in the general election; Barrasso would be appointed to the Senate in 2007 after the death of Sen. Craig Thomas.
Enzi wielded quiet influence as the Senate slipped into partisan gridlock over the second half of his career there.
His more recent accomplishments included advancing legislation to enable sales taxes to be collected on internet sales crossing state lines. He played a major role in reforming the No Child Left Behind law that set performance standards for elementary, middle and high school students.
He fought for Wyoming as a top coal-mining state to receive payments through the federal Abandoned Mine Land program, which taxes coal operations to help reclaim abandoned mining properties.
Enzi sought to encourage business innovation by hosting an annual inventors conference. He also backed bills involving the U.S. Mint but his proposal to do away with the penny was unsuccessful.
Enzi was born Feb. 1, 1944, in Bremerton, Washington. His family moved to Thermopolis soon after.
Enzi graduated from Sheridan High School in 1962 and from George Washington University with a degree in accounting in 1966. He received a master’s in retail marketing from the University of Denver in 1968.
He married Diana Buckley in 1969 and the couple moved to Gillette where they started a shoe store, NZ Shoes. They later opened two more NZ Shoes stores, in Sheridan and Miles City, Montana.
From 1985 to 1997, Enzi worked for Dunbar Well Service in Gillette, where he was an accounting manager, computer programmer and safety trainer.
Enzi served two, four-year terms as mayor of Gillette. He served on the U.S. Department of Interior Coal Advisory Committee from 1976 to 1979.
Enzi is survived by his wife; two daughters, Amy and Emily; a son, Brad; and several grandchildren.
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Major Chinese Companies Caught in Squeeze Play Between Beijing, US
Chinese companies with shares traded on American stock exchanges are facing significant challenges from political leaders in both Washington and Beijing.
New regulations in both countries will make it much harder for other companies to follow in their footsteps, restricting access to billions of the dollars in funding that helped grow internet retail giant Alibaba, the online gaming firm Tencent, the ride-hailing service Didi, and until recently China Telecom.
In Beijing, regulators have signaled that they plan to scrutinize domestic firms that want to list their shares abroad, particularly when those businesses collect data on Chinese consumers. Experts say this is causing many Chinese firms to reconsider plans to sell their shares on exchanges outside of China.
At the same time, the Biden administration is moving forward with plans to implement a 2020 law that would force foreign companies to de-list from U.S. exchanges unless U.S. regulators are allowed to verify their financial audits at least once every three years — something the Chinese government has been highly reluctant to allow.
Many of these major, high profile Chinese companies that have straddled markets and funding sources in the U.S. and China are suddenly caught in a tug-of-war between western capital markets that require financial transparency from public companies and a Chinese government that jealously guards sensitive information.
How this tension gets resolved will determine whether or not Chinese firms have open access to the deepest and most liquid source of investment capital in the world — the U.S. stock markets. It will also determine how much transparency investors can expect from the Chinese companies that are playing an ever-larger role in the world economy.
Major funding source
It’s hard to overstate Chinese companies’ reliance on U.S. capital markets for funding.
In the first six months of 2021 alone, 34 Chinese firms began listing their shares on U.S. exchanges, raising some $12.4 billion in capital and generating hundreds of millions of dollars in fees for Wall Street investment banks. Another 20 companies have initial public offerings (IPOs) scheduled for later this year.
According to the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission, as of May 5 this year, there were 248 Chinese companies listed on U.S. exchanges, with a combined market capitalization of $2.1 trillion.
Bumpy ride for Didi
Early this month, one of those firms, the ride-hailing company Didi, saw its share values plunge after Chinese regulators forced it to remove its app from Chinese markets, citing violations of data use and collection rules.
In announcing an investigation into Didi, Chinese authorities were vague about what the company’s supposed violations were, but said that the move was part of a broader effort to “consolidate the information security responsibilities of overseas listed companies.”
The Chinese company ByteDance, which owns the hugely popular short-form video app TikTok, earlier this year announced that it would delay its planned IPO in New York. The announcement came after a meeting with Chinese government officials, with the company citing unspecified data security problems.
The result of these government investigations, experts say, has been to make Chinese firms reconsider pursuing an initial public offering in the U.S. or other foreign markets.
Bolstering domestic exchanges
At the same time that it is applying new scrutiny to Chinese firms that list abroad, the Chinese government has been making efforts to show domestic firms that Chinese exchanges are a viable option for raising capital.
After then-president Donald Trump forced China Telecom to de-list its shares in the U.S. early this year, the firm is turning to Chinese exchanges. Last week Chinese regulators agreed to a plan for the company to offer $8.4 billion in shares to the public on the Shanghai stock exchange, the largest share offering on mainland China in more than a decade.
While some worry that the Chinese government is taking early steps to prevent domestic firms from selling their shares on foreign exchanges, others believe Beijing’s aim is not so clear.
China’s aims may be limited
“I think it would be premature to assume that the goal is to prevent listings of any kind by these companies in foreign markets,” said Nicholas R. Lardy, a senior fellow with the Peterson Institute for International Economics. “If that was the goal, the securities regulator could have just refused to approve any of the listings that were in the pipeline.”
In an interview with Bloomberg News last Friday, Paul Triolo, a senior leader with the Eurasia Group also said that he believes Beijing’s strategy is more limited.
It’s not clear that Beijing’s strategy is, for example, to force companies to all list in Hong Kong or on the mainland here, because I don’t think that’s really realistic in the short term,” he said.
“I think Beijing is trying to thread the needle here,” he added. “They’re trying to get their companies to agree to go through these regulatory hurdles before they list so they can gain some control over this. But they’re still, I think, grappling with the long-term issue of are they going to come to agreement with the U.S. over this auditing issue, because ultimately, that’s going to be a really huge factor in whether Chinese companies are going to continue to go and do IPOs on the U.S. market.”
Complications of transparency
The friction over the U.S. demand that Chinese public companies submit to financial audits arises from the inherent differences between Chinese companies and firms in most other major developed countries.
In the U.S., for example, public companies tend to have an arm’s-length relationship with the federal government, which means that when investors demand detailed information about their operations and finances, the government’s security interests are not implicated.
In China, however, major companies are often closely intertwined with the government or the armed forces, making demands for Western-style transparency far more complicated.
‘An inflection point’
Experts say there is little question that there will be at least some level of disconnection between Chinese companies and U.S. markets.
“Some decoupling is underway and seems inevitable,” said Doug Barry, a spokesperson for the U.S.-China Business Council. “The whole relationship is at an inflection point.”
“To avoid a major split, China in particular will have to change course in ways that at the moment seem very unlikely,” Barry said. “Our companies that are in China report continued good earnings from their operations there but are increasingly concerned about the future because of the deteriorating bilateral relationship. New investments will be reduced until the outlook becomes clearer.”
Like others, Barry holds out hope for a solution that might prevent major damage. He said that the Phase One trade deal negotiated by the Trump administration might be a means of achieving some kind of balance.
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Protests Flare in Tunisia as Critics Accuse President of ‘Coup’
The United States and several other countries have called for calm in Tunisia after violent protests broke out following the suspension of parliament Sunday. Tunisia’s president invoked purported emergency powers to sack the prime minister following months of demonstrations over a worsening economic crisis. Henry Ridgwell reports from London. Camera: Henry Ridgwell
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Pakistan Repatriates Afghan Soldiers Who Crossed Border in Face of Taliban Attack
Pakistan said Monday it “amicably” repatriated dozens of Afghan soldiers and police personnel to authorities in Afghanistan a day after they had crossed the border, apparently fleeing advances by Taliban insurgents.
Stepped up Taliban attacks in recent weeks have forced hundreds of pro-Afghan government forces to take shelter in Tajikistan, Iran, China and Pakistan, enabling the insurgents to seize landlocked Afghanistan’s strategic border crossings with these neighbors.
The Pakistani military said the 46 Afghan security forces, including five officers, were given “refuge and safe passage” into Pakistan “on their own request” Sunday night after the men were unable to hold their military posts across the border.
“The said soldiers have now been amicably returned to Afghan authorities on their request along with their weapons and equipment,” the statement said.
It added the repatriation took place just after midnight Monday at Nawa Pass border crossing in the Pakistani tribal district Bajaur.
In an earlier statement, the army noted the Afghan personnel “have been provided food, shelter and necessary medical care as per established military norms.”
Reports said the soldiers were stationed in the eastern Afghan border province of Kunar, the scene of heavy fighting between the Taliban and Afghan government forces.
However, an Afghan armed forces spokesperson, General Ajmal Omar Shinwari, earlier on Monday rejected as “not true” reports of Afghan military personnel seeking refuge in Pakistan.
Pakistani officials rejected those claims and released video footage of the security personnel just before returning them back to Afghanistan.
The Pakistani army noted that in early July it had also given “refuge/safe passage” to a group of 35 Afghan border forces under similar circumstances before they were handed over to Kabul.
The Taliban have stepped up attacks against Afghan security forces and captured vast territory since early May, when the United States and NATO allies officially began pulling their last remaining troops from Afghanistan.
Relations between Afghanistan and Pakistan, traditionally plagued by suspicion and deep mistrust, deteriorated after the Taliban earlier this month captured the town of Spin Boldak, which serves a major trade route between the two countries.
There are several border crossings between the two countries, which share a 2,600-kilometer historically open border.
Kabul has consistently accused Islamabad of allowing the Taliban to use sanctuaries on Pakistani soil to direct attacks inside Afghanistan.
Pakistan rejects the accusations and says it has over the past five years unilaterally constructed a robust fence and hundreds of new forts along most of the Afghan frontier, effectively preventing illegal movements in either direction.
Islamabad also accuses Kabul of providing shelter to anti-Pakistan militants to orchestrate cross-border terrorist attacks, charges Afghan authorities deny.
Bilateral relations between the two countries hit a new low earlier in the month when the Afghan government recalled all its diplomatic staff from Pakistan over the brief kidnapping of the daughter of the Afghan ambassador in Islamabad.
The Pakistani interior minister said last week, while addressing a news conference, that investigators have not found any evidence substantiating Kabul’s claims that the ambassador’s daughter was kidnapped.
The minister, however, called for the investigation to formally conclude in line with local laws and for close cooperation between the two countries to continue.
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Haiti: S Korean TV Channel Apology Over Olympics Stereotypes ‘Didn’t Go Far Enough’
Haitian Foreign Minister Claude Joseph says an apology by the head of a South Korean television station after the broadcaster portrayed Haiti using stereotypical images “didn’t go far enough.”
Munhwa Broadcasting Corp. (MBC) used video footage of a riot in Haiti as Haitian athletes marched in the Tokyo Olympics opening ceremony. The broadcaster is under fire for its use of stereotypical images to portray several countries, including a picture of Count Dracula for the Romanian team and the Chernobyl nuclear disaster to represent Team Ukraine.
At a press conference Monday, Park Sung-jae, the president of MBC, bowed deeply and promised a “major makeover,” including installing an ethics committee and better screening system.
The station also apologized to the embassies of Ukraine and Romania in Seoul, Park said.
“Their apology didn’t go far enough, but the incident shouldn’t be allowed to distract from the athletes who have worked tirelessly for years to get to the Olympics,” Joseph told VOA.
“The Olympics are that unique, unifying global event: all nations come together, not for politics but for the beauty of sport,” Joseph said.
Haiti has a delegation of six athletes participating in the Tokyo Games.
MBC’s coverage of the Friday opening ceremony quickly went viral on the internet, with some users expressing outrage and others laughing at the simplistic, offensive images. For Norway, MBC used a picture of fresh salmon. For Italy: pizza. For Mongolia: Genghis Khan.
In an English statement posted online, MBC said the images and captions were intended to “make it easier for the viewers to understand the entering countries quickly” during the ceremony.
“However, we admit that there was a lack of consideration for the countries concerned, and inspection was not thorough enough,” the statement read. “It is an inexcusable mistake.”
MBC has been rebuked before for such behavior. During the 2008 Beijing Olympics, it referred to Chad as the “dead heart of Africa” and spoke of “murderous inflation” in Zimbabwe.
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Biden Announces End to US Combat Mission in Iraq
Within months, U.S. forces in Iraq will end their combat duties there, President Joe Biden announced on Monday during a White House meeting with Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi.
In response to reporters’ questions in the Oval Office, Biden, alongside the Iraqi leader, said the new role for American troops in Iraq will be ”to continue to train, to assist, to help and to deal with ISIS (Islamic State group) as it arises, but we’re not going to be, by the end of the year, in a combat mission.”
Biden declined to say how many U.S. troops, of the current level of approximately 2,500, will remain there
“This is a shift in mission. It is not a removal of our partnership or our presence or our close engagement with Iraqi leaders,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki explained to reporters just prior to the Oval Office meeting.
U.S. troops in Iraq “are capable of doing multiple things,” Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin told a group of reporters in Alaska on Saturday.
Asked by VOA whether he would classify the American troops currently in Iraq as combat forces or primarily devoted to training, advising and assisting, Austin replied: “I think trying to make that distinction is very difficult. But I would say that the key will be what we’re purposed, what we’re tasked to do at any given time.”
The emphasis, officials say, will remain on ensuring there is not a repeat of what occurred seven years ago, when the Islamic State group swept through Mosul and tens of thousands of foreign fighters poured into Iraq and neighboring Syria. Iraqi government forces nearly collapsed, and there were dozens of suicide bombings monthly.
“As we always said from the beginning, nobody is going to declare ‘mission accomplished,'” a senior U.S. official told reporters on a briefing call on the eve of the Iraqi prime minister’s visit. “The goal is the enduring defeat of ISIS. We recognize you have to keep pressure on these networks as they seek to reconstitute, but the role for U.S. forces and coalition forces can very much recede, you know, deep into the background where we are training, advising, sharing intelligence, helping with logistics. And that’s about where we are now.”
The United States and Iraq agreed in April to change the American troops’ mission, which had begun in 2015 and focused on training and advisory roles assisting Iraqi security forces, but there was no timeline for completing the transition.
Iraqi Foreign Minister Fuad Hussein told VOA’s Kurdish Service last week he expected the two sides to agree on an end to the U.S. combat mission in Iraq.
“Largely, the shift is emblematic of the role the Biden administration wants the U.S. military to play in the counterterrorism fight: supporting partners through training and other forms of assistance while those partners take the lead in counterterrorism operations,” Katherine Zimmerman, a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, told VOA. “The approach relies heavily on America’s partners to be good partners, however. They must both continue to prioritize counterterrorism and not act in such a way as to further fuel the problem.”
Monday’s White House meeting came amid continued attacks against U.S. military positions in Iraq that the United States blames on Iran-linked militias.
On July 24, a pro-Iranian militia commander issued a statement threatening to attack U.S. forces inside the country and calling for a withdrawal of troops.
A drone attack Saturday hit a military base in Iraqi Kurdistan that hosts American troops.
Attacks in Baghdad in January and April of this year underscore the Islamic State group’s “resilience despite heavy counter-terrorism pressure from Iraqi authorities,” according to a United Nations report issued Friday that predicted the group “will continue to prioritize consolidating and resurging in its core area, encouraged by the political difficulties that inhibit stabilization and recovery” in Iraq and Syria.
The presence of U.S. troops is a polarizing subject in Iraq, with some citing the need for U.S. military support for Iraq’s security forces and others, including Iran-linked political factions, calling for the American troops to leave.
“There’s no doubt that the Biden administration is capitalizing on the “end the endless wars” narrative,” Behnam Ben Taleblu, a senior fellow at the Washington-based Foundation for Defense of Democracies, told VOA. “These conflicts, however, were not borne out of social or political vacuums, and the violence and threats to U.S. interests emanating from these theaters and actors within them will not end with a unilateral withdrawal or drawdown.”
Taleblu further warned that Iran is likely to celebrate an announcement of a reduction of U.S. troops in Iraq, saying it “helps provide a footnote to the Iranian narrative that America can be forced out of the region and that working against the Islamic Republic’s revolutionary foreign policy in the region is futile.”
Carla Babb in Singapore and Jeff Seldin contributed to this report.
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Kenya’s First Female Boss of Prisons Tapped to Lead Training Initiative
Wanini Kireri is changing the leadership landscape in the Kenya’s prison system. Kireri oversees both men’s and women’s prisons across the country, where her leadership style has been hailed as firm but humane.Kireri is the first woman in Kenya’s Prison Service to hold the position of senior assistant commissioner of prisons, and the first to lead the Prison Staff Training College, based in Ruiru, central Kenya, as its commandant.She joined the Kenya Prisons in 1982 and has been steadily rising through the ranks at the various institutions she has served. Kireri says her second stint at Langata Women’s Prison, situated in the capital, Nairobi, was the turning point in her career and the beginning of her legacy in the prison system.“I have seen my journey, what I have done, my impact in Kenya prisons, because I became a change agent, and it takes a lot of boldness,” she said.Kireri was the first officer in charge of Langata Women’s prison, where she allowed media cameras into the correctional facility that showed for the first time how female inmates and their babies were being treated. Then, the inmates were sleeping on the floor, with limited basic supplies like sanitary towels and diapers for the babies. She says the desire to change the institutions was also borne out of what she had witnessed as a junior officer.“I didn’t like a lot that was going on. I could see the mistreatment, but now as a very young officer and junior, because there’s an officer in charge, there’s little you could do about it. And if you become a little kind to prisoners, it’s like there is something that is not right with you,” Kireri said.That kindness, she says, is what has helped her to successfully navigate administration duties, even in Shimo la Tewa, a maximum-security prison for men located in the coastal city of Mombasa.“I did not go with that character of ‘I’m the boss.’ I went with that character of like a mother, as much as I’m an administrator, I went with the character of a mother. I remember within one month, they were all very comfortable, and I would listen and I realized, it’s just about listening,” Kireri said.Peter Ouko, a former inmate and now founder of a non-governmental organization that focuses on social justice, says a combination of respecting human rights laws in prison settings and Kireri’s personal qualities serve her well.“You could see Wanini doing this, but she depended on the people below her. So, she’s a people person, she’s a servant leader, and the leadership was not only amongst her staff, [but] it was also amongst the inmates. So, it was a holistic approach and that’s why the changes were effected very fast,” Ouko said.Vincent Mapesa, a long-serving prison officer, echoes his sentiments. He worked under seven male prison bosses before working with Kireri and says the prison is doing much better now.“It is the conducive environment that she has created amongst our officers. No discrimination, it depends on your ability and your passion to work and she values every officer under her and that is the biggest difference, which is different from the former men that we were working under,” Mapesa said.Kireri says she is hopeful that she will continue to climb the leadership ladder and maybe one day lead the entire Kenya Prisons Service, as she urges other women not to shy away from taking up leadership positions and challenging themselves.
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Somali Elections Delayed Again; No New Date Set
Somalia’s indirect election of lawmakers, expected to begin Sunday, was delayed once again as regional parliaments were not ready.
No new date was set for the Somali upper house elections.
Authorities said the vote did not take place because the five state leaders failed to submit a list of the final candidates. They also said a regional parliamentary committee was not put in place to oversee the vote.
The chair of the federal election implementation committee, Mohamed Hassan Irro, said the process is on the right track despite the setbacks.
He says the country is working toward a fruitful poll process, adding that the main challenging aspect has been resolved following a political agreement between the federal and state-level leadership in the country.
Somalia’s parliamentary and presidential elections were scheduled to take place after the end of President Mohamed Abdullahi Farmajo’s term in February, but disagreements between the government and opposition delayed the process for months.
The opposition says it is looking forward to a smooth process in the coming weeks despite the delays.
Mohamed Hassan Idris, an opposition member of parliament seeking reelection from Jubbaland state, says all the materials needed for the electoral process have been put into place and that the security and monitoring teams are also ready. He says they expect the list of the candidates to be submitted in the coming hours to kick off their campaigns before the start of the parliamentary elections.
More than 15 candidates have declared their interest in ousting Farmajo in the October 10 presidential elections that will be decided by the 329 members of parliament.
Mahad Wasuge from Somali Public Agenda, a research organization in Mogadishu, says the delay in parliamentary elections will affect the presidential vote, which he predicts will be pushed toward the end of the year.
Separately, Islamist militant group al-Shabab, which disrupted the election process in 2017, last week threatened to harm anyone who takes part in the presidential and parliamentary elections.
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July 26, 2021
A look at the best news photos from around the world.
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Botswana Sends Nearly 300 Troops to Mozambique
Botswana sent 296 troops to Mozambique Monday to join soldiers from other Southern African Development Community, or SADC, countries. The SADC troops are being deployed for the first time to quell a deadly Islamist insurgency in Cabo Delgado, Mozambique’s northernmost province.President Mokgweetsi Masisi saw off the troops at the Sir Seretse Khama International Airport in the capital Monday morning.Masisi, who is the chairperson of the SADC Organ on Politics, Defense and Security, said the deployment is part of the region’s effort to promote stability in member nation Mozambique.“Today, we witness yet another milestone in our set out objectives of propelling the peace agenda through our region in following through on the SADC mandate aimed at facilitating the peaceful conditions in the northern part of the Republic of Mozambique in Cabo Delgado, in particular,” he said. Masisi warns the troops to brace for an unconventional war in Cabo Delgado. “I am alive to the fact that you will be facing a deceptive enemy which is likely to use asymmetric warfare, unconventional and underhand war tactics against yourself and the population you will be protecting. As professionals, you stand for much more than they do, and you must avoid emulating them and sinking to their level,” he said.Botswana becomes the second SADC nation to send troops to Cabo Delgado, after South African soldiers landed in Mozambique last week.Rwanda, which is not a member of the regional 16-member bloc, also sent 1,000 troops earlier this month.Rwandan armed forces prepare to board a flight at the airport in Kigali to Mozambique, July 10, 2021, to help battle an Islamic extremist insurgency. Adriano Nuvunga, director of the Centre for Democracy and Development in Maputo, welcomes the arrival of foreign troops but is worried about the coordination of the operation.“These are troops from different nations, different cultures (and) different codes of operation. It’s a further challenge for Mozambique to coordinate this. It’s a further militarization, which can fuel the conflict with consequences for the local communities, for humanitarian situations and abuse of human rights,” said Nuvunga.Last month, SADC resolved to send troops to fight Islamist insurgents in the oil-rich Cabo Delgado region.The civil unrest has claimed the lives of nearly 3,000 people while an estimated 800,000 people have been displaced.
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Ties Between Peace Partners Jordan, Israel Seen as Improving
After years of strained relations between Jordan and Israel over the Palestinian issue, analysts say a new dynamic dominates their relationship with the end of Benjamin Netanyahu’s premiership and they point to some positive momentum.
Jordanian political commentator Osama Al Sharif says that just a month after a new Israeli coalition government was formed in June, ending 12 years of Netanyahu rule, the two sides reached several initiatives helping to normalize relations.
Their foreign ministers have concluded fresh deals on water and trade, he told the Jordan Times newspaper, whereby Jordan will buy an additional 50 million cubic meters of water as the kingdom battles a severe drought. This is besides the “30 million cubic meters Israel provides annually under the 1994 peace treaty,” noted Al Sharif.
The Israelis “also agreed to increase Jordanian exports to the West Bank from $160 million to $700 million annually,” Al Sharif said. Israeli Foreign Minister Yair Lapid called Jordan “an important neighbor and partner,” saying Israel “will broaden economic cooperation for the good of the two countries.”
King Abdullah, in a recent interview with CNN’s Fareed Zakaria, said he met both Israeli and Palestinian leaders following the 11-day war with Gaza, which he called a “wake-up call” for both sides, urging a return to the negotiating table.
“I think we have seen in the past couple of weeks, not only a better understanding between Israel and Jordan, but the voices coming out of both Israel and Palestine that we need to move forward and reset that relationship. This last war with Gaza, I thought was different. Since 1948, this is the first time I feel that a civil war happened in Israel. I think that was a wake-up call for the people of Israel and the people of Palestine to move along. God forbid, the next war is going to be even more damaging,” Abdullah said.
Bruce Riedel, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington, told VOA that he shares the king’s concerns, if the Israeli-Palestinian stalemate continues and another war with Gaza were to erupt.
“As long as the U.S. remains committed to the two-state solution and talking to the Palestinian Authority, that’s to the minimal needs of the kingdom. It’s a frustrating situation because we know the status quo is not sustainable. Another round of violence like we saw earlier this year is only a matter of time,” Riedel said.
Commentator Al Sharif also warns that “while ties with Israel can only improve after years of turbulence, trouble could be lurking ahead.”
“Jordan cannot compromise on the two-state solution, nor can it accept Israeli actions” in East Jerusalem, he said, whether at the Al Aqsa Mosque or in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood.
Al Sharif warned that any future attacks on Jerusalem “will force the Jordanian monarch to react” as the custodian of the city’s Muslim and Christian holy sites.
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Cryptocurrency Booming Among Kenyan Farmers
Cryptocurrencies make headlines for shaking up the financial world, but they are also gaining ground in less developed countries. In Kenya, an American economist, who introduced blockchain technology for low-income urban customers, has extended the cashless system to the countryside.On a lush green farm in Kilifi on Kenya’s tropical Indian Ocean coast, 26-year-old farmer Emmanuel Kahindi is harvesting tomatoes and other vegetables. He is using Kenya’s cryptocurrency, Sarafu, to sell his vegetables, and to buy supplies without having to use any cash.Sarafu helped me a lot, he said, especially because it makes me save my money, my Kenyan currency. He said he uses Sarafu to purchase things for the garden like seeds and fertilizer.Sarafu coins work like vouchers that can be exchanged for goods or services of other users of the currency. Anyone with a Kenyan mobile phone line can enroll. Users are given 50 Sarafu for free. After that, they earn coins by selling a product or service to another user.Sarafu is what’s known as a community inclusion currency, or CIC, allowing people to give or take credit without having to deposit Kenyan shillings or other currency in a bank.It was created by Will Ruddick, an American economist through his Kenyan nonprofit, Grassroots Economics. He recently introduced it to rural areas like Kilifi.“I think that’s where there is the most chronic lack of national currency. So, I think what’s happening, we’re filling a gap. People say look, the national ledger system, the national currency it is not available for us. We can’t measure our trade in this thing,” said Ruddick.Kahindi moved with his harvest to a nearby restaurant in Kilifi. There he offers his vegetables for selling and gets Sarafu in a return. The owner is Giataari Mwang and he said he is happy with it.“Sarafu is good because it allows us to get our farm produce straight from local neighborhood farms and put it on our plate and serve it to our customers and they are able to pay us with Sarafu,” he said.Bitange Ndemo is a senior lecturer at the University of Nairobi. He said such community-focused cryptocurrencies have a potential to expand beyond Kenya and in other parts of Africa.He said that cryptocurrencies give communities an option to monetize resources in a way that they cannot do with cash, pointing at the cobalt mines in the Democratic Republic of Congo as a potential example.“Nothing stops them from a cobalt coin based on the reserves they have in terms of cobalt. The country then can then raise sufficient resources to develop the country,” said Ndemo.In Kenya, the coins will be based on the agriculture production across the nation and here in Kilifi.For Emmanuel, it is time to relax after work. He is now seated in the restaurant and is using Sarafu to enjoy a well-deserved meal.
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Europe Makes New Vaccination Push to Counter Rising COVID Cases
With Europe’s rise in coronavirus infections accelerating, more governments are seeking ways to force the unvaccinated, mainly in their twenties and thirties, to get inoculated, and avoid a return to lockdowns.
Italy and Britain have followed France’s lead in planning or imposing restrictions on the unvaccinated. The moves prompted street protests in both countries Sunday and Saturday. Several British Conservative lawmakers are threatening to boycott their party’s annual conference later this year because of vaccination requirements for attendees.
Initial evidence, however, suggests compulsion is working. Within 24 hours of Italy announcing that from next month entry to sports stadiums, museums, cinemas, swimming pools and gyms will only be permitted for people who’ve been inoculated, appointments for vaccinations soared in some regions by 200%, say authorities in Rome.
France saw a similar spike in vaccine bookings after it announced that certification — in other words a digital vaccine passport — would be needed to enter many venues.
The Italian government has prolonged its state of emergency to December 31 but is desperately trying to avoid lockdowns or reintroducing tighter restrictions for regions seeing spikes in confirmed cases, such as Lazio, Sicily, Veneto and Sardinia. Prime Minister Mario Draghi told reporters last week, “The health pass is an instrument to allow Italians to continue their activities with the guarantee of not being among contagious people.”
“No vaccines means new lockdowns,” he added.
Draghi had intended for the measure to go further and wanted to include vaccination requirements for counter service in bars and for traveling on long-distance trains, but had to weaken the measure in the face of resistance from Matteo Salvini and his Lega party, who threatened to block the restrictions in parliament.
Salvini was belatedly was inoculated Friday. The populist nationalist leader spoke out last week against compelling or seeking to coerce people to get the jab.
“I’m interested in not ruining the lives of millions of Italians who are not yet covered by the vaccine,” he said. “Many cannot do it, for health reasons. Complicating the lives of these people with the obligation of the Green pass? Let’s not joke. We can’t stop in mid-July, a tourist season that is painstakingly restarting.” By Green pass, he was referring to vaccine passports.
That earned a sharp rebuke from Draghi, who shot back at a press conference, “The appeal to the No Vax is an invitation to die.”
Thousands of Italians disagree with their prime minister and Saturday took to the streets in dozens of towns across the country to protest the new measure, which comes into effect August 6.
“Better to die free than live like slaves!” read a banner waved outside Milan’s cathedral, while another in Rome was captioned, “Vaccines set you free” over a picture of the gates to Auschwitz, according to AFP reports.
An estimated 160,000 people protested nationwide in France Saturday against making health passports a key tool in the bid to curb infections. Dozens of people were arrested, according to French police. Twenty-nine policemen were injured.
The protests came hours before lawmakers hammered out a compromise deal between members of the National Assembly and Senate and approved a measure that requires proof of a double vaccination, recent recovery from the virus or a negative test for entry into entertainment venues. Proposed criminal sanctions for businesses that don’t check health passports were removed from the measure that passed.
Under the terms, employees of establishments that require a health pass cannot be dismissed if they refuse to be vaccinated or undergo regular testing, but will be required to take annual leave and thereafter unpaid leave.
“Nice evening for democracy, bad for the virus,” tweeted health minister Olivier Véran.
French President Emmanuel Macron, responding to accusations by vaccine opponents that he is trampling on individual liberty, said, “Everyone is free to express themselves calmly with respect for one another. But freedom where I owe nothing to someone else does not exist.”
French health authorities reported nearly 23,000 new confirmed cases Saturday, mainly of the high contagious delta variant.
Despite the raucous protests, the signs both in Italy and France are that tougher vaccination-related restrictions have public backing, with recent opinion polls in Italy and France suggesting support ranges from between 65% and 70%.
Since Macron announced his plans for health pass rules two weeks ago, six million people in France have signed up for vaccinations.
In Britain, too, there is pushback to new proposed rules from an alliance of anti-vaxxers and libertarians on both the left and right of the political spectrum. After weeks of rejecting the idea of a regime of vaccine passports, Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who has been urging young people to get vaccinated, turned to the stick, too. Come September, vaccine passports will be needed to enter nightclubs and sports stadiums.
The tougher line came as the government’s own private polling suggested young people were far less likely to take up the offer of vaccinations than their older counterparts, government officials told VOA. Public polling by YouGov, a British pollster, has shown the same thing. According to a recent YouGov survey, people aged 16 to 34 are twice as likely to refuse the jab as those between the ages of 55 and 75.
Part of the reason for the schism is that the young feel they are at a much-reduced risk from the virus, say the government’s scientific advisers, and they are more susceptible to vaccine-conspiracy theories via social media, they add.
In Britain and other European countries, governments are being unnerved by the sluggish take-up of the jabs as a delta-driven pandemic picks up steam. In Greece, around 44% of the population is fully vaccinated. Greece’s government has announced mandatory vaccinations for health workers and other staff at hospitals and clinics.
But the government is encountering fierce resistance from some senior Greek Orthodox clerics, despite the support for the government from Archbishop Ieronymos, the church’s primate, who last year spent several days in intensive care after contracting the virus that causes the COVID-19 disease.
Earlier this month, the Greek health minister, Vasilis Kikilias, met with the Synod, the church’s governing body, in an effort to persuade officials to back the vaccination campaign. The Synod, though, would only support the “free choice of vaccination as the exclusive and scientifically tested solution to stop the spread of the virus.” It added that prayer and “participation in worship” were also important and refrained from rebuking anti-vax clerics.
Germany, too, is now considering imposing restrictions on the unvaccinated, after weeks of German Chancellor Angela Merkel saying she disapproved of the idea. The change of heart coincides with warnings from disease modelers that cases are likely to increase by more than 60% per week.
“Vaccinated people will definitely have more freedoms than unvaccinated people,” Merkel’s chief of staff, Helge Braun, said in a broadcast interview Sunday.
But there’s fierce debate within the ruling Christian Democratic Party about the tougher retractions on the unvaccinated with the party’s candidate to succeed Merkel in September elections, Armin Laschet, opposing efforts to compel people. “I do not believe in compulsory vaccination, and I do not believe in indirectly putting pressure on people to get vaccinated,” he told ZDF television Sunday.
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Sierra Leone’s Parliament Votes to Abolish Capital Punishment
Sierra Leone is set to become the 23rd country on the African continent to abolish the death penalty. Lawmakers in the West African nation voted unanimously Friday to outlaw capital punishment and replace it with life imprisonment or a minimum 30-year sentence for such crimes as murder or treason and grant judges additional discretion when handing down a sentence. Sierra Leone has not executed anyone since 1998, when 24 soldiers were put to death by firing squad for taking part in a coup attempt the previous year. At the time the country was in the throes of a bloody civil war that lasted from 1991 to 2002. But more than 80 people have been sent to death row since then. President Julius Maada Bio is expected to sign the legislation into law. More and more Africa countries have abolished the death penalty, which human rights groups consider a cruel remnant of centuries of brutal colonial rule. Malawi’s Supreme Court ruled the practice unconstitutional in April, while Chad outlawed it in 2020. 16 people were executed across sub-Saharan Africa last year compared to 25 people in 2019, a drop of 36%, according Amnesty International, a human rights advocacy group. Samira Daoud, Amnesty International’s West and Central Africa Director, praised the vote by Sierra Leone’s lawmakers in a statement saying it is “a major victory for all those who tirelessly campaigned to consign this cruel punishment to history and a strengthening of the protection of the right to life.” Daoud urged President Maada Bio to immediately sign the bill and that the “inhuman and degrading punishment,” she added, “has no place in our world.”
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