In a report released Tuesday, Human Rights Watch accused the Kenyan government of failing to properly handle a cash transfer program intended to help the poor during the COVID-19 pandemic. The rights group says the money instead went to people connected with officials and politicians.
Anette Okumu, 42, lost her business due to COVID-19. She and her neighbors in the Kibera section of Nairobi registered for a government cash support program in April to help her feed her nine children.
Okumu says her husband was jobless, and she really needed that money because she has a child who has sickle cell anemia and the disease requires her to feed her child healthy food. Okumu says she was hopeful that she would receive help from the government. She says she did not get the money — but others did. In May of last year, President Uhuru Kenyatta ordered the Treasury to release some $100 million to support the country’s most vulnerable people for at least eight months.
The head of Human Rights Watch in East Africa, Otsieno Namwaya, says that money never served its intended purpose.
“Most of the households that were supposed to have received support from the government never received anything,” he said. “The few who received something did not receive the amount the government said it had sent to them. The majority over a period of eight months received 3,000 – 4,000 shillings. The government was saying it was sending a total of 35,000 for the period of eight months.” The Washington-based rights group says its investigators spoke to 136 government employees and Nairobi residents for its eight-month study. The researchers found that the cash transfer program lacked transparency in multiple ways, from the registration process to the distribution of funds.
A report released by the Office of the Auditor-General in April 2021 said that some $4 million was dispersed to help nearly 100,000 Kenyans in a poor section of Nairobi for one month. But the investigators said they could not verify the identities and addresses of more than 97,000 alleged recipients. Their report concluded “the lawfulness and utilization of the $4 million could not be confirmed.” Namwaya says most of the money instead went to friends and family of officials and the employees of certain government agencies.
“Politicians and government officials actually ensured that official aides, people working offices and relatives were benefiting from the money when the evidence suggests that these people did not deserve to get the money. While the people who really deserve the money, people who were going hungry for even as far as four days a week were not getting the money,” he said.
The program was run by the Ministry of Labor and Social Protection. VOA reached out to the principal secretary of the ministry for comment but received no response. Human Rights Watch is calling on Kenyan authorities to investigate the issue and extensively review and strengthen internal mechanisms for implementing such programs in the future.
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Month: July 2021
Prominent Nigerian Separatist Leader Arrested
Nigerian media report Yoruba separatist leader Sunday Adeyemo, known as Sunday Igboho, has been arrested in neighboring Benin as he was about to board a flight to Germany. He is the second Nigerian separatist leader this month to be arrested outside the country.The arrest comes three weeks after Nigerian security operatives barged into Sunday Igboho’s home, picked up relatives and accomplices, and declared him wanted for stockpiling weapons.Igboho, who has been campaigning for an independent Yoruba state in southwest Nigeria, went into hiding after the raid. He made his way to Benin, where security operatives arrested him at the Porto-Novo airport at 2 am on Monday morning.He is expected to be extradited to Nigeria on Tuesday, according to local media sources.Igboho rose to prominence in January after he issued a seven-day ultimatum to herders and pastoralists in southwest Oyo state to vacate the state.Speaking with Sahara Reporters, an online news outlet based in the U.S., Igboho’s legal counsel Pelumi Olajengbesi confirmed his arrest and said, “We are making efforts to ensure that he is fine.”His arrest highlights authorities’ crackdown on growing separatist movements in the West African nation.Late last month, authorities arrested Nnamdi Kanu, the leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra, or IPOB, and returned him to Nigeria. He now faces trials for offenses including treasonable felony.The separatist movements have gained momentum in recent years, which observers attribute to the Nigerian government’s inability to deal with widespread insecurity.Meanwhile, government critics are accusing authorities of being heavy-handed in cracking down on separatist movements but slow in addressing criminal activities like large-scale kidnappings for ransom.
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Attackers Attempt to Stab Mali Interim President
An official at Mali’s presidency said Tuesday that interim leader Assimi Goita was “safe and sound” after armed men attacked him during a religious ceremony in the capital Bamako. The official added that Goita had arrived at the military camp of Kati, outside Bamako, “where security has been reinforced”. Two armed men, including one who wielded a knife, attacked Goita in the great mosque in the capital Bamako, an AFP journalist saw. The attack took place during prayers for the Islamic festival of Eid al-Adha. Religious Affairs Minister Mamadou Kone told AFP that a man had “tried to kill the president with a knife” but was apprehended. Latus Toure, the director of the Great Mosque, said an attacker had lunged for the president but wounded someone else. AFP was not immediately able to confirm the accounts. Mali has been struggling to contain a jihadist insurgency that first emerged in the north of the country in 2012, and has since spread to Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger. Thousands of soldiers and civilians have been killed and hundreds of thousands have fled their homes. The conflict has also been mirrored by political instability in the capital. Colonel Goita led a coup last August, ousting elected president Ibrahim Boubacar Keita after weeks of mass protests over corruption and the long-running jihadist conflict. In May, he ousted a transitional government that had been entrusted with the task of leading the country back to civilian rule in February 2022. He was then named transitional president, but has pledged to keep to the goal for returning to civilian government.
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Billionaire Bezos Ready to Realize Dream of Traveling to Space
American businessman Jeff Bezos is set to become the second billionaire to self-fund a trip to space this month when he blasts off Tuesday morning from a remote desert launch site in Texas.
The 57-year-old founder of e-commerce giant Amazon and three companions will fly into space aboard the New Shepard rocket built by his company Blue Origin, which he founded in 2000 with the goal of creating permanent space colonies where people will live and work.
New Shepard, named after Alan Shepard, America’s first astronaut, is scheduled to blast off shortly after sunrise (300 GMT, 7 a.m. Washington time) and travel at three times the speed of sound before the capsule separates from the rocket and floats above the Earth for three to four minutes, allowing Bezos and his three crewmates to experience weightlessness. The capsule will then re-enter the atmosphere and make a parachute landing near the launch site, while the rocket will make an automated vertical landing several miles away.
Bezos will be joined by his brother, Mark, plus 82-year-old aviation pioneer Mary Wallace “Wally” Funk and 18-year-old Oliver Daemen, making them the oldest and youngest persons to fly into space.
Funk was one of the so-called Mercury 13, the first group of women to train for the U.S. space program in the 1960s but were denied a chance to become astronauts because of the gender.
The Dutch-born Daemen was a last-minute addition to the crew after the anonymous winner of a $28 million auction for a seat on New Shepard dropped out, citing a scheduling conflict. Daemen’s father was a runner-up in the auction, which makes the young astronaut Blue Origin’s first paying customer.
Bezos hopes New Shepard will reach an altitude of 106 kilometers above the Earth, past the so-called Karman line (100 kilometers above Earth), which is recognized by international aviation and aerospace federations as the threshold of space. It will also surpass the 85 kilometer mark reached by British billionaire Richard Branson on July 11 when he and five crewmates flew aboard his Virgin Galactic rocket-powered space plane.
Bezos, a fervent space enthusiast since watching the Apollo lunar missions in his youth, is heading into space on the 52nd anniversary of the historic Apollo 11 lunar landing.
During a television interview Monday, Bezos insisted that his goal was not about competition with Branson, but “about building a road to space so that future generations can do incredible things in space.”
Blue Origin’s first manned mission comes after 15 test flights of the New Shepard vehicle. Bob Smith, the company’s chief executive officer, says two more manned missions aboard New Shepard are planned by the end of this year if Tuesday’s flight is successful.
The company is also building a larger rocket, New Glenn — named after John Glenn, the first U.S. astronaut to orbit the Earth — that will send both manned and unmanned vehicles into space.
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Storm Threat Prompts Calls for Outside Help Fighting Oregon Fires
The threat of thunderstorms and lightning has prompted officials in fire-ravaged Oregon to ask for help from outside the Pacific Northwest to prepare for additional blazes as many resources are already devoted to a massive fire in the state that has grown to a third the size of Rhode Island.
The 1,391-square-kilometer (537-square-mile) Bootleg Fire is burning 483 kilometers (300 miles) southeast of Portland in and around the Fremont-Winema National Forest, a vast expanse of old-growth forest, lakes and wildlife refuges. Evacuations and property losses have been minimal compared with much smaller blazes in densely populated areas of California.
But given how the Bootleg Fire — fueled by extreme weather — keeps growing by miles each day, officials with the Rogue River-Siskiyou National Forest in southwest Oregon are asking for more outside crews to be ready should there be a surge in fire activity there.
“Although the lightning activity predicted for early this week is expected to occur east of us, we are prepared for the worst, and hoping for the best,” Mike McCann, an assistant fire staff, said Monday in a statement released by the national forest.
The worry is that dry conditions, a drought and the recent record-breaking heat wave in the region have created tinderbox conditions, so resources like fire engines are being recruited from places like Arkansas, Nevada and Alaska.
A rural state
Meanwhile, the Bootleg Fire’s jaw-dropping size contrasted with its relatively small impact on people underscores the vastness of the American West and offers a reminder that Oregon, which is larger than Britain, is still a largely rural state, despite being known mostly for its largest city, Portland.
If the fire were in densely populated parts of California, “it would have destroyed thousands of homes by now,” said James Johnston, a researcher with Oregon State University’s College of Forestry who studies historical wildfires. “But it is burning in one of the more remote areas of the lower 48 states. It’s not the Bay Area out there.”
At least 2,000 homes have been evacuated at some point during the fire and another 5,000 threatened. At least 70 homes and more than 100 outbuildings have gone up in flames. Thick smoke chokes the area where residents and wildlife alike have been dealing with months of drought and extreme heat. No one has died.
Pushed by strong winds from the southwest, the fire is spreading rapidly to the north and east, advancing toward an area that’s increasingly remote.
Evacuation orders on the fire’s southern edge, closer to more populous areas like Klamath Falls and Bly, have been lifted or relaxed as crews gain control. Now it’s small, unincorporated communities like Paisley and Long Creek — both with fewer than 250 people — and scattered homesteads that are in the crosshairs.
But as big as the Bootleg Fire is, it’s not the biggest Oregon has seen. The fire’s size so far puts it fourth on the list of the state’s largest blazes in modern times, including rangeland fires, and second on the list of infernos specifically burning in forest.
These mega fires usually burn until the late fall or even early winter, when rain finally puts them out.
The largest forest fire in modern history was the Biscuit Fire, which torched nearly 2,000 square kilometers (780 square miles) in 2002 in the Rogue River-Siskiyou National Forest in southern Oregon and northern California.
The Bootleg Fire is now about 25% contained.
On Monday, flames forced the evacuation of a wildlife research station as firefighters had to retreat for the ninth consecutive day because of erratic and dangerous fire behavior. Sycan Marsh hosts thousands of migrating and nesting birds and is a key research station on wetland restoration in the upper reaches of the Klamath Basin.
Fires across the West
The Bootleg Fire was one of many fires burning in a dozen states, most of them in the U.S. West. Sixteen large uncontained fires burned in Oregon and Washington state alone on Monday.
Extremely dry conditions and heat waves tied to climate change have made wildfires harder to fight. Climate change has made the West much warmer and drier in the past 30 years and will continue to make weather more extreme and wildfires more frequent and destructive.
And in Northern California, authorities expanded evacuations on the Tamarack Fire in Alpine County in the Sierra Nevada to include the mountain town of Mesa Vista. That fire, which exploded over the weekend and forced the cancellation of an extreme bike ride, was 93 square kilometers (36 square miles) in size with no containment.
Thunderstorms expected to roll through Monday night could bring winds to fan the flames and lightning that could spark new ones, the National Weather Service said.
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Blinken Speaks with Iranian American Journalist Targeted in Kidnap Plot
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said an Iranian American journalist targeted in what the Justice Department called an Iranian kidnapping plot “has demonstrated tremendous courage.”
Blinken tweeted Monday that he had a “good conversation” with Masih Alinejad, a VOA Persian TV host and outspoken Iranian government critic.
“I affirmed that the U.S. will always support the indispensable work of independent journalists around the world,” Blinken posted. “We won’t tolerate efforts to intimidate them or silence their voices.”
Alinejad said she and Blinken spoke for 15 minutes, and that the top U.S. diplomat found that the idea Iran would abduct her from U.S. soil “particularly egregious.”
“Secretary Blinken said the Biden Administration takes Islamic Republic’s threats very, very seriously and was aware of how the Tehran regime targets dissidents in the U.S and in Europe,” Alinejad tweeted. “He reassured me that the U.S. would hold the regime accountable for this plot.”
Last week, the U.S. Justice Department said a New York federal court unsealed an indictment charging five Iranian nationals with involvement in the alleged plot to kidnap a “Brooklyn journalist, author and human rights activist for mobilizing public opinion in Iran and around the world to bring about changes to the [Iranian] regime’s laws and practices.” The Justice Department press release did not name the target of the scheme.
Alinejad, who lives in New York City’s Brooklyn borough, later confirmed on her social media accounts that she was the targeted person.
Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh dismissed the U.S. allegation, saying in comments published by Iranian state media it is a “baseless and ridiculous accusation unworthy of a response.”
Alinejad worked as a journalist in Iran in the 2000s, writing articles exposing government mismanagement and corruption until authorities revoked her press pass and threatened her with arrest. She fled her homeland in 2009, first to Britain, before settling in New York in 2014.
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UNESCO Removes DR Congo Park From Endangered List
The Democratic Republic of Congo scored a key heritage victory on Monday as UNESCO removed one of its nature reserves from a list of threatened sites, the U.N. agency said. UNESCO praised the country’s conservation efforts and the government’s commitment to ban prospecting for oil in Salonga, the vast central African country’s largest public park. The World Heritage Committee cited “improvements towards its conservation state” in its decision, according to a statement Monday. “Regular monitoring of the wild fauna shows that the bonobo (ape) populations remain stable within the territory despite past pressure, and that the forest elephant population is starting to come back,” the statement said. The Congolese Environment Ministry welcomed the move. It would be “an opportunity to rethink the management of the peatland with a view to quantifying its capacity to absorb carbon” emissions, it told Agence France-Presse in a statement. Salonga is Africa’s largest protected rainforest and home to 40% of the Earth’s bonobo apes, along with several other endangered species. It was created in 1970 by then-dictator Mobutu Sese Seko and had been on the endangered list since 1984. The park is also home to slender-snouted crocodiles and Congo peacocks.
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Ethiopia News Website to Resume Operations After Suspension
Ethiopia’s news website Addis Standard says it has been given approval by the government to resume operations this week after it was suspended over accusations it advanced the agenda of fighters in the war-torn northern Tigray region. The English-language website and monthly magazine said Monday that the country’s media regulator admitted legal missteps in revoking the outlet’s license but reiterated that the news media must stop publishing specific references it says mischaracterize the Tigray region.The Ethiopia Media Authority (EMA) has warned media outlets, including the Voice of America, not to refer to the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) as a national army by calling it the Tigray Defense Force or TDF.Ethiopia’s government has been battling the TPLF in the country’s north since November, and in May it designated the group a terrorist organization. The TPLF is a former member of the coalition that ruled Ethiopia for more than 30 years. FILE – A young man stands in front of a sign of the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) party, in the city of Mekele, northern Ethiopia, Sept. 6, 2020.Addis Standard said two senior members of its newsroom met Monday with officials from the EMA and said the outlet would get back its certificate of registration on Wednesday. It said the EMA “recognized that its written notice cautioning media to refrain from such terminologies” about the TPLF was issued after the publications were already suspended and said in the future, proper means of notification would be followed. The statement sent to VOA on Friday, signed by EMA agency chief Yonatan Tesfaye Regassa, said, “Bearing in mind that Tigray is one of the federation units of Ethiopia that cannot have a force with that nomenclature (such as ‘Defense Force’) and as the country’s parliament has labeled TPLF a terrorist organization, the (EMA hereby) informs that use of such terminology violates Ethiopia’s territorial integrity, national interest and security.” Warning all foreign media against “using such characterization,” the statement said, “further use of the same terminology by any foreign media will be a grave violation of Ethiopian law, which will lead to stringent measures.” Director General of the Ethiopian Media Authority Mohammed Idris said in an interview with VOA that the government could revoke the licenses of media outlets that violate the new policy. “When you compare them (the foreign media) with the local media, you see them using these terms without any reservation. In some cases, surprisingly, even individuals who are not in the media use the terms or endorse them,” he said. “We have notified the foreign media that it is inappropriate to act in such a way and they should refrain from using them. The local media also have been notified to be careful when they use these terms or bear the consequences. The consequences, as it is enshrined in the law, could go up to revocation of their registration.” The suspension last week of Addis Standard drew outrage from global press freedom watchdogs who have accused the government of Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed of taking an increasingly hard line against domestic news outlets covering the conflict. When Ahmed came to power in 2018, it appeared that Ethiopia would shake off its reputation as having a repressive media environment, but conditions for journalists have worsened in the face of new political challenges, according to reports by multiple press freedom advocates.
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Stocks Skid as Virus Fears Shake Markets; Dow Falls 2.1%
Resurgent pandemic worries knocked stocks lower from Wall Street to Tokyo on Monday, fueled by fears that a faster-spreading variant of the virus may upend the economy’s strong recovery.
The S&P 500 fell 68.67, or 1.6%, to 4,258.49, after setting a record just a week earlier. In another sign of worry, the yield on the 10-year Treasury touched its lowest level in five months as investors scrambled for safer places to put their money.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average slumped 725.81, or 2.1%, to 33,962.04, while the Nasdaq composite lost 152.25, or 1.1%, to 14,274.98.
Airlines and other companies that would get hurt the most by potential COVID-19 restrictions took some of the heaviest losses, similar to the early days of the pandemic in February and March 2020. United Airlines lost 5.5%, mall owner Simon Property Group gave up 5.9%, and cruise operator Carnival fell 5.7%.
The selling also circled the world, with several European markets sinking roughly 2.5% and Asian indexes down a bit less. The price of benchmark U.S. crude, meanwhile, fell more than 7% after OPEC and allied nations agreed on Sunday to eventually allow for higher oil production this year.
COVID numbers
Increased worries about the virus may seem strange to people in parts of the world where masks are coming off, or already have, thanks to COVID-19 vaccinations. But the World Health Organization says cases and deaths are climbing globally after a period of decline, spurred by the highly contagious delta variant. And given how tightly connected the global economy is, a hit anywhere can quickly affect the other side of the world.
Even in the U.S., where the vaccination rate is higher than in many other countries, people in Los Angeles County must once again wear masks indoors regardless of whether they’re vaccinated following spikes in cases, hospitalizations and deaths.
Across the country, the daily number of COVID-19 cases has soared by nearly 20,000 over the past two weeks to about 32,000. The vaccine campaign has hit a wall, with the average number of daily inoculations sinking to the lowest levels since January, and cases are on the rise in all 50 states.
Economic growth expected
That’s why markets are concerned, even though reports show the economy is still recovering at a fantastically high rate and the general expectation is for it to deliver continued growth. Any worsening of virus trends threatens the high prices that stocks have achieved on expectations the economy will fulfill those lofty forecasts.
Financial markets have been showing signs of increased concerns for a while, but the U.S. stock market had remained largely resilient. The S&P 500 has had just two down weeks in the past eight, and the last time it had even a 5% pullback from a record high was in October.
Several analysts pointed to that backdrop of high prices and very calm movements for weeks while dissecting Monday’s drop.
“It’s a bit of an overreaction, but when you have a market that’s at record highs, that’s had the kind of run we’ve had, with virtually no pullback, it becomes extremely vulnerable to any sort of bad news,” said Randy Frederick, vice president of trading and derivatives at Charles Schwab. “It was just a matter of what that tipping point was, and it seems we finally reached that this morning” with worries about the delta variant.
He and other analysts are optimistic stocks can rebound quickly. Investors have been trained recently to see every dip in stocks as merely an opportunity to buy low.
Barry Bannister, chief equity strategist at Stifel, was more pessimistic. He said the stock market may be in the early stages of a drop of as much as 10% following its big run higher. The S&P 500 nearly doubled after hitting its bottom in March 2020.
“The valuations, they just got too frothy,” he said. “There was just so much optimism out there.”
The bond market has been louder and more persistent in its warnings. The yield on the 10-year Treasury tends to move with expectations for economic growth and for inflation, and it has been sinking since late March, when it was at roughly 1.75%. It fell to 1.20% Monday from 1.29% late Friday.
Analysts and professional investors say a long list of potential reasons is behind the sharp moves in the bond market, which is seen as more rational and sober than the stock market. But at the heart is the risk the economy may be set to slow sharply from its current, extremely high growth.
Risks to economy
Besides the new variants of the coronavirus, other risks to the economy include fading pandemic relief efforts from the U.S. government and a Federal Reserve that looks set to begin paring back its assistance for markets later this year.
Monday’s selling pressure was widespread, with nearly 90% of the stocks in the S&P 500 lower. Even Big Tech stocks fell, with Apple down 2.7% and Microsoft 1.3% lower. Such stocks seemed nearly immune to virus fears during earlier downturns, rising with expectations for continued growth almost regardless of the economy’s strength.
Across the S&P 500, analysts are forecasting profit growth of nearly 70% for the second quarter from a year earlier. That would be the strongest growth since 2009, when the economy was climbing out of the Great Recession.
But just like worries are rising that the economy’s growth has already peaked, analysts are trying to handicap by how much growth rates will slow in upcoming quarters and years for corporate profits.
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Ethiopian Police Reject Claims of Arbitrary Tigrayan Arrests
Ethiopian police have confirmed the arrest of hundreds of ethnic Tigrayans in the capital Addis Ababa in recent weeks. The police said they were supporting the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), which authorities banned after the Tigray conflict broke out in November. But rights group Amnesty International says dozens were detained because of their ethnicity.
Addis Ababa Police Commissioner Getu Argaw confirmed on Saturday that authorities had arrested over 300 Tigrayans.
But speaking on the state-run Ethiopian Broadcast Corporation, Getu denied the Tigrayans were arrested because of their ethnicity.
Getu said the arrests were made after thorough investigations found the suspects were supporting the TPLF, which authorities banned as a terrorist group in May over the conflict in Tigray region.
Getu said their arrests targeted only individuals who were supporting the ousted terrorist group. The arrests were not due to their ethnicity, said Getu, adding that suspects from other ethnic groups who were involved in supporting that terrorist group were also arrested.
Getu said illegal weapons and ammunition were seized from some of the suspects.
He was responding to a call Friday by rights group Amnesty International for Ethiopian authorities to end arbitrary detentions of Tigrayans without due process.
Amnesty said the sweeping arrests appeared to be ethnically motivated.
The rights group said while some of those arrested were released on bail, while hundreds of others were still being detained and their relatives kept in the dark.
Fisseha Tekle is Amnesty International’s human rights researcher for Ethiopia.
Tekle told VOA the families of those arrested do not know where they are being kept, they have not appeared in court, and this should stop. If they are involved in criminal activities they should appear before court, said Tekle, and their family should have the right to visit them, and they should also get an attorney.
The arrests come as the war in Ethiopia’s Tigray region appears to be expanding.
A spokesman for neighboring Afar region on Monday said Tigrayan fighters attacked Afar forces on Saturday and that clashes continued over the weekend.
The TPLF has also vowed to regain territory seized by Amhara forces loyal to the federal government.
The conflict dates back to last November, when Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed deployed government forces to oust the TPLF from power in Tigray.
Ethiopian authorities announced a unilateral ceasefire in Tigray on June 28 as Tigrayan forces re-took the regional capital, Mekelle, from federal troops.
But with each passing day, it looks less likely the cease-fire is going to hold.
Some information for this report came from Reuters.
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Cameroon Says Students and Teachers Defy Separatists School Lockdown
Authorities in Cameroon said at least 70,000 schoolchildren and their teachers have returned to classrooms this year in the troubled western regions. The schools had been abandoned due to threats from English-speaking rebels, who see them as an arm of the French-speaking-majority’s rule.
Fourteen-year-old Clementine Fua is spending a holiday in Yaoundé with her uncle. Fua said this year, she braved threats from separatists and successfully went to school in her hometown Njinikom, in the English-speaking Northwest region. Fua said separatists deprived her of education for three years.
“It is good for everyone to go to school so they can have the knowledge,” Fua said. “We struggled through the crisis. When we were going to school there were gunshots, we ran and we came back (to school) by God’s grace. God helped us. We wrote the First School Leaving Certificate peacefully.”
Cameron’s First School Leaving Certificate and Common Entrance Examinations qualify primary students for secondary school studies.
Cameroon’s ministries of basic and secondary education said Fua is one of 70,000 students who returned to more than 400 re-opened schools this year in the Northwest and Southwest regions.
Wilfred Wambeng Ndong is the highest government official in charge of basic education in the Northwest.
He reports that the number of children who took their First School Leaving exams this year increased dramatically.
“Last year we had 12,786 candidates who sat the First School Leaving and Common Entrance,” Ndong said. “And this year, we have 27,128, meaning that the number almost doubled.”
Ngwang Roland Yuven is in charge of secondary education in the Northwest region. He said the number of kids taking secondary school exams also increased.
“This year, the figure moved from the 13,000 of last year to 22,482 candidates,” Yuven said. “The examinations were conducted in a hitch-free manner thanks to the strict and committed follow-up by security. The success also came about as a result of the determination and resilience of parents and the candidates themselves who defied all challenges to ensure that they participated.”
Yuven said the success recorded this year might motivate parents to send their children back to school, despite continued threats from separatist militants.
The separatists attacked or set fire to more than 200 schools between 2017 and 2019, and nearly all schools in the North- and Southwest regions shut down, as teachers left their jobs due to insecurity.
Nji Samuel Kale is education secretary of schools owned by the Presbyterian Church in Cameroon, or the PCC. He said everyone involved — students, parents, teachers and security forces — has shown great commitment to making sure the schools stay open.
“We want to thank the community for the strong mobilization they carried out to ensure that the schools reopened,” Kale said. “The community and the Christians helped us run the schools. The teachers, we must attest, they have been enduring a lot. They have shown a lot of resilience. We are praying that unfortunate incidents should not occur again so that the children should have education.”
The separatists launched their rebellion in 2017. According to the United Nations, more than 3,000 people, including soldiers and police, have been killed since the violence in the regions began.
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Chess Brings Hope to Kenya Youth in Informal Settlement
More than half of the Kenyan capital’s nearly five million people live in slums, where many young people are lured by drugs and crime. In one neighborhood, a group is using the game of chess to help transform the lives of young people.
We are in Mukuru Kwa Njenga an informal settlement that is about thirteen kilometers from Kenya’s capital Nairobi. Among the youth here practicing chess, who number about twenty, is Sarah Momanyi. At 15, she’s a teen sensation in the sport, but her start wasn’t easy. “When I first started playing chess, it was hard because I was like the only girl, and my grandmother, she never supported me, because of playing with boys. It was really hard,” she said. It’s been five years since a sports outreach ministry introduced chess to this informal settlement to help keep young people away from drugs and crime. Every Saturday, the students here practice the game for five hours. The sport has provided a safe avenue for Momanyi and other young residents to hone and perfect their skills.
The chess initiative has drawn about 800 students from various schools within Mukuru Kwa Njenga, which has a population of about half a million people. Josephat Owila is a national chess instructor and head coach with the Sports Outreach Ministry.
“Socially they are good because they can be able to coexist with others in the society also in their schools, their respective schools. They are performing well, which means that they are critical thinkers and are creative also,” he said. John Mukabi, the head of Chess Kenya, the national body that manages the sport, told VOA the sport faces challenges in the country. “For these informal settlement areas, like here in Mukuru Kwa Njenga, they don’t have internet connection, they need laptops and things like that and also chessboards,” he said. Still, the young residents play the game despite obstacles. As for Momanyi, she continues to practice every day and hopes to one day become a grand master.
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Poverty at Root of South Africa Violence and Looting: Analyst
After a week of public violence that shocked the world, South Africa is beginning to reflect on the cause.Mass looting and destruction of property followed the jailing of former President Jacob Zuma for contempt of court after he refused to testify at an inquiry into corruption alleged to have happened when he led South Africa between 2009 and 2018.The violence left more than 200 people dead and hundreds injured, with damage to the economy estimated at billions of dollars. The unrest was only quelled by the deployment of 25,000 soldiers, who are still patrolling parts of the provinces of Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal.The African National Congress, or ANC, government has been widely criticized for its handling of the crisis. Speaking to the nation this past weekend, President Cyril Ramaphosa said the riots were “orchestrated” to cause social instability and “severely weaken, even dislodge,” his administration.“Using the pretext of a political grievance, those behind these acts have sought to provoke a popular insurrection,” Ramaphosa said. “They’ve sought to exploit the social and economic conditions under which many South Africans live… and to provoke ordinary citizens and criminal networks to engage in opportunistic acts of wanton looting.”South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, visits an area in Durban, July 16, 2021 which was badly affected by unrest in the past week.Ramaphosa said the chaos was used as a “smokescreen” to carry out “economic sabotage” by burning trucks and blocking key highways, and torching warehouses, factories and shopping malls.“Through social media, fake news and misinformation, they’ve sought to inflame racial tensions and violence,” he said. “Worst of all, these instigators have sought to manipulate the poor and the vulnerable for their own benefit. This attempted insurrection has failed. It has failed to gain popular support amongst our people.”One of the alleged instigators is Thulani Dlomo, who used to be one of Zuma’s top intelligence agents. Police arrested and questioned him on Saturday but released him without charge.Dlomo told reporters in Durban he never instigated anything, as he was a “patriotic, God-fearing” South African.“Our people must not allow any influence that will divide our communities. We must unite, as the people of this country, in ensuring that we leave a legacy for our children and for the next generation. So, this is not the time to point fingers,” he said.ANC veteran and former intelligence minister Ronnie Kasrils said it’s important that the inciters are punished for what they’ve done.But Kasrils said it’s also important to acknowledge the violence stems in part from what he said is the ruling party’s failed economic policies, such as former President Thabo Mbeki’s GEAR project, which did not meet its goal of increasing growth. GEAR, or Growth, Employment and Redistribution, also called for job creation and restructuring of the economy.“The GEAR program,” he said, “was not an economic system that was really able to radically deal with what Mandela said was our priority, and that was changing the lives of the poorest of the poor.” He was referring to late President Nelson Mandela.A member of the South African Police Services (SAPS) fires rubber bullets at rioters looting the Jabulani Mall in Soweto, southwest of Johannesburg, July 12, 2021.Instead, Kasrils said immense wealth remained with a few white capitalists, and a new, super-rich class of black tycoons.He said while the ANC did provide some houses and basic services to the poor, poverty and inequality increased, largely because of the ruling party’s failure to create jobs.Then, Kasrils said suspected corruption siphoned off billions of dollars that should have been used to fundamentally improve South Africa. The investigation into allegations that Zuma and others in his government were involved has split the ANC, with many voters standing with Zuma, who has denied any involvement in corruption.On Monday, Zuma’s corruption trial resumed. He faces charges of fraud and bribery relating to the purchase of military jets when he was vice president in 1999.Proceedings were being held via video link, and the defense was expected to focus on its request to have the prosecutor dropped from the case, saying he has leaked information to the news media.(This report originated in VOA’s English to Africa service.)
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Corruption Trial of South Africa’s Zuma Resumes Monday
The corruption trial of former South African President Jacob Zuma resumes with a hearing Monday, following several days of deadly riots linked to his imprisonment in a separate case. Zuma is expected to appear virtually when the proceedings begin at Pietermaritzburg High Court in the former president’s home province of KwaZulu-Natal. He is charged with multiple counts of corruption, fraud and racketeering in connection with a massive 1999 arms deal involving French defense giant Thales when he served as deputy president. The company has also been charged with corruption and money laundering. The 79-year-old Zuma surrendered to authorities in his home province nearly two weeks ago to begin serving a 15-month prison sentence handed down by the Constitutional Court in late June. The sentence was for failing to appear before an inquiry into corruption during his nine-year presidency which ended in 2018. His surrender triggered angry protests in KwaZulu-Natal which soon evolved into rioting, looting and arson that spread into Johannesburg, South Africa’s largest city and economic hub. More than 200 people were killed in the violence before security forces were deployed to restore order. Over one thousand people have been arrested for theft and vandalism. Zuma’s lawyers will argue that chief prosecutor Billy Downer should recuse himself from the case during Monday’s hearing, arguing that Downer is biased against their client.
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Second Filling of Ethiopia’s Giant Dam Nearly Complete – State Media
Ethiopia has nearly completed the filling of a huge dam on the Blue Nile River for a second year, state media reported on Monday, a move that has already angered Egypt.Addis Ababa says the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD), a $4 billion hydropower project, is crucial to its economic development and to provide power.But is has caused concern over water shortages and safety in Egypt and Sudan, which also depend on the Nile’s waters.“The second filling of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam will be completed in few minutes,” the Ethiopian Broadcasting Corporation (EBC) reported on Monday.Egypt said last month it had received official notice from Ethiopia that it had begun filling the reservoir for a second time and said it rejected the move.Egypt views it as a grave threat to its Nile water supplies, on which it is almost entirely dependent. Sudan has also expressed concern about the dam’s safety and the impact on its own dams and water stations.Long-running diplomatic efforts to resolve the dispute between the three countries have yielded little success.The United States has also said Ethiopia’s filling of the dam had the potential to raise tensions and has urged all parties to refrain from any unilateral actions.
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After the German Deluge, a Flood of Political Recriminations
Germany’s federal officials are being buffeted by accusations that they failed to heed a string of warnings from scientists ahead of last week’s devastating flash floods — the worst to strike the country since 1962, when a North Sea storm surge left 315 Germans dead.
The latest floods, which impacted Germany’s prosperous Rhineland region, caught many local authorities, residents and businesses by surprise, despite the first alarm about the likelihood of floods being raised on July 10 — three days before a deluge caused the swollen tributaries of the Rhine and Meuse to break their banks.
German authorities on Sunday had confirmed 155 deaths, but they expected the death toll to rise as rescuers continued their search in wrecked buildings for hundreds of missing residents.
Both the German and Belgian governments were warned of the likelihood of flooding, say scientists with the Copernicus Emergency Management Service and the European Flood Awareness System. Belgium has confirmed 27 casualties.
Hannah Cloke, hydrology professor at Britain’s Reading University told AFP: “For so many people to die in floods in Europe in 2021 represents a monumental failure of the system.”
She added: “The sight of people driving or wading through deep flood water fills me with horror, as this is about the most dangerous thing you can do in a flood. Forecasters could see this heavy rain coming and issued alerts early in the week, and yet the warnings were not taken seriously enough and preparations were inadequate. These kinds of high-energy, sudden summer torrents of rain are exactly what we expect in our rapidly heating climate.”
As a huge rescue operation continued Sunday in the worst affected the German regions of Rhineland-Palatinate and North Rhine-Westphalia, chancellor Angela Merkel visited stricken areas, pledging to build back better. She held the hand of one grieving local politician and later said: “I’ve come here today to symbolize that we’re standing together in solidarity. We will fix everything one step at a time in this beautiful area. We have to act fast.”
Questions
Nonetheless Germany’s media has begun to question whether the federal government should have acted faster ahead of the storms and are focusing on the possible political repercussions of the flooding, which has left homes and businesses wrecked. Thousands of people have been left without access to electricity or clean drinking water.
The Federal Office for Citizen Protection and Disaster Assistance did issue alerts on its app about coming floods, say officials. But critics say that a very small fraction of the German population has downloaded the app on their smartphones and that a much louder warning should have been sounded to allow local communities to better prepare for the deluge of midweek rain.
The influential tabloid newspaper Bild has accused the agency of a massive failure.
“The tidal waves came in the night — and surprised hundreds of thousands of people,” the paper editorialized. It said: “The force of the water trapped them in their cellars, tore them on the run or even with their houses. More than 100 dead and countless missing people are to be mourned. Forewarnings? Sirens? Loudspeaker announcements?”
The tabloid concluded warnings were “often not available or much too late.”
Other German media outlets have pointed out that hundreds of people sought refuge in their basements, the worst place to seek sanctuary.
Hundreds of towns and villages in the western regions of Germany have been destroyed. And the images of the destruction aired by the country’s broadcasters and posted on social media sites have startled Germans.
The flooding has come just two months before federal elections, which will determine Merkel’s successor. She is stepping down after 16 years in office.
An immediate $354 million aid package is being prepared by the federal government. Officials say the cost of rebuilding will be in the billions. Rebuilding costs in 2013 after floods on the Elbe and Danube amounted to more than $9 billion.
Ruling Christian Democrat lawmakers hope a quick federal response will limit any political damage from the mounting accusations of insufficient preparedness ahead of the flooding — and they will be scrutinizing post-flood opinion polls to see if their ratings are slipping ahead of September’s federal elections.
Caught laughing
Armin Laschet, the Christian Democrats’ electoral candidate to succeed Merkel, has added to the worries of the ruling party. His electoral campaign has not been gaffe-free and on Saturday he was forced to apologize for being seen laughing with aides in the background when accompanying President Frank-Walter Steinmeier on a tour of stricken towns.
Laschet is the state premier of North Rhine-Westphalia.
He tweeted later his regrets, saying, “This was inappropriate and I’m sorry. The fate of those affected is close to our hearts, and we have heard of it in many conversations,” he wrote. Photographs of him joking with aides in the background as Steinmeier delivered a somber statement have been carried in most of Germany’s main newspapers.
Laschet’s apology has failed to placate critics. “This is all apparently a big joke,” tweeted Maximilian Reimers of the far-left Die Linke opposition party. “How could he be a chancellor?” “I’m speechless,” tweeted Lars Klingbeil, secretary general of the center-left Social Democrats, who govern in a coalition with the Christian Democrats.
Laschet, like most of Germany’s mainstream politicians, have linked the floods to climate change, but the Green Party, which has been running strongly in opinion polls, albeit with slippage in recent weeks, has been critical of the Christian Democrats’ climate action plans, saying they don’t go far enough.
This report includes information from AFP.
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England Lifts COVID Restrictions
Monday is Freedom Day in England. The day has received the moniker because all social restrictions, like mask wearing and maintaining social distancing, that have been imposed to fight against COVID-19 have been lifted.
The reversal of the restrictions happens amid a rise in COVID cases and hospitalizations in England, largely driven by the delta variant of the virus.
Freedom Day is also happening as Sajid Javid, Britan’s health minister, is self-isolating because he tested positive for COVID. The National Health Service notified British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak, the finance minister that they had been exposed to someone who had tested positive for COVID.
People who have been notified by the NHS of an exposure are expected to self-isolate. Johnson and Sunak, however, were expecting to participate in a pilot program that would have allowed them to work at Downing Street but decided against it after a public uproar.
“Whilst the test and trace pilot is fairly restrictive, allowing only essential government business,” Sunak posted on Twitter, “I recognize that even the sense that the rules aren’t the same for everyone is wrong. To that end I’ll be self-isolating as normal and not taking part in the pilot.”
In Thailand, protesters demonstrating against the government’s handling of the COVID outbreak clashed with police Sunday in Bangkok, the capital. The protests in the capital and in other locations around the country were in defiance of a ban on public gatherings of more than five people that was recently announced by the government.
U.S. teenaged tennis sensation Coco Gauff has tested positive for COVID and will not be part of the Tokyo Olympics. The 17-year-old athlete posted on Twitter that “It has always been a dream of mine to represent the USA at the Olympics, and I hope there will be many more chances for me to make this come true in the future.” It was not immediately clear if Gauff had been vaccinated. The Olympic games were canceled last year, but the Olympic committee’s decision to continue with the games this year has received much criticism as the world continues to grapple with the handling of the COVID pandemic.
190.4 million global COVID cases and more than 4 million deaths from the virus were recorded worldwide early Monday, according to the coronavirus resource center of Johns Hopkins University. The center’s data shows that over 3.6 billion vaccines have been administered so far.
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Taliban Want Afghan Deal, Leader Says, Even As They Battle On
The leader of the Taliban said Sunday that his movement is committed to a political settlement to end decades of war in Afghanistan, even as the insurgents battle in dozens of districts across to country to gain territory.
The statement by Mawlawi Hibatullah Akhundzada came as Taliban leaders were meeting with a high-level Afghan government delegation in the Gulf state of Qatar to jump-start stalled peace talks. The Kabul delegation includes the No. 2 in the government, Abdullah Abdullah, head of Afghanistan’s national reconciliation council.
The talks resumed Saturday, ahead of the four-day Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha, which in many parts of the world is expected to start Tuesday. A second session took place Sunday afternoon.
Washington’s peace envoy Zalmay Khalilzad, who is in Qatar, previously expressed hope for a reduction in violence and possibly a cease-fire over Eid al-Adha.
Akhundzada said that “in spite of the military gains and advances, the Islamic Emirate strenuously favors a political settlement in the country, and every opportunity for the establishment of an Islamic system.”
The Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan is what the Taliban called their government when they ruled the country for five years, until their ouster by a U.S.-led coalition in 2001.
Still, there are few signs of a political agreement on the horizon. Battles between the Taliban and government forces are continuing in dozens of provinces, and thousands of Afghans are seeking visas in hopes of leaving the country. Most are frightened that the final withdrawal of U.S. and NATO troops after nearly 20 years will plunge their war-ravaged nation into deeper chaos. With the U.S. withdrawal more than 95% complete, Afghanistan’s future seems uncertain.
Militias with a brutal history have been resurrected to fight the Taliban but their loyalties are to their commanders, many of them U.S.-allied warlords with ethnic-based support.
This has raised the specter of deepening divisions between Afghanistan’s many ethnic groups. Most Taliban are ethnic Pashtuns and in the past there have been brutal reprisal killings by one ethnic group against another.
In a sign of how little progress has been made in negotiations, both sides are still haggling over terminology, unable to agree on the name for the nation. The Taliban are insisting on the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan. Kabul wants the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan.
Meanwhile Akhunzada’s statement demanded an Islamic system without explaining what that meant.
He promised to support education, but for girls he said the “Islamic Emirate will … strive to create an appropriate environment for female education within the framework of sublime Islamic law.”
He didn’t say how that differed from the educational institutions that have been created during the last 20 years and whether women would be allowed the freedom to work outside their home and move freely without being accompanied by a male relative.
He said the Taliban have ordered their commanders to treat civilians with care and to protect institutions and infrastructure. Yet, reports have emerged from areas coming under Taliban control that schools have been burned, women have been restricted to their homes and some government buildings have been blown up.
The Taliban have denied reports of such destruction, saying that the footage being shown is old and accused the government of being engaged in disinformation and propaganda.
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Hajj in Mecca Pared Back Due to COVID for 2nd Year
Tens of thousands of vaccinated Muslim pilgrims circled Islam’s holiest site in Mecca on Sunday but remained socially distanced and wore masks as the coronavirus takes its toll on the hajj for a second year running.
The hajj pilgrimage, which once drew about 2.5 million Muslims from all walks of life around the globe, is now almost unrecognizable. It is being scaled back for the second year in a row because of the coronavirus pandemic.
The pared-down hajj prevents Muslims from outside Saudi Arabia from fulfilling an Islamic obligation and causes financial losses to Saudi Arabia, which in pre-pandemic years took in billions of dollars as the custodian of the holy sites.
The Islamic pilgrimage lasts about five days, but traditionally Muslims begin arriving in Mecca weeks ahead of time. The hajj concludes with the Eid al-Adha celebration, marked by the distribution of meat to the poor around the world.
This year, 60,000 vaccinated citizens or residents of Saudi Arabia have been allowed to perform the hajj because of continued concerns around the spread of the coronavirus. Last year’s largely symbolic hajj saw fewer than 1,000 people from within the kingdom taking part.
It’s unclear when Saudi Arabia will play host again to millions of Muslims. The kingdom has no clear standard for a vaccine passport, vaccination rates are uneven in different countries and new variants of the virus are threatening the progress made in some nations.
The kingdom’s Al Saud rulers have staked their legitimacy in large part on their custodianship of hajj sites, giving them a unique and powerful platform among Muslims around the world. The kingdom has gone to great lengths to ensure the annual hajj continues uninterrupted, despite changes caused by the pandemic.
Robots have been deployed to spray disinfectant around the cube-shaped Kaaba’s busiest walkways. The Kaaba is where the hajj pilgrimage begins and ends for most.
Saudi Arabia is also testing a smart bracelet this year in collaboration with the government’s artificial intelligence authority. The touchscreen bracelet resembles the Apple Watch and includes information on the hajj, a pilgrim’s oxygen levels and vaccine data and has an emergency feature to call for help.
International media outlets already present in the kingdom were permitted to cover the hajj from Mecca this year, but others were not granted permission to fly in as had been customary before the pandemic.
Cleaners are sanitizing the vast white marble spaces of the Grand Mosque that houses the Kaaba several times a day.
“We are sanitizing the floor and using disinfection liquids while cleaning it two or three times during (each) shift,” said Olis Gul, a cleaner who said he has been working in Mecca for 20 years.
The hajj is one of Islam’s most important requirements to be performed once in a lifetime. It follows a route the Prophet Muhammad walked nearly 1,400 years ago and is believed to ultimately trace the footsteps of the prophets Ibrahim and Ismail, or Abraham and Ishmael as they are named in the Bible.
The hajj is seen as a chance to wipe clean past sins and bring about greater unity among Muslims. The communal feeling of more than 2 million people from around the world — Shiite, Sunni and other Muslim sects — praying together, eating together and repenting together has long been part of what makes hajj both a challenging and a transformative experience.
There are questions around whether the hajj will be able to again draw such large numbers of faithful, with male pilgrims forming a sea of white in white terrycloth garments worn to symbolize the equality of mankind before God and women forgoing makeup and perfume to focus inwardly.
Like last year, pilgrims will be drinking water from the holy Zamzam well in plastic bottles. They were given umbrellas to shield them from the sun. They have to carry their own prayer rugs and follow a strict schedule via a mobile app that informs them when they can be in certain areas to avoid crowding.
“I hope this is a successful hajj season,” said Egyptian pilgrim Aly Aboulnaga, a university lecturer in Saudi Arabia. “We ask God to accept everyone’s hajj and for the area to be open to greater numbers of pilgrims and for a return to an even better situation than before.”
The kingdom, with a population of more than 30 million, has reported over half a million cases of the coronavirus, including more than 8,000 deaths. It has administered nearly 20 million doses of coronavirus vaccines, according to the World Health Organization.
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Hundreds of Jews Visit Contested Holy Site in Jerusalem
Hundreds of Jewish pilgrims visited a contested Jerusalem holy site under heavy police guard on Sunday, shortly after Muslim worshippers briefly clashed with Israeli security forces at the flashpoint shrine.
No injuries were reported, but the incident again raised tensions at the hilltop compound revered by Jews and Muslims. Heavy clashes at the site earlier this year helped spark an 11-day war between Israel and Hamas militants in the Gaza Strip.
Jews revere the site as the Temple Mount, where the biblical Temples once stood. It is the holiest site in Judaism. Today, it is home to the Al-Aqsa Mosque, the third-holiest site in Islam. Tensions at the compound have frequently spilled over into violence over the years.
The Jews were visiting to mark Tisha B’Av, a day of mourning and repentance when Jews reflect on the destruction of the First and Second Temples, key events in Jewish history.
The Islamic Waqf, which administers the site, said that about 1,500 Jews entered the compound — a number much higher than on typical days. It accused Israeli police of using heavy-handed tactics and said some visitors violated a long-standing status quo agreement barring Jews from praying at the site.
Ahead of the visit, Israeli police said a small group of Muslim youths threw rocks at security forces who quickly secured the area. Amateur video showed police firing what appeared to be rubber bullets, a common crowd-control tactic, and Muslim worshippers were barred from entering the compound for several hours.
In a statement, the Wafq accused Israel of “violating the sanctity” of the mosque by allowing “Jewish extremists to storm the mosque, make provocative tours and perform public prayers and rituals.”
It said the area “is a purely Islamic mosque that will not accept division or partnership.”
The visit came days before Muslims celebrate the festival of Eid al-Àdha, or Feast of the Sacrifice.
Nabil Abu Rdeneh, spokesman for Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, accused Israel of “dragging the region into a religious war.”
Jordan, which serves as the custodian over Muslim sites in Jerusalem, said it had sent a letter of protest to Israel and urged it to respect the status quo.
“The Israeli actions against the mosque are rejected and condemned,” said Daifallah al-Fayez, spokesman for Jordan’s Foreign Ministry.
Israel’s new prime minister, Naftali Bennett, praised police for their handling of the visit and vowed to protect “freedom of worship” for Jews and Muslims at the site.
His comments raised speculation that Israel might be trying to change the norms of the site to allow Jewish prayer.
But Public Security Minister Omer Bar-Lev told Channel 13 that Israel remains committed to the status quo and that Jewish prayer at the site is “against the law.”
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