U.S. forces in Afghanistan evacuated about 3,000 people from Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul on Thursday, according to the White House.The evacuees were flown out on 16 flights by giant C-17 aircraft. The White House says the evacuees included 350 U.S. citizens, their family members, vulnerable Afghans and applicants for special immigrant visas and their families.A statement Friday says that over the previous 24 hours, the U.S. military also facilitated the departure of 11 charter flights. The passengers on those charter flights are not included in the totals above.The White House says U.S. forces have now evacuated approximately 9,000 people since August 14, the day before the Taliban entered Kabul, and a total of 14,000 people since the end of July.U.S. President Joe Biden has vowed to stay in Afghanistan until all U.S. citizens who want to leave have been evacuated, as he stands firmly by his decision to leave the country, despite the chaos that has ensued.Biden is set to meet with his national security team on the situation in Afghanistan early Friday, before making remarks on the evacuation process later in the day (1pm ET).“I don’t think it could’ve been handled in a way that there — we’re — going to go back in hindsight and look, but the idea that somehow there’s a way to have gotten out without chaos ensuing, I don’t know how that happens,” Biden said in an interview with George Stephanopoulos of ABC News on Wednesday. He dismissed questions about scenes of Afghans clinging to a U.S. aircraft as it took off as something that happened “days ago.” How Will the World Help Afghan Refugees? As crisis unfolds in Afghanistan, few countries have enacted new policies to provide safe passage for Afghans seeking refuge abroad The president stressed that the U.S. military is now in control at the airport and evacuating thousands with the goal of getting everyone who needs to be evacuated out, both American and Afghan, by August 31.When pressed whether troops will stay if the U.S. doesn’t meet the August 31 deadline, Biden said, “If we don’t, we’ll determine who’s left … and if there’s American citizens left, we’re going to stay until we get them out.”Concern is growing with reports that Afghans and American citizens are having trouble getting to the airport due to Taliban checkpoints. The U.S. is continuing to communicate with local Taliban commanders on the ground to move people through the checkpoints.“It comes down a lot to the credentialing and making sure that they can prove — and we can prove — that these are appropriate people to move through. And we have indications this morning that that process is working,” Pentagon press secretary John Kirby told reporters Thursday.“Overnight, we significantly expanded how many American citizens, locally employed staff, SIV applicants, and other vulnerable Afghans who are eligible for departure, and we offer them to consider transit to the airport,” he told reporters.In the ABC interview, which aired early Thursday, Biden also defended his administration’s decisions based on the intelligence coming from Afghanistan, saying the intelligence he saw said a Taliban takeover was “more likely by the end of the year,” and that the government’s collapse in such a short time was not anticipated. Sorry, but your browser cannot support embedded video of this type, you can
download this video to view it offline.Download File360p | 7 MB480p | 10 MB540p | 13 MB720p | 26 MB1080p | 50 MBOriginal | 159 MB Embed” />Copy Download AudioAfghan Refugees in Turkey Terrified at Taliban TakeoverHis comments echoed those of General Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who told reporters Wednesday the time frame of a government collapse “was widely estimated and ranged from weeks to months and even years following our departure.” “There was nothing that I or anyone else saw that indicated a collapse of this army and this government in 11 days,” he added.However, a senior U.S. intelligence official, speaking to VOA on condition of anonymity, said the U.S. community “consistently identified the risk of a rapid collapse of the Afghan government.” “We also grew more pessimistic about the government’s survival as the fighting season progressed. … That said, the Afghan government unraveled even more quickly than we anticipated,” the official said.Carla Babb, Jeff Seldin, Steve Herman contributed to this report.
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Month: August 2021
US Sidelined by Chinese Influence Campaign in Africa
China’s global ambitions may have taken a hit in the United States, Europe, Australia, Japan and India, but in Africa, its sustained power and influence are forcing Washington to recalibrate its strategy toward the continent, home to 54 nations. The United States recently committed $217 million to finance a power plant in Sierra Leone through the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation. When finished, this America-financed power plant will stand alongside eight key government structures China has built for Sierra Leone, including parliamentary offices, army and police headquarters, and the building that houses the West African country’s ministry of foreign affairs. FILE – A train launched to operate on the Standard Gauge Railway line constructed by the China Road and Bridge Corporation and financed by Chinese government arrives at the Nairobi Terminus on the outskirts of Kenya’s capital Nairobi, May 31, 2017.In a study published in December 2020, FILE – Chinese People’s Liberation Army personnel attend the opening ceremony of China’s new military base in Djibouti, Aug. 1, 2017.To beef up the U.S. overseas presence in the face of competition from China, a growing number of American thought leaders are calling for the government to rethink its role in strengthening U.S. corporate and strategic interests abroad. “The genius, if you will, of the Chinese economic system is that they are working to align the company interest and the state interest together,” said Robert D. Atkinson, an economist who has served in both Democratic and Republican administrations. “What the Chinese have that we don’t is they have a strongly held view that certain industries are more important than others.” Given that the Chinese government pours “massive subsidies” into these strategic sectors to fund its global expansion, Atkinson believes Washington could fight back by increasing foreign aid and backing private companies’ strategic ventures abroad. “Does that mean we do everything China does? Of course not,” he said. The U.S. government should avoid “over-involvement,” he added, but “continuing what we have been doing is clearly not enough.” Atkinson, who heads the Washington-based Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, believes there is a middle ground. “The whole notion that we shouldn’t have our own national industrial policy – that’s an idea that only works if you’re not facing a competitor like China; the reality is, we are facing a competitor like China,” he said. “We can either get China to change – that’s not going to happen, we tried and failed – or we can adapt our own policies.” Scott Morris, a senior fellow at the Center for Global Development, told VOA the aggregate U.S. foreign aid budget directed toward Africa “is around 25 to 30 billion dollars a year,” a figure he said “certainly rivals Chinese lending.” But, he said, most of the U.S. aid goes to global health programs, disease eradication and humanitarian assistance. He also acknowledged that a significant portion of the U.S. foreign aid budget goes toward multilateral institutional lending and developmental agencies, such as the World Bank. “Where we clearly see a difference is that China is very concentrated in the very area the U.S. is largely absent, and that is [country-to-country] infrastructure financing,” Morris said. “Allowing China to finance and/or control much of the enabling infrastructure in key sectors could harm U.S. prospects in Africa going forward.” FILE – Chinese workers are seen at the construction site of the new Great Mosque, which is being built by the China State Construction Engineering Corporation (CSCEC), in Algiers, Algeria, Jan. 20, 2016.Nantulya thinks that America could benefit from a reevaluation of what the continent means for the United States. “Do we view Africa as a partner? Do we view Africa as a place that generates security threats that must be met with military force? Or do we view Africa as a place that, yes, has its security problems, but where strategic opportunities outweigh security risks?” While questions linger on the American side, he said, Beijing made up its mind what Africa means for its strategic aims long ago. Nantulya said China’s official foreign policy doctrine casts big powers as the key, neighboring countries as the priority, developing countries as “the foundation” and “multilateral platforms as the stage.” Cast in this light, Africa is a continent where China sees “tremendous opportunities in spite of risks” and has no doubt seized upon those opportunities in political, economic and military areas alike, Nantulya told VOA. Ultimately, the challenge that China represents is “first and foremost ideological,” he said, and that this is where the United States has an opening to compete with Beijing on a continent where China is now widely regarded the most influential foreign power. “Values matter; Africans are fighting for and championing the values that have also guided the American experiment and the American story,” said Nantulya, a native of Tanzania who studied in Kenya and South Africa and worked across the continent before moving to the United States. He hopes that Americans can understand that the two sides have a shared future and look at the relationship as an opportunity, rather than one where the United States is constantly coming in to put out fires.
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At 60, Peace Corps Plots Return to World After Virus Hiatus
More than a year after COVID-19 began sweeping the world, abruptly cutting short her Peace Corps stint, Cameron Beach is once again living in rural Malawi — this time on her own dime.The Peace Corps, a U.S. government program marking its 60th anniversary this year, boasted 7,000 volunteers in 62 countries in March 2020. They were given little time to pack before being put on a plane and sent back to the United States that month.“It was especially painful for me because I was given 24 hours to leave a place that I’d called home for almost two years,” Beach said during a recent video call from her home in Malawi, a landlocked country in southern Africa.Beach was trained to speak Chichewa and had been teaching English at the Mkomera Community Day Secondary School in Dedza, located in a compound about 40 kilometers southeast of the capital, Lilongwe. The 25-year-old Greenville, South Carolina, native paid her own way back to her post nine months after evacuation and is living on savings, but says she would “absolutely” rejoin the Peace Corps if it became possible.Cameron Beach, teaches children in Dedza, near Lilongwe, Malawi, July 23, 2021.It might be: The organization hopes to begin returning volunteers to the field late this year or early next year.While Peace Corps volunteers would be required to be vaccinated, sending them back will depend on the situation in individual countries. Initially, about 2,400 evacuated volunteers expressed interest in going back and there are about 10,000 applications on file, Acting Peace Corps Director Carol Spahn told The Associated Press.“Immediately after the evacuation we had tremendous interest from volunteers who were evacuated in returning to their country of service,” Spahn said. “Clearly, as time goes on, you know, people do move on with their lives, but I will say we have a robust pipeline of both people who were evacuated as well as those who were invited, but were unable to go and those who are expressing new interest.”How soon they can be sent overseas depends on the worldwide fight against the virus, complicated by the recent emergence of the more transmissible delta variant and the slow rollout of vaccines in developing countries — many of which host Peace Corps programs.Spahn estimates it will be several years before the Peace Corps is back to its full strength. After all, while volunteers in select countries had been evacuated before, March 2020 marked the first time since the organization was founded by President John F. Kennedy that it had to evacuate all its volunteers at the same time.Since its creation in 1961, more than 240,000 Americans have served as Peace Corps volunteers in scores of countries. The goal is to help the countries meet their development needs with a wide variety of programs — from education to health and agriculture programs — while helping promote a better understanding of Americans.Typical service lasts two years after a training period, the length of which depends on the country and the program. During the pandemic most Peace Corps staff, both U.S. citizens and local hires, remained in place and, in some cases, kept up some programs. Some former volunteers even worked remotely on development projects from the United States, receiving a small stipend for their work.Heading back overseas is nonetheless a daunting undertaking between the required training and rebuilding of programs. Areas that have few returning volunteers will also lose the institutional, cross-cultural and local knowledge typically passed on by departing volunteers to their successors.It’s not just the Peace Corps that has had to recall thousands from remote reaches of the globe and navigate the aftermath.The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints had to send home about 26,000 missionaries tasked with recruiting new members to the faith known widely as the Mormon church. Many pivoted to doing missions in their home countries with a focus on online work.In November, the church began sending missionaries back into the field and, in June of this year, the church reopened its missionary training centers in Utah, the Philippines and Mexico.All missionaries from the United States who serve overseas are required to be vaccinated, said church spokesperson Sam Penrod. Missionaries who do not want to be vaccinated will be assigned to missions in their home countries.“The church is taking a careful approach when assigning missionaries outside of their home country, based upon local conditions and following the guidance of government and health officials,” he said in an email.As time goes by, potential recruits and returnees are moving on.Cullen O’Donnell, 25, originally from Mentor, Ohio, served two years with the Peace Corps in Ecuador teaching English and then extended for a third year. He was planning another year, working on the Galapagos Islands, when COVID-19 hit.He’d still like to go back — “then again with Peace Corps it’s very vague: ‘Yeah we’re hoping to get back to the field,’ but it keeps getting pushed back.”So he’s getting on with his life. He now has a fulfilling job at a school for at-risk students in Pennsylvania and was just accepted to graduate school.The Peace Corps has been accepting new applications throughout the pandemic, but in June the agency began planning for a return to Belize after the government there asked for volunteers who could help local schools recover from the pandemic’s disruptions. But there is no indication when the first trainees would be sent to the tiny country tucked between Mexico and Guatemala.A few volunteers refused to be evacuated but their Peace Corps service was ended, Spahn said. Despite their truncated service, volunteers are eligible for the variety of benefits typically afforded those who complete the two years — including resettlement payments, preferred hiring status for federal jobs and special scholarships.But those former volunteers — like Beach — could help seed the revived Peace Corps, Spahn said.Beach hadn’t been able to say goodbye. Her students had missed her.“The time when Madam Beach left Malawi, lots of things went wrong especially in our class,” said Aness Leman Filimoni, who is in her last year of high school. “Madam Beach was teaching us English but when she left, the school could not find a suitable replacement.”Beach is now teaching her usual two classes a day, five days a week. She’s also helping finish up a girls’ dormitory built in part with a Peace Corps grant.Just before the pandemic, there were 108 volunteers in Malawi. Peace Corps Malawi Director Amber Lucero-Dwyer, who stayed, has seen a handful of former volunteers return on their own — although she thought most were visiting, not staying indefinitely as Beach is.“We have tried to be as creative as possible to determine what can we do, what core Peace Corps work can we do in the absence of volunteers,” Lucero-Dwyer said.Beach was originally sent to Malawi just weeks after her college graduation, and was scheduled to complete her service in August 2020; if she’s able to return to service, she doesn’t know how long the stint would last.Regardless, she’s found her niche.“It’s what I feel I’m meant to do,” Beach said of what she sees as the calling that drew her to the Peace Corps and ultimately Malawi. “It wasn’t a very windy road.”
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Japanese Martial Artist Film Star Sonny Chiba Dies at 82
Japanese actor Sonny Chiba, who wowed the world with his martial arts skills in more than 100 films, including “Kill Bill,” has died. He was 82.Chiba, known in Japan as Shinichi Chiba, died late Thursday in a hospital near Tokyo where he had been treated for COVID-19 since Aug. 8, Tokyo-based Astraia, his management office, said in a statement Friday. It said he had not been vaccinated. Chiba rose to stardom in Japan in the 1960s, portraying samurai, fighters and police detectives, the anguished so-called “anti-heroes” trying to survive in a violent world. He did many of the stunt scenes himself. His overseas career took off after his 1970s Japanese film “The Street Fighter” proved popular in the U.S. American director Quentin Tarantino listed the work as among his “grindhouse,” or low-budget kitsch cinema, favorites. Tarantino cast Chiba in the role of Hattori Hanzo, a master swordsmith in “Kill Bill.”Chiba appeared in the 1991 Hollywood film “Aces,” directed by John Glen, as well as in Hong Kong movies. Chiba’s career also got a boost from the global boom in kung fu films, set off by Chinese legend Bruce Lee, although critics say Chiba tended to exhibit a dirtier, thug-like fighting style than Lee.“A true action legend. Your films are eternal and your energy an inspiration. #SonnyChiba #RIP,” American actor Lewis Tan said on Twitter. New York-based writer and director Ted Geoghegan called him “the great Sonny Chiba.” “Watch one of his films today,” Geoghegan tweeted, followed by images of a fist and a broken heart. Other fans mournfully filled Twitter threads with clips of his movies and photos. Born in Fukuoka, southwestern Japan, Chiba studied at Nippon Sport Science University trained in various martials arts, earning a fourth-degree black belt in karate. Chiba set up Japan Action Club in 1980, to develop a younger generation of actors, including protege Hiroyuki Sanada, who is among Hollywood’s most coveted Japanese actors, landing roles in “The Last Samurai” and “Rush Hour 3.”Chiba is survived by his three children, Juri Manase, Mackenyu Arata and Gordon Maeda, all actors. A wake was canceled as a pandemic measure, and funeral arrangements were still undecided, his office said.
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How the Afghanistan Withdrawal Looks from South Korea, America’s Other ‘Forever War’
U.S. President Joe Biden this week was asked what the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan means for Washington’s other global military commitments. In response, Biden stressed the “fundamental difference” between Afghanistan and places like South Korea, where the U.S. also has a major troop presence. It would be hard, if not impossible, to find a South Korean who disagrees with that assessment. There are obvious differences between Afghanistan, one of the world’s poorest and least-developed countries, and South Korea, a stable democracy and U.S. treaty ally that has the world’s 10th largest economy and US Lt. Col. Douglas Hayes and Republic of Korea Army Col. Seong Ik Sung discuss the progress of a coordinated, joint artillery exercise May 10, 2016. (US Army photo)Sovereignty debateAnother point of alliance tension is whether and at what speed South Korea should regain more control of its forces during a hypothetical war.In 1950, South Korea handed command authority of its troops to the U.S. in order to fend off a North Korean attack during the early stages of the Korean War. The U.S. retained that authority until 1994, when South Korea assumed peacetime “operational control” of its forces.Under the current arrangement, the U.S. would still control certain aspects of South Korea’s military if war broke out. Some left-leaning South Korean politicians object to that prospect and want the arrangement to be changed as soon as possible. Song Young-gil, who heads South Korea’s ruling Democratic Party, said the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan is the latest evidence Seoul should speed up the so-called “OPCON transition.” “If you have no experience in planning and executing your own operations, you do not know what kind of trouble you will face as a nation,” Song said in a Facebook post.Chun, the former lieutenant-general, disagreed. Such a transition, he said, could jeopardize the U.S.-South Korea alliance, ultimately making South Korea less safe.“South Koreans need to realize that if we have OPCON transition there’ll be a possibility of a disconnect between the two allied forces who are right now attached at the hip,” Chun said. The issue already causes friction in the U.S.-South Korea relationship, though mostly beneath the surface. The U.S. and South Korea agreed in 2018 to begin a three-stage process for assessing whether Seoul is ready to regain wartime control. South Korean President Moon Jae-in says he would like to complete the transfer by the end of his term in May 2022. U.S. officials, however, warn against imposing a time limit, saying the transition should instead be conditions-based.Any attempt to rush the issue will “do damage to the relationship we have right now,” Chun said. “And the relationship we have right now is pretty good,” he added. Ties growingIn fact, the U.S.-South Korea alliance has recently expanded to focus on other regional and global issues, such as the coronavirus pandemic, climate change, and China’s growing assertiveness.Many South Korean analysts believe the Korean peninsula is a core national interest for the United States. Opinion polls suggest broad public support in both countries for the U.S. troop presence. There are no signs that will change, especially as the U.S.-China rivalry intensifies.“It’s pretty clear that the U.S. has tried to move from the Middle East to focus on the so-called Indo-Pacific area,” Park said, adding that “South Korea is one of the, if not the most, important allies in this region.”
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Biden Seeks to Weather Afghan Withdrawal Storm
President Joe Biden remains defiant amid a political storm triggered by the swift Taliban takeover of Afghanistan and the chaotic end of America’s longest war. Whether he can survive the crisis depends on many factors, including the safe evacuation of Americans. White House correspondent Patsy Widakuswara has more.
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Junta Faces Difficulties on Myanmar Vaccination Program
Myanmar’s coup leader, Senior General Min Aung Hlaing, is aiming for 50% of country’s population to be vaccinated against COVID-19 by the end of this year, but there are difficulties and obstacles on the ground to achieving that goal.Since July 28, the State Administration Council, which overthrew democratically elected government led by the National League for Democracy, has been administering vaccinations, using the Chinese-made Sinopharm and Sinovac vaccines, across the country.From July to August 8, Beijing sent 4.5 million doses to Myanmar, including 2.5 million donated Sinopharm doses and 2 million Sinovac vaccines purchased by the military. Two million more doses will be arriving this month, as the military purchased a total of 4 million Sinovac doses.The Health and Sports Ministry started its vaccination program in the last week of July. Medical workers, volunteers, prisoners and those above 65 years old are in the priority group to be vaccinated. The state newspaper The New Light of Myanmar reported August 6 that more than 1.8 million people, 6.08% of the targeted population, had been vaccinated.Myanmar has more than 30 million people over the age of 18 to be vaccinated, 50% of whom, 17 million people, are targeted to be vaccinated at the end of this year, Health and Sports Ministry spokesman Dr. Than Naing Soe told VOA.“To vaccinate 50% of the total population at the end of this year, we need to vaccinate 5 million people a month,” Min Aung Hlaing said at an August 2 meeting. Amid this uncertain situation, Than Naing Soe recently told VOA that the government is confident it will meet the target. The SAC is planning to receive vaccines from China, India, Russia, and international and regional organizations. Two million doses purchased from Russia will arrive in coming months and efforts are being made to obtain the remaining vaccines from India. Under the previous NLD government, Myanmar purchased 30 million doses from India and has already paid $75 million, half of the initial order value. It had received 2 million Indian Covishield doses in January. “Now we are giving about 150,000 injections per day. There is no issue with receiving vaccine yet. If the situation is better than this, at the end of this year, we can reach 70% of the targeted population,” Than Naing Soe told VOA August 9.According to the ministry, 1.8 million people were vaccinated between January 27 and July 21, using 3.5 million vaccines from India — 1.5 million donated and 2 million purchased — and 300,000 Sinovac doses from China.FILE – People work in a laboratory of Chinese vaccine maker Sinovac Biotech, developing an experimental COVID-19 vaccine, during a government-organized media tour in Beijing, China, September 24, 2020.Lack of trustPublic opinions on the military’s vaccination program and Chinese vaccine differ. Some see getting Chinese vaccination is better than nothing. Some say they would not be vaccinated to boycott military council’s immunization program.In addition, anti-Chinese sentiment has been high in Myanmar since the coup, as China has shown support for the military council.A 78-year-old retired military officer, Myint Lwin, had the chance to be vaccinated in March. He did not take it, though, because of distrust of the Chinese vaccine.“Now the death toll is much higher. I feel it is safer to be vaccinated than nothing,” Myint Lwin said. He got the Sinovac vaccine on August 4. Many others feel the same way – they distrusted the vaccine before but are now willing to take it, with Myanmar’s death toll having hit 12,234 as of August 10. The death toll does not list those who died at home and it is expected that the actual death rate would be three times that announced by the military. Thirty-eight-year-old Mo Mo, who asked to be identified by only part of her name and who runs a restaurant in Yangon, told VOA she would not be vaccinated with Chinese vaccines under the military council’s immunization program.“My family does not recognize the military regime. So, we have no reason to deal with them,” she said. The second reason, she said, is that they do not believe in the effectiveness of the Chinese vaccine.“I have heard we will be able to get the Indian vaccine at the private hospitals very soon. Until we get that vaccine, we have to take care of ourselves by wearing double masks, taking antibiotics, washing our hands and staying at home,” Mo Mo said. It appears that the military regime has not been able to convince the public to participate in its immunization plan. Some do not trust the military, some reportedly fear the military will try to kill them with the injections, directly or through later side effects. The situation is made worse by a shortage of health workers.To fill the gap, the junta has asked health staff on strike in opposition to the coup to join the fight against the pandemic, although the military keeps targeting and arresting heath workers who are members of the opposition Civil Disobedience Movement.”No one will return to the hospitals under such horrifying conditions,” a CDM physician who used to work for the general hospital in the Mandalay region and who requested anonymity told VOA recently. He refused to comment on whether public should take vaccines, which he said is an individual matter. “It would be best if 50% of population were vaccinated at the end of the year. But it will not succeed without public cooperation” he added.
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Afghan Refugees in Turkey Terrified at Taliban Takeover
Afghan refugees in Turkey say they made the dangerous journey to escape living again under Taliban rule. VOA’s Arif Aslan reports from eastern Turkey, where some of the Afghans he spoke with arrived over the past few days as the Taliban were taking over the Afghan capital. Sirwan Kajjo narrates his report.Camera: Arif Aslan.
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2,000 Americans, Afghans Depart Kabul Amid Chaotic Evacuation Efforts
Afghans marked a grim Independence Day on Thursday as crowds seeking spots on U.S. evacuation flights continued to gather around Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul in the wake of the Taliban takeover of the country. American officials said evacuation efforts were accelerating but declined to say if those efforts would continue after the August 31 deadline for a U.S. withdrawal. VOA’s Congressional Correspondent Katherine Gypson has more. Producer: Katherine Gypson. Camera: Ayesha Tanzeem.
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China Sees Potential Benefits, Risks in Taliban-led Afghanistan
As the U.S. leaves a vacuum in Afghanistan, people worldwide are watching China’s response. The two countries share a border and have on-and-off ties that predate the 2001 terrorist attacks in the U.S. VOA’s Elizabeth Lee has the details on the risks and benefits of the China-Afghan relationship.
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US Judge Signs Off on $850 Million Boy Scouts Sex Abuse Settlement
The judge overseeing the Boy Scouts of America bankruptcy on Thursday approved the youth organization’s request to sign off on an $850 million settlement to resolve tens of thousands of sex abuse claims.The ruling by U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Laurie Selber Silverstein of Delaware will enable the Boy Scouts to move ahead with a proposed reorganization plan that would allow the group to exit bankruptcy by the end of the year.”I find that debtors have met the relevant standard,” she said in a court hearing.The organization must still obtain approval from creditors to move ahead with the deal in a formal plan to exit bankruptcy.The creditors include victims of the abuse, who generally supported the settlement.Founded in 1910, the Boy Scouts filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in February 2020 after being hit with a flood of sexual abuse lawsuits.Claims multiplied after several U.S. states passed laws allowing accusers, including adults, to sue over allegations dating back several decades.The Boy Scouts have apologized and said they are committed to fulfilling their “social and moral responsibility to equitably compensate survivors.” The organization has said “nothing can undo the tragic abuse that victims suffered” and that it believed the bankruptcy process was the best way to compensate them.The Boy Scouts said in a statement that Silverstein’s ruling is “an important development in Boy Scouts of America’s financial restructuring.”The settlement is backed by 250 local councils but opposed by insurers, who say representatives of the abuse claimants had too much say in the negotiations.The Boy Scouts’ insurers, which include Century Indemnity Company and Hartford Financial Services Group, had argued throughout the bankruptcy process that some claims may be fraudulent.Unless the Boy Scouts reach a resolution with the insurers, they are likely to fight over the final bankruptcy plan.Century declined to comment on the judge’s ruling.Hartford did not immediately return a request for comment.About 82,000 sex abuse claims have been filed against the Boy Scouts.In addition to the $850 million, the settlement includes the creation of a “child protection committee” designed to ensure safety for Scouts in the future.The judge rejected a provision of the deal that would have allowed the Boy Scouts to pay up to $10.5 million in fees and expenses accrued by lawyers representing several thousand victims.She also rejected the organization’s request to toss an earlier deal through which Hartford agreed to contribute $650 million to a settlement, leaving its dispute with Hartford lingering. The Boy Scouts effectively abandoned the Hartford agreement after representatives of victims said they would not support it.Lawyers for the Boy Scouts, the insurers and victims of abuse are expected to appear before Silverstein on Aug. 25.
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Analysis: What Does Fall of Kabul Mean for North Korea?
Experts are split on how the Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan could affect North Korea. Some argue that the collapse of Kabul, triggered by the withdrawal of U.S. forces, could encourage North Korea’s nuclear ambitions, while others suggest the fall of Kabul may work against Pyongyang because getting Washington’s attention would be harder given the complex aftermath of the withdrawal from Afghanistan. After maintaining a military presence in Afghanistan for 20 years, the U.S. fully vacated its largest military base, Bagram Airfield, on July 2 and transferred control to Afghan forces. Then, in early August, Taliban forces swept across Afghanistan and began taking control of major provincial capitals. On Sunday, the Taliban claimed the capital city of Kabul, and Afghanistan came under its control. FILE – An Afghan army soldier walks past Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles, MRAP, that were left after the American military left Bagram air base, in Parwan province north of Kabul, Afghanistan, July 5, 2021.In the past, North Korea has often used major crises to ramp up anti-U.S. rhetoric. Demanding the troop removal was a recurring theme. And as the Taliban pushed from provincial capitals to Kabul, the capital of Afghanistan, North Korea resumed its rhetoric against the presence of U.S. troops in South Korea as the allied nations engaged in annual joint military exercises. “For peace to settle on the peninsula, it is imperative for the U.S. to withdraw its aggression troops and war hardware deployed in South Korea,” FILE – South Korean army K-9 self-propelled howitzers park in Paju, near the border with North Korea, March 24, 2021, after North Korea fired short-range missiles just days after the sister of Kim Jong Un threatened the U.S. and South Korea for holding joint military exercises.Propaganda fodder Harry Kazianis, senior director of Korean studies at the Center for the National Interest, a think tank in Washington, D.C., said the U.S. troop withdrawal and the subsequent fall of Afghanistan to the Taliban could embolden North Korea to direct their “propaganda efforts to say the U.S. should leave (South) Korea as well.” He added: “North Korea clearly does not hope to win some sort of war against the U.S., but it clearly hopes that if it waits Washington out, (the U.S.) will eventually accept it as a nuclear weapons state or at least unofficially accept it.” FILE – U.S. and South Korean jets fly over South Korea during a joint military drill called Vigilant Ace, in this handout photo released by the South Korean Defense Ministry, Dec. 6, 2017.Evans Revere, a former State Department official who has extensive experience negotiating with North Korea, said Pyongyang has ratcheted up efforts to weaken the U.S.-South Korea alliance. He warned that North Korea should not miscalculate the situation in Afghanistan. “The North Koreans would be wise not to draw wrong conclusions about what they are witnessing here, because America is still a very strong, very powerful, and a very capable country, and the North Koreans should not allow this unfortunate sequence of events that we’ve seen in recent days to give them a wrong message,” Revere said. Revere said North Korea has two key aims in its relations with the U.S. “The North Koreans have long wanted to see the withdrawal of U.S. forces from the Korean Peninsula,” said Revere, who is now affiliated with the Brookings Institution, a think tank based in Washington. “North Korea’s goal is to undermine the alliance and bring it to an end. That has not changed over the years. And what we’ve seen in recent years is that the North Koreans have become much more active in trying to bring about this situation” than in previous years, added Revere. Targeting the alliance Ken Gause, director of the Adversary Analytics Program at the CNA research center in Arlington, Virginia, said the recent developments in Kabul could bolster Pyongyang’s efforts to break the alliance between Washington and Seoul. “North Korea may see the U.S. as wounded right now, and maybe there are some benefits to North Korea in terms of adding pressure and driving a wedge between the U.S. and South Korea,” said Gause. Gause thinks it will become more difficult for Pyongyang to get sanctions relief from the Biden administration — something it has hoped to obtain since the Trump administration — now that Washington must handle the aftermath of Afghanistan. “What does this do in terms of the Biden administration’s willingness to engage with North Korea and put sanctions on the table, I would say, is probably much weaker now than it would have been before Afghanistan,” said Gause. FILE – This picture taken on Jan. 14, 2021, and released by North Korea’s official Korean Central News Agency shows what appears to be submarine-launched ballistic missiles during a military parade.Gause said he expects the Biden administration will be in “lockdown mode, trying to figure out how to move forward on its various foreign policy fronts.” He added, ”They’ve got other issues that are higher up on that agenda than North Korea right now.” Retired U.S. Army General James Thurman, the commander of U.S. forces in South Korea from 2011 to 2013, said what happened in Kabul testifies to the importance of military readiness against North Korean aggression. “I’m confident in the South Korean military, very confident, having spent nearly three years over there training with them,” Thurman said. “It’s a completely different set of circumstances. But I think our adversaries are emboldened when they see something like this take place,” Thurman added, referring to the fall of Kabul. South Koreans weigh in The sudden collapse of Kabul sparked some concern among residents of Seoul, South Korea’s capital, triggering debates over national security. Kim Yo-whan told VOA’s Korean service on Tuesday that she is concerned the chaos of Kabul could be repeated in South Korea, where groups are advocating for the departure of U.S. forces. “The Taliban took control of major regions soon after the U.S. military withdrew, and that could easily happen in South Korea,” said Kim, who owns a small business. “The U.S. forces in South Korea are the last line of defense toward free democracy” in the region, she added. Yoon Sae-jung, a schoolteacher, thinks otherwise. She told VOA, “The U.S. will not decide easily that it will withdraw from South Korea” because “South Korea is geopolitically important” to counter China. Lee Kwon-yeol, an office worker, also thinks the U.S. will not withdraw because “South Korea and Afghanistan are different strategically.” On Tuesday, U.S. national security adviser Jake Sullivan said President Joe Biden “has no intention of drawing down our forces from South Korea.” The U.S. military presence in South Korea has lasted about 70 years, from the time it entered the Korean Peninsula to fight against North Korea, which invaded the South in 1950. Approximately 28,500 U.S. troops are stationed there to defend against any potential aggression from the North.South Korea to Boost Funding for US Troops Under New Accord, US SaysThe proposed six-year ‘Special Measures Agreement’ will replace the previous arrangement that expired at the end of 2019Its military alliance with South Korea was solidified by a mutual defense treaty signed after the war ended, in 1953.Taeksung Oh contributed to this report.
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Sudan PM Visits Juba Amid Political Crisis
Sudanese Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok arrived in Juba on Thursday for two days of talks aimed at bolstering peace efforts in South Sudan amid a political crisis that ousted South Sudanese First Vice President Riek Machar as leader of the opposition party.Officials from Khartoum and Juba are expected to discuss bilateral ties between the two countries and the implementation of the Juba peace deal signed last year between Sudan’s transitional government and several armed groups. Sudanese Foreign Affairs Minister Mariam al-Mahdi, who accompanied Hamdok, told reporters at Juba International Airport that the Sudan leadership is concerned about the slow implementation of the South Sudan peace deal. FILE – Mariam al-Mahdi, then-Sudanese deputy leader of the Umma Party, speaks during a press conference in the capital Khartoum, September 9, 2014.”We are observing the very positive development that is taking place, but there is still very observed slowness,” al-Mahdi said. “People are very concerned to revitalize and to support further the government of South Sudan to implement the agreement.” Hamdok is scheduled to meet with South Sudan President Salva Kiir, Machar and other political players as well as diplomats from the United States, Britain and Norway. Hamdok’s visit comes after one by Workneh Gebeyehu, the head of the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD), a regional group trying to advance the peace process. FILE – Workneh Gebeyehu, then the Ethiopian foreign minister, speaks on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in New York City, September 28, 2018.During his visit to Juba last week, Workneh said that the internal troubles within the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement/Army in Opposition (SPLM/A-IO) needed to be resolved quickly. Fighting broke out within the SPLM/A-IO after Simon Gatwech Dual, Machar’s former chief of general staff, declared on August 4 that Machar was ousted as the party’s leader. Top members of Machar’s faction, including former deputy Henry Odwar, later switched their allegiance to Gatwech, accusing Machar of single-handedly running all party affairs. Following a meeting of IGAD ministers last week, the regional body said in a statement that the SPLM/A-IO split is beyond an intraparty crisis and could have significant immediate and long-term implications for the 2018 peace deal. South Sudan’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, Beatrice Khamisa, speaking Thursday while standing alongside Hamdok, said officials would discuss the SPLM/A-IO and bilateral issues. “We have over the years signed cooperation agreements between South Sudan and Sudan,” she said. “I think those will be examined by various ministers in South Sudan and their counterparts.” Juba and Khartoum have signed cooperation agreements on citizenship, border issues and trade.
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Burkina Faso Again in Mourning After Jihadi Massacre
The impoverished Sahel state of Burkina Faso was plunged once more into mourning on Thursday after suspected jihadis killed 49 people in an attack that raised fresh doubts about its armed forces. The national flag was lowered to half-staff for three days of mourning at the parliament, presidency and government in offices in the capital Ouagadougou, an AFP journalist said. Several television and radio channels changed their programming, mostly broadcasting songs paying tribute to the defense and security forces. Newspapers and online media placed a black edging of mourning around their front pages, although some raised pointed questions over the country’s security crisis. “Over the past five years, the days have come and gone but look the same to the Burkinabe public,” online outlet Wakatsera said. “The flags are raised and then almost immediately dropped to half-mast to mourn new dead, civilians and/or troops, in attacks by armed individuals who are usually never identified,” it said. FILE – Residents gather at the site of an attack in the village of Solhan, in Yagha province bordering Niger, Burkina Faso, June 7, 2021. (Burkina Faso Prime Minister’s Press Service/Handout via Reuters)The landlocked country has been battered for the past six years by jihadi attacks from neighboring Mali, epicenter of a brutal insurgency that began in 2012 and has also hit Niger. Thousands of soldiers and civilians have died in the three countries, while according to United Nations figures more than 2 million people have fled their homes. In Burkina Faso, the toll stands at more than 1,500 dead and 1.3 million displaced. In Wednesday’s attack, 30 civilians, 15 police and four anti-jihadi defense volunteers were killed and 30 wounded near the town of Gorgadji in Burkina’s Sahel region, a security source and a government source told AFP. The attack was in the three-border area, where the frontiers of the three countries converge and gunmen linked to al-Qaida and the Islamic State roam. The security forces killed 58 terrorists and the rest fled, according to the government. It was the third major attack on Burkina troops in the past two weeks. The country’s armed forces are poorly equipped, ill-trained are face a highly mobile foe. Since the start of August, more than 90 people have died in attacks in the north and northeast of the country. “With each new attack, we say we’ve hit bottom, but then another one comes along, reminding us that there is always something worse,” said Bassirou Sedogo, a 47-year-old businessman. “We observe national mourning, but we also wonder how an ambush against a military convoy … can leave so many casualties. If they can kill so many civilians who are under escort, that means no one anywhere in the area is safe from these killings,” he said. The police and volunteers in the Gorgadji attack had been providing a security escort for civilians who were returning to their homes after earlier attacks, the authorities say.
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US Capitol Apprehend Suspect in ‘Active Bomb Threat’ Investigation
U.S. Capitol Police Thursday apprehended a man claiming to have explosives in a parked vehicle.Officials named the suspect as 49-year-old Floyd Ray Roseberry of North Carolina. They noted he was “safely” taken into custody after hours of negotiations and evacuations around Capitol Hill.The suspect, 49-year-old Floyd Ray Roseberry, has been to safely taken into custody. pic.twitter.com/06RcwTcasQ— U.S. Capitol Police (@CapitolPolice) August 19, 2021Capitol Police Chief Tom Manger told reporters that officers responded to a call after the man drove a pickup truck onto the sidewalk in front of the Library of Congress, just east of the Capitol building. The driver told the responding officer that he had a bomb, and the officer saw that the man appeared to have a detonator in his hand.Manger said the Library of Congress and nearby congressional buildings were evacuated, and that officers continued discussions with the man. It was not clear whether explosives were in the vehicle.Unnamed sources not authorized to talk to the media were cited saying police communicated with the suspect as he wrote notes and showed them to officers from inside the truck, and that they wrote back using a “white board.” News reports also say the man livestreamed the standoff on Facebook and that he made anti-government statements. Capitol police would not confirm those reports. Facebook removed the video.Some information in this report was provided by the Associated Press and Reuters news organizations.
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Why Russia Backs China in Disputes with Third Countries
Russia, once a thorn in China’s side, is backing Beijing in its disputes with third countries, including a maritime sovereignty flap in Southeast Asia, to counter Washington’s influence in Asia, scholars believe.With the world’s second strongest military, after the United States, Russia holds occasional military exercises with China – with at least four events publicized to date — sells arms to its giant neighbor to the south and joins it in criticizing the West.Officials in Moscow are trying now to boost Beijing’s claim to the contested South China Sea without overtly taking its side over five other Asian governments that vie with Chinese sovereignty in the same waterway, said Alexander Vuving, professor at the Daniel K. Inouye Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies in Hawaii.China and Russia need each other to show the United States – former Cold War foe of both – along with its allies that neither is “alone,” he said.U.S. Navy ships regularly sail the South China Sea to keep Beijing in check. At least eight other Western-allied countries have indicated since late July plans to send navy vessels into the resource-rich South China Sea, which stretches from Hong Kong to Borneo Island, in support of keeping it open internationally rather than ceding it to Chinese control.“Basically, it’s more about a challenge to global U.S. power rather than Russia siding with China in the territorial disputes in the South China Sea,” Vuving said.FILE – A view shows a new S-400 “Triumph” surface-to-air missile system after its deployment at a military base outside the town of Gvardeysk near Kaliningrad, Russia, March 11, 2019.“The fact that they would actually share a joint portal for command and control actually means something,” Koh said. “They actually wanted to promote further interoperability.”In March, as both powers faced pressure from the West, they panned the United States in a joint statement after talks between their foreign ministers. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told a March news conference that U.S. intentions had a “destructive nature” that were “relying on the military-political alliances of the Cold War era.”Scholars say Sino-Russian cooperation has its limits, however. As major powers, neither side wants the other to grow too powerful, said Wang Wei-chieh, South Korea-based politics analyst and co-founder of the FBC2E International Affairs Facebook page.“Russia and China, they are also worried about each other,” Wang said. “They don’t want any side to be the superior country.”Previously strong Sino-Russian relations faded in the 1960s when the two Communist parties split over ideology and border conflicts ensued. They call their military events today “interaction” rather than any kind of alliance, Koh noted.Russia maintains crucial political and economic ties with Vietnam, a rival to Beijing in the South China Sea dispute, and the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute called Russia the top arms supplier to Southeast Asia between 2010 and 2017 with combined sales of $6.6 billion. China fumed in 2013 when Russian oil company Rosneft was drilling, on behalf of Vietnam, in waters claimed by Beijing. Russia officially advocates neutrality in Southeast Asia, Vuving said.Russia could tell Vietnam today, if pressed, that its ties with China are just “symbolic,” Koh said.Russia does not claim any part of the sea, which is prized for fisheries and undersea fossil fuel reserves. China disputes maritime sovereignty instead with Brunei, Malaysia, Taiwan, Vietnam and the Philippines. China has irked the other claimants by landfilling islets for military installations and sending vessels into the exclusive economic zones of its rivals.China hopes Russia avoids sailing through the sea, where it Russia held a stronghold on the coast of Vietnam during the Cold War, at the risk of violating China’s claim to 90% of the waterway, Koh said.The latest joint military exercises may be aimed at deterring any threat from nearby Central Asia, Wang said. China has sought to clarify borders with Central Asian nations since the fall of the Soviet Union to promote peace in its own restive Xinjiang region, the Indian policy formulation group Observer Research Foundation said.Troops disembark from a Chinese military helicopter during joint war games held by Russia and China held in the Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region in northwestern China, Aug. 13, 2021. (Russian Defense Ministry Press Service/Handout)Exercises last week, called Zapad/Interaction 2021, targeted terrorists by “seizing the high ground and trench[es] followed by “penetrating the enemy in depth,” the official Chinese Military Online website said August 5.The 2018 exercises sent “a message to the rest of the world and, in particular the United States” that the two countries were growing closer, the Swedish research and policy organization Institute for Security and Development wrote at the time.Future Sino-Russian military exercises will occur in places aimed at warning specific third countries with which China has disputes, Wang forecast.
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Booster Shots in Rich Countries Threaten COVID Containment in Africa
World Health Organization officials warn that decisions by rich countries to provide COVID-19 booster shots to their vaccinated populations will set back efforts to contain the spread of this deadly disease in Africa.The United States, France, and Germany are among a growing number of wealthy countries planning to offer COVID-19 booster shots to their populations. This, at a time when the world’s poorer nations are struggling to get even one jab of these life-saving vaccines into their peoples’ arms. WHO regional director for Africa, Matshidiso Moeti, warns that moves by some countries to introduce booster shots threaten Africa’s ability to extricate itself from this crushing disease. She says richer countries that are hoarding vaccines are making a mockery of vaccine equity.”High-income countries have already, on average, administered more than 103 doses per 100 people, whereas in Africa that number stands at six,” said Moeti. “Failure to vaccinate the most at-risk groups in all countries will result in needless deaths. … It will also contribute to conditions where the virus will very likely mutate further and could ultimately delay the global recovery from this pandemic.” Vaccine Shipments to Africa Picking Up Amid Upsurge of COVID-19There has been a 12-fold increase in vaccine deliveries in the last two weeks of July compared with the first half of the month, bringing the total number of doses shipped to Africa so far to 91 millionThe World Health Organization reports there are more than 7.3 million cases of coronavirus infections on the African continent, including 184,000 deaths. It is calling for a two-month moratorium on booster shots, so countries can beef up their vaccine supplies.Moeti says some progress is being made in this regard. She notes the COVAX Facility has delivered nearly 10 million vaccine doses to Africa so far this month. That, she says, is nine times what was delivered in the same period in July.”Vaccine coverage, unfortunately, remains low, with only two percent of Africans being fully vaccinated against COVID-19,” said Moeti. “… We are hopeful that COVAX shipments will keep ramping up to reach 20 percent of Africa’s population by the end of this year. And coupled with deliveries from the African Union and bilateral deals, WHO’s hoped-for target of vaccinating 30 percent of people by the end of the year is still within our reach.” West Africa has recorded the highest number of COVID-19 deaths since the pandemic began. WHO reports a 193 percent increase in fatalities over the past four weeks. This is happening at a time when several West African countries are grappling with outbreaks of other diseases, including cholera, Ebola, and Marburg virus Disease.Moeti says fighting multiple outbreaks is a complex challenge. She notes that West Africa health systems are more fragile than those in other sub-regions. She says they are under great strain due to the surge of COVID-19 cases. She is appealing for major investments by governments and donors to ensure outbreaks are continuously prevented, detected and quickly contained.
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Police Probing Report of Explosive in Truck Near US Capitol
Police were investigating a report Thursday of a possible explosive device in a pickup truck outside the Library of Congress on Capitol Hill and have evacuated the area around the building, two law enforcement officials told The Associated Press.U.S. Capitol Police said officers were “responding to a suspicious vehicle near the Library of Congress.” The building is near the Capitol and the Supreme Court. Police have also evacuated the Cannon House Office Building. Congress is on break this week.The law enforcement officials said investigators were at the scene and working to determine whether the device was an operable explosive. The officials were not authorized to publicly discuss the matter and spoke on condition of anonymity.It comes months after a pipe bomb was left at the headquarters of the Democratic National Committee and the Republican National Committee in Washington a day before thousands of pro-Trump rioters stormed the U.S. Capitol in January.
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COVID Has Heightened Conflict, Deepened Depression, Say Central African Leaders
The COVID-19 pandemic has heightened problems of conflict, terrorism, and scarce resources in Central Africa to plunge millions of people deeper into poverty. That’s according to members of the regional bloc CEMAC. CEMAC heads of state Wednesday called for solidarity to improve living conditions in the six-nation economic bloc. During a virtual heads of state summit Tuesday, the central African leaders said the advent of COVID-19 forced the closure of many businesses and caused millions of workers to lose their jobs. FILE – Cameroon President Paul Biya attends the Paris Peace Forum, France, Nov. 12, 2019.Cameroon’s President Paul Biya is chairman of the CEMAC heads of state conference. He says it is regrettable that many people are reluctant to be vaccinated against COVID-19. Biya says it is not possible for CEMAC to attain herd immunity when fewer than 5% of its close to 60 million people have agreed to be vaccinated against COVID-19. He says CEMAC member states should make sure all their people are vaccinated against COVID-19 so that the economic bloc can get to the crucial point of revamping its economy to fight against hardship. Christophe Mbelle is an economist at the University of Yaounde. He says the COVID-19 crisis increased unemployment by between 60% and 70% across CEMAC countries. Not even pharmaceutical companies were immune to the effects of the pandemic. Mbelle says local companies only produced 5% of medicines needed by central African countries last year. He says in 2020, CEMAC countries invested more than $269 million to import drugs from Europe and America. Mbelle says if not for COVID-19, he is sure the $269 million would have been invested in home industries to create jobs and improve the well-being of suffering civilians. The six nations of CEMAC are dealing with multiple crises within their borders in addition to COVID-19. Cameroon and Chad are fighting Boko Haram terrorism on their common borders with Nigeria. Cameroon is fighting armed separatists in its English-speaking western regions. The U.N. also says that rebels have continued to challenge authorities in the Central African Republic with unending clashes since 2014. The region is also dealing with the effects of climate change. This week, CEMAC said several thousand people fled intercommunal violence sparked by conflicts over water from the Logone River that separates Cameroon from Chad. The Lake Chad Basin Commission says the lake’s water resources have diminished by 70% within the past 50 years, and several million people in the area lack water and food. Kristalina Georgieva, the managing director of the International Monetary Fund, issued a statement Tuesday after her virtual participation in the CEMAC summit from Washington. She said in 2020, COVID-19, combined with an ensuing decline in oil prices and security issues, had led to a deep recession and imposed a heavy toll on CEMAC member states. She said the countries’ fiscal positions were weakened and external reserves depleted. Georgieva said CEMAC must accelerate the vaccination campaign to ensure a sustainable economic recovery. CEMAC anticipated a 2.8% economic growth rate in 2021. In April, though, the Bank of Central African States, which serves as the central bank for CEMAC countries, cut the anticipated growth rate to 1%, saying COVID-19 was slowing the economy.
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US Jobless Claims Hit a Pandemic Low as Hiring Strengthens
The number of people seeking unemployment benefits fell last week for a fourth straight time to a pandemic low, the latest sign that America’s job market is rebounding from the pandemic recession as employers boost hiring to meet a surge in consumer demand.The Labor Department reported Thursday that jobless claims fell by 29,000 to 348,000.The weekly pace of applications for unemployment aid has fallen more or less steadily since topping 900,000 in early January. The dwindling number of first-time jobless claims has coincided with the widespread administering of vaccines, which has led businesses to reopen or expand their hours and drawn consumers back to shops, restaurants, airports and entertainment venues. Still, the number of applications remains high by historic standards: Before the pandemic tore through the economy in March 2020, the weekly pace amounted to around 220,000 a week. And now there is growing concern that the highly contagious delta variant could disrupt the economy’s recovery from last year’s brief but intense recession. Some economists have already begun to mark down their estimates for growth this quarter as some measures of economic activity, like air travel, have started to weaken.Filings for unemployment benefits have traditionally been seen as a real-time measure of the job market’s health. But their reliability has deteriorated during the pandemic. In many states, the weekly figures have been inflated by fraud and by multiple filings from unemployed Americans as they navigate bureaucratic hurdles to try to obtain benefits. Those complications help explain why the pace of applications remains comparatively high.
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Africa’s First Youth Games Bring Hopes for Continent’s First Olympics
For decades, African athletes have traveled all over the world to take part in the Olympic Games. At the recent Tokyo Games, they took home gold, silver and bronze medals. And yet Africa has never hosted the Games, and some people are asking what it would take for the Olympics to be held on African soil. In Kenya, thousands cheered on one of their favorite long-distance runners, Eliud Kipchoge, who won the gold medal in the men’s marathon. One Kipchoge fan had a special request for the government: Develop the country’s sports infrastructure. FILE – Eliud Kipchoge of Kenya crosses the finish line to win gold in the men’s marathon at the Tokyo 2022 Olympics, in Sapporo, Japan, August 8, 2021.”We are very happy, all of us from Rift Valley and Kenyans as a whole. … [But we] just [want] to implore our leaders to address the issue of stadiums. … The Kipchoge Keino Stadium is dilapidated. And today, Kipchoge has shown the world that we are more than capable,” said Mandela Kiplimo, a resident of Eldoret, about 40 kilometers from the Olympic champion’s hometown of Kapsisiywa. Having subpar sports facilities that don’t meet international norms is one of the biggest challenges for countries that want to host the Olympic Games. For many of them, it’s just too expensive, said Smith College economics professor Andrew Zimbalist, who edited the book Rio 2016: Olympic Myths, Hard Realities. “You might read, for instance, that in Tokyo they spent roughly $15 billion, or that in Brazil or Rio 2016 they spent $12 to $15 billion. But the real numbers in Tokyo are above $35 billion, and the real numbers in Rio are above $20 billion,” Zimbalist told VOA. Sorry, but your browser cannot support embedded video of this type, you can
FILE – President of the International Olympic Committee Thomas Bach waves the Olympic flag in the Handover Ceremony during the Closing Ceremony during the Youth Olympic Games, Buenos Aires, Argentina, October 18, 2018.While Senegalese officials say they are excited and honored to make history as the first African country to host the YOG, they also understand the responsibility that comes with it. “There are expectations from the whole African continent, and Senegal has to organize games that would live up to the standards of previous Youth Olympics. And because of that, Senegal is going to make sure it’s a success and serves as a catalyst for mobilizing and engaging Senegalese youth in particular, and African youth in general,” Babacar Makhtar Wade, president of the Senegal Judo Federation, told VOA. Wade, who is also treasurer of the Senegal National Olympic and Sports Committee, said renovation plans are well under way. “We are planning to first renovate three main venues — the Iba Mar Diop Stadium, which will host track, rugby and other sports. There’s also our Olympic pool, which needs to be renovated. It has an adjacent park, which will host a few events such as the BMX freestyle, basketball 3 on 3 and hockey games. And there is also the Caserne Samba Diery Diallo, where the equestrian-related activities will take place,” he said. There will also be venues in hubs outside Dakar including a popular seaside resort that will host beach volleyball, boating and other events, and Diamniadio, site of a new 50,000-seat multipurpose stadium and other facilities. President Macky Sall said at last year’s groundbreaking ceremony that the stadium will be available for future local and international competitions. VOA French to Africa Service’s Seydina Aba Gueye contributed to this report.
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US Ships Pfizer Vaccine to Kosovo Amid Delta Variant Surge
Thursday, the United States plans to ship 35,100 doses of Pfizer vaccine to Kosovo through COVAX, the United Nations vaccine-sharing mechanism, a White House official told VOA.The doses are part of the purchase of half a billion Pfizer doses secured by the Biden administration earlier this year.Kosovo is experiencing another spike in infection, largely due to the delta variant. There have been 120,862 confirmed cases of COVID-19 with 2,295 deaths according to the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center. Fewer than 550,000 vaccine doses have been administered in the country.In addition to the $2 billion donated to COVAX, the Biden administration has pledged to purchase 500 million Pfizer vaccines and distribute them through the year to 92 low-income and lower middle-income countries that are members of COVAX and the African Union. It represents the largest purchase and donation of vaccines by a single country.Even with its large vaccine donation program, the U.S. is being criticized for announcing its plan to provide booster shots to all Americans beginning September 20 and starting eight months after an individual’s second dose of the Pfizer and Moderna mRNA vaccines.“The inequitable rollout of vaccines globally is not just a moral stain on wealthy nations, it’s prolonging the pandemic for the entire world. The longer it takes to share vaccines globally, the more variants we’ll see and the more booster shots we’ll need,” the ONE Campaign, which works against poverty and preventable disease, said in a statement to VOA.So far, only 1.3% of people in poorer countries have received at least one COVID-19 vaccine dose.President Joe Biden dismissed criticism that U.S. is turning a blind eye to the fact that many around the world still have not received even a single dose.“I know there’s some world leaders who say America shouldn’t get a third shot until other countries get their first shot. I disagree,” Biden said during remarks at the White House Wednesday.“We can take care of America and help the world at the same time. In June and July America administered 50 million shots here in the United States. And we donated 100 million shots to other countries. That means that America has donated more vaccines to other countries than every other country in the world combined,” he said.
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Aboriginal Communities on Alert As COVID-19 Spreads into Outback Australia
Australia’s delta variant outbreak is spreading into Outback areas, where the vast majority of new infections are among aboriginal people. In western New South Wales, 60% of cases are in Indigenous communities, where vaccination rates are low and vaccine hesitancy is high.There are COVID-19 health campaigns in various Australian aboriginal languages, but in western New South Wales state, fewer than 10% of First Nation people are fully vaccinated, well below the national average.Health officials have said that vaccine hesitancy has been promoted by misinformation online and concerns about possible side-effects of the AstraZeneca drug.Indigenous elder Frank Doolan told the Australian Broadcasting Corp. that he has watched as the virus has spread through Dubbo, a New South Wales city 400 kilometers northwest of Sydney.“I can’t even contemplate catching COVID, really. I kind of think if that happens in that regard, then I’m dead,” he said.The community’s fears about the spread of the virus are shared by Dubbo Mayor Stephen Lawrence.“We always knew that our aboriginal community was going to be especially vulnerable to COVID-19 and especially hard to reach, in terms of vaccination, and look, that has certainly turned out to be the case,” he said.The Australian government says Indigenous people in remote areas remain a priority for vaccines, and that the military will be deployed to help in the inoculation program. However, this outbreak of the delta variant is now threatening communities already hit by chronic illnesses, including diabetes, as well as lung and heart disease.Indigenous Australians make up 3.3% of the national population, according to official figures.Australia has recorded about 40,000 coronavirus cases and 970 deaths since the beginning of the pandemic.Authorities said Thursday that more than half of Australians aged over 16 have now had at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine. Twenty-eight percent are fully inoculated.Millions of Australians are in lockdown, including residents in the nation’s two biggest cities, Sydney and Melbourne, as well as the national capital, Canberra.
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Burkina Faso’s Military Widows Get Help to Support Their Families
Saturday, August 21, is the International Day of Remembrance and Tribute to the Victims of Terrorism, a day that is unfortunately relevant in Burkina Faso which is engaged in fighting Islamist militants. One Burkinabe nonprofit, Go Paga, is helping widows and orphans grappling with the loss of husbands and fathers to rebuild their lives.Some 1.3 million people have been displaced in Burkina Faso’s conflict since it began in 2015, and more than 6,000 killed, according to the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project. Burkinabe military personnel are among the dead, killed fighting terror groups linked to Islamic State and al-Qaida. Loretta Ilboudou is the widow of a soldier killed in that fight. She says it was on December 24, 2019. She and her family were preparing for Christmas. Her husband’s uncles arrived in the morning, but she wasn’t informed of his death until that evening. She said she suspected something but wasn’t told anything to begin with. Her husband died during a terrorist attack on the town of Arbinda. The couple had a daughter who was just a few months old at the time. Her husband was a nice person, she says, a bit shy, and very serious about his work. He spent a lot of time with his family. They used to go on outings on his days off. A nonprofit called Go Paga is helping widows like Ilboudou. Its pilot project, launched in February, provides them with support so they can make a living. Fadima Kambou, the founder of Go Paga, says the program is about teaching the women to fish, not giving them the fish. It’s about empowering themselves and their children afterward. The aim is for Burkina Faso to have a system of care that supports what the state already provides for these widows, Kambou adds. Terrorism victims like Ilboudou face complex issues, says Fionnuala Ni Aolain, United Nations special rapporteur for protecting the human rights of terrorism victims. “So, we get a lot of good wishes for victims of terrorism, and we get a lot of expressions of great sorrow for their sorrow. But in many ways — and I think both speak directly about widows — the reality is that victims of terrorism, particularly women who have been victims, need concrete and practical support,” she said. Today, IIboudou is an intern at an insurance company. She hopes to be fully employed so she can support her daughter. Now, she says she feels ready to move forward and she says she wishes other women had this chance. Beginning in September, Go Paga plans to roll out its program to support all military widows in the country.
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